The SaaS Tacks – The Ins and Outs of Negotiating SaaS Contracts
Software Escrow: An enterprise resiliency tool every legal department should have in their toolbox (with Don Dennis Jr.)
In the rapidly evolving world of software licensing and distribution, many vendors (and therefore customers) are considering a shift from traditional customer-hosted software solutions to Software as a Service (SaaS)...more
Reliability, security, and legal compliance. These are assurances that customers purchasing technology products expect from their providers, and which are often required as part of the contracts for such products. AI...more
Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Federal Circuit) held that a software licensor may proceed with its claim that the Federal Government breached its software end user license agreement...more
Partners Matt Pearson and Craig Carpenter discuss the reasons behind the urgency of SaaS contract planning and the creative ways service customers can use the terms and agreements to their advantage. Questions & Comments:...more
The development and implementation of AI-powered tools, including in SaaS platforms, have experienced a meteoric rise over the course of the last year. Businesses are understandably looking to realize competitive advantages...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently submitted a comment to the U.S. Copyright Office in response to its “Notice of Inquiry” in the Federal Register examining copyright issues related to artificial intelligence (AI)....more
If a company contracts to acquire software which it then licenses to a third party as a component of a lucrative service package, did it “sell” the software? In Value Health Solutions, Inc. v. Pharmaceutical Research...more
Companies (including through the use of AI) are increasingly reliant on open source software to expedite their software development. A recent case filed in California, SFC v. Vizio, calls upon the state court to interpret two...more
The use, distribution, and licensing of software and technology are commonly governed by legal terms both to protect the software or technology owner intellectual property (IP) rights and to allow another permission to use or...more
Software providers, asset managers, and licensees can consider various strategies to help assess risk and effectively negotiate software license compliance disputes. Software is the heartbeat of every industry. Rapid changes...more
Recently filed litigation against Microsoft Corporation, GitHub, Inc., and various OpenAI entities ("Defendants") highlights new challenges that generative artificial intelligence ("AI") presents and risks associated with...more
Introduction - This blog will discuss some of the important aspects of an Autodesk audit when your company receives what we refer to as the “love letter” demanding that a company submit to their software audit request, and...more
Bungie, a video game company that created the “Halo” and “Destiny” game series, has been awarded $4.3 million in damages in an arbitration against a creator of cheat software....more
As society moves away from the use of on-premises software into a modern world in which software vendors offer software and services through online, hosted environments, new challenges and trends related to data use and...more
Addressing personal jurisdiction and forum non conveniens in a software licensing dispute, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld a district court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction over a Dutch entity and the...more
Are you using any IBM software in your organization? IBM released the latest Version (11) of its International Passport Advantage Agreement (IPAA)/ International Passport Advantage Express Agreement (IPAEA) last week. The...more
With technology deals increasingly involving open source software (OSS), clients are seeking our help analyzing OSS licenses, developing open source policies and negotiating contract terms for open source. In this episode,...more
This blog will tell you about some of the basics companies should know when faced with a licensing compliance audit. 1. Here is their audit clause 21.5 Compliance - Autodesk has the right to verify the installation of,...more
A widely used method of software protection is through trade secret law under the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) (18 U.S.C. §§ 1831-1839), which was enacted in 1996 and significantly amended on May 11, 2016, by the Defend Trade...more
As we discussed in Part 1 of this blog series, many SaaS providers are seizing opportunities to expand their offerings and become a go-to marketplace or network, but their original contract terms and procedures often don’t...more
The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court ruling denying a defendant’s motion to enforce an arbitration clause in a software license agreement that the defendant’s employee entered into using a...more
In most merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions, the pace of the transaction, focus on the operational and financial performance of the target, and the competition created by multiple potential buyers make it a challenge to...more
Software companies selling indirectly to the Federal Government finally received an answer to a question that has lingered for years – can a software company going to market through a reseller bring a direct claim under the...more
Software-focused transactions, involving an increasingly diverse range of participants, are now dominating the technology M&A market....more