Autodesk Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have entered into a cross-licensing agreement that gives both companies access to a broad range of one another"s patent portfolios in a move that should allow each company to broaden its product offerings. The two companies will announce the deal on Thursday, which will promote the exchange and implementation of patented technologies in many areas, including data management, collaboration, design data management, digital effects, digital rights management, project management, computer-aided design and location-based services.
David Kaefer, Microsoft"s director of intellectual property licensing, told eWEEK in an interview that this is a straight-up patent licensing agreement and continues the momentum following similar agreements with SAP, Siemens and Cisco Systems Inc. "Autodesk [a software and services company for the building, manufacturing, infrastructure, digital media and wireless data services fields] and Microsoft have worked together for many years," he said. "Autodesk is one of Microsoft"s most successful ISV partners and is very involved in many of our beta programs. We have had a very rich technical collaboration relationship with them, but we have not had a patent cross-licensing agreement with them until now.