From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Dec 20 15:23:38 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from chmls05.mediaone.net (ne.mediaone.net [24.128.1.70]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC07E21BB0 for ; Mon, 20 Dec 1999 15:23:33 -0500 (EST) Received: from mediaone.net (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.218.236.242]) by chmls05.mediaone.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id PAA13558 for ; Mon, 20 Dec 1999 15:23:25 -0500 (EST) Sender: root@chmls05.mediaone.net Message-ID: <385E91EB.42EB542B@mediaone.net> Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 15:30:35 -0500 From: Eric Eldred Reply-To: eldred@mediaone.net Organization: Eldritch Press X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.36 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] contracts (was: Re: copyleft Richard Stallman wrote: > > I agree that the GPL differs from a normal shrinkwrap > license... But I also believe that it suffers from > the faults of other shrinkwrap licenses in that it is > > Please do not keep describing the GPL as a kind of shrinkwrap license. > It isn't true, and insisting on it makes it hard for me to have a > civil conversation with you. i'll stop now. i was only discussing the very point as to whether or not it was a shrinkwrap license. i agree that it is purely academic as to whether it is called that or not. and whether or not the GPL is a contract. there are good reasons, which i agree with, to encourage the GPL and not to try to undermine it, by putting it in the same category as those obnoxious software shrinkwrap licenses that attempt to control what you can do with the product you bought. talking about "shrinkwrap" licenses does put the focus on accepting the initial transaction, while the GPL doesn't come in until later, when the product is copied or reused. now that we've put that aside, let's continue the civil conversation. i wish to discuss two points here a. i would like to strengthen the PUBLIC DOMAIN. the GPL attempts to encourage FREEDOM of software. these are not exactly the same. for example, i agree with the FSF and LPF that no patents should be allowed on software. on the other hand, some are now saying that the FSF should take out preventative patents on software, in the same way as copyrighting software, in order to prevent the works from being propertized and made unfree. i think more discussion needs to be done here to see if there is not some way of setting up forms of registration to establish prior art and publication, and keep the works in the PUBLIC DOMAIN instead of being controlled by copyright or patent, even if the owners of this intellectual property have very good intentions. b. i would like to limit the control of CONTRACTS over the digital domain. i don't think they work well, because they generally favor the large corporations and work against the interests of consumers. instead, i would like to see the limits put back into intellectual property LAW, to reduce COPYRIGHT TERM to reasonable lengths, to require deposit of source code, and to preserve the role of rewarding creativity and innovation, instead of preserving corporate or individual profits on selling private property. i don't know if there is any way to reverse the downward slide of intellectual property law, but maybe we can try. in discussing these points, i would like to see some attention placed on digital media in general, instead of just software or music. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Dec 21 16:11:58 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from odie.av8.com (odie.av8.com [198.3.136.141]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7ED1321B15 for ; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 16:11:58 -0500 (EST) Received: from daanders.gte.com (h132-197-205-147.gte.com [132.197.205.147]) by odie.av8.com (8.9.3/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA26320; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 16:07:40 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19991221160210.010836d4@odie.av8.com> X-Sender: dean@odie.av8.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 16:06:20 -0500 To: eldred@mediaone.net, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org From: Dean Anderson Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] contracts (was: Re: copyleft Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Around 03:30 PM 12/20/1999 -0500, rumor has it that Eric Eldred said: >a. i would like to strengthen the PUBLIC DOMAIN. the >GPL attempts to encourage FREEDOM of software. these are >not exactly the same. for example, i agree with the FSF >and LPF that no patents should be allowed on software. >on the other hand, some are now saying that the FSF >should take out preventative patents on software, in the >same way as copyrighting software, in order to prevent >the works from being propertized and made unfree. i think >more discussion needs to be done here to see if there is >not some way of setting up forms of registration to >establish prior art and publication, and keep the works >in the PUBLIC DOMAIN instead of being controlled by >copyright or patent, even if the owners of this intellectual >property have very good intentions. I agree that putting up forms for the registration of prior art is worthwhile. I think this can be done by the LPF. BTW, I'd like to say that in consideration of the current patent law, I have to also recommend that the FSF (and everyone else) take out patents if they have something patentable The mission of the LPF is to promote changing the law. It should not encourage a course of conduct which under the current law is harmful to the programmers and companies who take our advice. One cannot improve the situation by ignoring patenting and the current state of the patent law. The mission of the LPF is partly to raise awareness that software patents are a lose-lose situation. But it should not give bad advice--One cannot ignore the current laws, which strongly encourage one to patent anything that is patentable. Not getting patents under the current law causes one to lose more that one would with patents, since foregoing patents cripples ones negotiating position when others obtain related patents. The LPF cannot deny that reality. The only way to change that reality is to change the patent law. Foregoing patents does not make the situation any better. It just weakens the position of the person or company that didn't obtain a patent when they had the opportunity. >b. i would like to limit the control of CONTRACTS over >the digital domain. i don't think they work well, because >they generally favor the large corporations and work against >the interests of consumers. instead, i would like to >see the limits put back into intellectual property LAW, >to reduce COPYRIGHT TERM to reasonable lengths, to require >deposit of source code, and to preserve the role of >rewarding creativity and innovation, instead of preserving >corporate or individual profits on selling private property. >i don't know if there is any way to reverse the downward >slide of intellectual property law, but maybe we can try. I agree completely. I think that corporations can still profit on private property if these limits are put in place. How much profit does a company obtain on a software program 50 years after it was written? I think that the original company will not be able to profit at all, and the technology and history of the program will be lost forever. As a very good example, I point you at the "Lions book" on Unix version 6 source code. Originally published without consent, and withdrawn due to copyright issues, it has been republished recently with the consent of the Unix copyright holder. Mostly, it just has historical significance now. Had it been widely published at the time, Unix development would have undoubted increased, and improved. Perhaps the internet boom would have occurred sooner. Aside from speculation on its impact, there is no denying the more concrete notion of its place in history. If we had to wait until the copyright term on Version 6 expired in 35 years, its commentary, and the Unix Version 6 kernel source would very likely be lost to history altogether. --Dean ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Plain Aviation, Inc dean@av8.com LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP http://www.av8.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Dec 21 16:59:55 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D856121BB8 for ; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 16:59:54 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA20975; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 14:59:54 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id OAA05200; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 14:59:54 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 14:59:54 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199912212159.OAA05200@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: eldred@mediaone.net Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <385E91EB.42EB542B@mediaone.net> (message from Eric Eldred on Mon, 20 Dec 1999 15:30:35 -0500) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] contracts (was: Re: copyleft Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <385E91EB.42EB542B@mediaone.net> i think more discussion needs to be done here to see if there is not some way of setting up forms of registration to establish prior art and publication, People often suggest trying to solve the problem of software patents by helping the PTO know about prior art. It is not a solution, though. 1. Other aspects of the patent system function badly, so just providing them with more complete input won't result in "correct" output. For example, the system has a very low threshold for what sort of change from an old idea is needed to make some new patentable idea. So even if you tell the PTO about one idea as prior art, something else a little bit different would remain patentable. 2. The PTO basically wants to issue patents. If you do send them an example to record as prior art, they will use it primarily to help patent applicants gerrymander their patents to avoid your prior art (while still covering whatever people really want to do today). 3. It is not easy to recognize that the obvious thought you just had is worth sending to the PTO to register as prior art. This is an unnatural thing to do--and it would take a lot of work away from whatever other thing you are trying to accomplish. Practically speaking, programmers cannot really use this system. 4. Even if the patent system did a good job of carrying out its own rules, that would only solve the problem of the absurd patents. All the other software patents would do the same harm that they do now. Some software patents do cover real inventions, such as the public key encryption patents, and they have done tremendous harm. Many other software patents cover complex and specialized techniques that I would not call obvious. These are equally harmful, regardless of whether the patent holder was the first or the fifth to think of the technique. As it happens, the PTO has had such a registration system since the 1980s. The problem persists anyway. A lawyer told me that the best strategy was to keep the prior art away from patent applicants, so that they cannot gerrymander the patents. He said that if the PTO considered a given piece of prior art when it issued the patent, a court will regard that prior art as irrelevant, on the supposition that the PTO exercises good judgment. So you need to show the court prior art that the PTO did not know about. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Dec 21 18:41:55 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from odie.av8.com (odie.av8.com [198.3.136.141]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2C3C121C8A for ; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 18:41:55 -0500 (EST) Received: from daanders.gte.com (h132-197-205-147.gte.com [132.197.205.147]) by odie.av8.com (8.9.3/8.8.5) with SMTP id SAA05280; Tue, 21 Dec 1999 18:37:45 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <3.0.32.19991221183509.0070a74c@odie.av8.com> X-Sender: dean@odie.av8.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0 (32) Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1999 18:36:22 -0500 To: rms@gnu.org, eldred@mediaone.net From: Dean Anderson Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] contracts (was: Re: copyleft Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Around 02:59 PM 12/21/1999 -0700, rumor has it that Richard Stallman said: Certainly prior art registration is not a solution. But it is a service useful to those being threatened with patents. >A lawyer told me that the best strategy was to keep the prior art away >from patent applicants, so that they cannot gerrymander the patents. Yes. I've been part of groups that have had the corporate patent lawyers decend on them. When "helpful" engineers offered to do research on prior art, the lawyer told them not to do that. Knowing about prior just puts the patenter in a bad position. The lawyer in not so specific terms recommended that engineers wear blinders. The lawyer's advice was basically if you are inventing anything, don't learn anything about other inventions. It should be novel as far as you know, and you don't want to be in the position to say "I knew about that but didn't think it relevant". The lawyer wants one to be able to say "I didn't know about that at the time, and my opinion now is that it isn't relevant." >He said that if the PTO considered a given piece of prior art when it >issued the patent, a court will regard that prior art as irrelevant, >on the supposition that the PTO exercises good judgment. So you need >to show the court prior art that the PTO did not know about. We seem to be going through the looking glass though, in trying to make the PTO ignorant of prior art. But let me put this to all the smart people out there: To resolve the patent problem, we need a means of giving venture capitalists some enforceable assurances that the technology they are investing in will not be exploited by someone else who just reaps the benefits of their risk taking and creativity of the people whose research they fund. Almost everyone (including venture capitalists) is beginning now to agree that patents are bad. But they have no good alternatives. Simply abolishing the system is not practical for them, which is important to us because they have much of the political clout to change or resist change to the patent system. Perhaps if the patent system were changed from a fixed 21 year duration to include a timeline of exploitation, and perhaps a timeline of the development of the invention. Then a patent duration is calculated on a per patent basis to give the inventor the right of "first exploitation" which is suitably limited to give others the right to exploit the invention while it is still useful. I can see numerous problems and lots of potential for corruption in such a system. But... --Dean ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Plain Aviation, Inc dean@av8.com LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP http://www.av8.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Dec 20 21:08:00 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from chmls05.mediaone.net (ne.mediaone.net [24.128.1.70]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4830221B27 for ; Mon, 20 Dec 1999 21:07:58 -0500 (EST) Received: from mediaone.net (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.218.236.242]) by chmls05.mediaone.net (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id VAA04246; Mon, 20 Dec 1999 21:07:48 -0500 (EST) Sender: root@chmls05.mediaone.net Message-ID: <385EE2A5.87FA7411@mediaone.net> Date: Mon, 20 Dec 1999 21:15:01 -0500 From: Eric Eldred Reply-To: EricEldred@hushmail.com Organization: Eldritch Press X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.36 i586) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Geoffrey Dutton Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] contracts (was: Re: copyleft References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Geoffrey Dutton wrote: > >The main exceptions > are residential real estate, personal possessions, and ideas. well ideas are just what might be next. copyright (in the u.s. at least) is supposed to protect not the ideas but new creative expressions of ideas. but if the laws keep getting changed to protect certain corporations as for example database compilers then even ideas might not be our own. > The issue I originally raised that started this thread was the spectre of > software companies starting to claim ownership of expressions of ideas > that were in part realized by software tools (including ones now only > hypothesized). thanks for getting us back on track here. at first i replied it would be easy for corporations to achieve this end by means of SOAP or other "transclusions" of software over the internet. >As I said then, I'm not adverse to sharing "credit" > with tools I use, but before corporations start to benefit from my work, > I want a choice: either to assign specific works to the public domain or > to share *equitably* all copyright revenues. If I include another author's > work in mine, s/he should get proportional credit and renumeration. That > is the esence of the Nelsonian vision; it seems fair, and awaits only > implementation of a metering scheme that's easy to execute and puts > individuals on an equal footing with corporations. Is that too much to > expect? Can't governments establish the ground rules and guarantee the > fairness of the process? but now i'm not so sure about it, especially after hearing from rms. although patents on ideas might be enforceable if one uses them in another software process, i'm not so sure that simply using software objects over the internet implies much or any change to our copyright laws. just because they are used doesn't imply anything about copyright; it would only be if they were reused in some other way to produce other software, and one must assume that if they are to be used at all in the first place that the licensing would allow at least use, and maybe some easy-to-use scheme to pay for use. in the case of web pages, we don't really 'transclude' objects in the way that nelson proposed, and then pay so much for metering. we simply link to them (although there are now questions about the legality of linking and deep linking that we have to work out). but software objects over the net might differ. so the practical questions of using software objects over the internet might be rather that of appropriate licensing. and government might consider "appropriate ground rules" as in the microsoft case to protect consumers against monopolies and unfair treatment. it might be necessary to consider more openness for security reasons. the current problems with digital certificates seems to mean that better systems need to be devised for ecommerce, and that resolution of the security and privacy issues will demand that the technology be made open for scrutiny. one can only hope so. i would favor a small change in copyright law that would require source code to be deposited for digital works. when copyright term expires the work should be allowed to be open and fall into the public domain and be reused. but embodying code into financial transactions which then are licensed from another "owner" of "intellectual property" would seem to imply that payments might continue under a licensing scheme even when the original copyright is no longer owned by the registrant. this would be using contracts to get around copyright law, an abuse i would like to reverse. these changes in policy as a result of technology ought to be fully debated by citizens instead of being adopted by default. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Dec 22 23:26:19 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9342E21CBE for ; Wed, 22 Dec 1999 23:26:18 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id VAA20501; Wed, 22 Dec 1999 21:26:03 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id VAA06940; Wed, 22 Dec 1999 21:26:03 -0700 (MST) Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 21:26:03 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <199912230426.VAA06940@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: dean@av8.com Cc: eldred@mediaone.net, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <3.0.32.19991221183509.0070a74c@odie.av8.com> (message from Dean Anderson on Tue, 21 Dec 1999 18:36:22 -0500) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] contracts (was: Re: copyleft Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <3.0.32.19991221183509.0070a74c@odie.av8.com> We seem to be going through the looking glass though, in trying to make the PTO ignorant of prior art. It sounds strange, but it is entirely logical. If the PTO made intelligent use of prior art known to it, by applying a reasonable standard of obviousness, then it would be useful to teach them more about the prior art. By showing them a few points of prior art, we might keep a region of ideas free of patents--the region of all the obvious variations and combinations of those points. But given the low standard actually applied, examples of prior art cannot occupy any intellectual territory. Telling the PTO about prior art is almost useless as a way of preventing patents. By the way, in software it is not terribly important what venture capitalists think, because software development does not require large amounts of capital. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Dec 27 12:52:09 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B234521B4E for ; Mon, 27 Dec 1999 12:52:09 -0500 (EST) Received: (from andyo@localhost) by ruby.ora.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA02157; Mon, 27 Dec 1999 12:52:10 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 12:52:10 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199912271752.MAA02157@ruby.ora.com> From: Andy Oram To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sender: andyo@ruby.ora.com Subject: [Upd-discuss] Fragment of an idea Before I take out my patent, I'd like to share something that came to my mind this morning and ask for comments. I don't have any good article or other document to stick this in, but I have a feeling it's useful in debates. Andy ---- Almost daily we read of lawsuits over software and business patents (categories that never used to be allowed by the Patent Office). Whether the patented behavior is truly original and non-obvious (I'll grant that sometimes it is) the intellectual-property interests who bring the lawsuits are telling us that the important thing about innovation is the generation of ideas; successful implementations must pay a price for using these ideas. Then one reads regularly of companies that enter isolated areas of the world to find what substances the indigenous peoples are using for medical and other valuable purposes. The companies extract an active ingredient from these substances, patent it, and make millions by selling it in a patent-protected market around the world--even in the areas where people were using it for centuries. I've never heard of the indigenous peoples getting a share of this bounty. So the IP interests have their cake and eat it too. Somebody who discovers an idea tries to make a buck by elevating originality over implementation; those who take ideas from people without resources to fight back elevate implementation over originality. When will governments put an end to this hypocrisy and return our common intellectual heritage freely to all people? From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Jan 7 18:03:16 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9A49921B09 for ; Fri, 7 Jan 2000 18:03:16 -0500 (EST) Sender: jamie@venice.essential.org Message-ID: <38767061.85C385EB@cptech.org> Date: Fri, 07 Jan 2000 18:01:53 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] proposed TACD statement on patents and linking I'm working on a draft statement for the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue on patents, and would appreciate any suggestions. More about TACD is on the web here: http://www.tacd.org. See in particular http://www.tacd.org/meeting2/electronic.html To see what these statements might look like. Here also is the proposed TACD statement on web page linking: Jamie Love ------------------------------------------------------- Draft .9 Proposed TACD position on Linking The Internet's World Wide Web is designed so that persons can point to information, using a Universal Resource Locator, commonly referred to as a URL. Pointing to a resource on the Internet is sometimes referred to as "linking." It is common for web pages to link to other resources on the web. There are legal disputes over linking practices. For example: - Music publishers claim that it is illegal to link to web pages that have copies of software that can circumvent DVD anti-copying technologies. - Music publishers want Internet Service Providers to be libel for infringement if they host web pages that link to web pages that have infringing MP3 files. Similar claims have been made in connection with hypertext links to photographs and other materials. - Ticketmaster, Universal Studies, eBay, the Times of London, the Washington Post, the Village Voice and others have asserted that "deep" linking is illegal under various legal theories. (Deep linking is a name for linking to an "interior" page on a web site, such as http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-324822.html, which is a "deep link" to a page on cnet's news.com web site.) - The Los Angles Times, Total News, Playboy, Futuredontics, Hotmail and many others are involved in disputes over the appropriate use of "framing" web pages -- a practice of presenting a web page within another web page. The technology of the World Wide Web is new. Governments should avoid restrictions on a person's freedom to point to information. The benefits of the free flow of information, including information about where information is located, are great. We are particularly concerned with efforts by governments to prohibit such practices as "deep linking," a practice that is fundamental to the web. If web page operators were to forgo deep links, it would be far more difficult to find information on the Internet. We oppose efforts to make web publishers liable for infringing materials that appear on linked pages. This will chill speech on the Internet. It is impossible for most persons to know if a linked web page contains infringing materials. Moreover, it will undermine the rights of persons who have legitimate claims to use materials on the web, including cases where there are differences of opinion regarding infringement. For example, under doctrines of fair or innocent use, the use of copyrighted materials is permitted, even without authorization, for some purposes. However, if a web page is perceived to be using materials in ways that may be controversial, the publisher will run the risk of others declining to link to that page, in order to avoid liability for contributory infringement. The web page publisher will be thus be punished even if engaged in legally permitted activities. The Internet is a new technology, and we are only beginning to understand how it will be used. There are many technological solutions to concerns expressed by content owners. Governments should protect the freedom of persons to link to web pages. For more information on linking disputes, see: http://www.jura.uni-tuebingen.de/~s-bes1/lcp.html From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Jan 14 18:36:20 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D7F3E21B06; Fri, 14 Jan 2000 18:36:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA03030; Fri, 14 Jan 2000 18:36:19 -0500 Date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 18:36:19 -0500 (EST) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, ip-health@venice.essential.org, pharm-policy@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Big PhRMA putting gene info in Public Domain Interesting federal register notice regarding big PhRMA's non-profit venture to "carry on scientific research in the public interest, . . . creating a single nucleotide polymorphism (``SNP'') map on the human genome, that will . . . "be placed in the public domain for use by the worldwide medical research community." This is a pretty good illustration of an area where even pharmaceutical companies believe that strong intellectual property rights would harm innovation. Jamie [Federal Register: October 7, 1999 (Volume 64, Number 194)] [Notices] [Page 54645] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr07oc99-92] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Antitrust Division Notice Pursuant to the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993--the SNP Consortium Ltd. (``TSC'') Notice is hereby given that, on April 21, 1999, pursuant to Section 6(a) of the National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993, 15 U.S.C. 4301 et seq. (``the Act''), The SNP Consortium Ltd. (``TSC'') has filed written notifications simultaneously with the Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission disclosing: (1) The identities of the parties; and (2) the nature and objectives of the venture. The notifications were filed for the purpose of invoking the Act's provisions limiting the recovery of antitrust plaintiffs to actual damages under specified circumstances. Pursuant to Section 6(b) of the Act, the identities of the parties are Bayer Corporation, Tarrytown, NY; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Princeton, NJ; Glaxo Wellcome Inc., Research Triangle Park, NJ; Hoechst Marion Roussel Inc., Bridgewater, NJ; Hoffmann-La Roche Inc., Nutley, NJ; Monsanto Company, St. Louis, MO; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, East Hanover, NJ; Pfizer Inc., New York, NY; SmithKline Beecham Corporation, Philadelphia, PA; The Wellcome Trust Limited, as trustee of the Wellcome Trust, London, England; and Zeneca Inc., Wilmington, DE. The nature and objectives of the venture are to carry on scientific research in the public interest, including research intended to advance the field of human medicine by creating a single nucleotide polymorphism (``SNP'') map on the human genome, that will then be made freely available to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis. The joint venture will enable TSC to create a high-density, high-quality SNP map with shared financial risk and without the duplication of effort that would result from the work of individual members. As the SNP map is being constructed, it will be placed in the public domain for use by the worldwide medical research community in identifying specific genes involved in various diseases, thereby facilitating downstream research and development of therapeutic, diagnostic and pharmaceutical products. Constance K. Robinson, Director of Operations, Antitrust Division. [FR Doc. 99-26184 Filed 10-6-99; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4410-11-M -- James Love http://www.cptech.org mailto:love@cptech.org voice 1.202.387.8030 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Jan 28 00:00:16 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from westnet.com (westnet.com [206.24.6.2]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 921C721B0C; Fri, 28 Jan 2000 00:00:11 -0500 (EST) Received: from rabaron.westnet.com (p39.pm3-3.westnet.com [206.28.203.39]) by westnet.com (8.9.1/8.9.3) with SMTP id XAA13182; Thu, 27 Jan 2000 23:59:55 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.1.20000128000547.02882f00@pop.pipeline.com> Message-Id: <4.1.20000128000547.02882f00@pop.pipeline.com> X-Sender: rabaron@pop.pipeline.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2000 00:07:59 -0500 To: rabaron@pipeline.com From: "Robert A. Baron" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: [Upd-discuss] at CAA NY 2000: NINCH Copyright Town Meeting agenda [Dear Reader: The following notice is being posted to several Internet discussion lists. Please accept my apologies for duplicate copies you may receive. -- R.Baron] The Tug of War between Faculty, University, and Publisher for Rights to the Products of Contemporary Education NEW YORK CITY Saturday, February 26, 2000 College Art Association Conference Speaker Biographies and Abstracts: http://www.ninch.org/copyright/townmeetings/nyc.html Session One: 9:30 - 12:00: Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd Street. (Doors open 9:00am) In session one speakers will offer their presentations. Session Two: 12:30 - 2:00: New York Hilton Hotel, 1335 Sixth Avenue, (between 53 & 54th Streets) Session two will be devoted to discussion of presentations offered in session one. OPEN TO ALL (nominal session fee for non-conference attendees) Call 212.691.1051 x206 for reservations. Welcome: Robert Baron, Independent Scholar and Chair CAA Intellectual Property Committee. Overview of Town Meetings Series: David Green, National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH). Speakers: Christine Sundt, Professor & Visual Resources Curator, University of Oregon. Overview: The State of the Question Regarding Copyright, Fair Use and Intellectual Property in the Arts. Jane Ginsburg, Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law Columbia University Law School. Issues concerning faculty ownership of their intellectual property, an analysis of current cases. Sanford Thatcher, Director, Pennsylvania State University Press. Issues of ownership in the context of a University Press. Rodney Petersen, Director of Policy and Planning in the Office of Information Technology, University of Maryland. Managing electronic course materials developed by academics and related university policy issues. =========================== Robert A. Baron mailto:rabaron@pipeline.com http://www.pipeline.com/~rabaron/ From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Jan 30 19:53:47 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from simple.immsp.kiev.ua (simple.immsp.kiev.ua [194.183.164.237]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9DEE621B05 for ; Sun, 30 Jan 2000 19:53:42 -0500 (EST) Received: from [0.0.0.0] (pc18.immsp.kiev.ua [194.183.164.105]) by simple.immsp.kiev.ua (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id CAA30534; Mon, 31 Jan 2000 02:54:41 +0200 Message-Id: <200001310054.CAA30534@simple.immsp.kiev.ua> From: "yurevich" To: love@cptech.org, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Date: Sat, 30 Jan 1999 01:50:04 +0200 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re:[Upd-discuss] Microsoft is accused of poor efficiency products Reply-To: yurevich@immsp.kiev.ua Cc: mis@immsp.kiev.ua X-Confirm-Reading-To: yurevich@immsp.kiev.ua X-pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal In-reply-to: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v3.01d) Sender: yurevich@simple.immsp.kiev.ua 0100,0100,0100Monopoly's impact on resource saving: Ukrainian computer scientists criticised Microsoft for developing poor-efficiency products, consuming substantial resources, energy, and capital, which finally lead to economic and ecological problems 0100,0100,0100In his paper, concerning the intensification of the computation process, published in Mathematical Machines and Systems journal of the National Academy of Sciences' institute,Prof.G.Tesler has strongly criticised Miscosoft for the lack of use of intensive factors in software development. As a result, the company products require much more hardware resources "even for solving the problems which have been solved by previous-generation lower- speed computers". This policy of a US monopoly involves "extra funding and resources", the authors believes. His assessment says that the "use of intensive factors in the course of development of such a programme product and rational organization of a computing process would have allowed the basis range of currently solved tasks be solved by significantly less-productive processors". The author says that such an approach wouldn't have required the majority of users too frequently upgrade their computational means, "thus leading to a substantial resource-, energy - and capital savings." The company policy "leads to non-profitable use of means and resources, which will in due time result in economic and ecological problems in the framework of the state and broader". Source: Mathematical Machines and Systems journal, No.2, 1999, pp.25-37 http://www.immsp.kiev.ua/ Leonid Yurevich Kiev Ukraine From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Jan 31 09:04:17 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 66D0321B02 for ; Mon, 31 Jan 2000 09:04:17 -0500 (EST) Received: (from andyo@localhost) by ruby.ora.