The license/contract dichotomy in open licenses: a comparative analysis

The paper looks at the legal nature of so-called open licenses – agreements designed to provide permissions to users and publishers through “some rights reserved” clauses. The article starts with the assertion that copyright licenses are contracts in Civil Law jurisdictions, and looks at the opposing views and practice in Common Law jurisdictions. The article particularly looks at recent case law in the United States which deals specifically with the issue, and concludes that there is now a clear jurisdictional split between both traditions on whether these licenses are contracts

The drugs don’t work: access to medicines in the developing world

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Viral contracts or unenforceable documents? Contractual validity of copyleft licenses

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Scale-free law: network science and copyright

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Open science: open source licences for scientific research

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the area of open source software (“OSS”) as an alternative economic model. However, the success of the OSS mindshare and collaborative online experience has wider implications to many other fields of human endeavor than the mere licensing of computer programmes. There are a growing number of institutions interested in using OSS licensing schemes to distribute creative works and scientific research, and even to publish online journals through open access (“OA”) licenses. There appears to be growing concern in the scientific community about the trend to fence and protect scientific research through intellectual property, particularly by the abuse of patent applications for biotechnology research. The OSS experience represents a successful model which demonstrates that IP licenses could eventually be used to protect against the misuse and misappropriation of basic scientific research. This would be done by translating existing OSS licenses to protect scientific research. Some efforts are already paying dividends in areas such as scientific publishing, evidenced by the growing number of OA journals. However, the process of translating software licenses to areas other than publishing has been more difficult. OSS and OA licenses work best with works subject to copyright protection because copyright subsists in an original work as soon as it is created. However, it has been more difficult to generate a license that covers patented works because patents are only awarded through a lengthy application and registration process. If the open science experiment is to work, it needs the intervention of the legal community to draft new licenses that may apply to scientific research. This article will look at the issue of such OA licenses, paying special care as to how the system can best be exported to scientific research based on OSS and OA ideals

Legal Challenges to Open Source Licences

This paper will concentrate on presenting a legal analysis of two of the main challenges to open source software: SCO’s litigation and software patents. The paper discusses the validity of such challenges, their possible impact to the future of open source software, and the possible legal defences used against them

Reino Unido: The drugs don't work: Access to medicines in the developing world

Development, poverty and the means to assist countries to break away from the causes of poverty have become some of the most important subjects in the international trade arena. Of these causes, the technological gap between developed and developing nations presents a compelling call for some sort of action in order to alleviate the resource inequality. There are many examples that could illustrate that developing countries are being affected in some ways by the technological gap. Of these examples, one of the most important is the apparent struggle between large multinational pharmaceutical companies and developing nations with regards to access to medicines

The software patent debate

Legal context. This article has practical application for those working in the patent field, particularly with regards to the filing of software patent applications. Key points. The article provides a detailed explanation of the state of the art with regards to the legal protection of software, and describes the latest legal developments in the area, including the failed Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions and some recent cases that may shed more light on some of the technical issues involved in the area of software. The paper also explores some of the arguments put forward by those in favour and opposed to software patents, in order to ascertain their validity. Practical significance. Existing case law may provide help to solve the problem of patentability, but it might also be a good idea to resurrect the idea that there should be a sui-generis software right