Patents in Open Source: the important parts of real cases
I know that software patents and licenses are a murky field, but I was wondering if anyone knows of any licenses or ideas that fit a situation I am in. I can&#x27;t go into much detail but this is a general description of my situation:<p>I am working on a startup idea that has a component that I would like to &#x27;defend&#x27;. I am trying to improve a process for developers and I think this new component is a big piece of solving the problem. The component is a unique&#x2F;new part of a pipeline, but there are already established companies working on pipelines to solve the same problem. This component executes on the client side, so it can not be kept as a secret process that happens server side. I know that once it is viewed by competitors, they could reimplement the idea without directly using the &#x27;source code&#x27; and add it to their pipeline&#x2F;product. I want to be able to distribute my project to potential users and allow them to use it freely while also preventing competitors from copying the ideas into their own products.<p>I know that patents were originally created to incentivize innovation by preventing established competitors from simply copying ideas&#x2F;processes from new competitors, and I feel that I am in that situation.<p>One idea I had is to separate the unique component into its own library then give my own project the right to license&#x2F;distribute the library, but I do not know if there are any off the shelf licenses that support that.