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA14521; Mon, 31 Jan 2000 09:04:16 -0500 (EST) Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 09:04:16 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200001311404.JAA14521@ruby.ora.com> From: Andy Oram To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sender: andyo@ruby.ora.com Subject: [Upd-discuss] History and impact of database ("collections of information") laws Members of this group would be interested in the following article, which focuses particularly on innovative Web-based services: The Sap and the Syrup of the Information Age: Coping with Database Protection Laws http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/professional/collection_law.html Because it is long, I am not posting the whole article here. Andy From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Jan 31 13:26:13 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C565621B02 for ; Mon, 31 Jan 2000 13:26:12 -0500 (EST) Received: from pcandyo.ora.com (dhcp-254-8.ora.com [172.30.254.8]) by ruby.ora.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id NAA15531; Mon, 31 Jan 2000 13:25:50 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <04f501bf6c18$ae4f22e0$08fe1eac@pcandyo.ora.com> From: "Andy Oram" To: , Cc: Subject: Re: Re:[Upd-discuss] Microsoft is accused of poor efficiency products Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 13:26:23 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3612.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3612.1700 Thank you for the summary. I couldn't read the article (I don't know whether it's on the Web site you listed) but I have to share a thought: if all software companies were punished for software bloat, to quote Hamlet, "who would not be whipped?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Oram O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. email: andyo@oreilly.com Editor 90 Sherman Street phone: (617) 499-7479 Cambridge, MA 02140-3233 fax: (617) 661-1116 USA http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ Stories at Web site: The Bug in the Seven Modules Code the Obscure The Disconnected ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Feb 1 11:10:59 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A25CD21B06 for ; Tue, 1 Feb 2000 11:10:59 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA20912 for ; Tue, 1 Feb 2000 11:10:59 -0500 Sender: jamie@genoa.essential.org Message-ID: <389705A8.F60625FB@cptech.org> Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 11:11:20 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] TACD ecommerce patent statement I am still working on drafting a TACD statement on ecommerce patents, and would appreciate suggestions regarding people's top 3 or so points that should be addressed in this statement. Jamie -- James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | mailto:love@cptech.org Voice 1.202.387.8030 | fax 1.202.387.8030 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Feb 4 19:41:53 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EF51A21AFF for ; Fri, 4 Feb 2000 19:41:52 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id RAA15869; Fri, 4 Feb 2000 17:41:51 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id RAA12073; Fri, 4 Feb 2000 17:41:50 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 4 Feb 2000 17:41:50 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200002050041.RAA12073@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Cc: andyo@oreilly.ora.com Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] Database monopolies It looks like your article endorses the basic premise of would-be database owners, which is that their profit is the prime criterion, and other goals can be accommodated only to the extent that they do not interfere with that prime criterion. Although you argue that other goals can be accommodated somewhat more than the database owners would suggest, for the most part your article supports their position by supporting their way of formulating the issue. Niggling about secondary issues can be effective for obtaining small concessions from the owners, but it cannot go beyond that. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyright.html for a general critique. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Feb 13 15:14:19 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from zoom1.telepath.com (zoom1.telepath.com [216.14.10.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E10A21AFF for ; Sun, 13 Feb 2000 15:14:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from [216.14.2.71] (zoom2-071.telepath.com [216.14.2.71]) by zoom1.telepath.com (8.9.0/8.9.0) with ESMTP id OAA14175; Sun, 13 Feb 2000 14:14:18 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <200002132014.OAA14175@zoom1.telepath.com> X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2000 14:14:01 -0600 From: "Timothy Phillips" To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Cc: hrothgar@zoom1.telepath.com Mime-version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] I have posted a little ditty called "The Ballad of Dennis Karjala" to my web site at http://www.telepath.com/hrothgar/bdk.html I hope folks on-list will enjoy it. Tim Phillips From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Feb 15 12:52:07 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51F1021AFF; Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:52:07 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA30934; Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:52:07 -0500 Sender: jamie@genoa.essential.org Message-ID: <38A991D8.79ECF8DA@cptech.org> Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 12:50:16 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ecommerce , upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] CHEW: UK based effort to overcome restrictive use of copyright in academic writing This is a note about an effort established by the Copyright in Higher Education Workgroup (CHEW), to analyse and overcome financial and pedagogical barriers to UK university teaching and learning created by the restrictive use of copyright in academic writing. Their "first campaign" is the UK Higher Education Copying Accord. Jamie Subject: Copyrights Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 17:17:11 +0000 (GMT Standard Time) From: Alan Story To: love@cptech.org James: I thought that you might be interested in the following...and might want to "pass it on." Cheers Alan Story Intellectual Property Kent Law School Canterbury UK ANNOUNCEMENT - APOLOGIES FOR CROSS POSTINGS As many of you are aware, there are a growing number of problems in the access to and use of teaching materials in higher education (and further education) in the United Kingdom. In particular, restrictive conceptions of copyright and the privileging of the interests of publishers have led to the replacement of traditional copyright notions of "fair dealing" with expensive and cumbersome user-pay turnstiles. To bring these issues to the attention of all members of the academic community and to work for reform of the current regime, a new group, the Copyright in Higher Education Workgroup (CHEW) has recently been formed. Our first project has been to establish a website that focuses on a range of copyright issues in education. This site includes the results of a recent survey about the effects of the Higher Education Copying Accord (HECA) on teaching and learning in UK universities and puts forward various analyses of HECA. CHEW's first campaign is directed at the reform /repeal of HECA when it expires in January 2001. The website's URL is: http://www.law.warwick.ac.uk/ncle/Copyright/ We are also interested in recognising the "good practice" efforts of some academic journals that allow non-profit educational photocopying under an "open licence" system. The website gives examples of such journals and welcomes your own suggested additions. The site was created with the assistance of the United Kingdom Centre for Legal Education (UKCLE) at the University of Warwick with whom CHEW is affiliated. To encourage discussion and debate over copyright issues in education, CHEW has also established a Mailbase discussion list entitled "Copyrights." The list and archives of past messages are accessible from the above website. You can also send a message to the list by e-mailing: copyrights@mailbase.ac.uk The website of "Copyrights " is: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/copyrights/ Although the initial members of CHEW are UK legal academics, the group wants to address copyright issues in other disciplines and work with those individuals and groups interested in reform. Our main focus at present is on the problems that have been created for the provision of course (study) packs and the operation of Library short loan (reserve) collections. We are also interested in hearing from academic colleagues in other countries who may face their own copyright-related issues. Those individuals and groups who maintain copyright-related websites are welcome to add a link between their own site and CHEW's site. We would like to be informed if you insert such a link?and we will reciprocate. CHEW itself can be contacted by e-mail at: s.l.fury@warwick.ac.uk specifying CHEW in the subject line. We welcome your comments and criticisms. And we also welcome new members. Alan Story Kent Law School Canterbury Kent For the Copyright in Higher Education Workgroup (CHEW) ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Ph. 01227 823316 Fax 01227 827831 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Feb 15 15:17:46 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from westnet.com (westnet.com [206.24.6.2]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 48F7B21AFF for ; Tue, 15 Feb 2000 15:17:46 -0500 (EST) Received: from rabaron.westnet.com (rabaron.dialup.westnet.com [206.28.203.249]) by westnet.com (8.9.1/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA05310 for ; Tue, 15 Feb 2000 15:17:40 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.1.20000215152144.0305ebd0@pop.pipeline.com> X-Sender: rabaron@pop.pipeline.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.1 Date: Tue, 15 Feb 2000 15:22:31 -0500 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org From: "Robert A. Baron" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Subject: [Upd-discuss] ACADEMIC IMAGE COOPERATIVE Demonstration [Dear Recipient: This notice is being distributed broadly to a number of relevant Internet discussion lists. Kindly excuse any inconvenience cause by the inevitable duplicate postings you will receive.] - DEMONSTRATION OF THE ACADEMIC IMAGE COOPERATIVE - The Academic Image Cooperative (AIC) will demonstrate a prototype version of its digital image repository and access software at the College Art Association meeting's Trade and Book Fair. The College Art Association conference is being held at the New York Hilton and Towers, 6th Ave, between 53rd and 54th Street, from February 23-26, 2000. - Demonstrations at the Trade and Book Fair will take place on Thursday, from 9:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m.; Friday, from 9:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m.; and on Saturday, from 9:00 a.m. through 2:30 p.m. at booth 11. In addition, there will be a public demonstration of the AIC with a question and answer session on Thursday, February 24 at the New York Hilton in the Sutton Parlor South, from 5:30-7:00 p.m. The Trade and Book Fair is open to convention registrants and to purchasers of one-day Book Fair passes. - For further information on the AIC consult http://www.clir.org/diglib/dlfinit.htm#a. (For information on the College Art Association conference, see http://www.collegeart.org.) - for the Digital Library Federation, Dan Greenstein Rebecca Graham - for the Academic Image Cooperative, Katie Hollander Max Marmor Christine L. Sundt Robert A. Baron (rabaron@pipeline.com) =========================== Robert A. Baron mailto:rabaron@pipeline.com http://www.pipeline.com/~rabaron/ From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Feb 21 12:32:29 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5062321B02 for ; Mon, 21 Feb 2000 12:32:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA15537 for ; Mon, 21 Feb 2000 10:32:20 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id KAA02557; Mon, 21 Feb 2000 10:32:20 -0700 (MST) Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 10:32:20 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200002211732.KAA02557@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] [dsaklad@zurich.ai.mit.edu: Overreaching University of Massachusetts copyright policy] This policy looks like an example of a chilling effect of copyright law. http://www.cs.umb.edu/help.html Click on Lab Policy Click on use of copyrighted material http://www.cs.umb.edu/helproot/policy/copyrights.html ...[more] ...In any case, the use of the Math and Computer Science Departmental Network subjects you to stricter policies than might be accorded you publishing in a public forum such as a commercial ISP or a book you might publish. Whether or not a court would declare it fair use, you are may not post on our servers, email to anyone, or post to newsgroups the entirety, nor even significant portions, of copyrighted materials without the permission of copyright owner. We will not enter into discussions...[more] [more]... From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Feb 21 14:50:32 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from mail.visi.com (baal.visi.com [209.98.98.3]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2596821B02 for ; Mon, 21 Feb 2000 14:50:31 -0500 (EST) Received: from dell-inspiron (170-231.dynamic.visi.com [209.98.170.231]) by mail.visi.com (8.8.8/8.7.5) with ESMTP id NAA07538; Mon, 21 Feb 2000 13:50:26 -0600 (CST) Posted-Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 13:50:26 -0600 (CST) Message-Id: <4.2.0.58.20000221134133.009bd720@mail.visi.com> X-Sender: srobins@mail.visi.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.0.58 Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2000 13:49:39 -0600 To: rms@gnu.org, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org From: Stan Robins Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] [dsaklad@zurich.ai.mit.edu: Overreaching University of Massachusetts copyright policy] In-Reply-To: <200002211732.KAA02557@aztec.santafe.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Not really. For most purposes, a citation to the work will serve, perhaps along with a relatively short quotation. This sentence from the policy suggests some buttheaded departmental administration at the institution -- but department heads are sometimes buttheads. >We will not enter into discussions of what is a significant portion or what is >fair use. It's a little off-topic, but what I read of the Web Law FAQ that was linked was pretty well-written and showed good common sense, IMHO. Stan Robins At 10:32 AM 2/21/00 -0700, Richard Stallman wrote: >This policy looks like an example of a chilling effect of copyright law. > >http://www.cs.umb.edu/help.html >Click on Lab Policy >Click on use of copyrighted material > >http://www.cs.umb.edu/helproot/policy/copyrights.html > >...[more] >...In any case, the use of the Math and Computer >Science Departmental Network subjects you to >stricter policies than might be accorded you >publishing in a public forum such as a commercial >ISP or a book you might publish. Whether or not a >court would declare it fair use, you are may not >post on our servers, email to anyone, or post to >newsgroups the entirety, nor even significant >portions, of copyrighted materials without the >permission of copyright owner. We will not enter >into discussions...[more] >[more]... > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Upd-discuss mailing list >Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org >http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Feb 26 10:35:20 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C1A4A21B07; Sat, 26 Feb 2000 10:35:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA31009; Sat, 26 Feb 2000 10:35:19 -0500 Sender: jamie@genoa.essential.org Message-ID: <38B7F2BB.710BAFDB@cptech.org> Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 10:35:23 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-board@venice.essential.org, upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] .upd or .gnu top level domains Soon ICANN will be issuing new top level domains (tld). So far most of the action has been for various commerical domains, such as .web, .inc, .flowers, or whatever. We are proposing a .customers tld, that would be used for consumers or organize (such as for .aetnaushc.customers, dell.customers, etc as one type of non-commerical domain. We are proposing .sucks as a second one, that would be non-profit, but require a fee (like $10) that would fund a foundation to protect free speech on the Internet. We are working with unions to propose .union, to help "the workers of the world organize." (i.e., nike.union, boeing.union, microsoft.union, etc). Maybe it would be cool for propose .upd or .gnu. The domain could be managed by any number of firms on contract, but the policy could be things like, only use open publishing standards, or contributions for registration to support groups that protect the public domain in intellectual property. Jamie ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Feb 27 10:46:21 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 544FF21B02 for ; Sun, 27 Feb 2000 10:46:21 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA11446 for ; Sun, 27 Feb 2000 10:46:21 -0500 Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 10:46:21 -0500 (EST) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Selected E-Commerce and Marketing Patents Here are selected marketing patents recently granted by the US PTO, including several by Citibank, and patents by AOL, Amazon.com, IBM, NCR and others. Jamie United States Patent 5,966,695 Melchione , et al. October 12, 1999 Sales and marketing support system using a graphical query prospect database Abstract An electronic sales and service support system and method for identifying sales targets using a centralized database to improve marketing success. The system includes a central database that receives comprehensive information from a variety of internal and external feeds, and standardizes and households the information in a three-level hierarchy (households, customers, and accounts) for use by a financial institution. The comprehensive information stored on the central database is accessed through micromarketing workstations to generate lists of sales leads for marketing campaigns. A database engine is provided for generating logical access paths for accessing data on the central database to increase speed and efficiency of the central database. The system distributes sales leads electronically to branch networks, where the sales leads are used to target customers for marketing campaigns. The central database is accessed by workstations of a central customer information system for profiling customers, enhancing customer relationships with the financial institution, and electronically tracking sales performance during marketing campaigns. Inventors: Melchione; Anthony R. (Bridgewater, NJ); Martinez; Rafael (Fairfield, CT); Seifert; Eric (East Northport, NY); Hirsch; Martin (Teaneck, NJ) Assignee: Citibank, N.A. (New York, NY) Appl. No.: 544102 Filed: October 17, 1995 <------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 5,974,396 Anderson , et al. October 26, 1999 Method and system for gathering and analyzing consumer purchasing information based on product and consumer clustering relationships Abstract A method and system for gathering and analyzing customer and purchasing information permits a retailer or retail chain to process transactional information involving large numbers of consumers and consumer products. Product information is gathered that uniquely identifies a specific product by type and manufacturer and grouped into generic product clusters. Consumers are similarly grouped into consumer clusters based on common consumer demographics and other characteristics. Consumer retail transactions are analyzed in terms of product and/or consumer clusters to determine relationships between the consumers and the products. Product, consumer, and transactional data are maintained in a relational database. Targeting of specific consumers with marketing and other promotional literature is based on consumer buying habits, needs, demographics, etc. A retailer queries the database using selected criteria, accumulates data from the database in response to that query, and makes prudent business and marketing decisions based on that response. Queried information from the database may be communicated to a printing subsystem for printing promotional literature directed to particular customers based on cluster information stored in the database. Inventors: Anderson; Michael W. (West Seneca, NY); Hargreaves; David (North Tonawanda, NY); Hoellig; Susan M. (Boston, NY); Johnson; Drew S. (Wexford, PA); Mischel; Blaine D. (Buffalo, NY) Assignee: Moore Business Forms, Inc. (Grand Island, NY) Filed: July 19, 1996 <-----------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 6,009,407 Garg December 28, 1999 Integrated marketing and operations decisions-making under multi-brand competition Abstract A computer-implemented method for merging product marketing control and product inventory control, generates a segment-level consumer choice model for a plurality of competing brands, and aggregates that to a market-level consumer choice model, then generates a brand-level demand probability distribution function based on the choice models. A cost-minimized base stock level and a demand forecast for each of the plurality of brands is generated based on the market level model consumer choice model and on pricing, promotion, and other marketing data for each of the brands. An inventory control receives inventory subtraction data and inventory addition data and, using the cost-minimized base stock levels, generates orders to replenish the inventory. Inventors: Garg; Amit (White Plains, NY) Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation (Armonk, CA) Appl. No.: 032527 Filed: February 27, 1998 <--------------------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 6,026,382 Kalthoff February 15, 2000 Computer-implemented system for relationship management for financial institutions Abstract An apparatus, method, and article of manufacture for implementing a financial system. The financial system comprises a computer for storing a database describing operations of a financial institution. The database comprises: (1) party data that identifies any individual or external organization, (2) product data that identifies any marketable product or service offered by the financial institution, (3) account data that identifies an ongoing arrangement between the financial institution and the party data, (4) internal organization data that identifies a unit of the financial institution, (5) contact/transaction event data that identifies any occurrence of an event that involves the account data or party data, (6) location data that identifies an address for the party data, (7) campaign data that identifies a marketing strategy or promotional event for the financial institution, and (8) channel data that identifies any vehicle by which any individual or external organization interacts with the financial institution. A database management system, performed by the computer, accesses the database stored in the computer via relationships between the party data, product data, account data, internal organization data, contact/transaction event data, location data, campaign data, and channel data. Inventors: Kalthoff; Nancy Yvonne (Rancho Palos Verdes, CA) Assignee: NCR Corporation (Dayton, OH) Filed: October 8, 1997 <---------------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 6,009,415 Shurling , et al. December 28, 1999 Data processing technique for scoring bank customer relationships and awarding incentive rewards Abstract A Relationship scoring and Incentive Reward awarding process determines a Relationship score for the Relationships between a Bank and each of its customers. Such Relationships may include deposit accounts, loan accounts, and customer referrals. Customer data describing the Relationship between the Bank and its customers is furnished by the customers and extracted from a Bank customer information file. Incentive Rewards, such as reduced loan rates or increased deposit account interest, are awarded to customers based on the Relationship scores. Management reports summarize the Relationships between the Bank and its customers and provide marketing information. Inventors: Shurling; Larry W. (Barnesville, GA); Nimis; Gregory R. (St. Paul, MN); Reagle; Granville S. (Littleton, CO); Motschenbacher; Darlene M. (Burnsville, MN); Hansen; Wayne P. (Shakopee, MN) Assignee: The Harrison Company, LLC (Denver, CO) Appl. No.: 808324 Filed: December 16, 1991 <------------------------------------------> United States Patent 6,014,638 Burge , et al. January 11, 2000 System for customizing computer displays in accordance with user preferences Abstract A system for customizing content and presentation of content for computer users is disclosed. The system monitors and records a user's navigational choices to determine the user's needs and preferences for subsequent computer displays. Displays are customized in accordance with the user's needs and preferences. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, an electronic marketing and shopping system accessible via the WWW is described. The shopping environment--including the opportunities presented to the shopper (content) and the appearance of the displays (presentation of content)--is customized according to the shopper's preferences. The functions of data collection and display customization are performed automatically by the electronic shopping system. To customize the environment, various attributes of Web pages or other displays provided by participating merchants are modified as they are accessed by shoppers using the system. Inventors: Burge; Gary L. (Powell, OH); Luddy; William A. (Columbus, OH) Assignee: America Online, Inc. (Dulles, VA) Appl. No.: 654529 Filed: May 29, 1996 <----------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 6,029,141 Bezos , et al. February 22, 2000 Internet-based customer referral system Abstract Disclosed is an Internet-based referral system that enables individuals and other business entities ("associates") to market products, in return for a commission, that are sold from a merchant's Web site. The system includes automated registration software that runs on the merchant's Web site to allow entities to register as associates. Following registration, the associate sets up a Web site (or other information dissemination system) to distribute hypertextual catalog documents that includes marketing information (product reviews, recommendations, etc.) about selected products of the merchant. In association with each such product, the catalog document includes a hypertextual "referral link" that allows a user ("customer") to link to the merchant's site and purchase the product. When a customer selects a referral link, the customer's computer transmits unique IDs of the selected product and of the associate to the merchant's site, allowing the merchant to identify the product and the referring associate. If the customer subsequently purchases the product from the merchant's site, a commission is automatically credited to an account of the referring associate. The merchant site also implements an electronic shopping cart that allows the customer to select products from multiple different Web sites, and then perform a single "check out" from the merchant's site. Inventors: Bezos; Jeffrey P. (Seattle, WA); Kaphan; Sheldon J. (Seattle, WA); Ratajak; Ellen L. (Seattle, WA); Schonhoff; Thomas K. (Seattle, WA) Assignee: Amazon.com, Inc. (Seattle, WA) Appl. No.: 883770 Filed: June 27, 1997 <-------------------------------------------> United States Patent 6,029,153 Bauchner , et al. February 22, 2000 Method and system for analyzing and handling the customer files of a financial institution Abstract A system and method for identifying and communicating the availability of additional products to at least one customer of a financial institution is disclosed. A processor analyses data about the customer and identifies characteristics indicative of financial products compatible with the customer's financial needs. The customer's files are appropriately electronically tagged and representatives of the financial institution are alerted of the marketing opportunity and, in turn, communicate the availability of the product to said customer. The representative may be a teller, branch manager, telemarketer or direct mail supervisor. Reporting of tagging is also provided. Inventors: Bauchner; Renee (New York, NY); Weinberger; Henry (New York, NY); Wright; Wilbur E. (Elmsford, NY); Newman; Al (Huntington, NY) Assignee: Citibank, N.A. (New York, NY) Appl. No.: 927683 Filed: September 11, 1997 <-------------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 5,907,830 Engel , et al. May 25, 1999 Electronic coupon distribution Abstract An electronic coupon distribution system providing on-line coupon information for a potential consumer using a personal computer connected to a host computer. A potential consumer using a personal computer and a modem connects to a host computer via the Internet or directly. The potential consumer may specify product preferences or search and view coupons of interest to the consumer. The consumer may then download from the host computer coupon information that may be printed on the potential consumer's printer connected to his personal computer. Information identifying the downloaded coupon is coded or encrypted onto the printed coupon to prevent unauthorized reproduction. The coupon distribution system may be used to obtain additional information about the potential consumer for future marketing purposes. The present invention greatly facilitates and makes economical distribution of coupons or certificates. Inventors: Engel; Peter (144 N. Robertson Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048-3102); Engel; Andrew (2392 Camino Capitan #4D, Santa Fe, NM 87505) Appl. No.: 600751 Filed: February 13, 1996 <-------------------------------------------> United States Patent 5,961,151 Tung , et al. October 5, 1999 Pharmaceutical marketing device and method of use Abstract Sampling device for marketing a drug by a pharmaceutical company includes multiple segments. One segment includes the drug to be sampled and another segment includes preprinted indicia on one side providing prescribing information for a prescriber of the drug and an adhesive layer on the other side for attachment to a patient's medical chart maintained by the prescriber of the drug. A method of sampling a drug employing the above described sampling device also forms a part of this invention. Inventors: Tung; James C. (Blue Bell, PA); Werther; Norman (Fort Washington, PA) Assignee: Global Healthcomm, Inc. (Abington, PA) Appl. No.: 082569 Filed: May 21, 1998 <-------------------------------> United States Patent 5,930,764 Melchione , et al. July 27, 1999 Sales and marketing support system using a customer information database Abstract A sales process support system and method for identifying sales targets using a centralized database to improve marketing success. The system includes a central database that receives comprehensive information from a variety of internal and external feeds, and standardizes and households the information in a three-level hierarchy (households, customers, and accounts) for use by a financial institution. The comprehensive information stored on the central database is accessed through micromarketing workstations to generate lists of sales leads for marketing campaigns. A database engine is provided for generating logical access paths for accessing data on the central database to increase speed and efficiency of the central database. The system distributes sales leads electronically to branch networks, where the sales leads are used to target customers for marketing campaigns. The central database is accessed by workstations of a central customer information system for profiling customers, enhancing customer relationships with the financial institution, and electronically tracking sales and service performance during marketing campaigns. The system can also include a system for opening an account in a single session that is in communication with the central database, micromarketing centers, central customer information systems and branch systems of the present invention so that data can pass between these systems where legal and appropriate. Inventors: Melchione; Anthony R. (Bridgewater, NJ); Martinez; Rafael (Fairfield, CT); Seifert; Eric (East Northport, NY); Hirsch; Martin (Teaneck, NJ) Assignee: Citibank, N.A. (New York, NY) Appl. No.: 702039 Filed: August 23, 1996 <------------------------> United States Patent 5,950,171 Madell September 7, 1999 System for determining hypothetical book value Abstract A system for producing sets of competitive depreciation