Richard Kemp at Kemp IT Law has an excellent article regarding how non-practicing entities (NPEs) are increasing their attacks on the cloud-service provider (CSP) industry.
http://www.kempitlaw.com/cloud-computing-software-patent-claims-and-the-risks-to-service-availability/
A few key points are worth reiterating:
-Open Source Developers tend to be higher risks for being targeted ("soft targets" for the NPE) because they typically don't have sufficient resources to fight a protracted legal battle (the average time-to-trial is 2 and a half years), the code they are using is easy to review (because it is open source), and patent infringement issues are unlikely to be on the top of anyone's mind -- since in an open-source regime, no one entity holds all of the software rights.
-Software ranks in the top 5 U.S. industries for patent claims, with NPE claims amounting to a mind-staggering half of their entire total.
-NPEs are not only targeting CSPs, in some cases they are even targeting the CSP customers.
It still remains to be seen how Alice-Mayo framework will affect these practices in the long term.
http://www.kempitlaw.com/cloud-computing-software-patent-claims-and-the-risks-to-service-availability/
A few key points are worth reiterating:
-Open Source Developers tend to be higher risks for being targeted ("soft targets" for the NPE) because they typically don't have sufficient resources to fight a protracted legal battle (the average time-to-trial is 2 and a half years), the code they are using is easy to review (because it is open source), and patent infringement issues are unlikely to be on the top of anyone's mind -- since in an open-source regime, no one entity holds all of the software rights.
-Software ranks in the top 5 U.S. industries for patent claims, with NPE claims amounting to a mind-staggering half of their entire total.
-NPEs are not only targeting CSPs, in some cases they are even targeting the CSP customers.
It still remains to be seen how Alice-Mayo framework will affect these practices in the long term.
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