CPTN Holdings
| Company type | Private consortium |
|---|---|
| Industry | Technology, Intellectual Property |
| Founded | 2010 |
| Founder | Microsoft and partners |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Microsoft, Apple Inc., Oracle, EMC Corporation (participants) |
| Products | Patent portfolio acquired from Novell |
CPTN Holdings LLC represents a coalition of technology firms spearheaded by Microsoft that purchased 882 patents during the acquisition of Novell by Attachmate for a cash sum of $450 million.
By December 2010, the consortium's participants comprised Microsoft, Apple Inc., Oracle, and EMC Corporation.
Following objections from the Open Source community, CPTN withdrew its submission to the German Federal Cartel Office on December 30, 2010; alternatively, some reports indicate this action was taken to allow time for securing further financing.
The U.S. Department of Justice mandated adjustments to CPTN Holdings' acquisition agreements and those of its stakeholders to resolve antitrust issues, thereby safeguarding that the transaction would not impede innovation or competition within open source software environments such as Linux across server, desktop, and mobile devices.
Concerning patent licensing:
- All patents acquired from Novell are governed by the GNU General Public License, Version 2, alongside the Open Invention Network (OIN) License, both essential to the Linux platform;
- CPTN is prohibited from limiting which patents fall under the OIN license; and
- Neither CPTN nor its affiliates will seek to influence Novell or Attachmate to modify the availability of patents under the OIN license.