rates (CDRs) for a high-cost plant based on the hypothetical book value of the plant, such that the application of any set would result in the plant generating electricity competitively. A CDR set consists of one or more higher-than-standard depreciation rates first applied sometime prior to the start of competition, and one or more lower-than-standard depreciation rates first applied sometime after the start of the plant's competitive operation and continued for the rest of its life. The system also calculates the potential stranded assets (PSAs) and the time-at-risk (TAR) associated with the power plant prior to its reaching competitive operation. The system is designed to analyze the competitiveness of an individual high-cost power plant, hereafter known as the first plant, over its full lifetime under given assumptions and conditions about the introduction of competitive marketing of electricity. ventors: Madell; John T. (4351 Grand, Western Springs, IL 60558) Appl. No.: 920075 Filed: August 26, 1997 <-------------------------------------------------------> United States Patent 5,873,068 Beaumont , et al. February 16, 1999 Display based marketing message control system and method Abstract A marketing system for use in a public switched telephone system having stored program controlled switches connected to customer premise equipment having an Analog Display Service Interface, comprises a storage device for storing predetermined information respecting each of customer premise equipment, a device for assembling and managing messages including creating a message to be delivered to one or more of the customer premise equipment, linking each message with one or more of the customer premise equipment, scheduling the delivery of the messages at a predetermined time, and measuring the response of each customer premise equipment to messages delivered thereto. Inventors: Beaumont; Robert M. (Saint John, CA); Doiron; Danny J. (Westfield, CA); Keevill; Christopher G. (Quispamsis, CA); Pomeroy; Trenton A. (Quispamsis, CA); Pond; Gerald L. (East Riverside, CA); Thorburn; Mark L. (Quispamsis, CA); Drummond; Douglas B. (Quispamsis, CA); Bouchard; J. Marc (Saint John, CA) Assignee: New North Media Inc. (CA) Appl. No.: 556981 Filed: December 13, 1995 James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Mar 4 12:47:50 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from prserv.net (out4.prserv.net [32.97.166.34]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CAB4021B06 for ; Sat, 4 Mar 2000 12:47:49 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org ([32.100.71.153]) by prserv.net (out4) with SMTP id <2000030417473723901ups5ee>; Sat, 4 Mar 2000 17:47:42 +0000 Message-ID: <38C175B7.5BBAFEED@cptech.org> Date: Sat, 04 Mar 2000 12:44:39 -0800 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.04 [en] (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] .free Richard Stallman didn't like .gnu or .upd as Internet Top Level domains. He suggested .freedom as a more general term. I think .free would be a better choice. A tld like .free would suggest certain ways to managing it, but what would they be? Would .free to a "first come first serve" TLD, available without restrictions, unlike say copyleft restrictions (I would as assume so). Would it generate revenue for the development of free software? Maybe not, if it was "free". Who would "control" the .free TLD? Jamie From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 6 07:26:04 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C42AE21B02 for ; Mon, 6 Mar 2000 07:26:03 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id FAA24543; Mon, 6 Mar 2000 05:26:02 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id FAA19014; Mon, 6 Mar 2000 05:26:02 -0700 (MST) Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2000 05:26:02 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200003061226.FAA19014@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: love@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <38C175B7.5BBAFEED@cptech.org> (message from James Love on Sat, 04 Mar 2000 12:44:39 -0800) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] .free Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <38C175B7.5BBAFEED@cptech.org> Richard Stallman didn't like .gnu or .upd as Internet Top Level domains. He suggested .freedom as a more general term. I think .free would be a better choice. The reason I suggested .freedom rather than .free is to avoid the confusing meaning of "zero price". .free could be used for the job, but I think .freedom would be clearer and better. Would .free to a "first come first serve" TLD, available without restrictions, unlike say copyleft restrictions (I would as assume so). I think we should restrict .free (or .freedom) to nonprofit organizations which work for some kind of issue of freedom. Otherwise, companies will snap it up to use for offering free samples. Would it generate revenue for the development of free software? If the purpose of the domain is for organizations that work for freedom of various kinds, it seems to me somewhat arbitrary to collect funds from all these organizations for the rather obscure activity of developing free software. Lobbying against restriction of communication on the Internet (including censorship and strict interpretation of libel and copyright laws) would seem to be a more central activity, more appropriate to use as the purpose of funds collected from such a wide variety of organizations. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 16 13:19:54 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8840821B06 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 13:19:54 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA16859 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 13:19:54 -0500 Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 13:19:53 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Weissman To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes As many may know, the issue of the patenting of the human genome is now very hot (see cover of today's Wall Street Journal). I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes. Why is not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than a patentable invention? The patent office is now making a distinction between finding genes and being able to explain what a particular gene does, with a tendency to give patents only the latter case. But why does this cross the invention threshold? This is not to ask for a moral critique of life or human patents, or even necessarily a legal critique of the patents. I'm just trying to understand the basic rationale for granting patents in these cases. Robert Weissman Essential Information | Internet: rob@essential.org From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 16 14:55:14 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 95D5621B06 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:55:13 -0500 (EST) Received: (from andyo@localhost) by ruby.ora.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id OAA29478; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:55:12 -0500 (EST) Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:55:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200003161955.OAA29478@ruby.ora.com> From: Andy Oram To: Upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sender: andyo@ruby.ora.com Subject: [Upd-discuss] Article: Copyright Loophole May Let Corporations Duck Scrutiny http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ar/filter_copyright.html March 15, 2000 COPYRIGHT LOOPHOLE MAY LET CORPORATIONS DUCK SCRUTINY by Andy Oram [1]American Reporter Correspondent CAMBRIDGE, MASS.--Imagine that a company loses a lawsuit for a faulty product that caused deaths or severe damage, but manages to have the court records sealed as part of the settlement. (This routinely happens.) Imagine further that they have to report some details about the case in an annual report. When the report is distributed through standard channels, an enraged shareholder can legally pass it to a reporter and the reporter can quote it. But in the future, a company may choose to email the report, lightly encrypted, and claim a violation of its "technical self-help protection measures" when the truth hits the newsstands. This danger is why we should pay attention to a story of apparently minimal significance that turned up around March 8 in some of the computer trade news sites and online discussion groups. On its surface, the story looked like just another lark by young hackers. But to the discerning eye it opened up a chasm onto corporate irresponsibility. The blustering company in this case was [2]Symantec, a long-time vendor of filtering software called I-Gear that promises to keep kids from viewing sleazy Web pages or engaging in saucy online chats. As always happens when someone seriously evaluates one of these software packages, the results showed that the choices of what to block were arbitrary, unfair, spotty, and sometimes even bizarre. "The blocked pages included a 75 K page written entirely in Latin, a description of a milking machine system written in Spanish, and volumes 4 and 6 of `The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'," wrote Bennett Haselton, who delved into I-Gear's code and posted the http://cryptome.org/igear-fire.htmhttp://cryptome.org/igear-fire.htm"> results on his [3]PeaceFire anti-filter site. Most filter companies are secretive about what sites they block; they claim that the information represents a competitive advantage over other filtering software. Its more likely that revealing the list would cause customers to question the reliability, if not the sanity, of those doing the rating. The question is whether customers have a right to know what the products they use are doing under the hood--and whether free speech protects those who try to warn them. There are several ways to figure out what Internet sites are being blocked; the simplest is just to try various common Web sites or keywords and see what fails to get through. But for maximum visibility, some programmers like to crack the files of blacklisted Web sites distributed with filtering programs. For this purpose, experts use reverse engineering, a technique for figuring out what code is doing that has exploited by professional computer users ever since programming languages were invented. But reverse engineering and code-cracking have been under attack over the past few years. The campaign began in scattered law clauses and initially appeared to affect only a few small constituencies, such as companies developing products that competed with popular software packages. But experts in computer science predicted from the beginning that such bans would lead to abuses by a wide range of companies trying to avoid having their practices brought to light--and they were right. The first shots fired were in an audio recording act of the early 1990s, and then the massive [4]Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. The companies pushing these laws planned to use encryption (or scrambling) to keep people from copying their products, and anticipated that someone would be able to break the encryption. Thus, the laws made it a crime to manufacture or distribute any device whose "primary purpose" was to overcome such technical protection measures. As narrowly as the legislators tried to word such prohibitions, they represented an astonishing restriction on the freedom to do research and engineering. It took a couple years for the dire predictions of computer scientists and free-speech advocates to hit. Then the DMCA was employed in a widely publicized lawsuit by the manufacturers of DVDs and the motion picture industry. When someone decrypted their weak controls so that people could play DVDs on Linux systems, these companies undertook the daunting job of prosecuting everyone they could find who posted the offending software on a Web site. Even this show of corporate muscle, however, stayed within the realm of copyright debates. The movie studios and DVD makers simply wanted to control the use of their wares (a goal opposed to the customers' traditional right to make use of a product any way they want). Symantec is threatening to use copyright law for an entirely different end: to keep the public from examining and discussing its actions. Haselton had a sense this was coming; back on February 22 he published an [5]appeal to defend the DVD decryption sites and to fight [6]UCITA, a proposed law that would enshrine the restrictions software companies like to put on reverse engineering. (Almost any commercial software you buy, if you check the license, will prove to include a ban on reverse engineering, but unless UCITA is passed the ban is unsupported by court precedent.) The current threat by Symantec is by no means the first that Haselton has suffered for his efforts to educate filter users. Isn't it bizarre that Symantec claims to hold a copyright on information coded deep in hidden files? Copyright is for things that the creator wants people to see, like this article. In software, copyright has traditionally been used to prevent an employee from jump-starting a new company by reusing code from a previous firm. Copyright is a powerful weapon, so any attempt to broaden its definition is dangerous. Symantec is on shaky ground in claiming that Haselton has misused their intellectual property, whether they invoke copyrights or trade secrets. But we still don't know how the courts will rule on the use of the DMCA, or UCITA (which was passed into law yesterday by the state of Virginia and is under consideration by most other states). Thus, the trend among companies with something to hide is to use intellectual property as their shield. While Symantec wants to keep its filters secret, an automobile manufacturer can't keep a consumer advocate from opening the hood of a car and checking how its engine filters air. But in the future, an automobile manufacturer might embed the complexities of its filtering in a computer chip and use the Symantec defense to keep consumer advocates from investigating its practices. So the story of the I-Gear fight should be bigger news. It's bigger than technical questions of computer security, even bigger than the debate over Internet censorship. We're talking about the right to share information about corporate practices, and that touches everyone. __________________________________________________________________ Cyber Rights moderator, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility--[7]cyber-rights-owner@cpsr.org Editor, O'Reilly & Associates--[8]andyo@oreilly.com Author's [9]home page Other [10]articles in chronological order [11]Index to other articles References 1. http://www.american-reporter.com/ 2. http://www.symantec.com/ 3. http://www.peacefire.org/ 4. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/hr2281.pdf 5. http://slashdot.org/features/00/02/21/1745232.shtml 6. http://www.badsoftware.com/uccindex.htm 7. mailto:cyber-rights-owner@cpsr.org 8. mailto:andyo@oreilly.com 9. http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/andyo/index.html 10. http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/andyo/professional/article.html 11. http://www.oreilly.com/people/staff/andyo/policy/index.html __________________________________________________________________ This article can be redistributed online, with author and newspaper attributions intact, for non-profit use. For printing or commercial use, please contact Joe Shea, publisher of the American Reporter, at JoeShea1@ix.netcom.com. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 16 23:02:44 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from fish-bh.fr.com (fish-bh.fr.com [192.233.214.66]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4636721B06 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 23:02:44 -0500 (EST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by fish-bh.fr.com (8.8.8/8.6.11) id XAA18903 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 23:02:43 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.fr.com(204.167.49.19) by fish-bh.fr.com via smap (4.1) id xma018895; Thu, 16 Mar 00 23:02:04 -0500 Received: by mail.fr.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 23:00:53 -0500 Message-ID: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E16E@BOSNT03> From: Lawrence Kolodney To: "'Robert Weissman'" Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 22:57:45 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" To patent a new chemical compound, you must enable a "person of ordinary skill in the art" (i.e. a trained scientist in the case of genes) to "make and use" the invention. Genes exist in nature, so you can't patent the gene per se. But what you patent is a purified version of the gene(i.e. one isolated from other DNA in the genome), which does not occur naturally, but which may be useful because you can insert the purified gene in other organisms to make genetically engineered cells. (You can also patent the organisms created in this manner). However, an invention also has to be "useful." If you don't know what the gene does, then you can't show that it is useful (and can't show how to use it). So even if you can show how to make it, you haven't satisfied the criteria for patentability. (Not speaking for my employer) > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Weissman [mailto:rob@essential.org] > Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 1:20 PM > To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org > Subject: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes > > > As many may know, the issue of the patenting of the human > genome is now > very hot (see cover of today's Wall Street Journal). > > I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for > genes. Why is > not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than a > patentable invention? > > The patent office is now making a distinction between finding > genes and > being able to explain what a particular gene does, with a > tendency to give > patents only the latter case. But why does this cross the invention > threshold? > > This is not to ask for a moral critique of life or human > patents, or even > necessarily a legal critique of the patents. I'm just trying > to understand > the basic rationale for granting patents in these cases. > > Robert Weissman > Essential Information | Internet: > rob@essential.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Mar 17 14:00:42 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 61C0921AFF for ; Fri, 17 Mar 2000 14:00:42 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id OAA29908 for ; Fri, 17 Mar 2000 14:00:42 -0500 Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 14:00:42 -0500 (EST) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Barriers to e-commerce comments due today FR: Ed Mierzwinski RE: Comments sought on barriers to electronic commerce. 2 Mar 00 Today, the Chair of the US Government Working Group on Electronic Commerce, David Beier, [Chief Domestic Policy Advisor for the Vice President], [asked people to ] file comments before 17 March on "barriers to electronic commerce." [snip] Here are three web addresses: The Working group page-- with links to all US govt e-commerce projects. The barriers comments home page-- Jump right to the on-line comments pages-- Here is an excerpt: "To implement these objectives, the President mandated that the United States Government Working Group on Electronic Commerce: (1) identify laws and regulations that impose barriers to the growth of electronic commerce, and (2) recommend how these laws and regulations should be revised to facilitate the development of electronic commerce, while ensuring that protection of the public interest (including consumer protection) is equivalent to that provided with respect to offline commerce. The President mandated that the Commerce Department lead a subgroup to implement this work, and the Subgroup on Legal Barriers to Electronic Commerce has been formed to carry out those responsibilities. The President directed the Subgroup to invite the public to participate in this effort by identifying laws or regulations that may obstruct, hinder or discriminate against electronic commerce, including those that should be modified on a priority basis. The Subgroup was also charged with inviting public comment on how such laws and regulations could be adapted to the electronic environment while ensuring that public interest protections will be equivalent to those now provided in offline commerce. This Notice and Request for Comment implements those directives." From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Mar 17 15:05:06 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40B8E21AFF for ; Fri, 17 Mar 2000 15:05:06 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA13972; Fri, 17 Mar 2000 13:05:05 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id NAA03917; Fri, 17 Mar 2000 13:05:04 -0700 (MST) Date: Fri, 17 Mar 2000 13:05:04 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200003172005.NAA03917@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: rob@essential.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: (message from Robert Weissman on Thu, 16 Mar 2000 13:19:53 -0500 (EST)) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes. Why is not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than a patentable invention? The justification that the patent system offers is that the gene has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a substance distinct from what is found in natural chromosomes. It seems rather strained logic to me. It seems to reflect a desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules to permit more kinds of patents. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Mar 19 15:01:19 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9CD7D21AFF for ; Sun, 19 Mar 2000 15:01:18 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id NAA18048 for ; Sun, 19 Mar 2000 13:01:07 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id NAA01246; Sun, 19 Mar 2000 13:01:08 -0700 (MST) Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 13:01:08 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200003192001.NAA01246@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Reply-To: rms@gnu.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] [jpt@cif.rochester.edu: Re: [jpt@cif.rochester.edu: RIAA v. MP3.com Inc.]] ------- Start of forwarded message ------- To: rms@gnu.org Subject: Re: [jpt@cif.rochester.edu: RIAA v. MP3.com Inc.] In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 22 Feb 2000 12:48:09 MST." <200002221948.MAA03874@aztec.santafe.edu> Date: Thu, 02 Mar 2000 17:00:05 -0500 From: Jonathan P Tomer Content-Type: text Content-Length: 4252 > It would be good for someone to (1) get to the bottom of what is at stake > in the lawsuit, (2) explain what the RIAA is trying to do, and (3) > analyze this from a political standpoint which rejects the assumption > that copyright law defines right and wrong. here's an attempt. feel free to publish, excerpt, modify, whatever. - --p. "When you look back after you're dead, you'll regret what you didn't do, not what you did." -- Momus, "Steven Zeeland" PGP 5.0 key (0xE024447449) at http://cif.rochester.edu/~jpt/pubkey.txt On RIAA v. My MP3.Com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The service at issue here is MP3.Com's (no longer) new "My.MP3.Com" feature, whose fundamental purpose is to store music for you to listen to, free of charge. The difference between the music you can get from My.MP3.Com and other music you can get from MP3.com is that My.MP3.com provides music with copyright licences which forbid free redistribution -- that is, music which, if you wanted to listen to it, you'd ordinarily need to buy a CD. MP3.Com is not challenging this copyright, and whether they should be or not is another issue. Rather, they have elected not to provide copyrighted music to you unless you can demonstrate that you have obtained license to hear that music already, in the form of physical proof that you have bought a CD. Any reasonable person, even if he accepted for the moment that a record producer is entitled to claim copyright to a work of music, should have no objections to this service -- after all, MP3.Com isn't even attempting to share copies of these "protected" works with people who haven't gotten copies already. In fact, when one rejects the concept that copyright is a matter of natural law, MP3.Com seems just as bad as the recording industry itself: they have lots of music and the means to distribute it, but they refuse to share with anyone who hasn't been OK'ed by the self-styled "owners" of the music. But, unfortunately, not everyone is a reasonable person, as the decision- makers over at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) were all too happy to demonstrate late January, when they filed a lawsuit against MP3.Com, Inc. for infringement of copyright. What claims could RIAA possibly have against MP3.Com -- even given that infringement of copyright is an offense worth noting? In their open letter to the CEO of MP3.Com, Inc. which accompanied the suit, they say things like "Simply put, it is not legal to compile a vast database of our member's [sic] sound recordings with no permission and no license." In the current state of legal affairs in the world, that would be true -- but MP3.Com did have a license. They bought a copy of every single CD whose contents are available through My.MP3.Com. Certainly it is legal to compile a vast database of sound recordings, even those "belonging" to RIAA members, with a license -- I offer as an example my friend Seth's music collection, which weighs in at about six hundred CDs, most of which are copyrighted by RIAA members. Surely that qualifies as a "vast database of sound recordings." So what is really at stake here? This isn't going to be a groundbreaking case on the issue of whether or not copyright is a valid concept; both parties have taken that point entirely for granted. One might thus be tempted to dismiss the case as irrelevant since it won't gain the free world anything, but that would be a mistake. RIAA is not just trying to keep their copy-"right"; they are trying to claim as inalienable a privilige of another sort. They want not only to control who can have a copy of "their" information, but what they can do with it. If they succeed, what's to prevent them from deciding that the CD you just bought can only be played on one CD player, and if you want to use it in another one you need to buy another CD? The essence of RIAA's case is summed up by the following statement, again from their letter to MP3.Com: "[W]hatever the individual's right to use their own music, you cannot exploit that for your company's commercial gain". That's clearly a fallacy: if a company can profit by helping me exercise my rights, they're on far firmer moral ground than a company that profits by denying me rights they don't want me to have. ------- End of forwarded message ------- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 08:19:15 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from fish-bh.fr.com (fish-bh.fr.com [192.233.214.66]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4364621AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:19:14 -0500 (EST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by fish-bh.fr.com (8.8.8/8.6.11) id IAA13324 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:19:13 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.fr.com(204.167.49.19) by fish-bh.fr.com via smap (4.1) id xma013308; Mon, 20 Mar 00 08:19:00 -0500 Received: by mail.fr.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:17:51 -0500 Message-ID: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E175@BOSNT03> From: Lawrence Kolodney To: "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:14:40 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" There's nothing strained about it. This is the standard for patenting any chemical compound, not just genes. A chemical compound that is useful (from a technology point of view) is generally only useful if it can be isolated and manipulated in a laboratory or industrial process to acheive some useful result. Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but can't be used in technological processes because either (1) they are not known to science, (2) it is not known how to isolate or create them synthetically, or (3) it is not known how to do something useful with them. Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the first person who teaches the world how to make and use the purified chemical compound. Same with genes. -----Original Message----- From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org] Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM To: rob@essential.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes. Why is not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than a patentable invention? The justification that the patent system offers is that the gene has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a substance distinct from what is found in natural chromosomes. It seems rather strained logic to me. It seems to reflect a desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules to permit more kinds of patents. _______________________________________________ Upd-discuss mailing list Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 09:02:24 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CB55E21AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:02:23 -0500 (EST) Received: from law.csuohio.edu ([137.148.62.223]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA1BA7; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:04:25 -0500 Message-ID: <38D6304C.CDAD1CD2@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:06:04 -0500 From: "Michael H. Davis" Organization: Cleveland State University College of Law X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Lawrence Kolodney Cc: "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes References: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E175@BOSNT03> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------821425044FEA73E4B16B3F2D" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------821425044FEA73E4B16B3F2D Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------2196AFF4DA236A24118872FC" --------------2196AFF4DA236A24118872FC Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It is, in fact, not just strained but perverse, and Mr. Kolodney's attempted justifications for it do not withstand close analysis. First, he states that this is the way all chemical compounds are patented. That is hardly a justification;; it, of course, merely restates the problem: chemicals are being patented without justification. It is not unusual in patent law, however, for arguments to be first stood on their heads and then used to justify their own premises. Then he notes that many chemicals may be naturally occurring but are unknown. That is, in its own amusing way, again a simple restatement, this time of the rule that discoveries of naturally occurring substances cannot be the subject of a patent. The fact that they are "not known to science" is the very premise for the rule against patenting such discoveries. If they were known before, they would not be discoveries! Yet, of course, they remain unpatentable. The next argument Mr. Kolodney offers is that it is "not known how to isolate or create them synthetically. The problem with that it is it is no basis for patenting the chemical, but for patenting the process, and all such processes, even those that produce otherwise naturally occurring chemicals, or even well-known ones, are available for patent protection. It is, in fact, somewhat tired hornbook law that though a chemical cannot be patented because it is already known or naturaly occurring, an inventive process that produces it can obtain complete patent protection. Finally, Mr, Kolodney's last argument is that the chemical's utility may not have been known until the inventor came along. Once again, this is an even more well recognized, though similarly tired, doctrine, that allows patenting of any newly found utility as part of the method exploiting that utililty, as long as it otherwise satisfies the standards of patentability. And that last part is what Richard Stallman has observed is strained. There is no need to patent the very chemicals on the basis of this strained reasoning, that simply because a chemical does not exist in nature at a particular concentration, it becomes patentable at that concentration. There are already means for allowing patentability of truly inventive ways of using new or old chemicals and there is no need to allow patentabilty on this strained basis except for what Richard originaly observed: the patent regime simply wants to offer as many patents as possible. And that it is why it is our job to oppose it. Mickey Davis Lawrence Kolodney wrote: > There's nothing strained about it. This is the standard for patenting > any chemical compound, not just genes. A chemical compound that is > useful (from a technology point of view) is generally only useful if > it can be isolated and manipulated in a laboratory or industrial > process to acheive some useful result. > > Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but can't be > used in technological processes because either (1) they are not known > to science, (2) it is not known how to isolate or create them > synthetically, or (3) it is not known how to do something useful with > them. > > Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the first > person who teaches the world how to make and use the purified chemical > compound. Same with genes. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org] > Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM > To: rob@essential.org > Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org > Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes > > I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes. > Why is > not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than > a > patentable invention? > > The justification that the patent system offers is that the gene > has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a substance > distinct from what is found in natural chromosomes. > > It seems rather strained logic to me. It seems to reflect a > desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules > to permit more kinds of patents. > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss --------------2196AFF4DA236A24118872FC Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It is, in fact, not just strained but perverse, and Mr. Kolodney's attempted justifications for it do not withstand close analysis. First, he states that this is the way all chemical compounds are patented. That is hardly a justification;; it, of course, merely restates the problem: chemicals are being patented without justification. It is not unusual in patent law, however, for arguments to be first stood on their heads and then used to justify their own premises.

