Digital Rights Network

deadline: 2006-08-21
email: innovation@patent.gov.uk
url: http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/support/

From the UKPO Site

Introduction

1. The Patent Office has been considering how it can deploy its considerable knowledge, resources and expertise to support innovation in the UK beyond our existing support activities and core statutory functions of granting IP rights, serving as a tribunal and providing advice on IP policy to Ministers. To this end, we have prepared a strategy for supporting innovation which is the subject of this consultation. Annex 1, describes how the Office intends contributing to the Government’s innovation support agenda by building on its existing support activities and pursuing new initiatives.

The UK high court has ruled that Apple Computers was not guilty of breaking a 1991 agreement with Apple Corps - the company owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison - who had argued that the iTunes music store was in breach of its terms.

In making his ruling the judge said that the apple logo was only used in association with the company's online shop, and not with the music itself, and therefore dismissed the case brought by the Beatles' label.

More details at the Guardian here.

Report is available at http://www.who.int/intellectualproperty/documents/thereport/en/index.html

The following is the summary of the report provided by the WHO as part of their FAQ

6. What does the report say?

Intellectual property rights are a general incentive provided by governments to promote innovation in all fields. In respect of public health, they are embedded in a set of other incentives which influence the pattern of innovation. They need to be looked at as part of a bigger picture.

In case you missed it the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Rights Society recently launched a podcast licensing scheme.

Among its conditions the license requires podcasts to:

...obscure at least 10 seconds at the beginning and end of each individual track played in a podcast with speech or a station ID.

...not play any individual track more than once in any single programme.

...not provide an electronic guide to the podcast which contains tracks played and corresponding times.

...ensure that the podcast is at least 15 minutes in length.

Speech delivered as Director of FFII-UK at the TACD conference on The Politics and Ideology of Intellectual Property, taking place in Brussels today and tomorrow.

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I always prefer discussion and questions so I'm going to keep my formal presentation very short. In keeping it short I'm also going to restrict myself to telling you one, well maybe, two things.

The first is that, at present, when it comes to intellectual property there are **no** political parties. That is there are no, or very few, discernible ideological differences between political grouping on intellectual property (and on innovation policy in general). If you look at other areas: labour law, monetary policy, etc you will see clear differences between political parties. In advance you can predict with a fair degree of confidence which way a party or grouping will go. But when it comes to intellectual property that really isn't the case.

Deadline for Submissions: Extended to 28th of February (was: Thursday 19 January 2006)

CULTURE MEDIA AND SPORT COMMITTEE
16 November 2005 No. 11

New inquiry: New media and the creative industries
The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is announcing today a new inquiry into the challenges and opportunities for the creative industries arising from the development of new media platforms. For the purposes of the inquiry, the term "creative industries" includes music, visual broadcasts, sound broadcasts, film, graphic art, design, advertising, fashion and games software.

Another item from December that has only just come on the radar is the Commission's release of its long-awaited study on the effect of the database right (see here).

Empirical evaluation consisted of simply counting the number of databases before (1998) and after (2004) the directive and comparing it with the US. This has obvious problems -- for example the merging of two database doesn't necessarily imply a reduction in the industry -- but is better than nothing and, given the data constraints, may be the best one could do.

Using this approach it was found that the introduction of this extra monopoly right had almost no effect (3092 dbs in 1998 and 3095 in 2004 with a high point of 4085 in 2001).

Just back from the WIPO SCCR (Standing Committe on Copyright and Related Rigths) meeting. Full transcript on EFF site.

Interesting first day on limitations and exceptions. Had good presentations from Teresa Hacket on Learning with Libraries and Copyright Issues and Professor Julien Hofman of Commonwealth on Learning on Education, Copyright and Development. They both emphasized problems, particularly for distance learning with the current system. It was also great to see Creative Commons on the podium for the first time with a presentation by Mia Garlick as well as an excellent presentation by Mr Velterop of Springer on Open Access (unsurprisingly there were apparently complaints about this -- just talking about alternative licensing systems is undermining the sacred status of traditional copyright!).

The Guardian reports that Cambridge University is bracing itself for a battle over the right of its academics to own their inventions, in what is being seen by some as a test of the leadership of vice-chancellor Alison Richards. The university is planning to reform the 'ancient' system of intellectual property rights, which it says will clarify who owns researchers' inventions. The plan involves controversial stipulations which mean the university would play a part in every application for a patent.

Ross Anderson, a computing professor and a key figure in the academics' Campaign for Cambridge Freedoms, which is opposing the changes, said he objected to a rule which could allow the university to bind academics to doing research on behalf of external sponsors without their agreement.

Groklaw is reporting on a US patent application for a storyline and plot. Read for yourself:

Process of relaying a story having a unique plot
Abstract

A process of relaying a story having a timeline and a unique plot involving characters comprises: indicating a character's desire at a first time in the timeline for at least one of the following: a) to remain asleep or unconscious until a particular event occurs; and b) to forget or be substantially unable to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time until a particular event occurs; indicating the character's substantial inability at a time after the occurrence of the particular event to recall substantially all events during the time period from the first time to the occurrence of the particular event; and indicating that during the time period the character was an active participant in a plurality of events.