Topic
Software Licensing
145 published works
Legal Loudspeaker Blog
Your Introductory Guide to Microsoft Licensing
Did you know that there’s more than one way to buy Microsoft Office products? Chances are you (just like most others) thought the only way to obtain Office for your…
Data Protection Report
New law imposes disclosure requirements on software licensors
As a result of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, the Secretary of Defense implemented new disclosure obligations on software licensors whose software code has been reviewed or accessed by…
Government Contracts Legal Forum
Commercial License Terms May Govern Even Without Contracting Officer Knowledge
By John E. McCarthy Jr., Jonathan M. Baker, Skye Mathieson, M.Yuan Zhou, Christopher D. Garcia, Nicole Owren-Wiest
On June 27, 2018, in Appeal of CiyaSoft Corporation, the Armed Services Board of Contract Appeals held that the Government can be bound by terms of a commercial software license…
Covington Digital Health
Open Source Considerations for Digital Health Ventures
By Lily Katharine Hines, Nigel Howard, Winslow Taub
Technology companies widely use open source software (“OSS”), which carries with it many potential benefits. It can reduce the time and cost of development, and, to the extent that the…
The IP Law Blog
Copyright Infringement and Third Party Software Support
A recent case out of the Ninth Circuit, Oracle USA, Inc. v. Rimini Street, Inc. (July 13, 2017), illustrates some of the risks third party software vendors run concerning copyright issues. Oracle…
New Media and Technology Law Blog
Ninth Circuit Issues Important Decision on Software Licensing Practices and Web Scraping
UPDATE: On September 27, 2018, the Supreme Court granted Rimini Street, Inc.’s petition for a writ of certiorari asking the Court to review part of the multi-million dollar damage award…
ContractsProf Blog
Court finds terms are not ambiguous when their dictionary definitions are consistent with the contract
We just finished talking about contractual ambiguity in my contracts class, so I was happy to see this recent case out of the Fourth Circuit, SAS Institute, Inc. v. World…
Technology and AI
What is FOSS, and why should I be worried about it?
By Jon Washburn
Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) is computer software that can be classified as both free software and open-source software. Anyone who wishes to use FOSS is freely licensed to use,…
Government Contracts Law
Restricted Rights Under DFARS 252.227-7014: Practitioner Advice for Avoiding DoD Licensing Pitfalls
This article focuses on contractor licenses that grant “Restricted Rights” in “Noncommercial Software” to the federal Government under Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (“DFARS”) 252.227-7014. DFARS 252.227-7014 only applies to…
Game Counsel
100 Million Reasons For Open Source Compliance
By James Gatto
CoKinetic Systems Corporation filed suit against Panasonic Avionics Corporation, seeking damages in excess of $100 million, in part, for violation of the GPL v2 open source license. CoKinetic alleged that…