"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.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
5 Cheers for Intellectual Property ad Open Source This is a fantastic book! If you are an open source developer/contributor, this is a must-read. I've just written a full review here: [...] Here's an excerpt: "Intellectual Property and Open Source accomplishes a difficult goal of sharing dense information while making the subject matter engaging. This is done through examples, thought experiments, and well developed analogies. Van does an excellent job of igniting a powerful curiosity on the part of the reader while providing rewards for... more info
Intellectual Property and Open Source This is the most insightful explanation of patents, copyright, trade secrets, contracts and licenses I have come across so far. This book appears to be targeted to software developers (there are frequent programming analogies throughout the book). Don't expect that reading this book alone will make you into an expert on the subject -- but there are plenty of pointers to more detailed sources for those who care. Perhaps the most practical part of this book (for most people) is the explanation of the... more info
Both computer and legal libraries strong in technology need this Any outside the field of IT who want to understand how to handle the legal system will find Intellectual Property and Open Source is perfect for understanding how law views intellectual property rights for programmers. The author's an attorney who is also a programmer, so chapters address concerns of all sides, from pursuing ideas while working for another to reverse engineering a project, handling trade secrets, and more. Both computer and legal libraries strong in technology need this.
An author who knows how to relate to programmer I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The initial chapters were a bit dry due to their subject matter: patents, copyright, trade secrets, etc. The author did a great job of keeping your interest by using concepts familiar to programmers to explain these subjects. For example using the constructs of regular expressions and try/catch blocks to explain the reasoning behind patent language.
I was convinced the author was someone I could relate to when in the chapter on trade secrets, he used the 'Flaming Moe'... more info
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