Panasonic Corp. will make about 50 of its patents available for royalty-free use in the development of the "Internet of Things" — what the tech industry calls the network of interconnected devices — its North American subsidiary announced Monday.

The Japanese electronics company said it will share its software and product experience in cloud computing technologies, such as connecting home monitoring and solar energy systems to the Internet.

"Open sourcing a proprietary technology invites the open source community to evaluate, work on and ultimately improve the software," Panasonic North America Chief Technology Officer Todd Rytting said in a press release.

"We hope our (Internet of Things) initiative will inspire other global companies to contribute intellectual property and ideas to making networks work together through this alliance."

The announcement follows other companies that have opened their patents to royalty-free use of developing technologies, such as Toyota Motor Corp.'s fuel cell vehicles and Tesla Motors Inc.'s electric vehicles.