In early August, the cross-blockchain protocol developer Peer Mountain announced that it had joined the License On Transfer (LOT) Network, an organization founded in 2014 through collaboration between Internet giant Google, multinational electronics firm Canon and open source provider Red Hat. LOT Network markets itself as a non-profit consortium, which offers its members a legal mechanism affording them protection from patent assertion entities (PAEs) and immunizes its members against patent suits from non-operating entities for about 1.2 million worldwide patent assets currently owned by LOT members.