zlacker

>>gkober+(OP)
Assuming that this search represents nearly all of them, that is approximately 133 patents:

https://www.google.com/?tbm=pts&gws_rd=ssl#q=inassignee:%22T...

Edit: Nice catch, peter_l_downs ... I didn't realize that the estimated search result of 6,430 would be off by such a large factor.

>>Arjuna+V1
This is not like IBM making some of its less important patents available to the community. This is huge.

How many times in the past has a private company opened up its core patents for everyone to use? There aren't that many precedences.

>>pdevr+e5
In 1956 AT&T opened all of it's patents to everyone without royalties to settle an antitrust suit, including the transistor.

http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx1036.pdf

>>tcas+Y8
Core element there being "to settle an anti-trust suit".

It's helpful to keep in mind that AT&T operated under anti-trust watch from 1917 through 1984, with the 1950s action being among the most significant.

It was also responsible for keeping AT&T out of the computing market, which meant that when AT&T created an operating system, it had something it couldn't sell, so it gave it away.

You may have heard of this, it was called "UNIX".