---
title: "Patent rights and opensource: can they co-exist?"
url: https://infosecurity.ch/20100627/patent-rights-and-opensource-can-they-co-exist/
date: 2010-06-27
author: Fabio Pietrosanti (naif)
language: en
---

# Patent rights and opensource: can they co-exist?

How many of you had to deal with patented technologies?

How many of the patented technologies you dealed with was also “secrets” in their implementation?

Well, there’s a set of technologies whose implementation is open source (**copyright)** but that are patented (**intellectual property right)**.

A very nice paper about the topic opensource & patents that i suggest to read is from Fenwick & West and can be downloaded [here (pdf)](http://www.fenwick.com/docstore/Publications/IP/Patent_Rights.pdf).