Then he notes that many chemicals may be naturally occurring but are unknown. That is, in its own amusing way, again a simple restatement, this time of the rule that discoveries of naturally occurring substances cannot be the subject of a patent. The fact that they are "not known to science" is the very premise for the rule against patenting such discoveries. If they were known before, they would not be discoveries! Yet, of course, they remain unpatentable.

The next argument Mr. Kolodney offers is that it is "not known how to isolate or create them synthetically. The problem with that it is it is no basis for patenting the chemical, but for patenting the process, and all such processes, even those that produce otherwise naturally occurring chemicals, or even well-known ones, are available for patent protection. It is, in fact, somewhat tired hornbook law that though a chemical cannot be patented because it is already known or naturaly occurring, an inventive process that produces it can obtain complete patent protection.

Finally, Mr, Kolodney's last argument is that the chemical's utility may not have been known until the inventor came along. Once again, this is an even more well recognized, though similarly tired, doctrine, that allows patenting of any newly found utility as part of the method exploiting that utililty, as long as it otherwise satisfies the standards of patentability.

And that last part is what Richard Stallman has observed is strained. There is no need to patent the very chemicals on the basis of this strained reasoning, that simply because a chemical does not exist in nature at a particular concentration, it becomes patentable at that concentration. There are already means for allowing patentability of truly inventive ways of using new or old chemicals and there is no need to allow patentabilty on this strained basis except for what Richard originaly observed: the patent regime simply wants to offer as many patents as possible. And that it is why it is our job to oppose it.

Mickey Davis

Lawrence Kolodney wrote:

There's nothing strained about it.  This is the standard for patenting
any chemical compound, not just genes.  A chemical compound that is
useful (from a technology point of view) is generally only useful if
it can be isolated and manipulated in a laboratory or industrial
process to acheive some useful result.

Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but can't be
used in technological processes because either (1) they are not known
to science, (2) it is not known how to isolate or create them
synthetically, or (3) it is not known how to do something useful with
them.

Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the first
person who teaches the world how to make and use the purified chemical
compound.  Same with genes.

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org]
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM
To: rob@essential.org
Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org
Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes

    I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes.
Why is
    not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than
a
    patentable invention?

The justification that the patent system offers is that the gene
has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a substance
distinct from what is found in natural chromosomes.

It seems rather strained logic to me.  It seems to reflect a
desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules
to permit more kinds of patents.

_______________________________________________
Upd-discuss mailing list
Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss

_______________________________________________
Upd-discuss mailing list
Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss

--------------2196AFF4DA236A24118872FC-- --------------821425044FEA73E4B16B3F2D Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="michael.davis.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Prof. Michael H. Davis Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="michael.davis.vcf" begin:vcard n:; tel;fax:216-687-6881 tel;work:216-687-2228 x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:College of Law;Cleveland State University adr:;;1801 Euclid Ave.;Cleveland;OH;44115; version:2.1 email;internet:michael.davis@law.csuohio.edu title:Professor of Law x-mozilla-cpt:;-1 fn:Michael H. Davis end:vcard --------------821425044FEA73E4B16B3F2D-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 09:41:20 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from fish-bh.fr.com (fish-bh.fr.com [192.233.214.66]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 42C8321AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:41:20 -0500 (EST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by fish-bh.fr.com (8.8.8/8.6.11) id JAA29340 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:41:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.fr.com(204.167.49.19) by fish-bh.fr.com via smap (4.1) id xma029265; Mon, 20 Mar 00 09:40:41 -0500 Received: by mail.fr.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:39:31 -0500 Message-ID: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E176@BOSNT03> From: Lawrence Kolodney To: "'a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk'" , Lawrence Kolodney Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org Subject: RE: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 09:36:14 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Alan, I don't disagree with either of your comments. I'm just pointing out that gene patents are completely within the current "logic" of the patent system. While there are those who beleive that the current patent regime was handed down on Mt. Sinai along with the 10 commandments, I'm not in that camp. Patent law is a social convention created by humans for the benefit of humans. If it doesn't benefit humans, it can and should be changed. -----Original Message----- From: Alan Story [mailto:a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 8:51 AM To: Lawrence Kolodney Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; 'rms@gnu.org'; rob@essential.org Subject: Re: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Lawrence: I appreciate the point that you make about the distinction between inventions and discoveries. Still there are other questions that can be asked and we should never assume that full-blooded (sorry about the pun!) patent rights are always the answer. Once we appreciate that property rights should serve human needs firsts and foremost and that property rights in patents are created by the state, we can other more interesting questions which don't "naturalize" the current patenting regime as the only possible solution. For example: 1) why can't we change the U.S. Patent Act ( and TRIPS) to specifically exclude, by statute, the patenting of gene discoveries ( of the type that Craig Venter is applying for) and put a halt to "the sky's the limit" logic of Diamond v. Chakrabarty? 2) Even if we allow the patenting of gene "inventions", why should we not also work to require compulsory licenses for such pharmaceutical patents so that all of the world can enjoy the benefits of biotechnological breakthroughs? Regards Alan Story On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:14:40 -0500 Lawrence Kolodney wrote: > There's nothing strained about it. This is the standard > for patenting any chemical compound, not just genes. A > chemical compound that is useful (from a technology point > of view) is generally only useful if it can be isolated and > manipulated in a laboratory or industrial process to > acheive some useful result. > > Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but > can't be used in technological processes because either (1) > they are not known to science, (2) it is not known how to > isolate or create them synthetically, or (3) it is not > known how to do something useful with them. > > Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the > first person who teaches the world how to make and use the > purified chemical compound. Same with genes. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org] > Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM > To: rob@essential.org > Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org > Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes > > > I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted > for genes. Why is > not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery > rather than a > patentable invention? > > The justification that the patent system offers is that the > gene has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a > substance distinct from what is found in natural > chromosomes. > > It seems rather strained logic to me. It seems to reflect a > desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules > to permit more kinds of patents. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Ph. 01227 823316 Fax 01227 827831 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 10:05:01 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D43821AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:04:59 -0500 (EST) Received: from law.csuohio.edu ([137.148.62.223]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA257A; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:07:02 -0500 Message-ID: <38D63F00.B7DBBE8E@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:08:49 -0500 From: "Michael H. Davis" Organization: Cleveland State University College of Law X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Lawrence Kolodney Cc: "'a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk'" , upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes References: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E176@BOSNT03> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------C9943D13809E2ABF2A04C24D" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------C9943D13809E2ABF2A04C24D Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------CC428011C867C41970C88B06" --------------CC428011C867C41970C88B06 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Alan has asked (I only receive his comments as quotes to others because I am apparently not in the loop, or on the list, to most of these exchanges) several "why can't we's" that should be addressed because of a particular feature of TRIPS which I believe, though I am not sure, I have communicated to Jamie in the past. Most, though not all of these patents can be avoided, and without any changes to TRIPS. As long as these patents are method or process patents, to the extent that they are medical therapeutic patents, TRIPS specifically alows all signatory countries to opt out. Thus, UK, and South Africa, for instance, could readily opt out of medical therapeutic patents and be in full compliance. Furthermore, there would be no need for compulsory licenses, and more importantly, no need to satisfy the truly absurd limitations the US and its cohorts imposed upon the procedures necessary to grant compulsory licenses, if these countries opted out, because it would be a blanket exclusion, requiring none of those procedures. A compulsory license would have to be issued on a case by case basis with extraordinary attention to procedural details and require compensation. Compensation, of course, would make the entire excercise illusory (which, of course, is why TRIPS was authored in this way. I do not know why they allowed for opting out of medical therapeutic process patents except perhaps the historical animosity to such patents worldwide, outside the US orbit). Opting out is simply opting out. Not recognizing or granting such patents, no compensation is required. The problem with this is that even though all countries so proceeding would be in full compliance wth TRIPS, the US would undoubtedly move, under special 301, to sanction each and every one of them for failing to provide "adequate" IP protection, even though we, too, are signatories to TRIPS and, assumedly, recognize that it states what adequate protections are. Mickey Davis Lawrence Kolodney wrote: > Alan, I don't disagree with either of your comments. I'm just > pointing out that gene patents are completely within the current > "logic" of the patent system. > > While there are those who beleive that the current patent regime was > handed down on Mt. Sinai along with the 10 commandments, I'm not in > that camp. Patent law is a social convention created by humans for > the benefit of humans. If it doesn't benefit humans, it can and > should be changed. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Alan Story [mailto:a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk] > Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 8:51 AM > To: Lawrence Kolodney > Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; 'rms@gnu.org'; rob@essential.org > Subject: Re: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes > > Lawrence: > > I appreciate the point that you make about the > distinction between inventions and discoveries. Still > there are other questions that can be asked and we > should never assume that full-blooded (sorry about the > pun!) patent rights are always the answer. Once we > appreciate that property rights should serve human needs > firsts and foremost and that property rights in > patents are created by the state, we can other more > interesting questions which don't "naturalize" the > current patenting regime as the only possible solution. > For example: > > 1) why can't we change the U.S. Patent Act ( and > TRIPS) to specifically exclude, by statute, the patenting > of gene discoveries ( of the type that Craig Venter is > applying for) and put a halt to "the sky's the limit" logic > of Diamond v. Chakrabarty? > > 2) Even if we allow the patenting of gene "inventions", why > should we not also work to require compulsory licenses for > such pharmaceutical patents so that all of the world can > enjoy the benefits of biotechnological breakthroughs? > > Regards > Alan Story > > On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:14:40 -0500 Lawrence Kolodney > wrote: > > > There's nothing strained about it. This is the standard > > for patenting any chemical compound, not just genes. A > > chemical compound that is useful (from a technology point > > of view) is generally only useful if it can be isolated and > > manipulated in a laboratory or industrial process to > > acheive some useful result. > > > > Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but > > can't be used in technological processes because either (1) > > they are not known to science, (2) it is not known how to > > isolate or create them synthetically, or (3) it is not > > known how to do something useful with them. > > > > Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the > > first person who teaches the world how to make and use the > > purified chemical compound. Same with genes. > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org] > > Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM > > To: rob@essential.org > > Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org > > Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes > > > > > > I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted > > for genes. Why is > > not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery > > rather than a > > patentable invention? > > > > The justification that the patent system offers is that the > > gene has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a > > substance distinct from what is found in natural > > chromosomes. > > > > It seems rather strained logic to me. It seems to reflect a > > desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules > > to permit more kinds of patents. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Upd-discuss mailing list > > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Upd-discuss mailing list > > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > > ---------------------- > Alan Story > Kent Law School > Eliot College > University of Kent > Canterbury Kent UK > CT2 7NS > a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk > Ph. 01227 823316 > Fax 01227 827831 > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss --------------CC428011C867C41970C88B06 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Alan has asked (I only receive his comments as quotes to others because I am apparently not in the loop, or on the list, to most of these exchanges) several "why can't we's" that should be addressed because of a particular feature of TRIPS which I believe, though I am not sure, I have communicated to Jamie in the past.

Most, though not all of these patents can be avoided, and without any changes to TRIPS. As long as these patents are method or process patents, to the extent that they are medical therapeutic patents, TRIPS specifically alows all signatory countries to opt out. Thus, UK, and South Africa, for instance, could readily opt out of medical therapeutic patents and be in full compliance.

Furthermore, there would be no need for compulsory licenses, and more importantly, no need to satisfy the truly absurd limitations the US and its cohorts imposed upon the procedures necessary to grant compulsory licenses, if these countries opted out, because it would be a blanket exclusion, requiring none of those procedures. A compulsory license would have to be issued on a case by case basis with extraordinary attention to procedural details and require compensation. Compensation, of course, would make the entire excercise illusory (which, of course, is why TRIPS was authored in this way. I do not know why they allowed for opting out of medical therapeutic process patents except perhaps the historical animosity to such patents worldwide, outside the US orbit). Opting out is simply opting out. Not recognizing or granting such patents, no compensation is required.

The problem with this is that even though all countries so proceeding would be in full compliance wth TRIPS, the US would undoubtedly move, under special 301, to sanction each and every one of them for failing to provide "adequate" IP protection, even though we, too, are signatories to TRIPS and, assumedly, recognize that it states what adequate protections are.

Mickey Davis

Lawrence Kolodney wrote:

Alan, I don't disagree with either of your comments.  I'm just
pointing out that gene patents are completely within the current
"logic" of the patent system.

While there are those who beleive that the current patent regime was
handed down on Mt. Sinai along with the 10 commandments, I'm not in
that camp.  Patent law is a social convention created by humans for
the benefit of humans.  If it doesn't benefit humans, it can and
should be changed.

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Story [mailto:a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk]
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 8:51 AM
To: Lawrence Kolodney
Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; 'rms@gnu.org'; rob@essential.org
Subject: Re: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes

Lawrence:

I appreciate the point that you make about the
distinction between inventions and discoveries. Still
there are other questions that can be asked and we
should never assume that full-blooded (sorry about the
pun!) patent rights are always the answer. Once we
appreciate that property rights should serve human needs
firsts and foremost and that property rights in
patents are created by the state, we can other more
interesting questions which don't "naturalize" the
current patenting regime as the only possible solution.
For example:

1) why can't we change the U.S. Patent Act ( and
TRIPS) to specifically exclude, by statute, the patenting
of gene discoveries ( of the type that Craig Venter is
applying for) and put a halt to "the sky's the limit" logic
of Diamond v. Chakrabarty?

2) Even if we allow the patenting of gene "inventions", why
should we not also work to require compulsory licenses for
such pharmaceutical patents so that all of the world can
enjoy the benefits of biotechnological breakthroughs?

Regards
Alan Story

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:14:40 -0500 Lawrence Kolodney
<kolodney@fr.com> wrote:

> There's nothing strained about it.  This is the standard
> for patenting any chemical compound, not just genes.  A
> chemical compound that is useful (from a technology point
> of view) is generally only useful if it can be isolated and
> manipulated in a laboratory or industrial process to
> acheive some useful result.
>
> Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but
> can't be used in technological processes because either (1)
> they are not known to science, (2) it is not known how to
> isolate or create them synthetically, or (3) it is not
> known how to do something useful with them.
>
> Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the
> first person who teaches the world how to make and use the
> purified chemical compound.  Same with genes.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org]
> Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM
> To: rob@essential.org
> Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org
> Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes
>
>
>     I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted
> for genes. Why is
>     not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery
> rather than a
>     patentable invention?
>
> The justification that the patent system offers is that the
> gene has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a
> substance distinct from what is found in natural
> chromosomes.
>
> It seems rather strained logic to me.  It seems to reflect a
> desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules
> to permit more kinds of patents.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Upd-discuss mailing list
> Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Upd-discuss mailing list
> Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
> http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss

----------------------
Alan Story
Kent Law School
Eliot College
University of Kent
Canterbury Kent UK
CT2 7NS
a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk
Ph. 01227 823316
Fax 01227 827831

_______________________________________________
Upd-discuss mailing list
Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org
http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss

--------------CC428011C867C41970C88B06-- --------------C9943D13809E2ABF2A04C24D Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="michael.davis.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Prof. Michael H. Davis Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="michael.davis.vcf" begin:vcard n:; tel;fax:216-687-6881 tel;work:216-687-2228 x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:College of Law;Cleveland State University adr:;;1801 Euclid Ave.;Cleveland;OH;44115; version:2.1 email;internet:michael.davis@law.csuohio.edu title:Professor of Law x-mozilla-cpt:;-1 fn:Michael H. Davis end:vcard --------------C9943D13809E2ABF2A04C24D-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 12:03:05 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1CC9921AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:03:02 -0500 (EST) Received: from law.csuohio.edu ([137.148.62.223]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with ESMTP id AAA387D; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:04:53 -0500 Message-ID: <38D65A9C.74F1DB5@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 12:06:37 -0500 From: "Michael H. Davis" Organization: Cleveland State University College of Law X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win95; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org, Lawrence Kolodney Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes References: Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------82B107058045CE719E5E4F09" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------82B107058045CE719E5E4F09 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------0F8137F7D0D43A9190015F5F" --------------0F8137F7D0D43A9190015F5F Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am afraid if we leave it at this, that one of the most valuable features of this TRIPS exception may be misunderstood. While it may be true (I am actually not willing to concede that pharmaceuticals constitute a field of technology otherwise not excludable from TRIPS) that pharmaceuticals cannot be excluded, this bar may not be as wide as it appears. Many pharmaceuticals--perhaps even most, certainly over time--are not patented as pharmaceuticals. Many, perhaps most, are patented as methods of using pharmaceuticals (because, for one reason or another the underlying drug may not be patentable). Those methods can be excluded from protection, allowing such drugs to be commercialized royalty-free in any country caring to take advantage of this TRIPS power. One of the best examples that comes to my mind is the patent over AZT, the AIDS drug. AZT is not patented as such, but only its therapeutic use. All of the various countries, especially Asian and African ones, that are having trouble financing the purchase of AZT could easily avoid this and still be in full compliance with TRIPS by barring patents on therapeutic methods. Most of these patents are simply therapeutic methods. Mickey Davis Alan Story wrote: > Mickey is quite right. Under TRIPS Art. 27 3 a), TRIPS > signatories can exclude "diagnostic, therepeutic and > surgical methods for the treatment of humans or > animals"...but they cannot exclude pharmaceuticals, which > was the main point I was making about compulsory > licenses. > > But then, again as Mickey mentions, S. 301 could come down > on such countries with a thump on those countries who don't > do things the U.S. way. > > Interestingly, when the U.S. Congress added subsection (c) > to section 287 of the U.S. Patent Act which denied > holders of patents and surgical procedures the > right to sue medical practioners for the > unauthorised use of these procedures in medical > activities (meaning, failure/refusal to pay royalties), > this protection against damages was only given to U.S. > medical practioners and not those practicing medicine > elsewhere. > > Cheers > Alan Story > > > > On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:08:49 -0500 "Michael H. Davis" > wrote: > > ---------------------- > Alan Story > Kent Law School > Eliot College > University of Kent > Canterbury Kent UK > CT2 7NS > a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk > Ph. 01227 823316 > Fax 01227 827831 --------------0F8137F7D0D43A9190015F5F Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am afraid if we leave it at this, that one of the most valuable features of this TRIPS exception may be misunderstood. While it may be true (I am actually not willing to concede that pharmaceuticals constitute a field of technology otherwise not excludable from TRIPS) that pharmaceuticals cannot be excluded, this bar may not be as wide as it appears.  Many pharmaceuticals--perhaps even most, certainly over time--are not patented as pharmaceuticals. Many, perhaps most, are patented as methods of using pharmaceuticals (because, for one reason or another the underlying drug may not be patentable). Those methods can be excluded from protection, allowing such drugs to be commercialized royalty-free in any country caring to take advantage of this TRIPS power. One of the best examples that comes to my mind is the patent over AZT, the AIDS drug. AZT is not patented as such, but only its therapeutic use. All of the various countries, especially Asian and African ones, that are having trouble financing the purchase of AZT could easily avoid this and still be in full compliance with TRIPS by barring patents on therapeutic methods. Most of these patents are simply therapeutic methods.

