Aspects of Developing With, and Using, Open Source Software
Five years ago I was warning that software patents were going to be a problem. Sadly, my prediction was only too accurate. I just wish that I'd been wrong... I'm not going to go into the details of software patents in this paper; that would need a whole paper the size of this one. Suffice to say, this issue won't go away. There are sound economic reasons for companies to build up a strong portfolio of patents. They need these patents to take to the negotiating table in take-over or merger talks and to keep up their share price. Undoubtedly, the future will see further attempts to broaden the applicability of patent law to software. |
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