This thesis aims to provide clues on how software developers could use and distribute proprietary software and open … source software to run their business smoothly.Proprietary software is protected by copyright and/or patent that confers the … rightholders exclusive rights for the use of their software. The developers of proprietary software use their exclusive rights to …

’s Theorem without paying royalties, but rather if software and algorithms underlying the software are patentable. Although … software is based on algorithms similar to the algorithm discovered by Euclid, in the United States software are generally … patented.Open source paradigm — here explored — could resolve the software patentability issue, in addition to represent the …

To distribute software, commercial vendors of proprietary software have the opportunity to use some dual licensing (DL …) strategy i.e. to provide their software under two different licensing terms (proprietary and open source). We investigate the … relevance and impacts of this distribution strategy in the presence of an incumbent open source software competitor. We …

This paper examines the role played by "continuations" (procedural revisions of patent applications) within software … patenting and the implications that the use by patentees of continuations has for free and open-source software design. Our … research analyzes data on continuations in software patenting 1987-99, providing information on the effects of changes made to …

In the wake of a series of court cases extending patents to software, open-source software proponents have proposed a … number of arguments for limiting or even eliminating software patents. In particular, they claim that the U.S. Patent and … Trademark Office has done a poor job of reviewing software patent applications, resulting in obvious, trivial patents. They also …

Software differs from other electromechanical technologies because of the unique process by which software programs are … invented. In particular, software developers create novel executable software programs, which are components of a computer, by … of software development violates the assumptions of patent law, which generally requires that electromechanical …