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Course Details

Course Information
  • smart_display Format

    On-Demand

  • signal_cellular_alt Difficulty Level

    Intermediate

  • work Practice Area

    Trademark and Copyright

Date & Time
  • event Date

    Wednesday, October 11, 2023

  • schedule Time

    1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT

  • timer Program Length

    90 minutes

Credit Information

  • This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.

$347.00
CLE
ALL

This CLE course will guide counsel on managing IP while benefiting from using open source. The panel will review the risks and benefits of using open source software and ways to appropriately manage IP rights while participating in the open source community.

Faculty

Pamela S. Chestek
Principal
Chestek Legal, PLLC

Ms. Chestek practices in trademark, copyright, open source, advertising, and marketing law. She has worked in both law firm and in-house environments serving a variety of fields—footwear and apparel, software, design, retail, and manufacturing are a few. Ms. Chestek has been an adjunct law professor and often writes and speaks about ownership disputes in patent, trademark and copyright cases, including scholarly articles on the subject. She also has extensive experience in the open source community, in particular dealing with the challenge of managing brand identity and consumer expectation in a culture rooted in free access, collaboration and sharing.

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Adam Mishcon
General Counsel
Sencha, Inc

Mr. Mishcon is a seasoned Silicon Valley attorney with over 20 years of experience providing business counsel to high technology companies. He specializes in helping emerging growth companies negotiate and close deals, and has a deep background in financing, contracts, and licensing.

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Leon Schwartz
Principal
GTC Law Group PC & Affiliates

Mr. Schwartz focuses on intellectual property strategy and general corporate matters. Prior to joining the firm, he served internships at the U.S. Attorney’s Office – District of New Hampshire and for the Hon. Bruce M. Selya of the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Mr. Schwartz has extensive experience in software design and development, including web applications, hospital patient data management systems and medical device software.

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Description

Open source offers many benefits to companies that use it. However, some companies fear that if they incorporate open source into their products or make their code open source, they risk losing control over their IP rights or risk litigation.

Our panel will guide counsel on managing IP while benefiting from using open source. The panel will review the risks and benefits of using open source software and ways to appropriately manage IP rights while participating in the open source community. In addition to covering the basics of what open source software is and how it is licensed, we plan to discuss open source software license compatibility, contributor license agreements, express and implied patent license grants in open source licenses, and defensive patent license termination.

We will also discuss approaches for using Generative AI tools and dealing with potential issues and areas of concern associated with this use. Tools like GitHub Copilot, trained largely on open source software, present new challenges, both with their use for generating code - does the generated code infringe the code on which the model was trained? - and whether the company owns the copyright in the code that was generated using AI tools.

Listen as our authoritative panel of IP attorneys discusses how companies can balance the risks and benefits of open source with a view towards appropriate protection of their IP rights. The panel will also review patent issues arising in open source, litigation that has involved open source software, and litigation strategies relating to patents and open source.

Outline

  1. Risks and benefits of open source
  2. Balancing open source and proprietary code--managing and appropriately protecting the IP in software that uses open source
  3. Protection of IP
    1. Copyright protection for open source
    2. Patent protection for open source
  4. Open source license compatibility issues
  5. Open source license patent issues
    1. Express and implied licenses
    2. Patent license grants
    3. Patent non-assertion clauses
  6. Litigation issues involving patents and open source
    1. Summary of key cases
    2. Patent infringement defense strategies
  7. Practical implications--what do I need to do?

Benefits

The panel will review these and other key issues:

  • General overview of open source licensing
  • Balancing use of open source and proprietary code
  • Open source licensing issues: licenses, grants, and litigation
  • Understanding where the legal risks of using open source software lie
  • Understanding the risks with using code generation tools