Open Source Software

Overview

National first-tier ranking for intellectual property, 14 consecutive years. - Chambers USA

Our open source practice excels at solving complex open source problems and, just as importantly, develops novel and practical solutions to help mitigate identifiable open source risks. We engage in open source license conflict analysis, software pedigree review and software license compliance audits. When risks are identified, we provide risk mitigation counseling such as dual licensing, structuring and overseeing clean room development, developing open source policies and training programs, and licensing source code under open source licenses.

We work with clients in various contexts including litigation, corporate acquisitions, licensing and risk mitigation. Our attorneys have backgrounds and experience in computer-related legal and technical fields. We leverage this broad technical knowledge base on transactions, counseling and litigation relating to software code, licensing, and information technology generally. Our firm offers deep knowledge and experience in intellectual property, corporate law, antitrust and competition, international law, and regulatory and administrative law.

Experience

Our team’s varied client work includes: 

  • Joint Ventures – Leading telecommunications firm in negotiations for the creation of the LiMo Foundation, a nonprofit corporation for the development of a Linux-based mobile device software platform. We negotiated and drafted the foundational agreements and license programs for that organization.
  • License Development – Fortune 100 telecommunications firm with development of an open source license that met requirements that were not achievable with commonly used open source licenses.
  • Litigation – Developed and asserted a GPL-based defense to a claim of copyright and trade secret infringement in one of the only reported U.S. cases involving the General Public License (GPL).
  • Government Contracts – Developed a software contribution agreement that resulted in the first known distribution and outbound license of software under the GPL by a U.S. federal government agency.
  • M&A – Regularly conduct reviews of software applications and embedded software distributed by acquisition targets to identify, assess and, if necessary, mitigate risks associated with noncompliance with open source licenses.
  • Distribution of Software – Global media company with assessment and recommendation of risk-minimization strategies in connection with the distribution of an interactive media platform partly based on open source code, in order to preserve the proprietary nature of certain code in the platform.
  • Application of Open Source Ideas Outside of Software – Non-profit professional testing and certification organization with creation of a joint venture and licensing arrangement that enabled the creation of a uniform test to be distributed under a novel license arrangement. Using an idea borrowed from the GPL for contributions to and derivations of the test that might be made by competing organizations, the license required that such contributions and derivations be made available to all under the same license. 

Practices