IBM will offer its patented software royalty-free to promote interoperability in health care and education, the firm announced Monday. The move is intended to promote greater use of information technology by two fragmented fields that have been slow to adopt it, said Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM vice president of technical strategy. When standards are widely embraced, history has shown that opportunists sometimes go to court claiming they have patents to software that entitles them to royalties, he said.