Kristen Hansen

Use of free open-source code can be a massive accelerant when building complex software applications. Why reinvent wheels? And depending on resources and budget, sometimes it’s the only practical way. But like with most things, free often isn’t really free. The cost is just transferred somewhere else. When it comes to open source, these short-term savings can have significant long-term consequences for your intellectual property rights. For some licenses, if open-source is included and combined with other proprietary software, the combination of that software becomes bound by the open-source license terms. This viral, infectious attribute can have profound implications for code intended to be proprietary and protected. Consequences can include being required to release your code to the public domain as open source, automatic patent licenses for other users of the open source, and an inability to assert patent rights against infringers of your invention.

Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) intellectual property (IP) have been around for some time now, but how do they relate to the Metaverse? And how will VR and AR patent rights change as the Metaverse continues to evolve? The Patently Strategic Podcast will be exploring these topics in our next installment of Into the Patentverse.

“Metaverse” is the buzziest of the buzzwords in tech and will soon be joining the ranks of “AI” and “ML” as requisite keywords in the next generation of pitch decks and patent applications. But what are the core components of the Metaverse? And what are their implications in the world of intellectual property? The Patently Strategic Podcast will be exploring this topic over the course of several upcoming episodes.