Mickey Davis
 

Alan Story wrote:

Mickey is quite right. Under TRIPS Art. 27 3 a), TRIPS
signatories can exclude "diagnostic, therepeutic and
surgical methods for the treatment of humans or
animals"...but they cannot exclude pharmaceuticals, which
was the main point I was making about compulsory
licenses.

But then, again as Mickey mentions, S. 301 could come down
on such countries with a thump on those countries who don't
do things the U.S. way.

Interestingly, when the U.S. Congress added subsection (c)
to section 287 of the U.S. Patent Act which denied
holders of patents and surgical procedures the
right to sue medical practioners for the
unauthorised use of these procedures in medical
activities (meaning, failure/refusal to pay royalties),
this protection against damages was only given to U.S.
medical practioners and not those practicing medicine
elsewhere.

Cheers
Alan Story
 
 

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:08:49 -0500 "Michael H. Davis"
<Michael.Davis@law.csuohio.edu> wrote:

----------------------
Alan Story
Kent Law School
Eliot College
University of Kent
Canterbury Kent UK
CT2 7NS
a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk
Ph. 01227 823316
Fax 01227 827831

--------------0F8137F7D0D43A9190015F5F-- --------------82B107058045CE719E5E4F09 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="michael.davis.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Prof. Michael H. Davis Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="michael.davis.vcf" begin:vcard n:; tel;fax:216-687-6881 tel;work:216-687-2228 x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:College of Law;Cleveland State University adr:;;1801 Euclid Ave.;Cleveland;OH;44115; version:2.1 email;internet:michael.davis@law.csuohio.edu title:Professor of Law x-mozilla-cpt:;-1 fn:Michael H. Davis end:vcard --------------82B107058045CE719E5E4F09-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 11:17:36 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DFEE821AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 11:17:35 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 12X4rz-0001Dy-00; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:17:31 +0000 Received: from dhcp1e88.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.136] helo=pcklsnt20.ukc.ac.uk) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) id 12X4rz-00038c-00; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:17:31 +0000 From: Alan Story Sender: acs3@ukc.ac.uk Reply-To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk To: "Michael H. Davis" Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org, Lawrence Kolodney Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Message-ID: Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:22:01 +0000 (GMT Standard Time) Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Simeon for Win32 Version 4.1.4 Build (40) X-Authentication: none MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Mickey is quite right. Under TRIPS Art. 27 3 a), TRIPS signatories can exclude "diagnostic, therepeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans or animals"...but they cannot exclude pharmaceuticals, which was the main point I was making about compulsory licenses. But then, again as Mickey mentions, S. 301 could come down on such countries with a thump on those countries who don't do things the U.S. way. Interestingly, when the U.S. Congress added subsection (c) to section 287 of the U.S. Patent Act which denied holders of patents and surgical procedures the right to sue medical practioners for the unauthorised use of these procedures in medical activities (meaning, failure/refusal to pay royalties), this protection against damages was only given to U.S. medical practioners and not those practicing medicine elsewhere. Cheers Alan Story On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:08:49 -0500 "Michael H. Davis" wrote: ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Ph. 01227 823316 Fax 01227 827831 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 08:54:39 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 883F821AFF for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:54:37 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 12X2W0-0002jn-00; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:46:40 +0000 Received: from dhcp1e88.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.136] helo=pcklsnt20.ukc.ac.uk) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) id 12X2W0-0004e9-00; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:46:40 +0000 From: Alan Story Sender: acs3@ukc.ac.uk Reply-To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk To: Lawrence Kolodney Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org Subject: Re: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes In-Reply-To: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E175@BOSNT03> Message-ID: Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 13:51:11 +0000 (GMT Standard Time) Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Simeon for Win32 Version 4.1.4 Build (40) X-Authentication: none MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Lawrence: I appreciate the point that you make about the distinction between inventions and discoveries. Still there are other questions that can be asked and we should never assume that full-blooded (sorry about the pun!) patent rights are always the answer. Once we appreciate that property rights should serve human needs firsts and foremost and that property rights in patents are created by the state, we can other more interesting questions which don't "naturalize" the current patenting regime as the only possible solution. For example: 1) why can't we change the U.S. Patent Act ( and TRIPS) to specifically exclude, by statute, the patenting of gene discoveries ( of the type that Craig Venter is applying for) and put a halt to "the sky's the limit" logic of Diamond v. Chakrabarty? 2) Even if we allow the patenting of gene "inventions", why should we not also work to require compulsory licenses for such pharmaceutical patents so that all of the world can enjoy the benefits of biotechnological breakthroughs? Regards Alan Story On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:14:40 -0500 Lawrence Kolodney wrote: > There's nothing strained about it. This is the standard > for patenting any chemical compound, not just genes. A > chemical compound that is useful (from a technology point > of view) is generally only useful if it can be isolated and > manipulated in a laboratory or industrial process to > acheive some useful result. > > Many chemical compounds exist spontaneously in nature, but > can't be used in technological processes because either (1) > they are not known to science, (2) it is not known how to > isolate or create them synthetically, or (3) it is not > known how to do something useful with them. > > Thus the Patent Office grants a patent on a chemical to the > first person who teaches the world how to make and use the > purified chemical compound. Same with genes. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Richard Stallman [mailto:rms@gnu.org] > Sent: Friday, March 17, 2000 3:05 PM > To: rob@essential.org > Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org > Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes > > > I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted > for genes. Why is > not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery > rather than a > patentable invention? > > The justification that the patent system offers is that the > gene has been isolated in a pure form, and that that is a > substance distinct from what is found in natural > chromosomes. > > It seems rather strained logic to me. It seems to reflect a > desire on the part of the patent system to stretch its rules > to permit more kinds of patents. > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Ph. 01227 823316 Fax 01227 827831 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 16 16:13:33 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from melville.wmitchell.edu (fw.wmitchell.edu [198.174.15.2]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 65DE721B06 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 16:13:32 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <6FB98C58CFA4D211BADA0090271F41E06AAF93@198-174-12-243.wmitchell.edu> From: Moy Carl To: "'upd-discuss@lists.essential.org'" Subject: FW: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 14:59:45 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: Moy Carl Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 1:42 PM To: 'upd-board@lists.essential.org' Subject: FW: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes -----Original Message----- From: Moy Carl Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 1:37 PM To: 'Robert Weissman' Subject: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Rob: The process of becoming a specialist to some degree that of learning more and more about less and less. It is therefore perhaps unfortunate that I can, at this stage of my career, answer your question in excruciating detail. You are right that attempts to the human genome, or portions of it, are vulnerable to being blocked by the fact that the genome is itself pre-existing. Patent law has long contained the restriction that one cannot patent a pre-existing apparatus (or other structure) simply because one has discovered the apparatus has a previously unknown property. The typical admonition is that such a person must be content with patent protection over any new method of using the apparatus that may have been developed. Patent practitioners are skilled in avoiding this barrier, however. The most common technique, in the case of an newly isolated, but naturally occuring chemical, is to claim the chemical in a purity that comfortably exceeds what would have existed naturally. Industrial use of the chemical will typically require access to the purified form. The claim is therefore still commercially viable. Because the chemical has never existed in the purified state, moreovern the claimed invention is not anticipated by the art. In addition, since the chemical was previously unknown the purified form is also unobvious, a fortiori. This is main technique by which the companies seeking to patent genomic material expect to establish that their work is patentable over the art. The other hurdle of substantive patent law that is problematic for these companies is that of the so-called "utility" requirement. The statute, 35 U.S.C. 101, limits patenting to inventions that are "useful." This inherently raises the question of "how useful?" and, specifically, what the threshhold utility of an invention must be before the system will allow patenting of it to be considered. Patent law has traditionally (i.e., since a case in 1817) held the view that the invention need only be "minimally useful for its intended purpose," and that, as a result, the disclosure of virtually any non-trivial use for the claimed invention will be sufficient. This very low threshhold is justified with the argument that, since the economic harm of patenting depends on the invention actually being demanded by consumers, inventions with comparatively little utiility will impose a corresponding injury on the marketplace. The result is a "no-harm, no-foul" rule that relies heavily on Adam Smith's invisible hand. Application of the this traditional rule would probably result in the human genome being considered to have adequate utility. Dr. Ventor, for example, alleged at least two utilities for the claimed parts of the genome, i.e., forensics and marking, that would meet the test. Thus, the expectation of many in the patent community is that patent protection for the genome will be available to the person who first isolates it. This having been said, however, there are some indications that the utility requirement does not have the simole structure that some in the patent community assume. For example, at times in the past it was fashionable to assert that there was, as a practical matter, simply no utility requirement for chemical compounds whatsoever. This was based on the reasoning that every compound, once made, was inherently useful for at the purpose of further inquiry. Thus, no compound could be rejected for lack of utility. This question went to the Supreme Court in a test case in the 1960's and, to the patent community's surprise, the Court there disagreed. The facts of that case were roughly as follows. The applicant/inventor had synthesized a chemical that had no known use itself, but which was strucurally similar to another chemical that was known to have anti-cancer properties. The attempt was made to claim the new chemical per se, with the only assertion of utility being that the new chemical could be used in further research, and that might have anti-cancer properties itself. The holding of the Court in the case has been difficult for the patent community to grasp. Basically, the patent community sees the case as requiring that inventions possess a "practical" utility before they can be patented, and the usefulness as the subject of further research is not practical. Thus, the community sees the question for the genome as being whether forensics and marking are sufficiently practical. They conclude that the uses likely are. A careful reading of the Supreme Court case, however, suggests that the genome applications may run into trouble. Basically the Court was addressing the problem that patenting perversely slows future research into as-yet undiscovered technologies whose use will be covered by the patent rights being given. This is particularly troublesome for chemical compounds, whose control via initial patent rights inherently blocks the right to use all methods of making and using. This call for denying patent rights on the chemical compound in some cases, to keep the field open for future research. (Germany, for instance, did not grant any chemical-product patents at all for time during the 20th Century.) Read correctly, I believe, the Court's discussion of practical utility was directed to this latter problem. Even where the claimed invention in not currently in commercial demand, its control is costly to society if there are significant future uses that remain to be discovered. The case is therefore is best viewed as having held that patent rights to the compound will not issue unless the applicant has provided a teaching of a substantial part of the overall uses to which we expect the compound to be put. Under this view the attempts to patent the genome are in real trouble. Forensics and marking are clearly only a miniscule part of the valuable uses we expect to be able to make of the genome in this generation. While it is not clear at this point, I feel this more restrictive view of the utility requirement, or at least some proto-form of it, will be applied to the genome applications. I expect the attempt to patent them to fail. I hope this long explanation has been at least a net benefit. Carl Moy -----Original Message----- From: Robert Weissman [mailto:rob@essential.org] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 12:20 PM To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes As many may know, the issue of the patenting of the human genome is now very hot (see cover of today's Wall Street Journal). I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes. Why is not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than a patentable invention? The patent office is now making a distinction between finding genes and being able to explain what a particular gene does, with a tendency to give patents only the latter case. But why does this cross the invention threshold? This is not to ask for a moral critique of life or human patents, or even necessarily a legal critique of the patents. I'm just trying to understand the basic rationale for granting patents in these cases. Robert Weissman Essential Information | Internet: rob@essential.org _______________________________________________ Upd-discuss mailing list Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 16 15:08:28 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from postoffice.sarnoff.com (postoffice.sarnoff.com [130.33.10.147]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 545A221B06 for ; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 15:08:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from sarnoff.com ([130.33.128.97]) by postoffice.sarnoff.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.6) with ESMTP id AAA5C8C; Thu, 16 Mar 2000 15:08:14 -0500 Sender: "LUCAS PARRA" Message-ID: <38D13F2D.7F9CB358@sarnoff.com> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 15:08:13 -0500 From: Lucas Parra Organization: David Sarnoff Corp X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (X11; I; SunOS 5.6 sun4u) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Robert Weissman Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There is no good argument. One answer to your question might be "expressed sequence tags" (EST). These are markers that indicate that a piece of DNA does have some functional role. I'm no expert but I understand that ESTs are part of genes and those produce useful things like protein for example. If you find an EST marker you found a gene that is useful for something. Combined with the vaguest notion what that DNA strand might actually be doing will be considers by the PTO non-obvious intellectual value. The functionality can often be roughly guesses by comparing to other similar looking genes out of a database. There is software to do that automatically now. Furthermore you have to show utility. Say you will use it for drug development. Done. Patented. Whether all your claims are actually true is irrelevant. Have a look at patent US6025810 (http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US06025810__ ) to have a good laugh and to get an idea how wrong things can be and still be patented. Its a joke, but it is how they want to look at it. Lucas Further reading: "Patent Office May Raise the Bar on Gene Claims", by Martin Enserink, Science 2000 February 18; 287: 1196-1197. In general in Science you find lots of articles on the subject. Robert Weissman wrote: > > As many may know, the issue of the patenting of the human genome is now > very hot (see cover of today's Wall Street Journal). > > I remain unclear on how it is that patents are granted for genes. Why is > not the discovery of a gene a non-patentable discovery rather than a > patentable invention? > > The patent office is now making a distinction between finding genes and > being able to explain what a particular gene does, with a tendency to give > patents only the latter case. But why does this cross the invention > threshold? > > This is not to ask for a moral critique of life or human patents, or even > necessarily a legal critique of the patents. I'm just trying to understand > the basic rationale for granting patents in these cases. > > Robert Weissman > Essential Information | Internet: rob@essential.org > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 20 17:19:20 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from fish-bh.fr.com (fish-bh.fr.com [192.233.214.66]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4329121B1A for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:19:20 -0500 (EST) Received: (from uucp@localhost) by fish-bh.fr.com (8.8.8/8.6.11) id RAA18531 for ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:19:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from mail.fr.com(204.167.49.19) by fish-bh.fr.com via smap (4.1) id xma018456; Mon, 20 Mar 00 17:19:08 -0500 Received: by mail.fr.com with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:17:58 -0500 Message-ID: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E178@BOSNT03> From: Lawrence Kolodney To: "'a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk'" , "Michael H. Davis" Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, "'rms@gnu.org'" , rob@essential.org, Lawrence Kolodney Subject: RE: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 17:14:47 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Re your comment below. Section 287(c) applies only to doctors who are licenced in the U.S. But U.S. patent law (with exceptions not relevant here) only applies to acts of infringement inside the U.S. So all this law is saying is that a duly licenced doctor cannot be sued for patent infringement under U.S. law for performing a surgical procedure he is authorized to perform. Foreign licenced doctors are not authorized to perform surgical procedures in the U.S. -----Original Message----- From: Alan Story [mailto:a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2000 11:22 AM To: Michael H. Davis Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; 'rms@gnu.org'; rob@essential.org; Lawrence Kolodney Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes [snip] Interestingly, when the U.S. Congress added subsection (c) to section 287 of the U.S. Patent Act which denied holders of patents and surgical procedures the right to sue medical practioners for the unauthorised use of these procedures in medical activities (meaning, failure/refusal to pay royalties), this protection against damages was only given to U.S. medical practioners and not those practicing medicine elsewhere. Cheers Alan Story On Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:08:49 -0500 "Michael H. Davis" wrote: ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Ph. 01227 823316 Fax 01227 827831 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Mar 21 07:12:51 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F276821B14 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 07:12:46 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id FAA28298; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:12:45 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id FAA01699; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:12:42 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:12:42 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200003211212.FAA01699@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: kolodney@fr.com Cc: rob@essential.org, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E175@BOSNT03> (message from Lawrence Kolodney on Mon, 20 Mar 2000 08:14:40 -0500) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <817E7852EA77D311B63600508B55863A0133E175@BOSNT03> There's nothing strained about it. This is the standard for patenting any chemical compound, not just genes. If this criterion is used for chemicals other than genes, that doesn't make it any less strained. It would make more sense to have a policy that whoever isolates a compound in pure form can get a patent on the process which was used to isolate it, but not on the compound itself. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Mar 21 07:14:04 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C9B6021B38 for ; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 07:14:03 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id FAA28496; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:14:03 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id FAA01816; Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:14:01 -0700 (MST) Date: Tue, 21 Mar 2000 05:14:01 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200003211214.FAA01816@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Cc: Michael.Davis@law.csuohio.edu, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, rob@essential.org, kolodney@fr.com In-reply-to: (message from Alan Story on Mon, 20 Mar 2000 16:22:01 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] patenting genes Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: Interestingly, when the U.S. Congress added subsection (c) to section 287 of the U.S. Patent Act which denied holders of patents and surgical procedures the right to sue medical practioners for the unauthorised use of these procedures in medical activities (meaning, failure/refusal to pay royalties), this protection against damages was only given to U.S. medical practioners and not those practicing medicine elsewhere. US patents only cover activities in the US anyway. These patentholders might obtain similar patents in other countries, if those countries issue patents on surgical procedures; if so, it is the patent law of those countries, rather than that of the US, that must be changed to shield surgeons from lawsuits. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 23 17:30:54 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31B1E21B09; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:30:54 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA00427; Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:30:54 -0500 Sender: jamie@genoa.essential.org Message-ID: <38DA9BAD.B3F1D34F@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:33:17 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss , IP-Health list Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] STEP RFP for Intellectual Property Rights Project Subject: Intellectual Property Rights Project - Request for Proposals Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 16:52:44 -0500 From: "Craig Schultz" The attachment to this message describes the next step in the STEP Board's work on intellectual property policy. Focusing on issues raised at our February 2-3 conference, "Intellectual Property Rights: How Far Should They Be Extended?", we are seeking help in analyzing and documenting the benefits and costs of several features of the system as well as in understanding its operation in software and biotechnology. Please refer this announcement of our intention to support selected research projects to anyone you think may be interested in participating. (See attached file: IPR.RFP.doc) March 23, 2000 ' The National Academies Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy Request for Proposals for Research on Intellectual Property in the Knowledge-Based Economy Purpose The Science, Technology, and Economic Policy (STEP) Board is undertaking a study of intellectual property policy to address the following questions: What are the consequences of the series of legislative actions, judicial decisions, institutional changes, and international agreements that have marked IP policy over the past 20 years? What benefits have been derived? What problems may be emerging? Are there respects in which the extension of IPRs should proceed further to encourage technical advance, investment, and innovation or, in view of claims that in some circumstances IPRs may be inhibiting competition and discouraging research and its communication and use, are there respects in which the extension of IPRs has proceeded too far? The project is chaired by Richard Levin, President, Yale University, and Mark Myers, Senior Vice President (ret.), Xerox Corporation. Additional information about the Board ?s membership and this project is available on its home page, www4.nas.edu/pd/step.nsf. The STEP Board has held workshops in Berkeley and New Haven and a two-day conference in Washington to refine these issues and hear the range of opinions about them. The sustained growth and technological dynamism of the economy suggest that IP protection has been beneficial. At the same time, there is growing concern about the operation of IP in some industries. There is, however, little systematic information on how IPRs are being acquired and exercised in most sectors, and especially in emerging technologies such us the Internet and human genomics. Little research has been done on the operation of the patent system or on costs and benefits associated with patent litigation or patent-related transactions (e.g., licensing and cross-licensing). To inform its deliberations over the next 12-15 months, the Board wishes to commission analysis and research on the issues described below. These topics primarily concern the patent system. Other topics relating to copyright and trade secret protection may be the subject of future RFPs, depending on resources. Scale of Research and Mechanism of Support To be useful to the Board in this time frame, projects should be policy-oriented and should be completed in 10-12 months. The Board will consider proposals for analytical papers with budgets in the range of $5,000-7,000 and proposals for empirical research and data analysis in the range of $15,000-30,000. The resources available to the Board obviously fall short of being able to finance large-scale empirical data collection but may enable ongoing research to address additional questions, conduct of a pilot survey, employment of a research assistant, or interview-based studies. The support will normally be provided through a contract or consulting agreement with an investigator per the standard procedures of the Academies. Procedure and Schedule The Board requests submission to the email address below, preferably in Word format, of 2-5 page statements of interest by May 1, 2000. These statements should include a description of the proposed analysis or research, a description of the proposed methodology, and a brief statement of qualifications and related work. A statement need not address all of the questions listed under the general topic heading. The statements will be reviewed by a group of STEP members and advisers. Authors of proposals of interest will be contacted by May 15, 2000 for further discussion. Final selection will be made by June 1, 2000. The investigators will meet with the committee in October or November 2000 to discuss their progress. Where appropriate, small informal groups may be formed to advise on the execution of the research. A new Academy website will be available to solicit input and comments. One or more public meetings will be held in Spring 2001 to discuss the research findings with other investigators, practitioners, and policymakers. Finally, the Academy may publish the results as part of the project. Topic 1: Patent Administration and Litigation The Board is interested in several generic issues while recognizing that circumstances are likely to vary considerably from one class of technology to another and that problems in one arena may not be characteristic of all. The Board seeks proposals addressing one or more of the following dimensions of the patent system: (a) Administration: A commonly expressed concern is that that Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) lacks sufficient resources to conduct rigorous, thorough review of patent applications, especially in rapidly changing technologies. What are the facts regarding the relationship of human (encompassing numbers, qualifications, turnover, etc.), financial (fees available to the PTO), and information resources (prior art data bases) to the volume of applications, prior art search methods, adaptation to new technologies? What is the incentive structure or bureaucratic culture in the PTO and how does it affect performance? (b) Patent Quality: Another concern is that there may have been a lowering of standards, especially non-obviousness and utility, in reviewing and issuing patents, with the result that many more patents of ?low quality? and broad scope are being issued. Are there ways to measure empirically changes in the application of these standards over time? Is the number of claims associated with a patent an empirical measure of breadth of scope in this sense? How are these related to observable characteristics of PTO administration and/or court decisions? How are these measures related if at all to the way economists measure patent importance or value ? i.e., by the frequency of citations in subsequent patents? Has there been a demonstrable change over time across technologies or in particular sectors? What are the economic implications of more patents of poor quality and broad scope? (c) International Comparison: A related claim is that the German or another European patent system produces superior results ? fewer, higher quality patents less subject to litigation, etc. How can systems be compared and the effects of particular system differences be isolated? For example, would a comparison of the life histories of a sample of identical patents in the U.S. and another country such as Germany illuminate the effects of differences in examination processes, reexamination, opposition and interference proceedings, publication of applications, litigation processes, etc.? (d) Litigation Costs: Some observers claim that the costs associated with litigating patents, including responses to threats of litigation that may never occur, are escalating and excessive. What is the best measure of the rate of litigation ? e.g., the rate for all issued patents or the rate for all commercialized patents or some other measure? How does the incidence and cost of patent litigation compare with other areas of commercial law (e.g., tort liability)? To what extent does essentially defensive patenting contribute to these costs? What are the opportunity as distinct from out-of-pocket costs ?e.g., the technical and managerial resources devoted to assessing patent validity and to negotiation? Finally, how do characteristics of patent administration (e.g., thoroughness of review, availability and frequency of reexamination, etc.) affect transaction costs? (e) Markets in Intellectual Property: It has been suggested that there has been a dramatic growth in patent-related transactions (e.g., licensing, cross-licensing, equity sales, etc.). We would like to document this trend and develop an understanding of its possible benefits and costs. How do the trends in these transactions and their benefits and costs vary across key technology areas?for example, in complex electronic versus more discrete chemical product technologies? Topic 2: Software-enabled business method patents and biotechnology patents The Board is also interested in the functioning of IP in particular technologies and industries and the similarities and differences among them. According to many participants in the recent series of STEP meetings, the most problematic arenas are software, especially software-enabled business methods, and biotechnology, especially involving genetic sequences. The fact that extensive patenting of these technologies is quite recent precludes definitive conclusions. Moreover, there are striking differences in product cycles, industry structure and other economic characteristics. It is not expected that research proposals will address both sectors. Nevertheless, the Board seeks information that will enable it to assess and compare trends for each of these two technology areas in (a) Patenting and licensing: Who is patenting what? What are the common licensing patterns in each industry? (b) Patents and investment: What are early stage (e.g., VC and angel) investors? perceptions of the value of formal intellectual property in these technologies? How have these attitudes changed over time? What do IPO filings reveal about public investors? view of the role of IP? Do investors perceive differences in the quality of patents? Do they take care to evaluate the validity of patents? (c) Patent litigation: What are the litigation trends in these areas? (d) Disclosure: How does the disclosure function of patents operate in software and biotechnology? Are issued patents (or, prospectively, patent applications available after 18 months) a source of useful technical information? The controversies surrounding software and biotechnology patents also pose sharply different issues of concern to the Board. Although these are of recent origin, there may be instructive parallels in the evolution of other technologies. The Board encourages exploration of analogous historical cases. The examples of business method and genomic patents are not meant to restrict attention to those categories, but proposal statements should specify the scope of the subjects of the proposed work. n Software-enabled business methods. Here the concern is that patents on elements of widespread software-based business practices and Internet services will enable hold-ups of routine operations, blocking of new entrants, and economic concentration with a consequent slowdown in innovation. The patenting issues relate to whether there are adequate searches of prior art and adherence to the non-obviousness and novelty standards. There are also post-issuance questions about whether reasonable licensing arrangements are being or can be worked out. Business methods software represents a technology in transition ? either from the public domain to the patent domain or from copyright to patent protection ? raising two questions: Are the alleged problems transitory rather than fundamental? Are they likely to arise in other technological areas that may become subject to patenting? n Biotechnology. Here there is controversy over whether genetic sequences should have patent protection and, if so, whether application of the standards of utility and non-obviousness and the written description requirement is sufficiently stringent. The latter issue has led to new guidelines for patent application review. One question, therefore, is how the new guidelines would have affected patents that have already been issued. A second question is whether existing gene patents have been put into practice, e.g. for the development commercial products anticipated by the utilities described in the applications or whether the patents on upstream research materials have reduced the incentives for downstream research and commercialization. Are suitable licensing arrangements being worked out to facilitate further research and commercialization or are the initial patents raising transaction costs to the point of impeding them? A related question is the effect of sequence patents on academic research and its communication. Are they, for example, creating obstacles to the exchange of research tools and delays in the publication of results? The role of universities in biotechnology patenting under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 is an important factor in considering the effects both on research and on commercial development. Other Topics The Board will consider proposals on other topics broadly relating to the economic impacts of the patent system, both positive and negative. These might include: 1) The effects on research and on IP-intensive industries of the Supreme Court?s decisions that Congress lacks the power to compel the States (and State agencies) to observe federal intellectual property law. 2) The political economy of the patent system ? what forces and interests have shaped the current patent system and what are the levers for change? 