Protecting intellectual property rights has become an uphill battle in today’s business world. To offer an extra layer of protection for its customers, Microsoft has come up with a program called Azure IP Advantage program. Under this program, customers will have the best of protection against intellectual property risks, lawsuits and infringements.
Deemed as one of the most comprehensive protection programs from Microsoft, it is designed to help customers protect their cloud-based innovations and products that were developed using cloud technologies. This way, developers can continue with their coding and companies can focus on their business, as they don’t have to deal with IP lawsuits and worries about the diminishing rights on their assets.
To be more specific, customers can enjoy the following three benefits under this program:
- They can defend against any IP lawsuit with the more than 10,000 patents from Microsoft. These patents include those registered within and outside of the US. It also includes pending applications that are ancillary to the approved patents.
- A springing license to any of Microsoft’s existing patents that are transferred to non-practicing entities.
- Uncapped indemnification for IP lawsuits.
These benefits are available to all Azure customers, but the springing license and picking of patents are available only to those clients that meet the terms and conditions laid down by Microsoft in this regard.
For the patent pick feature, a customer should be a bonafide user of Azure, and should have paid at least $1,000 per month for the last three months. This includes the aggregated amount paid towards different Azure services. Say, for example, if you’re paying $600 a month for one service and $500 for another, you can combine it. Also, note that this the average monthly usage over the last three months. So, if you spend $800 the first month, $700 the next and $1500 the third, then you become eligible too.
In addition, the customer should be facing a lawsuit for patent infringement and the customer should have remained patent peaceful against Azure for the past two years. If the customer meets all these conditions, then they tap into Microsoft’s 10,000 patents.
This program can be a significant one for both Microsoft and its customers. From Microsoft’s perspective, this program can give it an edge in the fiercely-competitive cloud market that is dominated by AWS. Since IP protection and the ensuing lawsuits are something that many companies are forced to handle on a regular basis, this protection can be an enticing factor to move to Microsoft.
From a customer’s perspective, this program takes away the hassles of handling IP lawsuits, and this can help them to focus on the core aspects of their business. In today’s connected world, IP infringement and risks have become common, so this plan might offer the much-needed protection against these risks.
Overall, this seems like a good move by Microsoft, and it can bring much savings to customers in the form of reduced time and effort to deal with intellectual property lawsuits and infringements. In the process, it can also hope to rope in more customers.
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