patents
See the following -
Open Access: Looking Back, Looking Forwards
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke at a conference celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Berlin declaration on open access. [...] Read More »
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Open App Challenge, Patent Wars, and more
As the first part of a new $1 million Health Innovation Program, Allscripts, a US-based health care firm has announced an Open App Challenge which asks developers and vendors to to “Start a Revolution” by creating and integrating applications that become an extension of Allscripts’ Open Electronic Health Records software...Other health IT firms are working to build innovation and draw funding in similarly open source ways. Read More »
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Open Source (Seeds) Under Threat
[...] Just as there is free software that anyone may use and share, there are free seeds - those that are part of the ancient seeds commons, created over thousands of years, available for use by anyone. And just as free software is threatened by software patents, so seeds are equally endangered by seed patents. Read More »
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Open Source Comes To Farms With Restriction-Free Seeds
There are now 29 kinds of plant varieties that are available under an open source license, reports NPR. On Thursday, a group of scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison debuted the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI), a set of seeds that can be used by anyone so long as they don't restrict use by others through patents or IP protection. Read More »
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Open Source Competitions And Prizes #1
I recently read Future Perfect by Steven Johnson. The book articulates what is meant by a person being a “Peer Progressive” – someone with a set of values based on the power of distributed networks to solve problems (a “Baran Web”) as opposed to a more regulated, centralized mechanism (a “Legrand Star”). Read More »
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Open Source Hardware And The Law
At the end of my talk at last month's Open Hardware Summit, I urged the community to consider that open source hardware may be more of a political and cultural movement than a legal movement. This was an admittedly fleeting reference to a discussion that will necessarily be a large one, so I want to use this blog post to begin to expand upon what I meant.
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Open Source Thrives in Asia
The [LinuxCon Japan] conference was truly an excellent experience. It’s great to see the tremendous energy around FOSS here in Japan. There’s no question that Asian companies are taking full advantage of the innovation and game-changing opportunities that FOSS creates. Read More »
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Open Source's Final Frontier
This past Thursday, I attended the third annual Open Hardware Summit, organized by the Open Source Hardware Association and held at the Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in Manhattan. While open software is now very much mainstream, open hardware is in a far more primitive state. So hearing from the folks at ground zero of this newfangled way of developing and marketing products was illuminating. Read More »
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Open Source: The Stealth Stimulus Package
If I asked you to account for your energy consumption, you might list your laundry equipment on the spreadsheet. We'd see how much you spend using your dryer each month -- quite a large amount. Worried by the cost, you might then opt for a clothesline in your yard. Naturally, your costs have gone down. But has your energy usage? Read More »
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Open-Source Agriculture: The Sprouting Of A New Food Movement?
Walk through the produce aisle today and you can find labels for organic, fair trade, and local items. For shoppers who oppose the practices of seed agri-giants like Monsanto, one day there may be a new option to consider: open-source. Read More »
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Open-Source Seeds Challenge Monsanto, Support International Day Of Farmers' Struggles
Tomorrow, Thursday, April 17, the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI) will release over 29 seed varieties into the global commons and humanity's “moral economy.” This new initiative hopes to provide a counterweight to private patenting of seeds, which has undermined farmers’ rights around the world. Read More »
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Patent Trolls Are Now Crushing Parts Of The Developer Economy
News that Boston University is suing Apple AAPL -0.59% over parts for the iPhone and iPad (the component in question is called “highly insulating monocrystalline gallium nitride thin films”), is one more dull thud of the patent lawyers’ dossier on the smartphone scene. [...] Read More »
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Patent War Goes Nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-Owned “Rockstar” Sues Google
Rockstar paid $4.5 billion for Nortel patents and has launched a major attack. Read More »
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Patents As Weapons: How 1-800-CONTACTS Is Using The Patent System To Kill An Innovative Startup
We've talked many times about how patents are often used as weapons to kill innovative startups that threaten legacy players. Ryan alerts us to a perfect example of this in practice. 1-800-CONTACTS, the giant online contact lens/glasses space, is trying to kill off an upstart innovative competitor called Ditto... Read More »
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Patents: The Next Open Access Fight
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the state of publicly funded research. Many, including EFF, have long called on Congress to pass a law requiring that publicly funded research be made available to the public. With strong support for FASTR (the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act) in both parties, Vice-President Biden making open access a major component of his Cancer Moonshot initiative, and presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton including access to research in her platform, signs are looking good that Congress will finally pass an open access mandate. It’s just a matter of when...
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