3) The theoretical underpinnings of the patent system in light of changes in its scope and operation. 4) Characteristics of individual inventors and the role of features of the patent system in stimulating or impeding entrepreneurship and industry entry. For Further Information: Dr. Stephen A. Merrill Executive Director Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy 2101 Constitution Avenue, N.W., FO-2014 Washington, DC 20418 Tel. 202-334-2200 Fax. 202-334-1505 Email. Smerrill@nas.edu To Submit Proposal Statements: STEP@nas.edu From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 27 02:02:39 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D972021AFF; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 02:02:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id CAA31290; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 02:02:38 -0500 Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 02:02:38 -0500 (EST) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: random-bits@venice.essential.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, Ecommerce@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Dicussion list on UCITA This is a new mailing list set up by Vergil Bushnell, for discussion of UCITA, the controversial Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. Jamie Ucita mailing list Ucita@lists.essential.org Subscriptions: http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/ucita --------------- CPT has more on UCITA, including a nice survey of shrinkwrap and clickon licenses, at: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/ucita/ ============================================= James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 ============================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 27 13:15:06 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 033EA21B24; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:15:02 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id LAA17907; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:14:57 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id LAA10765; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:14:52 -0700 (MST) Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 11:14:52 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200003271814.LAA10765@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: love@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, ip-health@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <38DA9BAD.B3F1D34F@cptech.org> (message from James Love on Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:33:17 -0500) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] STEP RFP for Intellectual Property Rights Project Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <38DA9BAD.B3F1D34F@cptech.org> Is anyone interested in proposing a study of cases in which patents have blocked the development of free software? I think that might be useful, but I don't know how to do it myself. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 27 13:57:14 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 008B221B24; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:57:13 -0500 (EST) Received: from webmail ([137.148.62.16]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAA4B0; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:59:16 -0500 To: rms@gnu.org, love@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, ip-health@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] STEP RFP for Intellectual Property Rights Project X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.72 [en] (Win98; U)] Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:59:16 -0500 Message-ID: <773613CE171C.AAA4B0@sunshine.law.csuohio.edu> From: "Michael H. Davis" Richard: I have a paper prepared by two economists, from MIT and Harvard, who examined the relationship of protection and development, though of software generally, not just free software. Their conclusion was that during the 70s and 80s when there was no protection, software development skyrocketed, and that this was dramatically halted when protection was available during the 90s. I don't have the paper on this computer but I do have it on another and can send it to you if you wish. Mickey Davis From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 27 13:57:15 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 527F921B4A; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:57:15 -0500 (EST) Received: from webmail ([137.148.62.16]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAA4AA; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:59:15 -0500 To: rms@gnu.org, love@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, ip-health@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] STEP RFP for Intellectual Property Rights Project X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.72 [en] (Win98; U)] Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 13:59:15 -0500 Message-ID: <773613CE171A.AAA4AA@sunshine.law.csuohio.edu> From: "Michael H. Davis" Richard: I have a paper prepared by two economists, from MIT and Harvard, who examined the relationship of protection and development, though of software generally, not just free software. Their conclusion was that during the 70s and 80s when there was no protection, software development skyrocketed, and that this was dramatically halted when protection was available during the 90s. I don't have the paper on this computer but I do have it on another and can send it to you if you wish. Mickey Davis From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 27 18:17:31 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from tusk.mountain-inter.net (tusk.mountain-inter.net [204.244.200.1]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5981421AFF; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 18:17:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from law.csuohio.edu (dialup45.wh.mntn.net [204.244.95.172]) by tusk.mountain-inter.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e2RNGt130640; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 15:17:10 -0800 Message-ID: <38DFA383.E7D6120@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 18:08:04 +0000 From: "Prof. Michael H. Davis" Reply-To: Michael.Davis@law.csuohio.edu Organization: Cleveland State University College of Law X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: rms@gnu.org Cc: love@cptech.org, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, ip-health@venice.essential.org References: <38DA9BAD.B3F1D34F@cptech.org> <200003271814.LAA10765@aztec.santafe.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] All who are interested in the IP study For all those who have contacted me regarding the study on IP I mentioned, I will post a notice within a week, or less, that I have the study available and I will then send it to all who want it. I'm not sure if I have the right to simply post it. Mickey Davis From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Mar 27 21:21:14 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B6B3E21AFF for ; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 21:21:13 -0500 (EST) Received: from webmail ([137.148.62.16]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAA34B5 for ; Mon, 27 Mar 2000 21:23:23 -0500 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.72 [en] (Win98; U)] Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 21:23:23 -0500 Message-ID: <77361422913.AAA34B5@sunshine.law.csuohio.edu> From: "Michael H. Davis" Subject: [Upd-discuss] As promised To all those who want to see an abstract and link to the text of the paper I mentioned, the following should bring it to you or you to it: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_ID=206189 The following link will (should?) download directly if you don't want to see the abstract first: I am afraid you probably have to tinker with both of them because the server and software I am working with will not paste links directly and I think that some of the characters may have to be modified(?) such as the underlines which appear in my version as simple spaces. Mickey Davis http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.taf?15709&_UserReference=B9B3584B8258D F4538E00C68 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 12:17:23 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD3C221AFF for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 12:17:23 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (phelsuma.essential.org [216.0.124.26]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA27697 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 12:17:23 -0500 Message-ID: <38E2399D.DF442097@cptech.org> Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 12:13:01 -0500 From: Vergil Bushnell Organization: Consumer Project on Technology X-Sender: "Vergil Bushnell" <@smtp.essential.org> (Unverified) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-gatewaynet (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Potential PTO changes? Interesting article in today's WallStreet Journal Interactive Edition ("Patent Office to change its tune"). Looks like the PTO is due to make some changes today. "Amid a growing debate over patents that stake out broad claims for basic methods of doing business on the Web, The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is expected Wednesday to unveil an overhaul of the way it examines applications and awards patents for many online practices." The article can be found on zdnet -- http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2487010,00.html Sincerely, Vergil Vergil Bushnell Consumer Project on Technology email: vbushnell@cptech.org phone: 202.387.8030 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 19:43:28 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AE9AF21B09 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:43:28 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA07609 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:43:28 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:43:28 -0500 (EST) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] famous trademarks and Internet TLDs ICANN's working group B is charged with looking at trademark issues, as they relate to the creation of new Internet top level domains. (TLDs). There is a proposal from the registrar community to: 1. Have WIPO create a list of "famous" trademarks 2. Before any new TLD is created, give the owners of the famous marks the right to block or acquire some variations on the famous name, in that TLD space. I am part of WG-B, and other ICANN groups, and I have expressed opposition to this idea, on the grounds that a. ICANN doesn't have competence or authority to be a global trademark governance institutions, and b. There are lots of reasons why you would not want to give a that much names space to the famous names. Right now, no one can say how many "famous" names there are. Some trademark people suggest, informally, but usually not on the record, that it could be as low as 200. Others come up with estimates of 50,000 or more. There is some willingness in ICANN to not apply this rule to non-commercial TLDs, like .union or .sucks. But it would also seem to present a problem in the many new types of domains that might be created. Think ford.com and ford.modeling, or lotus.software and lotus.cars, a few examples that have been thrown around. Jamie ============================================= James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 ============================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 19:10:02 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from postoffice.sarnoff.com (postoffice.sarnoff.com [130.33.10.147]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4B4921B09 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:10:01 -0500 (EST) Received: from enigma.sarnoff.com ([130.33.128.2]) by postoffice.sarnoff.com (Netscape Messaging Server 3.6) with ESMTP id AAA509D for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:09:56 -0500 Received: from spike (spike [130.33.128.97]) by enigma.sarnoff.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) with SMTP id TAA18715 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:09:56 -0500 (EST) Received: by spike (SMI-8.6/CF5.26L) id TAA16913; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:09:55 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:09:55 -0500 Message-Id: <200003300009.TAA16913@spike> To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org From: lucas@humanism.org Sender: lparra@enigma.sarnoff.com Subject: [Upd-discuss] RAFI: gene patent mania Since there had been some discussion on the issue I thought this exerpt form the latest rafi.org press release might be interesting: Patent Mania: The number of patents issued or being applied for by genomics companies is mind-boggling. Over 2,000 patents on full-length genes have already been granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). But the number of patent applications runs into the millions.(4) The USPTO confesses that they have no idea how many patents applications are pending on expressed sequence tags (EST's) - which are "signatures" or parts specific to each gene - since they "quit tracking them" about four years ago, at which time they had about half a million.(5) In the past 200 years, the USPTO has processed six million patent applications. Based on company disclosures, there are currently over three million patent applications on ESTs alone. Since the date of application determines who owns a patent, the race to get in these applications has been intense. Though only a small proportion of the patents have actually issued, the patent "gene grab" is almost over. 4. Garber, K., "Homestead 2000: The Genome" Signals Magazine, 03/03/2000, pg. 2. 5. Ibid, pg. 3. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 19:55:37 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD2D621B4A for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:55:37 -0500 (EST) Received: from webmail ([137.148.62.16]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAA3B07; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:57:47 -0500 To: lucas@humanism.org, upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] RAFI: gene patent mania X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.72 [en] (Win98; U)] Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 19:57:47 -0500 Message-ID: <773614E81672.AAA3B07@sunshine.law.csuohio.edu> From: "Michael H. Davis" And the patent office has proudly, if not even arrogantly, announced in response to the statements by the U.S. and U.K. that genes should not be the subject of patents, that it has no intention of changing its policy of issuing such patents. PRESS RELEASE #00-17 March 16, 2000 CONTACT: Brigid Quinn 703-305-8341 US PATENT POLICY UNAFFECTED BY US/UK STATEMENT ON HUMAN GENE SEQUENCE DATA The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) reaffirmed today that United States patent policy remains unaffected by Tuesday's historic joint statement issued by the United States and the United Kingdom urging that "raw fundamental data on the human genome...should be made freely available to scientists everywhere." "Genes and other genomic inventions remain patentable," said Q. Todd Dickinson, Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, "so long as they meet the statutory criteria of utility, novelty and non-obviousness. Genes and genomic inventions that were patentable last week continue to be patentable this week, under the same set of rules," he added. Separate and apart from Tuesday's agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, the PTO published on December 21, 1999 revised interim guidelines related to the utility requirement for patent claims on genomic and other biotechnological inventions. These guidelines, which have been in use for some time, amplify and clarify the ground rules for establishing patentable claims in this area. The 90-day public comment period on the guidelines runs through March 22, 2000. The Utility Guidelines, and the related Written Description Guidelines, are available on the PTO web site, www.uspto.gov. The PTO is the Commerce Department's user fee-funded bureau that administers laws relevant to granting patents and registering trademarks. The PTO also advises the Secretary of Commerce, the President of the United States, and the Administration on patent, trademark and copyright protection, and on trade-related aspects of intellectual property. Over 6 million patents have been issued since the first patent in 1790. Last year PTO issued 161,000 patents and registered 104,000 trademarks. # # # http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/00-17.htm From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 20:01:47 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 52CAA21B3D for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:01:47 -0500 (EST) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA31415 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:01:47 -0500 Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:01:46 -0500 (EST) From: Vergil Bushnell X-Sender: vbushnell@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-Reply-To: <773614E81672.AAA3B07@sunshine.law.csuohio.edu> Message-ID: Organization: Consumer Project on Technology MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] PTO's newly announced "Action Plan" Here is the URL for the freshly minted "Business Methods Patent Initiative: An Action Plan" http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/actionplan.html Sincerely, Vergil Vergil Bushnell Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) www: www.cptech.org email: vbushnell@cptech.org phone: 202.387.8030 address: PO Box 19405, Washington DC 20036 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 20:03:41 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (sunshine.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.16]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1263221B3D for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:03:41 -0500 (EST) Received: from webmail ([137.148.62.16]) by sunshine.law.csuohio.edu (Netscape Messaging Server 3.54) with SMTP id AAA3BDC; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:05:50 -0500 To: James Love , upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] famous trademarks and Internet TLDs X-Mailer: Netscape Messenger Express 3.5.2 [Mozilla/4.72 [en] (Win98; U)] Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:05:50 -0500 Message-ID: <773614E9226.AAA3BDC@sunshine.law.csuohio.edu> From: "Michael H. Davis" The first thing to note, Jamie, it seems to me would be that URLs and domain names are not trademarks. The recent U.S. legislation makes it quite clear that except in case of a "bad faith" attempt to extort money from an entity who may own rights to a trade mark which is similar or identical to a proposed or awarded domain name, the owner of the domain name has every right to continue to own it despite the trademark owner's desires. So why would ICANN even be considering something that is not only not required by trademark law, but is expressly excluded? Furthermore, of course, there is no such thing as an international trademark and the trademark law that relates to "famous names," contained in statute and treaty, only forbids the REGISTRATION AS A TRADE MARK, or allows cancellation of the same, but goes no further than that. Mickey From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Mar 29 23:41:26 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from imo-d08.mx.aol.com (imo-d08.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.40]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 570C221B08 for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 23:41:26 -0500 (EST) Received: from JHBrandt@aol.com by imo-d08.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v25.3.) id 8.b2.3339981 (6094) for ; Wed, 29 Mar 2000 23:41:18 -0500 (EST) From: JHBrandt@aol.com Message-ID: Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2000 23:41:17 EST To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) Subject: [Upd-discuss] Ruling in Cyber Patrol Copyright Controversy For those of you who don't get the ACLU news releases, there has been a recent lawsuit of interest to UPD. The toy company Mattel, Inc., which now owns the Cyber Patrol internet "Censorware" program, sued two foreign nationals (one Canadian and one Swede) for copyright infringement; specifically, for writing and distributing a program which decrypts Cyber Patrol's "blacklist" of blocked Web sites. In response, some Web sites within the U.S., as well as some foreign Web sites, mirrored the program in question. When Judge Edward F. Harrington granted Mattel's motion for a 10-day temporary restraining order against the decrypting program's authors, Mattel sent legal notices to all Web sites indicating they would be bound by the restraining order, as well as any future decisions in the case. This is what got the ACLU involved. The way I understand their press release, they filed a motion to intervene on behalf of three Web site operators who had been threatened by Mattel. When it became apparent that Judge Harrington was all but certain to rule in favor of Mattel, the authors of the decrypting program settled the suit. Unfortunately, this left the status of the mirror sites *un*settled. Judge Harrington apparently prefers to keep it that way. According to the ACLU, "In an opinion issued late [Tuesday] Judge Edward F. Harrington refused to say whether U.S. website operators who posted 'mirror' copies of the program are subject to the settlement terms. He also appeared to suggest that mirror sites could test that question only by risking a contempt charge that could lead to fines and jail." (Apparently this judge has somehow managed not to learn of the existence of the Declaratory Judgement Act.) The ACLU went on to quote the judge as asking, rhetorically, "...who is to control the educational and intellectual nourishment of young children - the parents or the purveyors of pornography and the merchants of death and violence." Oh, puhlease. This case had nothing to do with parents vs. pornographers and "merchants of death and violence" (whoever that is). It was a classic copyright case involving reverse engineering, which has long been held legal under U.S. copyright law. In fact, the whole point of the program was to give *more* power to "parents" by letting them see just what their Cyber Cop considered "offensive." Too bad the judge was so blinded by his hatred of erotica to actually figure this out. Mattel misrepresented this case in the media, saying they were suing because the program also decrypts Cyber Patrol's password, which would allow someone to use the decryption program to turn Cyber Patrol off. But "bypass" programs have existed for a couple of years now, and Mattel must have known about them, because they blocked the Web sites that carried the offending programs (which is what the ACLU argued they could have done in this case)! Besides, Mattel quickly changed Cyber Patrol so that the decryption program no longer works with the current version. It seems that what really bothered Mattel was the thought that people could now see their blacklist, warts, mistakes, "hidden agendas," and all, for themselves. At any rate, it's difficult to see how Mattel, let alone Judge Harrington, could have made this into a copyright infringement case. I guess it's possible that the decryption program "copied" the decryption routine from Cyber Patrol itself, but that seems unlikely, and it would obviously be easy to get around in any case. More likely they claimed it didn't infringe directly but merely enabled infringement, and that it had no "substantial non-infringing use" (to quote from the Betamax decision). I don't think that claim would pass a reality check, but if you throw around enough scare words like "pornography," sometimes you can fool people and get away with it. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 30 04:13:35 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8D7AA21B08 for ; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 04:13:34 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 12ab14-00073I-00; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:13:26 +0100 Received: from dhcp1e88.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.136] helo=pcklsnt20.ukc.ac.uk) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) id 12ab14-0003YW-00; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:13:26 +0100 From: Alan Story Sender: acs3@ukc.ac.uk Reply-To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk To: Vergil Bushnell Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] PTO's newly announced "Action Plan" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 10:18:06 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Simeon for Win32 Version 4.1.4 Build (40) X-Authentication: none MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Vergil: Who's action plan is this? That is, could you please identify this document and its source? Regards Alan Story On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 20:01:46 -0500 (EST) Vergil Bushnell wrote: > Here is the URL for the freshly minted "Business Methods > Patent Initiative: An Action Plan" > > http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/actionplan.html > > Sincerely, > > Vergil > > > Vergil Bushnell > Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) > > www: www.cptech.org > email: vbushnell@cptech.org > phone: 202.387.8030 > address: PO Box 19405, Washington DC 20036 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Ph. 01227 823316 Fax 01227 827831 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Mar 30 11:53:10 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from tusk.mountain-inter.net (tusk.mountain-inter.net [204.244.200.1]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A784121B31 for ; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 11:53:09 -0500 (EST) Received: from law.csuohio.edu (dialup21.wh.mntn.net [204.244.95.148]) by tusk.mountain-inter.net (8.10.0/8.10.0) with ESMTP id e2UGr2126680; Thu, 30 Mar 2000 08:53:02 -0800 Message-ID: <38E3404E.AC3E9EA1@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 11:53:51 +0000 From: "Prof. Michael H. Davis" Reply-To: Michael.Davis@law.csuohio.edu Organization: Cleveland State University College of Law X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: JHBrandt@aol.com Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Ruling in Cyber Patrol Copyright Controversy References: Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------8C31D89C2F314F6342B1DD8E" --------------8C31D89C2F314F6342B1DD8E Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Although I agree with your sentiments 110% or more, the unfortunate truth is that this case is not the perversion of copyright law you seem to suggest. Instead, it reflects the fact that copyright law itself has been perverted into something that you, and common sense, would find unacceptable. Specifically: JHBrandt@aol.com wrote: > > > Oh, puhlease. This case had nothing to do with parents vs. pornographers and "merchants of death and violence" (whoever that is). It was a classic copyright case involving reverse engineering, which has long been held legal under U.S. copyright law. Under the so-called "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (now there's a "puhlease" for you!), the "classic" copyright law regarding reverse engineering (assuming there really was such a thing, about which there is good argument; reverse engineering probably is more classically a part of trade secret law, not copyright) has been explicitly rejected. Whether or not it violates "classic" doctrine, the DMCA seems to absolutely forbid any attempt to decrypt encrypted code in cases like this. I think this is disastrous, it may be of questionable constitutionality (requiring really nuanced argument as well as forbidding expenses to test) but it is nevertheless as clear statutory text as you could normally expect. So much for "classic" copyright doctrine; it has been fundamentally changed by the DMCA. > > > It seems that what really bothered Mattel was the thought that people could now see their blacklist, warts, mistakes, "hidden agendas," and all, for themselves. At any rate, it's difficult to see how Mattel, let alone Judge Harrington, could have made this into a copyright infringement case. I guess it's possible that the decryption program "copied" the decryption routine from Cyber Patrol itself, but that seems unlikely, and it would obviously be easy to get around in any case. I think you see that, because of the DMCA, it is a very simple and obvious copyright infringement case and very possibly impossible to get around without a frontal assault upon the DMCA. Mickey Davis --------------8C31D89C2F314F6342B1DD8E Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Although I agree with your sentiments 110% or more, the unfortunate truth is that this case is not the perversion of copyright law you seem to suggest. Instead, it reflects the fact that copyright law itself has been perverted into something that you, and common sense, would find unacceptable. Specifically:

JHBrandt@aol.com wrote:

 

Oh, puhlease.  This case had nothing to do with parents vs. pornographers and "merchants of death and violence" (whoever that is).  It was a classic copyright case involving reverse engineering, which has long been held legal under U.S. copyright law.


