A total of 283 registered software patents, including 27 held by Microsoft Corp. could conceivably be used as the basis of patent lawsuits against the Linux kernel, according to a study of U.S. software patents scheduled to be released Monday.
The study was funded by Open Source Risk Management LLC (OSRM), a company that provides insurance against lawsuits related to the use of open source products, and conducted by patent attorney Dan Ravicher, executive director of the Public Patent Foundation and senior counsel to the Free Software Foundation.
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