Digital Rights Network - Intellectual Property

UKPO: Consultation on the Patent Office strategy for supporting innovation

Mon, 12 Jun 2006 12:23:31 +0100

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.

Apple Vs Apple: Beatles lose in the UK

Mon, 08 May 2006 12:10:09 +0100

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.

WHO report on 'Public health, innovation and intellectual property rights'

Thu, 27 Apr 2006 13:33:52 +0100

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.

UK Podcasting license launched

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 15:37:15 +0100

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 at TACD conference on The Politics and Ideology of Intellectual Property

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 15:58:50 +0000

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.

----

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.

Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee Enquiry on New Media and Creative Industries

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 20:17:19 +0000

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.

Commission Releases Study on Effect of Sui Generis Database Right

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 09:16:38 +0000

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).

Summary of WIPO SCCR Meeting November 2005: Broadcast Treaty + Limitations and Exceptions

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 20:44:27 +0000

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!).

Dons clash with Cambridge over intellectual rights

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 11:39:21 +0000

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.

Story Line Patent Published

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 11:56:27 +0000

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.

RSA Adelphi Charter on Innovation, Creativity and Intellectual Property Launched

Sat, 15 Oct 2005 14:13:36 +0100

On thursday the RSA's Adelphi Charter on on Innovation, Creativity and Intellectual Property was launched. It is available here and it's clear the commission's members put a lot of effort in keeping it to a side of A4. The charter is explicitly targeted at policy-makers with the statement: We call upon governments and the international community to adopt these principles and while, according to Jamie Boyle, its aim was to be banal, to just state the obvous its principles still pack a punch, in particular the longest, number nine which states:

Creative Economy Conference Finishes

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:42:00 +0100

The pan-European Creative Economy conference took place last week in London under the auspices of the UK's presidency of the EU. It was certainly tough to get a place there (I applied and was 'put on the waiting list') but fortunately some non-rights-holder groups did get a look in -- though it appears they were still heavily outnumbered. As a consequence we are fortunate enough to have two thorough summaries which have been posted up in the original Creative Economy thread here: http://drn.okfn.org/node/37. (Ms Gibson's summary contains some very interesting information on the database directive).

From these reports it appears that, sadly, the government continues to listen to only one side of the debate in these matters. This is bad not only for consumers but for creation and innovation in the UK (and EU) economy (creativity and innovation to flourish depend, not on protectionism, but on diversity and competition). Nevertheless it is a promising sign that people such as Ms Childs, Ms Gibson (and I believe Creative Commons) were able to attend -- even a couple of years ago it is doubtful whether such a conference would have contained anyone except the rights-holders.

Defending BitTorrent from the Content Industry

Mon, 12 Sep 2005 12:12:23 +0100

The American content industry is feeling a bit chipper at the moment. With the recent judgements of Grokster and Kazaa having gone, to a significant extent, their way the MPAA and RIAA clearly hope that the demon spectre of unpaid file sharing can be brought under control, if not exactly *their* control. The Grokster case laid a potential for liability on a technology innovators. The Kazaa judgement in turn mandated that judicially enforceable anti-infringment technology be incorporated into Kazaa. They will hope that this sets a trend for any technology with a potential for infringement. Perhaps all these will, in time, become well controlled distribution channels, forcing consumers to pay their monopoly prices for a diet of the usual high quality boy bands and highly original Hollywood plots with Tom Cruise.

UK Consultation on IP Enforcement Directive Implementation

Tue, 26 Jul 2005 13:02:31 +0100

Link:
*****

http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/enforce05/

Deadline:
*********

2005-10-07

Who:
****

The consultations are open so anyone can respond.

Annex E lists those orgs formally sent a consultation document.

How To Respond
**************

Please send responses by Friday 7 October 2005 to:

Jeff Watson
Intellectual Property & Innovation Directorate
The Patent Office
Concept House
Cardiff Road
Newport

How 18th Century Booksellers Stifled Culture

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 14:18:42 +0100

The London Review of Books (2005-01-20) carries an interesting review of The Reading Nation in the Romantic Period by William St Clair. It contains lots of great material on the damaging activities of the London booksellers in the 18th century. Again and again it shows how copyright or similar property rights are used for anti-competitive purposes, raising prices, restricting access and narrowing culture. Why did Shakespeare disappear from most venues in which it could be read by the mass of the people? Because one publisher managed to buy up all the rights and only wanted to produce an expensive folio:

Until the 1620s, property rights in Shakespeare's plays were distributed among a number of printers. Consequently, the plays could be bought individually and cheaply and were widely read. But the prospective publishers of the First Folio bought up most of those rights, with the result that from 1623 nearly all the plays could be bought only in one large expensive volume. The effect of this, St Clair writes, was to bring Shakespeare 'in from the playhouses, the law courts and the country fairs to the hall and the library . . . The book which celebrated and monumentalised Shakespeare as a great English author simultaneously removed him from most of the nation's readers.' What happened to Shakespeare happened on a smaller scale to most writers.

The assertion by publishers of their intellectual rights not only prevented the production of reasonably priced books which could be afforded by much of the reading population, it also stopped the publication of anthologies, abridgments, adaptations and books of quotations. For 150 years after 1623, only one Shakespeare anthology, that of Dr Dodd in 1752, was permitted. ...