Intellectual Property and Open Source : a Practical Guide to Protecting Code
"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
eBook, English, 2008
1
O'Reilly Media, Sebastopol, 2008
1 online resource (392 pages)
9780596154677, 0596154674
1048893719
Table of Contents; Preface; What This Book Is ... and Is Not; How to Read This Book; This Book As a Story; This Book As a Reference; A Note About Terminology; The Rest of This Book; An Introduction to IP Law; An Intellectual Property Handbook for Developers; Appendixes; Safari® Books Online; Acknowledgments and Disclaimers; Chapter1.The Economic and Legal Foundations of Intellectual Property; Law and Code; The Types of Intellectual Property; Patents; Copyrights; Trademarks; Trade Secrets; The Intellectual Property System; Intellectual Property and Market Failure. The Cost of Creating KnowledgeThe Value of Secrets; The Nature of Information; It's All Good(s), or Information in Economic Theory; Rivalrous goods; Excludable goods; The four types of goods; Information As a Public Good; Changing the Nature of Information; Algorithms for creating knowledge; Making public goods private; The bargain; The purpose of intellectual property in economic terms; About "Property"; Property as a legal concept; Property as a bundle of rights; Property rights and enforcement; Evaluating the System; Chapter 2. The Patent Document; The Construction of a Patent. The Face of the PatentThe Patent Number; Inventors and Inventorship; The listing of inventors; Inventorship: becoming an inventor; Conception of the Invention; Reduction to practice; Practical considerations in inventorship; Ownership of a Patent; Selling a patent; Licensing a patent; Destroying a patent; Inventions as a public good; Patents and Dates; The issue date; The application date; The priority date; The patent term; Exceptions to the rule; Other Information on the Face of the Patent; The historical outline; The Synopsis of the Patent; The title; The abstract. The representative figureThe Body of the Patent; The Drawing Sheets; The Written Description; The technical field; The background and summary of the invention; The description of the figures; The Claims; Structure of a Patent Claim; The preamble; The transitional phrase; The limitations; An optional effects clause; Independent and Dependent Claims; Other Resources; Chapter 3. The Patent System; The Patent System As a Knowledge Cache; Requirements for Getting a Patent; Section 101: Subject Matter and Utility; Statutory subject matter; Utility; Section 102: Novelty; Prior art. Element-by-element comparisonSection 103: Obviousness; Section 112: Enablement; Getting a Patent; A Typical Corporate Patent Process; Disclosure; Evaluation; Application; Detail; Abstraction; Prosecution; Filing As an Inventor; Problem 1: Syntax; Problem 2: Idioms; Patent Proliferation; The Patent As a Property Right; The right to exclude; The right to injunctive relief; Mutually assured destruction; Patent cross-licensing; Chapter 4. Copyright; Copyright in Context; Expression; Expression and personality; Expression and society; Expression and communication; The problem of control
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