Under the so-called "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (now there's a "puhlease" for you!), the "classic" copyright law regarding reverse engineering (assuming there really was such a thing, about which there is good argument; reverse engineering probably is more classically a part of trade secret law, not copyright) has been explicitly rejected. Whether or not it violates "classic" doctrine, the DMCA seems to absolutely forbid any attempt to decrypt encrypted code in cases like this. I think this is disastrous, it may be of questionable constitutionality (requiring really nuanced argument as well as forbidding expenses to test) but it is nevertheless as clear statutory text as you could normally expect. So much for "classic" copyright doctrine; it has been fundamentally changed by the DMCA.

 

It seems that what really bothered Mattel was the thought that people could now see their blacklist, warts, mistakes, "hidden agendas," and all, for themselves.  At any rate, it's difficult to see how Mattel, let alone Judge Harrington, could have made this into a copyright infringement case.  I guess it's possible that the decryption program "copied" the decryption routine from Cyber Patrol itself, but that seems unlikely, and it would obviously be easy to get around in any case.

I think you see that, because of the DMCA, it is a very simple and obvious copyright infringement case and very possibly impossible to get around without a frontal assault upon the DMCA.

Mickey Davis --------------8C31D89C2F314F6342B1DD8E-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Mar 31 09:19:00 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 83E7C21B05 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:19:00 -0500 (EST) Received: (from andyo@localhost) by ruby.ora.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA22376; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:18:56 -0500 (EST) Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:18:56 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200003311418.JAA22376@ruby.ora.com> From: Andy Oram To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sender: andyo@ruby.ora.com Subject: [Upd-discuss] CPSR comment concerning technological measures on copyrighted works Technological prohibitions desired by movie, music, and software vendors appear in a number of laws and official documents, including an international WIPO treaty on copyright. Congress, however, inserted a regular review of such prohibitions in its 1998 copyright act. The EFF has been encouraging people to submit comments, so I wrote one with the help of many CPSR people. The key points are these four suggestions, which the comment expands on: 1. Section 1201's ban on the circumvention of technological measures should not be used to suppress the production of a competing or alternative compatible device. 2. The Section should not prevent users who have lawfully purchased or licensed the product from choosing a device or medium to view a work other than ones approved by the copyrighted work's vendor. 3. The Section should not prevent users who have lawfully purchased or licensed the product from accessing that product in new ways for their own innovative purposes. 4. The Section should not be used to suppress the use of material for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. This piece can be freely circulated so long as it is intact. Andy --- http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/web/copyright_section_1201.html [1]Andrew Oram Member, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility Address: [2]Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility P.O. Box 717 Palo Alto, CA 94302-0717 fax (national office): 650-322-4748 telephone (Andrew Oram): 617-499-7479 email: [3]andyo@cpsr.org Reply comment Concerning the Copyright Office's Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. March 31, 2000 [4]Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility is pleased to have the opportunity to submit this reply comment concerning the Copyright Office's [5]Rulemaking on Exemptions from [6]Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. Four suggestions for clarifying Section 1201 We support and affirm the comments of the [7]Electronic Frontier Foundation, the [8]American Library Association and related organizations, the [9]Association for Computing Machinery, the [10]Media Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the [11]National Association of Independent Schools. We will respond to several other [12]comments in this reply. In addition, we offer three additional suggestions for Copyright Office rulings, which could be positioned as clarifications of the law: 1. Section 1201's ban on the circumvention of technological measures should not be used to suppress the production of a competing or alternative compatible device. 2. The Section should not prevent users who have lawfully purchased or licensed the product from choosing a device or medium to view a work other than ones approved by the copyrighted work's vendor. 3. The Section should not prevent users who have lawfully purchased or licensed the product from accessing that product in new ways for their own innovative purposes. 4. The Section should not be used to suppress the use of material for criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. CPSR is a public-interest, non-profit, grassroots organization that was founded in 1983 and currently has over 1300 members among the computing and other professions in the United States. Our mission is to educate the public and policy-makers concerning the appropriate use and scope of computers and related technologies. Our comments are relevant to question 12 of your [13]inquiry concerning the impact of technological measures "on the ability of interested persons to engage in criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research," and question 13 concerning the impact of technological measures "on the ability of interested persons to engage in noninfringing uses" of copyright works. The comments are also relevant in a more general sense to the questions in section D of your request, Impact on Criticism, Comment, News Reporting, Teaching, Scholarship, or Research, and particularly question 17 that asks how works "are being used in ways that do not constitute copyright infringement." Section 1201 cited by filmmakers and recording device manufacturers to suppress competition In December 1999, programmers reverse-engineered the DVD (Digital Video Disk or Digital Versatile Disk) format and posted to the Internet some code called DeCSS that would allow developers to build devices that could retrieve DVD content. Since this case was discussed in detail by many comments submitted on the first round (notably the [14]M.I.T. Media Lab and the [15]Computer & Communications Industry Association), we will not repeat its whole history but only point out certain aspects that illustrate the dangers of misusing Section 1201. We will argue that the suppression of reverse-engineered code is more likely to harm competition and innovation than the rights of copyright holders. We note especially that this invocation of Section 1201 is unfair not only to competitors, but to lawful users, whose right of fair use should allow them to play the DVD on any device. In place of a special exemption for playing DVDs on Linux, as requested by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, we offer more generally the first and second suggestions at the beginning of this comment. Devices for making unauthorized videos from DVDs existed long before DeCSS, undermining the argument that its "primary purpose" was to facilitate unauthorized copying. Rather, the people who showed interest in the software were those developing new software to play DVDs on the Linux operating system, which is currently unsupported by any licensed DVD manufacturer. Thus, reverse engineering, a classic technique of software development which is generally protected by law, was used in this case for exactly the purpose that is protected under Section 1201(f) of the DMCA: "to achieve interoperability of an independently developed computer program." The courts unfortunately did not honor this exemption when upholding the claim in the DVD Copy Control Association's complaint that the program "enables users to illegally pirate DVD videos." The DVDCCA and other organizations representing filmmakers and recording device manufacturers have carried on a broad campaign since then to expunge the software from Internet sites worldwide. Because the decryption program was implemented purely in software, it raises a basic conceptual problem with Section 1201. The "primary purpose" language has some meaning in relation to physical devices, because their application is usually fairly fixed. Software, however, is far more malleable; a technique defined for one application may prove equally useful in a completely different application. If manufacturers start to apply the "primary purpose" argument to software, the clause's scope becomes arbitrarily large and a huge range of useful technologies can be prosecuted under it. While we have no particular language to recommend to the Copyright Office, given that the "primary purpose" clause is in the law, we hope both the Copyright Office and the courts seek solutions to this problem. We will take up the problem again in the next section of our comment. Without public debate, manufacturers of new media and devices have decided to undermine the rights of first sale and fair use. For instance, Sony Computer Entertainment America's [16]comments claim that "Access to copyrighted Playstation(R) games is permitted only through use of the access control coding in the PlayStation(R) console and the CD-ROM that embodies the videogame." Along the same lines, the Motion Picture Association of America's [17]comments state, "Access controls embodied in the work itself also commonly function in tandem with the hardware used to access the work, so that a work may be made accessible on a specific machine, or a specified category of machines." Aside from some unsubstantial claims that technological control measures serve customers (such as by preventing the sale of games in a country where the language used is not widely spoken) Sony claims to need these measures to prevent games from being copied. In other words, they wish to avoid the burden of finding and bringing violators to court as regular publishers in traditional media must do. We believe that the convenience of the Sony Corporation and motion picture studios--who have ample resources for tracking down and prosecuting copyright infringers the traditional way--should not be allowed to outweigh the damage caused by the effective abrogation of customers' traditional rights, including the effects of such abrogation on innovative uses of artistic and information materials and on the availability of competing or compatible products. Time Warner's [18]comments compare the circumvention of technological measures to stealing a book from a store. Leaving aside the difference between making a copy of a book and stealing a book, overcoming technological measures in the cases presented in this comment is more like choosing to underline passages in a book with a pencil. The law should not back up the insertion of digital techniques whose effect is equivalent to making it impossible for the customer to use a pencil on a work, or techniques whose effect is equivalent to forcing a customer to buy a particular stylus for the task, perhaps one that uses only a special ink that vanishes after a few hours. Historically, while strict licenses have been upheld for multiple site licenses purchased by large organizations, courts in cases involving mass-market software have ruled that users still maintain traditional rights such as first sale and fair use. Emerging dangers that may involve Section 1201 Some recent legal cases, while they do not directly involve Section 1201, raise dangers that the Copyright Office may find it timely to address. It is all too likely that Section 1201 will be involved in such cases in the future, with the effects of suppressing comment and criticism of consumer products, or of punishing customers for exercising the traditional rights of fair use and first sale. Several incidents involving legal threats (not all of which were actually pursued in court) involve a fairly frequent practice among advocates of free speech wishing to document arbitrariness and incompetence in software filters that claim to block computers from accessing Web sites inappropriate for children. Though software filters have been installed by numerous institutions such as public libraries and public schools, in addition to individual consumers, the actual sites being blocked are rarely known to any customers. The activities of the free speech advocates remedy that situation by publishing lists of blocked sites. A perusal of these lists demonstrate the value of the critics' activity, due to the high incidence of incorrect and biased decisions found in software filtering products. Sometimes the critics obtain the lists of blocked sites through reverse engineering. The endeavor of the free speech advocates is squarely in the public interest and fails cleanly into categories of news reporting, product reviews, and criticism. (We will not comment any further on the clause concerning reverse engineering in Section 1201, because in this section of the comment we are not discussing the development of compatible works. Similarly, we will not comment on the part of Section 1201 dealing with encryption, because that section was drawn up to protect computer science research in the field of encryption rather than the use of encryption for other ends.) Rather than deal with questions by customers and external critics, some companies making software filters resort to various legal actions, often invoking copyright, to punish whistle-blowers and suppress further distribution of the uncovered materials. We are concerned that copyright is being invoked on material that is not distributed for public view, but exists only as an internal database, and we are worried that Section 1201 may be used in the future as a weapon for suppressing information and debate on issues affecting consumers and the general public. In relation to the Copyright Office request's question 23 ("what criteria should be used in determining what is a `class' of copyright works") we offer the brief reminder that publishing selected facts from a database, without copying the form or expression, is not subject to copyright. Imagine that a company loses a lawsuit for a faulty product that caused deaths or severe damage, but manages to have the court records sealed as part of the settlement. Imagine further that they have to report some details about the case in an annual report. When the report is distributed through standard channels, an enraged shareholder can legally pass it to a reporter and the reporter can quote it. But in the future, a company may choose to email the report, lightly encrypted, and claim a violation of its "technological self-help protection measures" when the truth hits the newsstands. The Copyright Office can do a great deal to restore copyright law to its intent--that of protecting copyrights--by making the third and fourth rulings we asked for at the beginning of this comment. The widely-publicized [19]lawsuit by the Recording Industry Association of America against [20]Napster does not involve Section 1201. But since the case involves technology used for infringement rather than the act of infringement, its implications are worth considering in relation to Section 1201. Napster is simply a combination of a directory service (a kind of software distributed by such major corporations as Microsoft, Netscape, and Novell) and a file transfer protocol (a kind of software that was the first application ever invented on the Internet; even the World Wide Web is based on a HTTP, a file transfer protocol of moderate sophistication). A challenge to Napster, based simply on the proclivity of its users to breach copyright, is a challenge to the basic technologies on which the Internet is based. Almost any Internet protocol and product, new or old, could be used for copyright violations; here again the "primary purpose" language of Section 1201 presents dangers to innovation. We do not challenge the doctrine that copyright should apply to online works, just as it has applied to works in traditional media. Nor do we deny that widespread copying takes place, online as elsewhere. But we object to the misuse of copyright law to remove traditional consumer and research rights. If not reigned in by the Copyright Office and other branches of government, the cases discussed in this comment could lead to a safe haven for exploitative hoarders of information and culture. __________________________________________________________________ [21]Back to Cyber Rights home page. References 1. http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ 2. http://www.cpsr.org/ 3. mailto:andyo@cpsr.org 4. http://www.cpsr.org/ 5. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/anticirc.html 6. http://www.loc.gov/copyright/1201/1201a1text.html 7. http://www.eff.org/ip/DMCA/20000217_eff_dmca_comments.html 8. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/162.pdf 9. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/171.pdf 10. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/185.pdf 11. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/032.pdf 12. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/ 13. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/fedreg/64fr66139.pdf 14. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/185.pdf 15. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/224.pdf 16. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/190.pdf 17. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/209.pdf 18. http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/1201/comments/043.pdf 19. http://www.riaa.com/piracy/press/031300.htm 20. http://www.napster.com/ 21. http://www.cpsr.org/cpsr/nii/cyber-rights/index.html From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Mar 31 09:29:19 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1D90521B05 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:29:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA08488 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:29:19 -0500 Sender: jamie@genoa.essential.org Message-ID: <38E4B720.785FCF81@cptech.org> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:33:04 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] ICANN's proposed restrictions on use of famous names This is a missive I sent yesterday to the ABA antitrust list. Jamie ------------------ Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2000 14:13:15 -0500 From: James Love To: ABA Antrtrust List Subject: ICANN's proposed restrictions on use of famous names This is a question about antitrust actions involving private sector "self governance" organizations. ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. It is a California Non-Profit organization, and is operating under a memorandum of understanding with the US Department of Commerce that might be terminated as early as this year (or might not, of course, if DOC decides to extend it). ICANN now controls the main root server for the Internet DNS system, the thing that permits people to use names like www.usdoj.gov or www.ftc.gov instead of numbers like 149.101.10.32 or 164.62.7.15. The names are organized in a series of domains. The top level domain (TLD) is the last name in the string, such as .com, .org, .gov or .uk. The next one is the second level domain, or SLD, and so on. NTIA is the third level domain in ntia.doc.gov. Right now there are 244 2 digit country code top level domains (ccTLDs) like .uk, .fr and .jp, and seven so called "generic" top level domains (gTLDs), out of the country code space, of which only three are widely available, .com, .net and .org. All three of the generally available gTLDs are manged by NSI, a firm that was recently sold for about $22 billion. While several country TLDs have tried to compete against NSI for registering domains, for the most part the action is in .com, a single TLD. IMO, this is because ccTLDs like .to, .de, .au etc are not particularly well known, intuitive or appealing. The 2 letter limit for ccTLDs is a also severe constraint. (There are a few exceptions, of course, like the .fm ccTLD which is marketed to fm radio stations, for example). For the public, the .com space is very overcrowded. People are paying huge sums to buy the rapidly dimminishing remaing regular names on the .com space, and people apparently pay millions for generic names. MSNBC reported today that someone paid $38 million for cool.com. I don't know if this is a bona fide offer or not, but there are surly lots of high priced sales, and many businesses, NGOs and individuals cannot buy the names they want from .com, .net or .org. Technically, the TLD space could be huge, perhaps as large as a million TLDs with today's technology, and who knows how large later. While anyone can set up a computer to run a TLD registry, very few people will be able to find it, unless ICANN includes the TLD in the main root. Several years ago, the pre-ICANN authority proposed to create 150 new TLDs, run by 50 new NSI competitors. The main thing that stopped this was the (big) trademark lobby. There are also non-trivial but resolvable issues concerning the policies associated with new TLDs. Now ICANN is considering once again to expand the root, first with a 6 to 10 TLD testbest, and once that is done, perhaps a much larger expansion. We have called for the addition of thousand of new TLDs. There is much demand for new TLDs. Within the proposed new TLD space would be lots of types of new TLDs. Some would be .com clones, like .inc, .biz, .web, .zone, .store. .firm, .mall, etc. Others would be particular to types of activity, such as .software, .consultant, .sex, .usedcars, .flowers or .drugstore. And this is just scratching the surface. There would also be a variety of noncommercial TLDs, such as .union, .sucks, or .isnotfair, and lots of different management styles, some unrestricted and some restricted. For example, .union might be controlled by labor unions, or .usbank might be restricted to FDIC insured bands (an actual proposal by an FDIC official). All of this is being held up by a handful of big corporate trademark lawyers, who have generally opposed adding new commerical TLDs. These by and large are firms that already have staked out or taken various domains like att.com, mattel.com, pepsi.com, etc, and they don't want to have to fight to protect their trademark name in thousands of new TLDs. These trademark groups are saying they will block any new TLDs unless their demands are met. One current one is to create an open ended list of "famous" names that would be reserved on new TLDs. There are various issues in these negotations, including such items as how many uses of a "string" (use of a name) would be reserved. For example, would cokevpepsi.comparison be blocked? Would boeing.union be reserved for boeing? Would Exxon.sucks be reserved for Exxon? (There may be some openess to consider non-commercial exceptions). There is no legal basis for this type of reservation of famous trademarks in the US or in nearly any country, and many of the proposed reservations don't make any sense. For example, why would ford motor company be able to reserve ford.flowers, ford.plumbing or even ford.foundation (not to mention ford.modeling)? Why would one not have lotus.cars, lotus.flowers and lotus.software, one ICANN participant asked? The trademark lobby is seeking to "own" a string across all TLD space on the Internet, and of course, you can't blame them for trying. But they are seeking this not in a national legislature or through a treaty, but through ICANN's control of the Internet's root. The failure to expand the root is now beginning to have serious anticompetive consequences, because new entrants are disadvantaged, by not having very much space to find domains. This is an artificial regulatory scaricity, but largely by a private sector self regulation body. Would there be antitrust grounds to challenge a decision by ICANN to place restrictions of the use of famous names? Jamie ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Mar 31 19:33:15 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from imo27.mx.aol.com (imo27.mx.aol.com [152.163.225.71]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD9A521B15 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 19:33:14 -0500 (EST) Received: from JHBrandt@aol.com by imo27.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v25.3.) id 5.73.21baf8b (6096); Fri, 31 Mar 2000 19:32:58 -0500 (EST) From: JHBrandt@aol.com Message-ID: <73.21baf8b.26169dba@aol.com> Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 19:32:58 EST Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Ruling in Cyber Patrol Copyright Controversy To: Michael.Davis@law.csuohio.edu Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) How things change in a year! I wasn't aware that the DMCA had made it into law with that provision intact. It's been awhile since I've been active in the discussion group; the last time I was regularly reading posts (before a week or two ago) this had been proposed, supposedly to meet our obligations under WIPO, although (as UPD was trying to point out at the time) these provisions went well beyond the requirements of the WIPO treaty. As I remember, the Clinton Administration had originally wanted such provisions in the WIPO treaty itself, but was rebuffed at the convention. If my memory is incorrect, feel free to correct me again. I have had the opportunity to read the essay written by the programmers who broke Cyber Patrol's encryption, and much useful information didn't require decryption at all, and therefore would fall outside the purview of the anti-decryption clause in DMCA (unless it also includes a much broader anti-reverse-engineering clause!) In particular, both the newsgroups and the IP addresses of the Web sites blocked by Cyber Patrol were stored in the CYBER.NOT file in plaintext. (Actually, the IP addresses are stored in binary form, but this hardly qualifies as "encryption" in any meaningful sense of the word.) The only things that Cyber Patrol actually encrypted were the passwords, and the names of the blocked pages at Web sites that are only partially blocked. So, under the DMCA, maybe the codebreakers did go too far in publishing that information, but not as far as you might have thought. In any case, the ACLU apparently agrees with us that this provision of the DMCA violates the First Amendment, at least when it is used against third parties in this manner. This doesn't mean they'd win in court, but if anybody can beat this thing, I'd put my money on the ACLU. (In fact, I do - I'm a card-carrying member.) Anyway, thanks for the clarification about the DMCA. In a message dated Thu, 30 Mar 2000 11:53:27 AM Eastern Standard Time, "Prof. Michael H. Davis" writes: << Although I agree with your sentiments 110% or more, the unfortunate truth is that this case is not the perversion of copyright law you seem to suggest. Instead, it reflects the fact that copyright law itself has been perverted into something that you, and common sense, would find unacceptable. Specifically: JHBrandt@aol.com wrote: > > > Oh, puhlease. This case had nothing to do with parents vs. pornographers and "merchants of death and violence" (whoever that is). It was a classic copyright case involving reverse engineering, which has long been held legal under U.S. copyright law. Under the so-called "Digital Millennium Copyright Act" (now there's a "puhlease" for you!), the "classic" copyright law regarding reverse engineering (assuming there really was such a thing, about which there is good argument; reverse engineering probably is more classically a part of trade secret law, not copyright) has been explicitly rejected. Whether or not it violates "classic" doctrine, the DMCA seems to absolutely forbid any attempt to decrypt encrypted code in cases like this. I think this is disastrous, it may be of questionable constitutionality (requiring really nuanced argument as well as forbidding expenses to test) but it is nevertheless as clear statutory text as you could normally expect. So much for "classic" copyright doctrine; it has been fundamentally changed by the DMCA. > > > It seems that what really bothered Mattel was the thought that people could now see their blacklist, warts, mistakes, "hidden agendas," and all, for themselves. At any rate, it's difficult to see how Mattel, let alone Judge Harrington, could have made this into a copyright infringement case. I guess it's possible that the decryption program "copied" the decryption routine from Cyber Patrol itself, but that seems unlikely, and it would obviously be easy to get around in any case. I think you see that, because of the DMCA, it is a very simple and obvious copyright infringement case and very possibly impossible to get around without a frontal assault upon the DMCA. Mickey Davis Although I agree with your sentiments 110% or more, the unfortunate truth is that this case is not the perversion of copyright law you seem to suggest. Instead, it reflects the fact that copyright law itself has been perverted into something that you, and common sense, would find unacceptable. Specifically: JHBrandt@aol.com wrote: This case had nothing to do with parents vs. pornographers and "merchants of death and violence" (whoever that is). reverse engineering probably is more classically a part of trade secret law, not copyright) has been explicitly rejected. Whether or not it violates "classic" doctrine, the DMCA seems to absolutely forbid any attempt to decrypt encrypted code in cases like this. I think this is disastrous, it may be of questionable constitutionality (requiring really nuanced argument as well as forbidding expenses to test) but it is nevertheless as clear statutory text as you could normally expect. So much for "classic" copyright doctrine; it has been fundamentally changed by the DMCA. At any rate, it's difficult to see how Mattel, let alone Judge Harrington, could have made this into a copyright infringement case. >> From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Mar 31 23:08:37 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from imo-d09.mx.aol.com (imo-d09.mx.aol.com [205.188.157.41]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4549721B15 for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:08:37 -0500 (EST) Received: from JHBrandt@aol.com by imo-d09.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v25.3.) id 8.e4.328d6b5 (6100) for ; Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:08:32 -0500 (EST) From: JHBrandt@aol.com Message-ID: Date: Fri, 31 Mar 2000 23:08:32 EST To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) Subject: [Upd-discuss] Re: CPSR comment concerning technological measures on copyrighted works (Andy Oram) Is it just a coincidence that CSPR's comments on section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act were posted right after my posts on the Cyber Patrol case? If so, it's certainly timely. It's also good to learn that the disastrous section 1201 of the DMCA isn't so clear-cut after all. In fact, it appears to conflict with Fair Use (which is, perhaps amazingly, still in the law) and the law doesn't explicitly give section 1201 priority over fair use. Therefore, the Copyright Office could do a great deal of good by making rulings adopting CSPR's proposals. Yeah, I know, fat chance. But at least we should try.... From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Apr 1 20:16:16 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C7E7221B02 for ; Sat, 1 Apr 2000 20:16:15 -0500 (EST) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id SAA16253; Sat, 1 Apr 2000 18:16:02 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id SAA19558; Sat, 1 Apr 2000 18:16:02 -0700 (MST) Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 18:16:02 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200004020116.SAA19558@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: love@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <38E4B720.785FCF81@cptech.org> (message from James Love on Fri, 31 Mar 2000 09:33:04 -0500) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] ICANN's proposed restrictions on use of famous names Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <38E4B720.785FCF81@cptech.org> The trademark lobby is seeking to "own" a string across all TLD space on the Internet, and of course, you can't blame them for trying. Of course we can blame them for trying. Attempted murder is judged much like murder, although not punished quite as severely; likewise, attempting a power grab should be judged much like succeeding at one. