In the previous few years, interactions between software licensors and licensees have become even more contentious. The proliferation of third parties that provide support to either party to the license has only increased the complexity and frequency of a dispute. For instance, a licensor now must worry about whether the third-party ostensibly providing support to the licensee is infringing the software copyrights, assisting the licensee in breaching the confidentially provisions, or misappropriating the intellectual property that only the licensee has the right to utilize.
Often times, parties to the license are in and of themselves competitors in a relevant market, thereby adding an additional incentive to take actions that could thereafter beget litigation. Unsurprisingly, then, a scan of issued decisions in a myriad of jurisdictions yields a surfeit of recent software license imbroglios.
