Software Development Topics Windows PC Tips Smart Blogger
A patent is a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor for a fixed period of time in exchange for disclosure of an invention. The patent enables the inventor to exclude others from making, using, selling or importing the invention.
Several patent reform organizations have joined forces to abolish software patents. The End Software Patents (ESP) coalition aims to eliminate patents that do not specify a physically innovative step, which would likely include many of the software patents granted today. The coalition was founded by the Free Software Foundation, Public Patent Foundation, and Software Freedom Law Center.
The ESP coalition will fight software patents on two fronts:
How much time and money should a software company invest to ensure that its products do not infringe on registered software patents?
The question comes to mind after Microsoft accused the open-source industry of violating 235 Microsoft patents. Microsoft released the total but did not specify the infringed-upon patents. Some accuse Microsoft of using this strong-arm tactic to force open source companies to negotiate an intellectual property agreement similar to the Microsoft/Novell Linux agreement in 2006.
You’ve spent thousands of hours developing a new software program. Now how do you ensure that your competitors don’t copy your program and steal your market? The sad truth is you can’t, as Apple discovered when Microsoft “borrowed” its graphical user interface to build Windows and corner the PC operating system market. But there are steps you can take to give you an edge over your competition and make it more difficult for others to copy or steal your work. You can protect your software with patents, copyrights and trademarks.
In a ruling that’s likely to send shock waves throughout the technology industry, the California Supreme Court upheld a 136-year-old state law against non-compete clauses in employment contracts. The ruling says that employers cannot restrict employees from working for a competitor or soliciting former clients once they leave the company.
No surprise given the sluggish economy, but venture capital (VC) funding for U.S. startup companies remained flat in the second quarter. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), venture capitalists invested $7.4 billion in 990 deals.
During my 25 years as a software entrepreneur, I’ve had the pleasure and challenge of selling PC software to three major markets: large enterprises, general consumers, and software developers.
Of course, each target market has its own advantages and disadvantages, which I summarize below. Note this list is from the perspective of a small software company (2-50 employees) with limited funds. Microsoft and Google may hold a different view.
Microsoft offers a generous program to help new independent software vendors (ISVs) develop and launch their products faster and cheaper.
The Microsoft “Empower for ISVs” program offers software, support, and additional resources designed to help ISVs reduce development costs, test their software on multiple Windows platforms, and improve time-to-market. Empower is a one-year membership for $375, with an opportunity to renew for a second year, and it’s available only once per company.
Launching a startup software company is like legal gambling: The stakes are high, the odds are against you, but with persistence and good luck, you could strike it rich. But as the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money, and software startups can burn through cash like a brush fire through Silicon Valley. So the trick is to find enough capital to fund your startup until it can sustain itself with customer revenue, without giving up too much ownership and control to your investors.
