Law Commons^™

The Software Patent Debate, Andres Guadamuz

Andres Guadamuz

The recent demise of the proposed Directive on Computer-Implemented Inventions has overshadowed its complex background and the interplay of conflicting interests that it brought into play. Copyright (which already protects all software) and patent law (which protects much software in the United States but relatively little elsewhere) both have their strengths and weaknesses as legal rights. Little evidence has, however, been adduced as to the incentive effect of either of these legal regimes. The decision to withdraw the proposed Directive does not mean that the issues addressed in it and the interests affected by it have been resolved. Real debate …

Open Science: Open Source Licences In Scientific Research, Andres Guadamuz

Andres Guadamuz

sometime even commercially successful systems. Amongst these models, one of the most interesting licenses is that offered by so-called copyleft licenses, which are licenses that allow software to be transferred with the insurance that the source code will remain open, with the caveat that anyone who redistributes the software, with or without changes, must pass along the freedom to further copy and change it.

However, software development is not the only area in which this licensing model could apply. The viral nature of copyleft licenses has generated a considerable amount of interest in circles that transcend software development. The idea …