New book: “Intellectual Property and Open Source”

Intellectual Property and Open Source is for anyone who wants to understand how the law views intellectual property rights in code and other content. As an attorney and a programmer, Lindberg provides a clear look at these issues from a developer’s point of view, along with practical advice for situations you are likely to encounter, including patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, and open source licenses.

You’ll learn:

” How open source and intellectual property work together
” How to handle copyright, licensing, and other issues when accepting a patch from another developer
” How to pursue your own ideas while working for someone else
” How to reverse engineer a product without getting into trouble
” What parts of a patent should be reviewed to see whether it applies to your work
” What to consider when choosing an open source license
” When your idea is a trade secret
” Intellectual property issues that occur when starting a business or an open source project

Most legal sources are scattered, arcane, and tedious to read. Intellectual Property and Open Source is a friendly, easy-to-follow overview of the law that programmers, system administrators, graphic designers, and many others will find invaluable to their work.

Intellectual Property and Open Source
Van Lindberg
ISBN: 9780596517960, 390 pages, $34.99, £21.99, 28 €