A new organization called the "Software Freedom Law Center"
was announced yesterday; that seems like it may be one of
the best places open-source groups could go for questions
like this ARC pending patent.
Eben Moglen (The FSF's main lawyer and Columbia Law prof),
Diane Peters (OSDL's general counsel), and Lawrence
Lesseg (Stanford law prof behind Creative Commons) are
behind this organization; so it seems to have pretty
good credentials.
http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-5557962.html
"The center said in a statement that it will employ two
full-time intellectual property attorneys, who will help
provide consulting services to nonprofit open-source
organizations. The staff count is expected to expand to
four later in 2005. The help they provide could include
training lawyers, supporting litigation, dealing with
licensing problems and keeping managing contributions
to open-source projects, the center said. "