IBM Corp. has said it will not charge royalties on its patented technology within the Electronic Business XML (Extensible Markup Language) or ebXML standard.

In late March, IBM contacted OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), in Billerica, Massachusetts, to say that it had one patent and one patent pending on technology it had developed for the standard, Carol Geyer, director of communication for OASIS, said Friday.

This week, it confirmed that it will allow that technology to be used free of charge. "This is very good news. IBM has spoken to us in the past few days and said they will not charge royalties," she said.

"We did what we had to do, and disclosed the patents," an IBM spokeswoman said, when contacted Friday. "We just followed procedure."

IBM of Armonk, New York, could have chosen to charge a "reasonable or nondiscriminatory" (RAND) royalty on its patents, which cover some of the fundamental parts of the ebXML standard, according to analyst Amy Wohl of Wohl Associates in Narberth, Pennsylvania. However, Wohl said she had spoken to Dr. Robert Sutor, IBM's Web services and standards expert, "and he said IBM had no intention of charging on either patent."

The ebXML standard was created by OASIS and UN/CEFACT, the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business. It aims to make e-business more straightforward by using a global standard for data exchange.

ITworld.com

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