Unfortunately, the IPR '06 workshop has been cancelled. We apologize for any inconvenience that this decision might have caused. If you have any questions or comments, please refer to the "Info & Contact" link on the left.
The IPR '06 Workshop has been cancelled
Welcome
Welcome to the website of the IPR '06 Workshop on Intellectual Property protection for software and its implications for Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS). This event will take place on June 10th 2006 in Como, Italy and it will be hosted by the Second International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2006).
Workshop description
Intellectual property (IP) protection for software has relied traditionally on copyright and trade secrecy methods, which cover specific implementations or programs rather than the underlying inventions.
In recent years, a greater concern for the IP protection of software has raised questions about the appropriateness and sufficiency of these methods, and has led to considering other possibilities, such as patents. As a matter of fact, the European Commission launched a proposal of Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions that was opposed by the FLOSS community due to its implications for free and open source developments, and later rejected by the European Parliament.
This workshop aims at revising the existing IP protection mechanisms for software, including patents, and focuses on extracting main implications for FLOSS.
Some of the proposed issues to be discussed comprise the compatibility between FLOSS and different scenarios of patentability for computer-implemented inventions, the existing conflicts between FLOSS and patents and, finally, possible adaptations of FLOSS licenses to new IP protection methods (e.g. GPL v3).
Eventually, the debate will search for consensus about the ideal IP protection for software and, particularly, for FLOSS, from social, economic and technical perspectives, and it will propose measures to foster FLOSS innovation in the European Union.