Jef's web files - Intellectual property

Intellectual property

Sun, 01 Feb 2004 11:05:38 -0500

Intellectual property

How to protect and reward development while not locking up valuable technology or preventing development of technology that isn't patentable.

Plan by 13 Nations Urges Open Technology Standards

Fri, 09 Sep 2005 08:52:14 -0400

In a report to be presented at the World Bank today, a group that includes senior government officials from 13 countries will urge nations to adopt open-information technology standards as a vital step to accelerate economic growth, efficiency and innovation.

The 33-page report is a road map for creating national policies on open technology standards, and comes at a time when several countries - and some state governments - are pursuing plans to reduce their dependence on proprietary software makers, notably Microsoft, by using more free, open-source software.

The project, begun by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School, gathered government officials from China, India, Thailand, Denmark, Jordan, Brazil and elsewhere at a three-day meeting in Silicon Valley in February to discuss technology standards and economic development. The meeting was followed by e-mail exchanges, conference calls and postings on a shared Web site.

The group defines an open standard as technology that is not owned by a single company and is openly published. Still, there is a huge debate in industry and among policy makers about how far openness should go.

The report makes clear that government policy should "mandate technology choice, not software development models."

It also points out that open technology standards - the digital equivalent of a common gauge for railroad tracks - are not the same thing as open-source software. Open source is a development model for software in which code is freely shared and improved by a cooperative network of programmers.

I.B.M. Hopes to Profit by Making Patents Available Free

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:30:02 -0400

I.B.M. is renowned for its rich storehouse of patented inventions. It once again led the research sweepstakes in America last year, collecting 3,248 patents, more than any other company. And it earned more than $1 billion last year from licensing and selling its ideas.

So why has I.B.M. shifted course recently, giving away some of the fruits of its research instead of charging others to use it? The answer is self-interest.

Diverging from conventional wisdom, the company has calculated that sharing technology can sometimes be more profitable than jealously guarding its property rights on patents, copyrights and trade secrets. The moves by I.B.M., the world's largest supplier of information technology services and computers, are being closely watched throughout the business world.

Google Is Adding Major Libraries to Its Database

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 08:25:32 -0500

Google, the operator of the world's most popular Internet search service, plans to announce an agreement today with some of the nation's leading research libraries and Oxford University to begin converting their holdings into digital files that would be freely searchable over the Web.

It may be only a step on a long road toward the long-predicted global virtual library. But the collaboration of Google and research institutions that also include Harvard, the University of Michigan, Stanford and the New York Public Library is a major stride in an ambitious Internet effort by various parties. The goal is to expand the Web beyond its current valuable, if eclectic, body of material and create a digital card catalog and searchable library for the world's books, scholarly papers and special collections.

Legislation advances to speed patents

Mon, 15 Mar 2004 23:33:59 -0500

House passage of the Patent and Trademark Fee Modernization Act, which would prevent Congress from siphoning off patent application fees to the general fund, gave industry an opportunity last week to vent its frustrations with the patent process and weigh in on how the bill might improve it.

The legislation would keep patent office revenue in-house and thus could expedite the patent-application process, which grows lengthier and more costly as technology gets more complex, sources said.

John C. Wright on intellectual property and morality

Wed, 14 Jan 2004 14:46:45 -0500

Exerpt:

"It is supposed to be a Golden Age after all, the society mankind will enjoy if ever man becomes sane and mature: no doubt they have laws and institutions similar to ours, which they keep as a last resort, should all else fail, the way a wise man packs a first-aid kit before he goes camping. But our society is like a man who is in constant ill health, constantly in the hospital emergency room. To us, the medicine we need to prevent the body politic from dissolving into anarchy is something we must endure every hour of every day. A healthy society, such as only might exist in a future whose moral standard is higher than our own, such distempers would be rare. Men might be wise enough to be glad to avoid even the appearance of pirating another man's ideas, rather than trying to edge as close to the minimum limit as the law allows. Since they life forever, and will never escape each other's censure, never forget a wrong, it would behoove them to settle all difference privately, and before they become inflamed."

The following is an exchange between John C Wright and Rafal Smigrodzki regarding intellectual property laws in the Golden Oecumene and some comments on future standards of morality:

Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books

Mon, 21 Jul 2003 09:22:31 -0400

Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction, according to several publishing executives involved.

Amazon plans to limit how much of any given book a user can read, and it is telling publishers that the plan will help sell more books while better serving its own online customers.

US Patent & Trademark Office

Mon, 05 Apr 2004 21:28:55 -0400

US Patent & Trademark Office search.