Black Duck Software says that, while in-house legal teams and
software developers are being held accountable for their company's
software intellectual property, many find that they're trying to
solve IP issues at the end of the development process.
The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company observes that decisions
made at this point, under the pressure of a product shipment
deadline, may not be based on the best information.
So it has launched a service called protexIP/license management.
According to Black Duck, it incorporates legal teams into the
entire software development process, providing timely resolution of
licensing issues as they arise. By identifying, tracking, and
resolving these issues early, companies can avoid delays, costly
source code reviews, or potential legal problems.
"As open source and third party components proliferate and
become nested in increasingly complex applications, the challenge
of assuring compliance with licensing obligations becomes
overwhelming without a comprehensive compliance platform," said
Karen Copenhaver, Black Duck's executive vice president and general
counsel. "protexIP/license management empowers the lawyer's
oversight of the development process, from helping define and
implement open source policy to approval of software release."
Lawyers interact with protexIP/license management using Black
Duck's web console. They translate their company's software
licenses into a set of license attributes. Once entered, lawyers
and developers can be immediately informed of potential conflicts
with business policies, and of issues relating to license
compliance.
