Google to give eligible start-ups free patents

Tech giant Google had long battled patent trolls, and was now stepping it up, by giving eligible start-ups two free patents.

Google today said it would give start-ups two patents for free, which they could keep as long as they joined the LOT network, an industry-led networked, royalty-free patent cross licensing agreement for transferred patents launched by industry participants.

It includes Canon, Dropbox, Google and SAP with contributions by many others. Under the LOT Agreement, every company that participates grants a license to the other participants where the license becomes effective only when patents are transferred to non-participants. This program protects LOT participants from patent attacks by the non-participant to which the patent is sold, while preserving participants full use of their portfolio. The LOT Agreement is administered by LOT Network Inc.

According to TechCrunch Google had opened the program only to the first 50 eligible start-ups, but only companies with 2014 revenue between $500,000 and $20 million would be eligible.

Once the company had applied, Google would then send it a list of three to five families of patents, of which they could select two.

The patents could be used only defensively to protect against a lawsuit, and Google retained a  license to the patents it gave away.

Each of the start-ups too had joined the LOT program. According to the search company every company that participated in the program granted a license to the other participants where the license became effective only when patents were transferred to non-participants.

Google would also waive LOT membership fees for the first two years of a start-up's participation.

''The story of Larry Page and Sergey Brin starting Google in Susan Wojcicki's garage is now legendary,'' the company said.

''At Google, we not only remember our roots, but we respect the start-up culture: the great ideas, the passion and the long hours that develop them, and the resulting innovation and technology that ends up benefiting the whole world.''