IP Expert?

IP Expert?

"intellectual property question"	2/23/2005 8:39:21 AM
I have a question relating to Intellectual Property. Here the background to my situation. I own a business in the USA. For the last 5 years I have purchased computer components from a company in South Korea (the manufacture). The manufactures has a piece of application software that runs the components. A software company in India has made changes to this application software in the past with the SDK and source code obtained from the manufacture in South Korea. The software company has made improvements to the manufactures original software. There is a company in Canada that has also made changes to the manufactures software. Can the Canadian company copyright software that they have only changed? Can I take the software from the Canadian company and give it to the Indian software company? Can the Indian software company continue to make changes to the Canadian's software without breaking any Intellectual Property or Copyright laws?



gordonb.sdj7m@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt)	2/24/2005 12:14:40 PM
the last 5 years I have purchased computer components from a company in South Korea (the manufacture). The manufactures has a piece of application software that runs the components. A software company in India has made changes to this application software in the past with the SDK and source code obtained from the manufacture in South Korea. The software company has made improvements to the manufactures original software. I am not a lawyer. There is a company in Canada that has also made changes to the manufactures software. Can the Canadian company copyright software that they have only changed? They can copyright their changes. This means you have to deal with BOTH copyrights before you can use it. This sort of thing is common: a performer and a songwriter and a choreographer may all have copyrights on parts of the same music video. Can I take the software from the Canadian company and give it to the Indian software company? Unless you have rights to distribute, NO. Can the Indian software company continue to make changes to the Canadian's software without breaking any Intellectual Property or Copyright laws? If the Indian software company buys a legal copy of the software from the Canadian company with rights to make modifications (something which end-user licenses don't usually give), yes, they can make modifications. BUT: they cannot distribute such a copy to you unless they also bought re-distribution rights. Gordon L. Burditt



Jonathan Sachs	2/24/2005 12:14:57 PM
On Wed, 23 Feb 2005 08:39:21 -0500, "intellectual property question" <cctvdvrusa@gmail.com> wrote: ...I have purchased computer components from a company in South Korea (the manufacture). The manufactures has a piece of application software that runs the components. A software company in India has made changes to this application software in the past with the SDK and source code obtained from the manufacture in South Korea. The software company has made improvements to the manufactures original software. There is a company in Canada that has also made changes to the manufactures software. Can the Canadian company copyright software that they have only changed?... You need to consult an intellectual property attorney in your jurisdiction who can examine all of the licenses and other materials and ask any appropriate questions before trying to give you advice. Since at least three other nations' laws are involved, you had better find one who has experience with international intellectual property law as well. I will explain how some general principles apply to the situation you've described. If one party makes changes to the work of another, and both the original work and the changes are sufficiently original to merit copyright protection, the result is called a derivative work. The original author's copyright continues to protect those parts of the work which that author created. The second author's copyright protects those parts of the work which that author created. In a normal, clean situation, the second author obtains permission to use the first author's work in the manner it intends. If that does not happen, then the second author cannot distribute the work without infringing the first author's copyright, even if the first author's work constitutes only a small part of the whole. In the case of software products, licensing terms must be considered as well as copyright. Assuming that author #2 acted within the terms of a license granted by author #1, and in turn grants licenses that reflect those terms, you are effectively bound by both sets of terms. If author #2 did not play entirely straight with author #1, the legal consequences will be controlled largely by contract law, which varies from nation to nation much more than copyright law does. Thus the result will depend very much on who did what where, and who sues whom in what court. My email address is llm040903 at earthlink dot net.



bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com (Robert Bonomi)	2/24/2005 12:15:13 PM
In article <mn1p111n9uapk0bic6d4q5v7ar8e49i9gv@4ax.com>, intellectual property question <cctvdvrusa@gmail.com> wrote: I have a question relating to Intellectual Property. Here the background to my situation. I own a business in the USA. For the last 5 years I have purchased computer components from a company in South Korea (the manufacture). The manufactures has a piece of application software that runs the components. A software company in India has made changes to this application software in the past with the SDK and source code obtained from the manufacture in South Korea. The software company has made improvements to the manufactures original software. There is a company in Canada that has also made changes to the manufactures software. Can the Canadian company copyright software that they have only changed? YES. See "derivative work". Reproducing a derivative work requires the permission/consent of both the derivative work copyright owner and the owner of the copyright on the underlying work. Can I take the software from the Canadian company and give it to the Indian software company? "Can" you? of course. Is it legal? That's an entirely different question. To be legal, you have to have the permission of the Canadian Company, and YOU have to have the permission of the Manufacturer. Just because the Canadian company has permission from the manufacturer to distribute 'modified' versions of the manufacturer's software, they do NOT have the right to extend that permission "on the manufacturer's behalf" to you. Neither does the fact that the Indian company has permission from the manufacturer to distribute modified copies of the manufacturer's software obviate the need for you to have permission from the manufacturer to provide such software _TO_ them. Can the Indian software company continue to make changes to the Canadian's software without breaking any Intellectual Property or Copyright laws? NO. The Canadian company does own the exclusive rights to their contributions to the 'derivative work' based on the Manufacturer's software. The fact that the Indian company _also_ has a 'derivative work' product based on the same underlying 'original work' is immaterial. The rights granted _by_the_manufacturer_ to the Indian company cannot include any rights to work done by the Canadian company. (Well, not unless the Canadian company has ceded those rights back to the manufacturer. :)

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