Beware Those Claiming Software Patents Are Unnecessary
If patents are good for Microsoft and the tech giants, patents are right for Red Hat and the open source community and patents are demanded by investors, as Dean Kamen explains, when small businesses...
View ArticleWhy Open Source Stalls Innovation and Patents Advance It
I have wondered out loud why we don't have more of a bounce coming off this Great Recession. Certainly the historical dysfunctionality of the Patent Office prior to Director Kappos has something to do...
View ArticlePatenting Software: The Business Responsible Thing to Do
Whether the "open source means free" community ever chooses to acknowledge it, the truth is that a patent is a business tool; an asset. If you are serious about being in business in the software space...
View ArticleThe Role for Open Source in Paradigm Shifting Innovation
There is an important role that open source could play moving forward, and that role is to set the foundation of innovation and technology, which is no small task in terms of importance and seems to...
View ArticleBeware Open Source Strings Attached if You Want a Patent
Just this week I had the opportunity to consult with a client that is in the process of creating unique software that is, at least in my opinion, patentable over the prior art. We were chatting over...
View ArticleThe Meaning of “Open Source”: Patented by Microsoft
As the open source movement grows Microsoft, which is always the 800 pound gorilla in the room, may consider bringing patent infringement suits. It seems that is the worry of at least one open source...
View ArticleInterview: Erik Iverson of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Erik Iverson is Associate General Counsel with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working exclusively with Foundation's Global Health initiate. Mr. Iverson works with grantees in the development...
View ArticleWhat Happened to the Obama Open Source Initiative?
President Obama reportedly asked McNealy to prepare a report on how the federal government could employ open source software, but as yet, some 26 months later there has been no mention of the report or...
View ArticleCrowdsourcing Solutions: Embracing Open Source Innovation
The search for innovative ideas has never been easy, but the advent of crowdsourcing technologies and powerful players willing to embrace new methodologies seems to be paying dividends. Rather than...
View ArticleBeware Twitter’s New Patent Agreement Scheme
So Twitter can use the donated patents "defensively" to initiate a lawsuit if they feel threatened? If they deem it is otherwise necessary to deter a patent litigation? So Twitter can be the aggressor...
View ArticleIs Qualcomm’s New Corporate Structure an Open Source Firewall?
It seems that at least one major component of the restructuring is being driven by the company's attempts to move forward with open source, but doing so in such as way that insulates the vast majority...
View ArticleDo Patents Promote Innovation? The Market is the Final Arbiter
In my opinion the best way to judge the success or failure of the patent system is by looking broadly at the type of competition it enables or disables in the marketplace. And that doesn't mean...
View ArticleTesla on Patents: Open Source Altruism or Shrewd Business?
Musk has been creating some waves in his role as CEO of Tesla Motors. In a self-authored blog post published on the official Tesla Motors blog, Musk announced that the company was trying to make the...
View ArticleCreating Software Obviously Isn’t Easy – Part 3 with Bob Zeidman
"[F]or a living I reverse engineer code and testify in court. Yet I could not reverse engineer this code. Every time I touched it to make some kind of change to test it, the whole thing broke. And I...
View ArticlePatenting Software: The Business Responsible Thing to Do
Whether the "open source means free" community ever chooses to acknowledge it, the truth is that a patent is a business tool; an asset. If you are serious about being in business in the software space...
View ArticleThe Role for Open Source in Paradigm Shifting Innovation
There is an important role that open source could play moving forward, and that role is to set the foundation of innovation and technology, which is no small task in terms of importance and seems to...
View ArticleToyota Motors One-Ups Tesla, Makes Thousands of Royalty-Free Patents Available
Toyota is attempting to boost collaborative innovation in the field of vehicle fuel cell technologies by opening up thousands of patents for royalty-free use by other automakers. On January 6th, the...
View ArticleProtecting IP in the Blockchain Sector
Blockchain technology has already disrupted the financial sector and new blockchain use cases are emerging every day -- from corruption-proof land registries to licensing digital assets, to tracking...
View ArticleHow to Participate in Open Source While Maintaining IP Integrity
The key idea is to think strategically about the software, the value it can provide to the company, and whether the technology should be developed in-house. In some cases, software can provide more...
View ArticleThe SEC Defines Blockchain, But Did They Get it Right?
The SEC has landed on a definition which includes both permissioned distributed ledgers and permissionless distributed ledgers in the term “blockchain.” This is not surprising, nor is it necessarily...
View Article