This was reported back in May as an experiment to try to define the actual limits that patent office would establish on genetic patents. See this story:
Quote from the article: Nearly 10 years ago, a friend called Stuart Newman with an intriguing challenge: Could he think up a new form of life that would be scientifically useful and possible to patent - yet so disturbing that the public would recoil?
And so Newman, a New York medical school professor, proposed a "humouse" - a part-human, part-mouse creature that could be made using existing lab techniques and would help companies test for the toxic effects of new drugs. He even typed up a fake news release claiming a trademark for the "humouse" name.
Today, Newman's proposal is far more than a whimsical exercise. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is in the final stages of deciding whether he can patent his idea. Win or lose, the result could be exactly what the humouse was designed to accomplish: prodding Congress and the courts to place new limits on manipulating and patenting human life.
For the patent office, the humouse raises awkward issues. For 22 years, it has granted patents on a wide array of living organisms and elements of life. Human genes have been patented. So have human cells. Patents have gone to animals with bits of human DNA, creatures that scientists use to study cancer and other diseases.
But the patent office has drawn a line at claims on human embryos and humans themselves, saying that Congress, which writes the patent laws, has excluded them from the range of things that can be patented. While Congress has never spoken directly on the subject, the patent office says it infers the ban on these patents from such doctrines as the 13th Amendment prohibition on slavery.
The trick to doing this is that you don't sell them the software, you sell them a non-exlusive LICENSE to use the software. All custom jobs should have a contract signed in advance detailing exactly what you will do, what they will do, who will pay how much, and what happens when someone doesn't keep up their end of the bargain.
You want to stipulate prominiently in the contract that "this is not a work-for-hire" situation, and that you retain all rights to the code.
By default, anything you do is considered work-for-hire, meaning that the person signing the check owns the rights to it when you're done, unless you specify otherwise. IIRC, this is a basic aspect of copyright law, which governs the ownership of creative works.
You grant the customer a limited right to use the code within their company as long as they pay their annual maintenance agreements on time. They may not use it outside of their internal operations, market it to outside sources, or disclose it's internal workings. Specify that it is a trade-secret of your company in your contract and it may give it some added weight, especially if you plan on basing your future business on it.
Write it all up, then take it to an attorney to review and rewrite. By putting a good bit of work into yourself, the attorney will have a better sense of what you are trying to do, and should be able to modify it to fit the legal standards at a much lower price than if you walk in cold and say "I want you to write a contract for me".
- Brian
--There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't.
According to the MS release, the reason that they can't simply revoke the certificate for the control is that they signed other controls with the same certificate.
Wouldn't it make sense for them to just sign every control with a DIFFERENT certificate, so when one is found to be flawed they can revoke the cert and only the new version will install easily?
It's not like MS can't afford the cost of the individual certs, if they aren't a CA themselves already...
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Your wish is my command...
Pong, the Action Thriller:
http://www.madblast.com/oska/humor_pong.swf
This was reported back in May as an experiment to try to define the actual limits that patent office would establish on genetic patents. See this story:
h _s cience/3346268.htm
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/healt
Quote from the article:
Nearly 10 years ago, a friend called Stuart Newman with an intriguing challenge: Could he think up a new form of life that would be scientifically useful and possible to patent - yet so disturbing that the public would recoil?
And so Newman, a New York medical school professor, proposed a "humouse" - a part-human, part-mouse creature that could be made using existing lab techniques and would help companies test for the toxic effects of new drugs. He even typed up a fake news release claiming a trademark for the "humouse" name.
Today, Newman's proposal is far more than a whimsical exercise. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is in the final stages of deciding whether he can patent his idea. Win or lose, the result could be exactly what the humouse was designed to accomplish: prodding Congress and the courts to place new limits on manipulating and patenting human life.
For the patent office, the humouse raises awkward issues. For 22 years, it has granted patents on a wide array of living organisms and elements of life. Human genes have been patented. So have human cells. Patents have gone to animals with bits of human DNA, creatures that scientists use to study cancer and other diseases.
But the patent office has drawn a line at claims on human embryos and humans themselves, saying that Congress, which writes the patent laws, has excluded them from the range of things that can be patented. While Congress has never spoken directly on the subject, the patent office says it infers the ban on these patents from such doctrines as the 13th Amendment prohibition on slavery.
(IANAL, blah, blah, blah...)
The trick to doing this is that you don't sell them the software, you sell them a non-exlusive LICENSE to use the software. All custom jobs should have a contract signed in advance detailing exactly what you will do, what they will do, who will pay how much, and what happens when someone doesn't keep up their end of the bargain.
You want to stipulate prominiently in the contract that "this is not a work-for-hire" situation, and that you retain all rights to the code.
By default, anything you do is considered work-for-hire, meaning that the person signing the check owns the rights to it when you're done, unless you specify otherwise. IIRC, this is a basic aspect of copyright law, which governs the ownership of creative works.
You grant the customer a limited right to use the code within their company as long as they pay their annual maintenance agreements on time. They may not use it outside of their internal operations, market it to outside sources, or disclose it's internal workings. Specify that it is a trade-secret of your company in your contract and it may give it some added weight, especially if you plan on basing your future business on it.
Write it all up, then take it to an attorney to review and rewrite. By putting a good bit of work into yourself, the attorney will have a better sense of what you are trying to do, and should be able to modify it to fit the legal standards at a much lower price than if you walk in cold and say "I want you to write a contract for me".
- Brian
--There are only 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't.
According to the MS release, the reason that they can't simply revoke the certificate for the control is that they signed other controls with the same certificate.
Wouldn't it make sense for them to just sign every control with a DIFFERENT certificate, so when one is found to be flawed they can revoke the cert and only the new version will install easily?
It's not like MS can't afford the cost of the individual certs, if they aren't a CA themselves already...