Software IP Audit eyes code throughout projects



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March 16, 2009 —  Protecode is taking the manage-code-during-software perspective when it comes to intellectual property (IP) management.

The Ottawa-based company has placed its focus on preventive IP management, according to Mahshad Koohgoli, CEO of Protecode. Its preventive method offers intelligence on the desktop while the developer is in the midst of his or her project.

“The real value of this is that, these days, good developers don’t write code,” claimed Koohgoli. “These days, good developers are very resourceful and know where to get code. While that’s wonderful, it inherently has risks associated with bringing code in, and if you can manage that risk in a controlled fashion, you can really take the benefit of all this vast amount of code that’s available publicly.”

Laurent Lachal, an open-source research director with Ovum, said that doing preventive work is better than looking at code after a software project is complete because IP management is mature and complex.

“The issue with IP management and code management in general is an issue of culture and process, more than software,” Lachal said. “It’s about having the right processes and the right culture in place. Overall, it's about managing open-source code more tightly from a development point of view.”

Software IP Audit, released on March 10, analyzes software code for IP due diligence. It identifies licensing and copyright attributes of open-source and third-party content in an organization’s software assets, according to Protecode. It is offered with the company’s software IP analysis product, Enterprise IP Analyzer.

“Typically, software developers, when they’re working on a project, need to be aware of the obligation associated with the code that they bring in,” said Koohgoli. “Open source is not free. It is always governed by the terms of a license, and those terms are too difficult to interpret for developer or their managers. Our solutions take away the pain of having to interpret the terms of the license and determine if it fits with the business.”

Protecode gathers information from internal counsels, IP law firms and investment banks to provide analysis of software analysis code. Koohgoli said that Software IP Audit captures IP policies and automatically determines if those policies are violated. For instance, if an open-source application doesn’t have an approved license, the software notifies the developer of that application. Software IP Audit creates records of applications and code brought in and checks those records against an organization’s policies.

The IP protection market already has solutions from Black Duck Software and Palamida.




Related Search Term(s): IP management, Protecode


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