Readings

The readings for Tuesday, March 15 are:

Intellectual Property

1. WIPO - What is IP?

2. US Constitution - Copright Clause

3. Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson

Patent Trolls

1. The History of Software Patents: From Benson, Flook, and Diehr to Bilski and Mayo v. Prometheus

2. When Patents Attack!

   • Jury: Apple must pay $626 million to patent troll VirnetX

   • IBM sues Groupon over 1990s patents related to Prodigy

   • Patent troll lawsuits head toward all-time high

   • "Patent troll" with a big verdict against Cisco notches a Supreme Court win

   • East Texas judge throws out 168 patent cases in one fell swoop

3. The Case Against Patents

4. Analysis: Microsoft's software patent flip-flop

5. All Our Patent Are Belong To You

6. The Supreme Court doesn't understand software, and that's a problem

Open Source

1. Open Source World

   • The new open-source economics

2. Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software

   • What is free software?

   • Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project

3. Freeing the Source - The Story of Mozilla

4. A Generation Lost in the Bazaar

5. Corporations and OSS Do Not Mix

6. Leveraging American Ingenuity through Reusable and Open Source Software

Questions

Please write a response to one of the following questions:

1. From the readings, what exactly are patents? What are the ethical, moral, economic, or social reasons for granting patents?

   In your opinion, should patents be granted at all? Are they really necessary or beneficial for society? Do the promote innovation or do they hinder it? Explain.

   Additionally, should patents on software be granted or should patents be restricted to physical or more tangible artifacts? Explain.

   Finally, is the existence of patent trolls evidence that the patent system is working or that the system is broken? Explain.

2. From the readings, what exactly is copyright? What are the ethical, moral, economic, or social reasons for granting copyrights?

   When should an open source license be preferred over a proprietary license? Is open source software inherently better? If so, how do you explain things like HeartBleed and ShellShock?

   Is the distinction between [free software] and [open source] meaningful? Between the GPL and BSD license, which one do you prefer? Which one is more free?

   Should governments and other public organizations be encourage to adopt and support open source software? What responsibilities do organizations and companies that utilize open source have to the open source projects and community at large?

Feedback

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the course, please provide your feedback at the end of your response.