August 6, 2018 – Road Town, British Virgin Islands – Peer Mountain joins the LOT Network as its 259th member. The License On Transfer (LOT) Network is a non-profit community of companies providing the protection from patent assertion entities (PAE’s), commonly known as patent trolls. Companies that join the LOT Network, pledge to give all other members an automatic free license to any of their patents that is acquired by a patent assertion entity.
The LOT Network membership has grown in size and stature in the past year with the addition of Yum!, Oracle, Volkswagen, Vizio, Salesforce, Tesla, eBay, Cisco, Alibaba, Amazon, Daimler, and about 80 start-up companies. The LOT Network is now able to permanently immunize members from over 1.2 million assets in the hands of a PAE.
Following the announcement, Marc Kaufman, Co-Founder of the Blockchain IP Council, said;
“Patent filings related to blockchain technology have increased tremendously over the past several years. Many of these patents are likely to end up in the hands of patent assertion entities, sometimes referred to as ‘patent trolls.’ LOT provides a mechanism whereby members are substantially protected from patent assertions by patent assertion entities. Peer Mountain’s membership in LOT is a significant step in expanding the advantages of LOT to players in blockchain eco systems.”
This is an additional element of protection for the Peer Mountain Protocol as the Peerchain patent cannot be utilized by any entity looking to patent hoard. Peer Mountain now are fully aligned with over 250 companies in fighting patent trolls and share protection of their patents through the LOT Network.
“We’re honored to join the LOT Network and share in the fight against patent trolls. As the Peerchain protocol is patent pending, this is a great way to ensure that the patent would remain beneficial for the Peer Mountain community and ecosystem.” Jed Grant, CEO at Peer Mountain.
The consortium was founded in 2014 by Google, Canon and the multinational software companies Red Hat and SAP. LOT has also accepted high profile American banks such as JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, with TD Bank Group becoming the latest financial institution to join.
About Peer Mountain
Peer Mountain is the cross-blockchain protocol that connects self-sovereign ID holders with businesses, enabling commerce at scale. It is the only decentralized identity network that provides businesses with instant cost-effective regulatory compliance, puts people in control of their protected personal information, and pays ID verifiers for their trustworthiness. For more information, please join the discussion in the Peer Mountain Telegram group.
To get further insight into the risks of future patent wars read Jed Grant’s (CEO at Peer Mountain) opinion piece here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/patent-war-coming-jed-grant/
For more information about Peer Mountain: https://www.peermountain.com/
About the LOT Network
The LOT Network serves as a non-profit consortium of companies that collectively have agreed amongst members a free license to any of their patents, should those patents fall into the hands of a troll. The LOT Network able to permanently immunise members from over 1.2 million assets in the hands of a PAE and are giving away free startups that qualify. LOT has grown tremendously in the past year with the addition of Yum!, Oracle, Volkswagen, Vizio, Salesforce, Tesla, eBay, Cisco, Alibaba, Amazon and Daimler.
For more information about the LOT Network: https://lotnet.com/