BLADE Network Technologies, Inc., a supplier of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet network infrastructure solutions that reside in blade servers and “scale-out” server and storage racks, reportedly has signed a patent cross-license agreement with IBM.

 

According to BLADE officials, the company over the past three years has been providing industry-first data center networking solutions for IBM (News - Alert), including the first native 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch for IBM BladeCenter, the first top-of-rack switch for iDataPlex in massive Web 2.0-style data centers and cloud computing, and the first network virtualization solution that automates the enterprise data center for dynamic migration of virtual machines.

 

Officials said that BLADE currently delivers its embedded Ethernet switches for IBM BladeCenter under the “BNT” name and its top-of-rack RackSwitch data center switches for IBM’s iDataPlex and IBM System Cluster 1350.

 

“Licensing IBM patents will serve to accelerate BLADE’s development of leading-edge products in open unified computing, I/O virtualization, data center network provisioning and cloud networking,” said Vikram Mehta, president and CEO, BLADE Network Technologies.

 

Mehta said that’s is delighted that BLADE’s strategic relationship with IBM now includes a cross-licensing patent agreement, which will further enhance and extend the innovation, which has made BLADE the trusted supplier of data center networking, virtualization and management solutions to over 300 of the Fortune 500.

 

He said that he sees this as an enhancement to the long-term relationship between BLADE and IBM.

 

“IBM’s patent cross-licensing agreement with BLADE Network Technologies supports the company’s commitment to balancing proprietary and open innovation,” said Dan Cerutti, general manager, IBM Intellectual Property Licensing.

 

Cerutti said that through this collaboration with BLADE, the company can pursue new business opportunities and enable others to take advantage of the technologies they need to enable important data center projects.

 

Patent cross licenses support two of the basic reasons for granting patents – sharing information about new inventions – and giving companies greater freedom to innovate.

IBM officials claimed that for the past 16 years, the company has received more U.S. patents than any other company. In 2008, IBM received 4,186 U.S. patents. IBM holds more than 40,000 patents worldwide.