Just wanted to say thanks for the many responses. You all are right that
this issue is not specific to library software in specific. It's not often
that I hear such a resounding agreement from all responders!!

-emily

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Erik Hetzner <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> At Mon, 5 Dec 2011 08:17:26 -0500,
> Emily Lynema wrote:
> >
> > A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that
> I
> > realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the
> > library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented
> > by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open
> > source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is
> > still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and
> Evergreen
> > ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors
> historically
> > pursued patents for their systems and solutions?
>
> I don’t think libraries have a particularly unique perspective on
> this: most free/open source software projects have the same issues
> with patents.
>
> The Software Freedom Law Center has some basic information about these
> issues. As I recall, the “Legal basics for developers” edition of
> their podcasts is useful [1], but other editions may be helpful as
> well.
>
> Basically, the standard advice for patents is what Mike Taylor gave:
> ignore them. Pay attention to copyright and trademark issues (as the
> Koha problem shows), but patents really don’t need to be on your
> radar.
>
> best, Erik
>
> 1.
> http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2011/aug/16/Episode-0x16-Legal-Basics-for-Developers/
>
> Sent from my free software system <http://fsf.org/>.
>
>