In the recent decision of Bancorp Services v Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (U.S.), the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has attempted to reconcile the eligibility of software and business process patents with previous decisions from the United States Supreme Court. The holding also makes qualifying patent eligibility in business […]
Alex Gloor is a JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School. The debate over the patentability of computer software has been well-documented, and there seems to be no end in sight. Supporters of software patents defend the right by using many of the historical rationales for patents, such as disclosure of the invention, stimulation of […]
Software patents have been criticized frequently in recent years for a multitude of reasons. Computer programmers argue that they can make programming impossible for both commercial and for non-profit projects. Some analysts have noted that they do not promote innovation like patents in other industries do, and may in fact be hurting research and development […]
Open core licensing, also known as commercial extensions, is a licensing regime that offers core components for free, but charges licensees for additional premium products. The approach is a twist on the dual licensing approach where the vendor, as copyright holder, makes the source code freely available, but also offers the same code under a […]
A recent proposal by European Commissioners Meglena Kuneva and Viviane Reding outlined a number of consumer protections relating to licensing agreements. In the event that the proposal becomes law, software companies could be held liable for their code. The directive requires that products, including software licensed under licensing agreements, be held to a higher standard […]