Panasonic to Share Intellectual Property to Spur Growth of Internet of Things

Panasonic to Make Royalty-Free Patent Pledge to Encourage Expansion of IoT Services and Applications

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Panasonic Corporation of North America

Mar 23, 2015, 08:15 ET

NEWARK, N.J., March 23, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Panasonic will today formally pledge to provide royalty-free access to software, patents and experience from its product ecosystem to speed the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) software and services, at the Embedded Linux Conference in San Jose, Calif. Panasonic will also announce plans to increase its intellectual property contributions to the AllSeen Alliance, a cross-industry nonprofit open source consortium.

Panasonic is an IoT leader in connected business-to-business (B2B) solutions and client applications. The company plans to make available for royalty-free use mature and tested device-to-cloud software technology, currently employed in home monitoring systems, solar energy and in retail applications. By increasing interoperability and security, the Panasonic initiative is expected to spur development and introduction of IoT solutions and connected devices by companies, universities and individuals.

"Open sourcing a proprietary technology invites the open source community to evaluate, work on and ultimately improve the software. In a market full of incompatible, proprietary offerings, this initiative brings a powerful tool to developers and equipment makers to help them create what the market wants in the IoT: interoperable and flexible services and applications leveraging data from connected devices and most importantly value to the customer," said Panasonic Corporation of North American Chief Technology Officer Todd Rytting. "We are excited to contribute some of our technology and expertise to the effort already underway at the AllSeen Alliance. We hope our IoT initiative will inspire other global companies to contribute intellectual property and ideas to making networks work together through this alliance," he said.

Panasonic has a history of collaboration through open intellectual property, such as releasing key patents to the public domain to help further development of the radio industry. It serves on the board of the AllSeen Alliance, which is dedicated to driving the widespread adoption of products, systems and services that support IoT with an open, universal development framework that is supported by a vibrant ecosystem and a thriving technical community. Panasonic is a "Gold member" of The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux and collaborative software development, and which hosts the AllSeen Alliance as a Collaborative Project.

"As a well-respected member of the Alliance with deep experience in the IoT market, Panasonic is making a strong statement with this announcement," said Philip DesAutels, PhD, Senior Director, IoT, AllSeen Alliance. "The power of IoT comes from the scale of the network of interconnecting things. The more things that seamlessly connect using open protocols, the more individuals, businesses and communities can do. With this announcement Panasonic is extending the reach and power of AllJoyn to deliver an Internet of Everything."

Panasonic will contribute its device-to-cloud software open source code to the OpenDOF Project Inc. (www.opendof.org), a non-profit entity Panasonic founded earlier this month to administer open source software contributed by Panasonic and the open source community. It will focus on expanding a secure, flexible and interoperable open source software framework to enable the development of scalable and reliable network services from a variety of components and systems including gateways and cloud services. The framework will support different IoT networking technologies, and new deployments as well as legacy systems. It will target services in two major areas: collecting data from devices such as sensors and remote control of devices. Panasonic will also contribute software code and experience to the Gateway Working Group of the AllSeen Alliance.

About Panasonic Corporation of North America
Panasonic Corporation of North America provides a broad line of digital and other electronics products and solutions for consumer, business and industrial use. The company is the principal North American subsidiary of Osaka, Japan-based Panasonic Corporation and the hub of Panasonic's U.S. branding, marketing, sales, service and R&D operations. In Interbrand's 2014 annual "Best Global Green Brands" report, Panasonic ranked number five overall and the top electronics brand in the report. As part of continuing sustainability efforts, Panasonic Corporation of North America relocated its headquarters to a new facility, adjacent to Newark Penn Station in Newark, NJ. It is the first newly constructed office tower in Newark to earn both LEED Platinum and Gold certifications from the U.S. Green Building Council. Learn more about Panasonic at panasonic.com/pressroom

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About The AllSeen Alliance
The AllSeen Alliance is a nonprofit open source consortium dedicated to driving the widespread adoption of products, systems and services that support the Internet of Everything with an open, universal development framework that is supported by a vibrant ecosystem and thriving technical community. The Alliance manages and advances an industry-supported collaborative open source software connectivity and services framework based on AllJoyn technology accepting contributions from premier members, community members and the open source community. This secure and programmable software connectivity and services framework enables companies and individuals to create interoperable products that can discover, connect and interact directly with other nearby devices, systems and services regardless of transport layer, device type, platform, operating system or brand. For more information, please visit: http://www.allseenalliance.org. The AllSeen Alliance is a Collaborative Project at The Linux Foundation. Linux Foundation Collaborative Projects are independently funded software projects that harness the power of collaborative development to fuel innovation across industries and ecosystems.

SOURCE Panasonic Corporation of North America