Intellectual Property and Open Source: A Practical Guide to Protecting Code

by Van Lindberg

Overview

"Clear, correct, and deep, this is a welcome addition to discussions of law and computing for anyone -- even lawyers!"-- Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society

If you work in information technology, intellectual property is central to your job -- but dealing with the complexities of the legal system can be mind-boggling. This book is for anyone who wants to understand how the legal system deals with intellectual property rights for code and other content. You'll get a clear look at intellectual property issues from a developer's point of view, including practical advice about situations you're likely to encounter.

Written by an intellectual property attorney who is also a programmer, Intellectual Property and Open Source helps you understand patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and licenses, with special focus on the issues surrounding open source development and the GPL. This book answers questions such as:

• How do open source and intellectual property work together?
• What are the most important intellectual property-related issues when starting a business or open source project?
• How should you handle copyright, licensing and other issues when accepting a patch from another developer?
• How can you pursue your own ideas while working for someone else?
• What parts of a patent should be reviewed to see if it applies to your work?
• When is your idea a trade secret?
• How can you reverse engineer a product without getting into trouble?
• What should you think about when choosing an open source license for your project?

Most legal sources are too scattered, too arcane, and too hard to read. Intellectual Property and Open Source is a friendly, easy-to-follow overview of the law that programmers, system administrators, graphic designers, and many others will find essential.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449391102
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/15/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	386
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

The title that best describes Van Lindberg's job is "translator" - translating from "lawyer" to "engineer" and back. He enjoys working with both computer code and legal code to get things done.



As an attorney, Van helps people build businesses around ideas. His experience allows him to analyze and evaluate intellectual property in a sale, license or litigation context. Van also participates in the Open Source community. He helps businesses work with and develop Open Source software and helps developers navigate the legal system to achieve project goals. He has direct experience in digital circuit design; operating system design; application programming; networked and distributed systems; virtualization; wireless networking; high-availability systems and programming languages.



Outside of the traditional IP areas, Van is particularly interested in the Open Source licensing model. He has been involved (mostly as a user, but with occasional contributions) in the Open Source community since 1994. Van's favorite computer language is Python.

Table of Contents

Preface; What This Book Is...and Is Not; How to Read This Book; The Rest of This Book; Appendixes; Safari® Books Online; Acknowledgments and Disclaimers; Chapter 1: The Economic and Legal Foundations of Intellectual Property; 1.1 Law and Code; 1.2 The Types of Intellectual Property; 1.3 Intellectual Property and Market Failure; 1.4 Evaluating the System; Chapter 2: The Patent Document; 2.1 The Construction of a Patent; 2.2 The Face of the Patent; 2.3 Conception of the Invention; 2.4 The Body of the Patent; 2.5 The Claims; 2.6 Other Resources; Chapter 3: The Patent System; 3.1 The Patent System As a Knowledge Cache; 3.2 Requirements for Getting a Patent; 3.3 Getting a Patent; 3.4 Patent Proliferation; Chapter 4: Copyright; 4.1 Copyright in Context; 4.2 The Terms of Copyright; 4.3 The Copyright Term; 4.4 Owning a Copyright; 4.5 The Rights Granted by Copyright; Chapter 5: Trademarks; 5.1 Trademarks Defined; 5.2 The Economic Function of Trademarks; 5.3 Modern Trademark Law in the United States; Chapter 6: Trade Secrets; 6.1 Trade Secrets Defined; 6.2 The Flaming Moe: The Life and Death of a Trade Secret; 6.3 Trade Secrets and Software Development; 6.4 Trade Secrets, Businesses, and Consultants; Chapter 7: Contracts and Licenses; 7.1 Licenses and Firewalls; 7.2 Why Contracts and Licenses Matter; 7.3 Contract Law Principles; 7.4 Intellectual Property Contracts; 7.5 Applying a License to Intellectual Property; Chapter 8: The Economic and Legal Foundations of Open Source Software; 8.1 A Brief Digression into Terminology; 8.2 Understanding Open Source; 8.3 Credit Unions and Open Source: An Analogy; 8.4 The Role of Open Source Licenses; 8.5 The Open Source Definition; 8.6 Different Types of Open Source Licenses; Chapter 9: So I Have an Idea...; 9.1 Cautionary Tales; 9.2 Employees and Inventions; 9.3 Look At What You Sign; 9.4 The Employer-Employee Relationship; 9.5 Tell the Company; 9.6 What Do You Do?; Chapter 10: Choosing a License; 10.1 Why Do I Need a License?; 10.2 No License Required; 10.3 Proprietary Commercial Licensing; 10.4 Open Source Licensing; 10.5 Why You Should Not Write Your Own License; 10.6 Choosing an Open Source License; Chapter 11: Accepting Patches and Contributions; 11.1 Back to (Copyright) Basics; 11.2 Three Solutions; 11.3 Administrative Issues; Chapter 12: Working with the GPL; 12.1 Daily Life with the GPL; 12.2 Understanding the Terms of the Debate; 12.3 Linking and Licensing; 12.4 Copyright Confusion; 12.5 Thinking About Derivative Works; 12.6 Questions and Answers; Chapter 13: Reverse Engineering; 13.1 Storming the Castle; 13.2 A Sample Reverse Engineering Procedure; 13.3 The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Chapter 14: Incorporating As a Non-Profit; 14.1 Why Incorporate Your Project?; 14.2 Creating a Non-Profit Entity; 14.3 Operating a Non-Profit Organization; 14.4 Umbrella Organizations As an Alternative; Sample Proprietary Information Agreement (PIA); Proprietary Information and Inventions Assignment Agreement; Open Source License List; Open Source Licenses; Free Software License List; Free Software Licenses; Fedora License List and GPL Compatibility; Licenses Approved for Use with Fedora; GPL Compatibility Matrix; Public Domain Declaration; The Simplified BSD License; The BSD License; The Apache License, Version 2.0; The Mozilla Public License, Version 1.1; 1. Definitions; 2. Source Code License; 3. Distribution Obligations; 4. Inability to Comply Due to Statute or Regulation; 5. Application of this License; 6. Versions of the License; 7. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY; 8. Termination; 9. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY; 10. U.S. Government End Users; 11. MISCELLANEOUS; 12. Responsibility for Claims; 14. Multiple-Licensed Code; Applying the Mozilla Public License; The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 2.1; The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Version 2.1; The GNU Lesser General Public License, Version 3; The GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), Version 3; The GNU General Public License, Version 2, June 1991; The GNU General Public License (GPL), Version 2; The GNU General Public License, Version 3, June 2007; The GNU General Public License (GPL), Version 3; The Open Software License, Version 3.0; The Open Software License (OSL), Version 3.0; Colophon;