HIROSHIMA, Japan—Mazda Motor Corporation today announced that it has joined the License on Transfer (LOT) Network, a coalition operated by a non-profit corporation LOT Network Inc. headquartered in Oregon, established to counter unreasonable patent litigation. Organizations or groups that do not develop their own technologies, but acquire patents from others and demand unreasonable licensing fees or settlement fees from third parties who use the technologies relating to the patents, have been termed "patent trolls," and LOT's main reason for being is to counter the efforts of such patent trolls.

"Even in the automobile industry patent troll litigation has become an issue that needs to be dealt with urgently," said Takahisa Sori, Mazda Motor Corporation's Managing Executive Officer in charge of R&D. "As more and more companies join the LOT Network moving forward, we hope that provision of high-quality products and services to customers is protected from patent infringement litigation based on unreasonable claims. Furthermore, we expect this initiative will improve the efficacy of the entire patent system."

Patent litigation has been increasing in recent years, particularly in the USA, and much of this increase is due to patent trolls. In July 2014, a group of companies, including Canon Inc. and Google Inc., established the LOT Network with the aim of reducing patent infringement claims by patent trolls.

If a member of the LOT Network sells a patent to a non-member organization, group or person, every other member of the network automatically receives a license to that patent. As a result, even if a patent troll attains the patent, they will be unable to demand royalties from LOT Network member companies.