Patent Promises and Patents

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To facilitate the use and implementation of certain specifications, Microsoft has made available the Open Web Foundation Agreement and the following patent promises regarding certain uses of its intellectual property.

Patent Promises

Many of the technical specifications include patented inventions. Some of those patents are available for no charge under the Open Specification Promise or the Microsoft Community Promise. The remaining patents are available primarily through three programs. For information, see Programs.

Open Specification Promise — Applies to developers and customers working with commercial or open source software who want to implement all or part of a covered specification.

Community Promise — Applies to developers and customers working with commercial or open source software who want to implement all the required parts of the mandatory portions of a covered specification.

To facilitate the use and implementation of certain specifications, Microsoft has made those specifications available under the Open Web Foundation Agreement.

Open Specifications Promise Community Promise Open Web Foundation Agreement 

Patents

To assist in determining whether a patent license may be beneficial, Microsoft identifies Microsoft U.S. patents and patent applications that may cover the Open Specifications. Microsoft also identifies Microsoft EU patents and patent applications that may cover technical documents included in the Workgroup Server Protocol Program (WSPP). Other international counterparts and as well as family members (continuations, continuations-in-part, divisionals, reissues, re-examinations, etc., if any) of any of the listed patents and patent applications and counterparts are also disclosed even where not separately identified.

For information regarding Microsoft patents and patent applications from other countries that may cover the Open Specifications, please contact the IP Licensing Team. Additionally, in some instances, specific patent and patent application numbers are only available upon request. To request such information, please contact the IP Licensing Team. The contents of the list below are updated periodically to reflect changes to the technical documents and to Microsoft's patent portfolio.

Some patent rights are available at no charge under the Open Specification Promise (OSP) or the Microsoft Community Promise (CP). Rights to implement the remaining patents are available through the Microsoft Interoperability Program (MIP), Workgroup Server Protocol Program (WSPP), and the Interoperability Principles Program (Interop). The Microsoft Communications Protocol Program (MCPP - Legacy) has been superseded by other programs and is no longer available. It continues to be listed here for the benefit of legacy licensees.

Patent and Program Map

To assist in determining whether a patent license or patent covenant agreement may be beneficial, the Patent and Program Map identifies patents and patent applications associated with the programs. It is updated biannually.

Follow these instructions for using the Patent and Program Map:

  • To identify which program applies to a specific technical document, select the title from the Document Title list.

  • To identify which patent or patent application applies to technical documents, select the applicable number from the Patent Numbers list or Patent Application list. These mappings are based on the claims of the U.S. patents/applications.

  • To obtain a list of all technical documents covered by a program, select the applicable program from the Programs list.

Note To print the list of selected items in the Patent and Program Map, click Print below the Map, and to clear the list of selected items that appear below the Patent and Program Map, click Reset.