Open Source Important in Intellectual Property Discussion

January 3, 2013

Recent developments in intellectual property debates are concerning for those who fall on the side of fair use. For instance, Apple was recently awarded $1 billion in a lawsuit against Samsung for alleged infringement against intellectual property rights. Birgette Anderson, director of the Big Innovation Centre, writes about her concern regarding intellectual property for The Guardian in, “Knowledge Capitalism Gone Wrong.”

After a discussion of how intellectual property protections are becoming more strident, potentially squashing creativity and small businesses, Anderson goes on to tie the discussion into open source technology. She points out that companies depending solely on proprietary solutions fair no better financially than those who utilize open source:

“In fact, firms that exchange formal patents do not perform better financially (measured as turnover per employee) compared to firms that exchange non-patented technology or open source solutions. We must find ways to more strongly enforce open source and creative commerce licences, along with safeguarding technological solutions with no patents. Almost half of firms currently active in the open source community experience their ideas patented by their co-participants after slight development.”

So open source solutions not only provide excellent service, but also meet an important philosophical need. A company like LucidWorks offers excellent solutions to meet enterprise search needs, but also invests in creativity and ingenuity by supporting open source software creation.

Emily Rae Aldridge, January 03, 2013

Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Legal matters, News, Open source

Comments

One Response to “Open Source Important in Intellectual Property Discussion”

Kalpana Ganesh on January 3rd, 2013 2:02 am

Informatics Outsourcing is an Offshore Intellectual Property Services company. They are providing Intellectual Property services for Bio Technology, Biochemistry, Drug Discovery, Chemistry, etc

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.