Commerce One, a software company, has filed bankrupcty and is in the process of liquidating its assets. Among those assets are 39 patents for web services, many, if not all, of which are widely used today.

This is causing several industry leaders concern, as they have incorporated into their own software web protocols which, arguably, could be covered by the 39 patents about to hit the auction block.

They are worried enough that this week attorneys from Google, Oracle, Sun, and a dozen other companies all got together to discuss the situation. They have even discussed going in together to bid on the patents themselves.

According to Jason Schultz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “There’s a concern that these patents could be used aggressively by a buyer to shake down the whole Web services industry.”

In addition to those companies involved in this week’s discussions, other companies out there have cause to be worried, including IBM and Microsoft. The new owner of these patents could…[Continued...]