Mike Lee and Brian LeRoux discuss how patents affect app developers and approaches to keep away patent trolls. Also: when to choose native GUIs over web GUIs for mobile apps - and when not.
With the recent legal battle between Google and Oracle there is a renewed focus on the patent issues for Java and .NET. Tim Smith introduces the licenses offered by Oracle/Sun and Microsoft, with a focus on how they may affect third party implementation. Possible motivations for Google Android’s unique implementation are also covered.
On 18th January, wikipedia.or among other estimated 10,000 web sites stopped their service in order to protest against the US legislation planning to endorse SOPA and PIPA. Software engineers might think, that they are not affected by the legislation, especially if they are outside the U.S., but considering Big Data, Cloud Computing and other trends this could be a rather naive perspective.
In a recent interview with The San Francisco Chronicle the patent counsel of Google, Tim Porter, claims the patent system itself is broken. Patent offices worldwide have been increasingly granting protection to “innovations” that are not innovative. The IT Industry is currently facing a series of patent trials which some large corporates seem to leverage as weapons for attacking competitors.
Patents are quite often in the news these days, most notably the ones related to smart phone vendors like HTC, Samsung, Google and Apple. This also holds for the rather emotional and controversial discussion about software patents which some consider as a means to ensure innovation and others as a kind of weapon. Do software patents cause more harm than good, or vice versa?
The Linux-based phone, OpenMoko is currently in a patent dispute with Sisvel, the Italian patent holding firm known for its aggressive enforcement of MPEG patents.
Firestar Software has filed a patent claim against Red Hat for Hibernate 3 allegedly infringing on a patent covering O/R mapping. Firestar, who has not released it's ObjectSpark O/R product since 2003 claims that it "has suffered and will continue to suffer substantial damages."
