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Just a reminder, these posts are not legal advice. This site is the personal blog of Mark Radcliffe and the opinions expressed are those of Mark Radcliffe and not those of his clients, DLA Piper or the clients of DLA Piper.

About Me:

Mark Radcliffe

I earned a B.S. in Chemistry magna cum laude from the University of Michigan and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. I have been practicing law in Silicon Valley for over 25 years and am now a senior partner at DLA Piper. DLA Piper is a new global law firm formed in 2005 from the merger of three law firms. The firm now has 3600 lawyers in 25 countries and 65 cities. My practice is a mix of corporate securities and intellectual property. I work with many startups as well as large global companies. I have had the opportunity to work with companies in many industries, ranging from semiconductor to digital media to open source. I am the General Counsel, pro bono, of the Open Source Initiative and I ran the "Users" committee reviewing the GPLv3 draft.

Commercial Open Source Vendors Turn to Court: Artifex v. Palm

12/12/09

In the first lawsuit by a commercial open source vendor, Artifex, which uses a “dual licensing” model (providing the software under both the General Public License (”GPL”) and a commercial license) for its MuPDF rendering engine, has filed suit against Palm for alleged copyright infringement (in the interests of transparency, I have worked for Palm in the past, but I am not involved in this matter). Artifex alleges that Palm has violated its rights by using MuPDF in the Palm Pre but failing to comply with the GPL or, in the alternative, take a commercial license.  The complaint has very few details so it is difficult to determine how the GPL was violated.   

This complaint may signal the beginning of a trend by commercial open source companies with ”dual licensing” models: the success of that model, which is used by most commercial open source companies, depends on the difference in the scope of rights available under an open source license and a commercial license as well as the value of the additional protections (performance warranties, support and indemnification) available under the commercial license. Thus, one important component of this strategy is to ensure that the open source version of their software is used within the scope of the open source license. However, litigation has been uncommon in the open source community in the US until recently and we will see if the trend towards more litigation continues next year.

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2 Comments

  1. [...] more from the original source:  Law & Life: Silicon Valley » Commercial Open Source Vendors Turn … By admin | category: software license | tags: been-uncommon, one-important, open, scope, [...]

    Pingback by Law & Life: Silicon Valley » Commercial Open Source Vendors Turn … Software Rss — December 12, 2009 @ 7:28 pm

  2. [...] the General Public License (”GPL”) and a commercial license) for its MuPDF rendering engine, filed suit against Palm for alleged copyright infringement. This is the first lawsuit by a commercial open source vendor, [...]

    Pingback by Black Duck Blog » Blog Archive » Open Source Software: Free But Not a Free Lunch — January 14, 2010 @ 2:08 pm

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