Software Licensing and Intellectual Property Law Blog

Critical Success Factors For SAP Implementation

John Lagaay in this article lays out certain factors critical to a successful SAP implementation. He cites using SAP suggested interfaces as one of the biggest safeguards against future issues during future upgrades. He also cites change management (as in users transitioning from legacy systems to the SAP system) as being important and sates that "prior to implementation, organisations should work out what their training requirements will be and then multiply it by three to ensure that they have budgeted adequately."

While there is no doubt that these issues are important, one of the most important factors to a successful SAP implementation is a carefully drafted and negotiated SAP Professional Services Agreement. A PSA with carefully defined deliverables and milestones, robust performance warranties and remedies for breaches of those warranties is one of the greatest tools you can have to ensure your SAP implementation meets your expectations and SAP's representations.

Open Source Business Conference

InfoWorld's 5th Open  Source Business Conference will be held March 25-26, 2008 in San Francisco and is entitled Putting Open Source to Work. The conference will explore how both traditional and non-traditional open source businesses are achieving benefits from platform flexibility and better performance to cost savings.

Keynote speakers include:

Steve Pearson, VP of Advanced Technology, CBS Interactive ;

Brad Smith, SVP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary, Microsoft Corporation;

Jon Williams, CTO, Kaplan Test Prep & Admissions.

The early registration deadline has been extended to February 4. More information about the conference can be found here.

Building A Video Game Company in the Midwest

Starting a video game company in the Midwest? Then the following event is for you. Frozen Codebase is a video game development company in Green Bay, WI. They will be giving a presentation in Milwaukee on January 26th to talk about how they were able to raise money locally and nationally to get
their company started. Their most recent game, Screwjumper was released about 2 months ago in
November and has been doing fairly well on Xbox Live Arcade. More information about the event is located here.

ITA City Lights

The Illinois IT Association's annual City Lights event will be held on April 3 this year. The event celebrates vitality and innovation in the Illinois technology community and as billed as:

The largest technology gathering of technology executives in the state of Illinois;

A chance to network, collaborate and build relationships with other technology companies in the state;

An opportunity to meet with up-and-coming technology companies in the state;

A chance to celebrate Illinois’ amazing technology community.

More information about the event can be found here.

McAffee Issues Open Source Warning

McAfee, in its annual report filed in December of last year, (and originally reported here) warned its investors that its ability to commercialize its products could be impacted by “ambiguous” "open source license terms. McAfee noted that “despite having conducted the appropriate due diligence,” these ambiguities “may result in unanticipated or uncertain obligations regarding our products.” According to McAfee the GPL is of particular concern since it has “not been interpreted in a court of law” and use of GPL software “could subject certain portions of our proprietary to the GPL requirements.”

Under the GPL, licensees may redistribute open source software provided the licensee’s software that incorporates the open source software is also made available under the terms of the GPL.

The Software Freedom Law Center recently filed lawsuits alleging violations of the GPL by Monsoon Multimedia, High Gain Antennae LLC, Xterasys and Verizon.

Companies such as Monsoon Multimedia and Xterasys have settled their lawsuits and have resumed distribution of their products.  As part of their settlements, the companies agreed to pay undisclosed amounts of damages.  They also agreed to adhere to the terms of the license as well as appoint an internal Open Source Compliance Officer.  The Open Source Compliance Officer’s duties include ensuring compliance with the GPL licenses as well as informing downstream parties of their rights pursuant to the license.

These suits are significant because the enforcement of the GPL against a party unlawfully distributing software in violation of the GPL had previously been rare.  Users of software subject to the GPL need to understand that the very real threat of suit for noncompliance with the GPL license looms whenever a company uses and incorporates open source software without fully understanding the requirements of the GPL. 

McAfee’s warning and the recent GPL enforcement lawsuits emphasize the importance of developing an Open Source compliance program. With the increased adoption of Open Source Software and future Open Source enforcement lawsuits likely, ensuring that you have the ability to exploit your commercial software on your own terms is critical.

EA Finalizes Acquisition of VG Holding Group

Earlier this week Electronic Arts Inc. announced the completion of its acquisition of VG Holding Group welcoming BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios to the EA Games Label. Frank Gibeau, president of the EA Games Label, is quoted as saying that “BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios are two world-class studios and bring strong, highly compatible cultures of creative excellence to the EA Games Label. Their strengths in the RPG, action and adventure genres further broadens EA’s portfolio, and reinforces our commitment to creating the world’s greatest interactive entertainment.”

Yahoo coverage located here.

International Trademark Applications (Madrid Applications/66(a) Applications)

A large part of our practice consists of drafting and prosecuting International Trademark Applications (also called Madrid Applications or 66(a) Applications) for both American trademark clients and international trademark clients.

Many times we are called upon by foreign trademark counsel to assist in responding to the rejection of an international trademark application by the United States Patent and Trademark Office ("USPTO"). While Madrid Applications are rejected for a variety of reasons (including the common reasons blogged about here), we see certain issues on a reoccurring basis:

(1) Failure to identify the legal nature of the Applicant; (2) Failure to identify country of organization or incorporation; and(3) Identification of Goods/Services.

With respect to item 4, foreign applicants regularly see their International Application rejected by the USPTO because the description of goods and services is overly broad. Unlike other countries, where only an International Class need be identified or a very broad description of goods/services is  acceptable, the USPTO requires a relatively narrow description of goods/services. While providing additional clarity seems simple  enough - there are traps for the unwary. This requirement many times calls for a restructuring of the description and is sometimes complicated by translation issues. Further, 66(a) applicant's are prevented from changing the International Classification Number. In addition, indiscriminate changes to the description could leave the application and subsequent registration vulnerable to claims that the registration is invalid.