Both intellectual property and other litigators need to know about a formerly radical, but now increasingly mainstream, method of innovation. A litigator’s assumptions, clients, adverse parties, workload, skills and even personal income may be affected by the open-source movement.
Both the operating infrastructure and product development techniques of the global landscape have changed in recent years. No-fee, nontraditional software has been incorporated into most businesses and government and runs much of the Web. And the Internet-enabled, dispersed method of both corporate employees and unknown volunteers collaborating to design and develop new products, tools, components, and services is expanding beyond the realm of software. Open-source processes and strategies are now advocated and deployed in consumer goods, publishing (e.g., Wikipedia), biotechnology, academic research and other fields.
