The patent-aware software life cyle

In Figure 3, we sketch a Patent-aware Software Life Cycle in which an extra sub-phase is added that performs patent validation. This generates immediately many unsolved questions. For each phase one may wonder:

• Is it possible to infringe patents in this phase?
• If so, how can one find such infringements?
• How can such infringements be resolved?

The Patent-aware Software Life Cycle is a defensive step that any commercial or open source software development process should adopt. Clearly the costs for software development will increase significantly.