SaaS agreements – inherent risks and mitigation techniques

Benefits of the SaaS model Under the SaaS delivery model the customer usually saves significant upfront costs. This is due to the fact that the SaaS customer does not need to pay a lump sum for a license or purchase any equipment for hosting the application and it also does not need an internal IT…Продължи да четеш

SaaS Agreements vs Software Licenses – key differences

Over the past decade Software as a Service (SaaS) as a delivery model has been steadily replacing the traditional software licensing model which is characterized with on-premise software deployment. The differences between the two service delivery models are significant. Naturally, this also leads to certain substantial differences in the agreements that regulate the two types…Продължи да четеш

Can you lawfully decompile software without the consent of the rightholder?

Decompilation for interoperability It is well-established that under the EU Software Directive (Directive 2009/24/EC on the legal protection of computer programs), the lawful acquirer of a copy of a computer program is entitled to decompile it for the sake of achieving interoperability with another piece of software. We can define decompilation as a process where…Продължи да четеш

Open Source Software – The Challenges

After analyzing the numerous benefits offered by open source technology in our previous article, we will now focus our attention on the potential drawbacks that you should be aware of when OSS is used in a business setting. Being fully cognizant of those is crucial when you have to provide legal advice to key stakeholders.…Продължи да четеш

Open Source Software – The Advantages

When formulating and communicating legal advice to business stakeholders in a technological setting it is very important to be fully aware of the advantages and disadvantages presented by the use of open source software (OSS) products. OSS solutions can be highly beneficial for both internal use within an organization as well as integration or linking…Продължи да четеш

Source Code as a concept

There are two technical terms that you will often encounter when going through the pages of a software licensing agreement or a software development agreement. These are source code and object code. Nevertheless, before elucidating those concepts of source code and object code, it would make sense to first clarify what software is. Like many…Продължи да четеш

Main types of IT agreements

In this first installment of Tips on Tech Contracts we will focus our attention on some of the most common types of information technology agreements – software licenses and IPR assignments, cloud agreements, professional services and managed services agreements and hardware agreements. Software licensing agreements and IPR assignments At the core of each software…Продължи да четеш

Google v Oracle and the copyrightability of APIs

On 5th of April 2021 the US Supreme Court handed down its decision on the decade long legal battle between Oracle and Google regarding the copying of code from the Java API. This article will present a summary of the case as well as an analysis of its outcome and some additional thoughts on the copyrightability…Продължи да четеш

A clash of liability in contract and tort in an IPR environment: Case analysis C-666/18 – IT Development SAS v Free Mobile SAS

Back in 2019 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, the Court) was faced with a request for a preliminary ruling from the Paris Court of Appeal related to a dispute that arose from an alleged breach of a software licensing agreement. The case (C‑666/18) that was ultimately decided by the CJEU by…Продължи да четеш