EDUCAUSE | Contributed by Organizations or Campuses; Articles, Papers, and Reports; Open Source; and Patents

Intellectual Property and Cyberinfrastructure

ckeller — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 11:47:25 -0500

The development of a new generation of cyberinfrastructure promises to increase and facilitate globally distributed scientific collaboration as well as access to scientific research via computer networks. But the potential for such access and collaboration is subject to concerns regarding the intellectual property rights that will be associated with networked data and with networked collaborative activity. Intellectual property regimes are generally problematic in the practice of science, because scientific research typically assumes practices of openness that may be hampered or obstructed by intellectual property rights. These difficulties are likely to be exacerbated in the context of networked collaboration, where the development and use of intellectual resources will likely be distributed among many researchers in a variety of physical locations, often spanning national boundaries. Such issues may be addressed by a combination of public and private approaches, including amendment of U.S. law to recognize transborder collaborative work, and adoption of clarifying contractual agreements among those who are collaborating via cyberinfrastructure, including cautious adaptation of “viral” licensing from the open source coding community.

Blackboard Makes a Pledge

drupal — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 11:47:54 -0600

"After months of criticism that its patent policies had the potential to squelch important education projects, Blackboard on Thursday announced a "patent pledge" under which it vowed not to assert its patent rights to sue open source projects or home-grown software used by colleges and universities."

Education Software Firm OKs Open-source Patent Use

drupal — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:09:03 -0600

"Blackboard, whose software can be used to manage university courses, has taken a significant step to mollify open-source rivals who perceive a patent threat from the company."

Open-source Group Wants Educational Patent Reversed

drupal — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:48:59 -0600

"A legal center is trying to overturn a patent it says threatens three open-source educational projects, a sign of the tension between patent holders and the collaborative programming community."

Blackboard Patents Challenged

drupal — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 10:36:48 -0600

"Open source group asked U.S. to revoke rights asserted by software giant. Sides trade charges on why compromise talks collapsed."

Patents, Open Standards and Open Source

drupal — Fri, 11 Feb 2005 10:52:51 -0600

The author discusses Open Standards and Open Source in the context of the European Union.

An Uncommon Commons

drupal — Thu, 20 Jan 2005 12:05:23 -0600

IBM recently "promised not to sue any open-source developer, distributor or user, and stated clearly that IBM is legally bound by that promise. However, the statement contains disclaimers that limit IBM's promise." The author discusses the difference between patents and copyrights.