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Apr 4 11:32:17 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E06FB21AFF for ; Tue, 4 Apr 2000 11:32:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA30367; Tue, 4 Apr 2000 11:31:52 -0400 Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2000 11:31:52 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: Richard Stallman Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] ICANN's proposed restrictions on use of famous names In-Reply-To: <200004020116.SAA19558@aztec.santafe.edu> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 1 Apr 2000, Richard Stallman wrote: > The trademark lobby is seeking to "own" a string across all TLD space on > the Internet, and of course, you can't blame them for trying. > > Of course we can blame them for trying. Attempted murder is judged > much like murder, although not punished quite as severely; likewise, > attempting a power grab should be judged much like succeeding at one. Good point. Jamie > > ============================================= James Love, Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 | http://www.cptech.org Washington, DC 20036 | love@cptech.org Voice 202/387-8030 | Fax 202/234-5176 ============================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Apr 5 08:16:28 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2273621AFF for ; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 08:16:28 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pcandyo.ora.com (dhcp-254-8.ora.com [172.30.254.8]) by ruby.ora.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id IAA15372 for ; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 08:16:27 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <012301bf9ef9$2e0fdca0$08fe1eac@pcandyo.ora.com> From: "Andy Oram" To: Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 08:19:24 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3612.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3612.1700 Subject: [Upd-discuss] Heading off UCITA in Massachusetts After writing to my attorney general in Massachusetts about this bill, I received a polite letter with a name and phone number of someone in the AG's office to contact. I'm planning to push the issue another step and try to arrange a meeting with this person (Brigid Crowley). If you are close enough to Boston to come, or know someone I should contact who might come and make a good contribution, please let me know. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Oram O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. email: andyo@oreilly.com Editor 90 Sherman Street phone: (617) 499-7479 Cambridge, MA 02140-3233 fax: (617) 661-1116 USA http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ Stories at Web site: The Bug in the Seven Modules Code the Obscure The Disconnected ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Apr 5 12:47:37 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from oxmail.ox.ac.uk (oxmail3.ox.ac.uk [129.67.1.180]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3C43421B2B for ; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 12:47:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wing5.herald.ox.ac.uk ([163.1.0.229] ident=exim) by oxmail.ox.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1) id 12csxk-0004yy-00 for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org; Wed, 05 Apr 2000 17:47:28 +0100 Received: from httpd by wing5.herald.ox.ac.uk with local (Exim 2.02 #1) id 12csxi-0006Ye-00 for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 17:47:26 +0100 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: MIME-tools 4.103 (Entity 4.115) From: Graham Innocent Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2000 17:47:26 +0100 To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Message-Id: Subject: [Upd-discuss] Open Source Dear All, What other types of business do you think that the open-source model could be extended to, and in each case, how would you run it? I have my own ideas about biotech development, but these have met with a mixed reaction. Regards, Graham Innocent From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Apr 6 01:39:33 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7D42F21AFF for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 01:39:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from aztec.santafe.edu (aztec [192.12.12.49]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id XAA02661; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 23:39:29 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from rms@localhost) by aztec.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id XAA05337; Wed, 5 Apr 2000 23:39:28 -0600 (MDT) Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2000 23:39:28 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200004060539.XAA05337@aztec.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: aztec.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: graham.innocent@worcester.oxford.ac.uk Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: (message from Graham Innocent on Wed, 05 Apr 2000 17:47:26 +0100) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Open Source Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: Since the topic of "open source" has been raised, I should point out that much of the work to which that term is applied was actually done by the Free Software Movement. We have been working since 1984 to give computer users the freedom to share and change software. The Open Source Movement was started in 1998 to do much the same thing we were already doing, but not raise the deeper issues that we raise. They describe the issue as a matter of "business models", and studiously avoid talking about freedom, principle, or ethics. Since you're speaking of "open source", and speaking of it as a business model, it sounds like you have heard only their approach to the issue. In addition to studying the question of which fields can use certain business models, I hope you will also consider the question of which freedoms the public is entitled to in those fields. In other words, that you will consider the issue of right and wrong that the Free Software Movement raises, as well as the business issues that the Open Source Movement raises. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html for more explanation. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Apr 6 09:07:11 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3215D21AFF for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 09:07:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA15655 for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 09:07:11 -0400 Sender: jamie@genoa.essential.org Message-ID: <38EC8D1F.3041D510@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 09:11:59 -0400 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Jail terms for copyright violations Subject: IP: SENTENCING PANEL INCREASES FEDERAL PENALTIES FOR CRIMES Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 08:58:13 -0400 From: David Farber To: ip-sub-1@majordomo.pobox.com The federal government's Sentencing Commission recently voted to stiffen punishment for various copyright and identity theft violations. Counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet can result in a 10-month to 16-month prison sentence, regardless of whether the violator is attempting to turn a profit. The punishment for stealing electronic property, such as songs and writing samples, is calculated by multiplying the value of the item stolen by the number of people who download it. The greater the value, the longer the prison sentence, although the maximum penalty for a first-time offender is three years. Identity theft violations also carry a 10-month to 16-month sentence for first-time offenders, but the punishment will increase if a bogus identification is used to get other phony identification; those who have more than five fake IDs also face stiffer penalties. Increased penalties for copyright violations will begin on May 1, and those for identity theft will be effective on Nov. 1. (Washington Times, 5 April 2000) -- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Apr 6 10:11:47 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from ruby.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B08B621B09 for ; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 10:11:46 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pcandyo.ora.com (dhcp-254-8.ora.com [172.30.254.8]) by ruby.ora.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id KAA24166; Thu, 6 Apr 2000 10:11:45 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <025d01bf9fd2$75302020$08fe1eac@pcandyo.ora.com> From: "Andy Oram" To: "James Love" , "upd-discuss" Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Jail terms for copyright violations Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 10:14:44 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3612.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3612.1700 Well, it will be a bit of a change to fill the jails with white college youth instead of inner-city minorities. Andy From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Apr 7 19:51:36 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from eldritchpress.org (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.241.25]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 99A1421B09 for ; Fri, 7 Apr 2000 19:51:25 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from eldred@localhost) by eldritchpress.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id TAA09638 for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; Fri, 7 Apr 2000 19:52:39 -0400 Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 19:52:38 -0400 From: Eric Eldred To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: <20000407195238.A9621@eldritchpress.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i Organization: Eldritch Press Subject: [Upd-discuss] Gilmore Patent License Comments invited on John Gilmore's idea about patents. For those of you who don't or can't use the web, here is the relevant section from Dan Gillmor's column at http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/front/docs/dg040700.htm Posted at 8:25 p.m. PDT Thursday, April 6, 2000 .... "A PATENTLY BETTER IDEA: Have you heard of the GPL? No, this isn't about the GNU General Public License, the clever ``copyleft'' scheme used by the free-software movement -- a licensing scheme designed to ``guarantee your freedom to share and change free software,'' according to the Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org/copyleft/gpl.html). The GPL I'm talking about is, for lack of a better name, the Gilmore Patent License. And the Gilmore I'm talking about is John Gilmore, a longtime free-software advocate and technology civil-libertarian. I caught up with him in Toronto this week at the annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference (www.cfp2000.org/). Gilmore wants to create what amounts to a pool of patents where the ideas are freely shared, and to do it under terms that mimic the GNU GPL. Many people are appalled at the way the U.S. patent system is being abused, with companies capturing patents on all kinds of software and business processes and then using the patents as offensive weapons to foreclose others' innovation. One problem is that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) has been granting many such patents without any apparent concern about their validity -- whether the ``inventions'' have already been invented or whether the inventions are blatantly obvious (in either case, the inventions would be unpatentable). Furthermore, the cost of challenging a bad patent is so high as to be prohibitive for all but the wealthiest or angriest challengers. Gilmore almost got to put his idea into practice. He wanted to buy patents owned by the now-defunct DigiCash, an electronic-cash company that failed, and then effectively turn the patents loose for anyone to use. A higher bidder surfaced. But the idea remained. Here's how it might work (the specific wording of the license is still under development). Say Gilmore comes up with a patentable software notion. Under his license, ``Anybody who has no patents is free to use my ideas,'' he says. ``Anybody who has patents and licenses them on these terms, or better, can also use them free of charge. Otherwise, come talk to me about a license'' -- and bring a checkbook. In other words, anyone who only uses patents defensively -- as protection against those who use them offensively -- ends up sharing his or her ideas, not hoarding them. ``It's not a pool in the usual sense, but it has that effect,'' he says. ``The result is a network effect.'' The more good patents in the system, the more incentive for others to join. ``It creates a larger and larger network of patents, some of which are over-broad, obvious patents that everybody is free to use,'' Gilmore says. ``The terms are designed to reduce the transaction cost of cooperation.'' " -- "Eric" Eric Eldred Eldritch Press mailto:Eldred@EldritchPress.org http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Apr 12 01:27:09 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from user1.channel1.com (user1.channel1.com [199.1.13.9]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4173221B5D for ; Tue, 11 Apr 2000 20:06:38 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [205.240.180.136] (xdial136.channel1.com [205.240.180.136]) by user1.channel1.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA04233; Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:37:55 -0400 (EDT) X-Sender: dutton@pop.channel1.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20000407195238.A9621@eldritchpress.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 19:39:38 -0300 To: Eric Eldred From: Geoffrey Dutton Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Gilmore Patent License Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org >Comments invited on John Gilmore's idea about patents. It's a great idea. I especially like the way it is based on contract law, completely skirting the patent system. But I'm no lawyer, and I can't pretend to know whether that might create difficulties. One issue I can imagine is what might happen should a signatory start privately patenting things it claimed to have invented. Would that in itself change his/her/it's status and void existing contracts? Opportunistic signatories might very well modify a pooled invention somehow and then file a claim with USPTO, and it would be up to someone (the inventor? the collective?) to defend their standing and priority, during or after the patenting process. A great deal of vigilance and possibly money might be needed to weather such storms. -Geoff Dutton From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Apr 12 13:44:07 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 99E3521B05 for ; Wed, 12 Apr 2000 13:44:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA29180; Wed, 12 Apr 2000 09:17:21 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.9.1b+Sun/8.9.1) id JAA12173; Wed, 12 Apr 2000 09:17:21 -0600 (MDT) Date: Wed, 12 Apr 2000 09:17:21 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200004121517.JAA12173@wijiji.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: eldred@eldritchpress.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <20000407195238.A9621@eldritchpress.org> (message from Eric Eldred on Fri, 7 Apr 2000 19:52:38 -0400) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Gilmore Patent License Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <20000407195238.A9621@eldritchpress.org> People have been talking about a patent pool for a long time. Actually starting one is difficult. If John Gilmore can make it go, that would be a good thing. However, even if it is very successful it can only solve part of the problem of software patents. Many patents are owned by money-squeezers: companies that do not make any products, just use patents to squeeze money out of those who do produce something. These patent owners cannot be made to cross-license; a patent pool is no use against them. So we still need to reform patent law, but the patent pool is worth trying. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Jun 7 15:38:35 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7F97B2A063 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2000 15:38:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (phelsuma.essential.org [216.0.124.26]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA21635 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2000 15:38:35 -0400 Message-ID: <393EA246.E606FDE8@cptech.org> Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 15:28:06 -0400 From: Vergil Bushnell Organization: Consumer Project on Technology X-Sender: "Vergil Bushnell" <@smtp.essential.org> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en]C-gatewaynet (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] new business method patent Good article on Slashdot (http://slashdot.org/articles/00/06/07/1656216.shtml). It seems that CNET has received a patent (6,073,241) covering the fundamental operation of banner ads. Sincerely, Vergil Vergil Bushnell Consumer Project on Technology email: vbushnell@cptech.org phone: 202.387.8030 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Jul 26 22:42:12 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80F3C2A061 for ; Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:42:12 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA02912; Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:42:12 -0400 Message-ID: <397FA233.17E59EB2@cptech.org> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 22:45:07 -0400 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Cc: "Farber, David" Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Method of Putting patent number 5,616,089 In reading John Thomas's September 1999 article, the Patenting of the Liberal Professions, I found this cite to US Patent 5,616,089, Method of putting, that was issued fittingly enough on April 1, 1997. That patent, which is real, has the following abstract: http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5616089'.WKU.&OS=PN/5616089&RS=PN/5616089 Abstract A method of putting features the golfer's dominant hand so that the golfer can improve control over putting speed and direction. The golfer's non-dominant hand stabilizes the dominant hand and the orientation of the putter blade, but does not otherwise substantially interfere with the putting stroke. In particular, a right-handed golfer grips the putter grip with their right hand in a conventional manner so that the thumb on the right hand is placed straight down the top surface of the putter grip. The golfer addresses the ball as if to stroke the putter using only the right hand. Then, the golfer takes the left hand and uses it to stabilize the right hand and the putter. To do this, the golfer places their left hand over the interior wrist portion of the right hand behind the thumb of the right hand with the middle finger of the left hand resting on the styloid process of the right hand. The golfer presses the ring finger and the little finger of their left hand against the back of the right hand. The golfer also presses the palm of the left hand against the putter grip and squeezes the right hand with the left hand. The golfer then takes a full putting stroke with the above described grip. -- ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Jul 26 23:28:50 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 552CD2A061; Wed, 26 Jul 2000 23:28:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id XAA03549; Wed, 26 Jul 2000 23:28:50 -0400 Message-ID: <397FAD21.2668BE65@cptech.org> Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 23:31:45 -0400 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Multiple recipients of list RANDOM-BITS , upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] A few more golfing patents Here are a few more of the 2259 patents (for 1999-2000) that popped up searching on the word golf. Jamie http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=4&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=190&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=curr&s1=golf&OS=golf&RS=golf Number: 6,071,199 Method of correction of golf swing Abstract In order to correct a golf swing, a main grip formed at an end portion of a shaft of a golf club is held by a hand opposite to a writing hand of a user, and an auxiliary grip attached to a middle of the shaft is held by the writing hand of the user. While holding the main and auxiliary grips by the left and right hands, the shaft is swung. The auxiliary grip is located near and substantially parallel to the main grip and is disposed at a side ahead of the main grip in a swinging direction of the golf club to be spaced from the main grip for a predetermined space. Thus, when the main and auxiliary grips are grasped by left and right hands, the backs of the left and right hands contact each other between the main and auxiliary grips to restrain a wrist of the writing hand by the back of the hand opposite to the writing hand. Accordingly, the correct swing of the golf club can be practiced. http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=4&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=163&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=curr&s1=golf&OS=golf&RS=golf Golf handicap system and methods Number: 6,074,312 Abstract The invention provides systems and methods for the calculation and maintenance of a golfer's handicap index. In one exemplary embodiment, a method is provided for the maintenance of a golf handicap index by providing a card having golfer information relating to a particular golfer. The golfer information includes scores posted by the golfer which are used in the calculation of a handicap index. A local processing unit is also provided to compute the handicap index based on guidelines established by the United States Golf Association. Information is exchanged between the card and the local processing unit at the time the golfer posts a score. Handicap indexes are updated based at least in part on the entered scores and on a schedule consistent with USGA guidelines. ------------------------------------------ http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=2&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r=56&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=curr&s1=golf&OS=golf&RS=golf Method for matching golfer with a ball Number 6,086,487 A method for selecting a golf ball whose performance characteristics match a golfer's critical playing characteristics for the purpose of reducing the golfer's score. The method comprises the steps of determining a golfer's critical playing characteristics, prioritizing ball performance characteristics, and selecting a golf ball from a predetermined set of golf balls which best matches the golfer's critical playing characteristics to ball performance characteristics. ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Jul 28 06:40:01 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77E422A061 for ; Fri, 28 Jul 2000 06:40:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 13I7Yc-0004aU-00 for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org; Fri, 28 Jul 2000 11:39:58 +0100 Received: from dhcp1ede.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.222] helo=pcklsnt27.ukc.ac.uk) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org id 13I7Yb-0007bR-00; Fri, 28 Jul 2000 11:39:57 +0100 From: Ioannis Pavlakis Reply-To: gp12@ukc.ac.uk To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Message-ID: Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 11:34:30 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Simeon for Win32 Version 4.1.4 Build (40) X-Authentication: none MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Copyright Licensing Schemes in Higher Education Dear List-members, I am currently undertaking academic research on the various higher education copyright licensing schemes operating across Europe, as well as in the US, Canada, and Australia. I have already completed a comprehensive research on the UK's licensing scheme, but the operation of other licensing schemes has become of particular interest to me, given that the representative body of UK Universities (Committee of Vice-Chancellors & Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom - CVCP) has brought an action before the UK's Copyright Tribunal against the UK Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) challenging the terms of its present copying licence with the CLA (for more details see: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/copyrights/2000-07/0009.html ). I would be more than grateful if you could give me any information you may have in relation to the Higher Education copying licensing schemes in your own country and the particular problems faced by users or direct me to any person or sources which you think might be helpful. Your assistance is of invaluable importance and will be very much appreciated. Here follows a list of questions which may give you an idea of what I am looking for: 1. Does a Higher Education copying licence exist in your own country? Which is the tariff under the licence for each member of staff and student in full-time education? 2. Does the licensing scheme cover only photocopying or reprographic copying, or does it also include digital copying and digitisation? 3. What are the copying limits under the licence? 4. Does the same tariff apply to the non-university and schools sectors? 5. Does your national legislation provide for non-infringing copying for private/personal use? If yes, does the licensing scheme take into account this 'private use' entitlement? 6. Is there a separate licence/clearance-service for non-commercial/non-profit course/study-packs distributed to students by universities? If yes, is there a fixed per page tariff? 7. Is there a separate charge or separate licence required if a licensee wishes to copy (or incidentally copies) a diagram or a picture (artistic work) within a book? 8. What percentage of the fees collected by your licensing scheme is distributed to authors and what to publishers? Thank you very much for your time. Regards, Ioannis Pavlakis PS 1: If you wish to contact me off-list you can e-mail me at: gp12@ukc.ac.uk PS 2: In case you have any queries about the English scheme which you think I might be able to answer please feel free to contact me. ______________________ Ioannis Pavlakis Postal Address - c/o: Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS Tel: +44 07939 203 309 e-mail: gp12@ukc.ac.uk From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Jul 28 07:31:53 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from onering.urth (port-38.ottawa4.achilles.net [209.151.2.137]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9E1E72A061 for ; Fri, 28 Jul 2000 07:31:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from keb@localhost) by onering.urth (8.9.3/8.9.3) id HAA21775 for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; Fri, 28 Jul 2000 07:52:24 -0400 From: "Krishna E. Bera" Message-Id: <200007281152.HAA21775@onering.urth> Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Copyright Licensing To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 07:52:23 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL0pre8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Will your research report be released under a copyright license equivalent in strength and purpose to the GNU Free Documentation License? ( http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html ) -Krishna Forwarded message: > From: Ioannis Pavlakis > Reply-To: gp12@ukc.ac.uk > To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org > Message-ID: > Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 11:34:30 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) > MIME-Version: 1.0 > Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII > Subject: [Upd-discuss] Copyright Licensing Schemes in Higher Education > List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain > > Dear List-members, > > I am currently undertaking academic research on the various > higher education copyright licensing schemes operating > across Europe, as well as in the US, Canada, and Australia. >[...] > I would be more than grateful if you could give me any > information you may have in relation to the Higher > Education copying licensing schemes in your own country and > the particular problems faced by users or direct me to any > person or sources which you think might be helpful. Your > assistance is of invaluable importance and will be very > much appreciated. >[...] From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Jul 30 02:46:12 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 648182A060 for ; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 02:46:11 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id AAA17006; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 00:46:00 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) id AAA17934; Sun, 30 Jul 2000 00:45:51 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2000 00:45:51 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200007300645.AAA17934@wijiji.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: gp12@ukc.ac.uk Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: (message from Ioannis Pavlakis on Fri, 28 Jul 2000 11:34:30 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time)) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Copyright Licensing Schemes in Higher Education Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: The terminology "Higher Education Copying License" embodies assumptions about how countries deal with this, which may not always fit. It is hard for me to be certain, but I think that the US concept of "fair use" is part of this issue. Fair use is NOT a license, it is a right! Meanwhile, if we are participating in a project to survey where various countries stand on this issue, let's not forget to ask the next question: are these policies good ones or bad? What change should be made? We should not be reduced to teaching people how to obey the orders of the owners. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Jul 31 12:45:03 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57F222A382; Mon, 31 Jul 2000 12:45:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA31902; Mon, 31 Jul 2000 12:45:00 -0400 Message-ID: <3985ADEC.4DACCE4D@cptech.org> Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2000 12:48:44 -0400 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss , ecommerce Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Europe and business methods patents July 31, 2000 I'm told that the European Patent Office (EPO) will be considering significant changes in the European Patent Convention, during a November 20-29 meeting in Munich, in part to comply with the WTO TRIPS accord on intellectual property rights. One issue that may be raised in this meeting will be the current EPO exemption for patents on methods of doing business. Persons at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) tell me that they believe the European Patent Convention exemption for patents on methods of doing business is not consistent with Article 27.1 of the WTO TRIPS agreement (see below). This is a controversial issue. The TRIPS does require patents on all fields of technology, but only "provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application," the last phrase being key. Under Article 1 of the TRIPS, countries are supposed to have broad discretion to implement the TRIPS accord under their own legal tradition. Right now the European Patent Convention excludes methods of doing business as a invention susceptible of industrial application. (see below). The revisions of the European Patent Convention will have huge implications for the future of patents on business methods. If Europe elimiates its current exemption for methods of doing business (see below), it will be very difficult for other countries to argue that the WTO does require patents on software and methods of doing business. I have attached several relevant documents on this important topic. European NGOs should be in touch with the European Patent Office, and request observor status for the November 20-29 meeting in Munich. Jamie Love http://www.cptech.org/ip/business/ -------------------- http://www2.european-patent-office.org/search?NS-search-page=document&NS-rel-doc-name=/ojft/eng/4_2000/4_1950.htm&NS-query=%22diplomatic+conference%22&NS-search-type=NS-boolean-query&NS-collection=OJ%20English&NS-docs-found=8&NS-doc-number=6 Notice from the President of the European Patent Office dated 24 March 2000 concerning revision of the European Patent Convention. In a decision dated 24 February 2000(1) the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation convened an EPC revision conference of the contracting states. The conference is to be held in Munich from 20 to 29 November 2000. Invitations to attend the conference as observers have also been extended to the states entitled to accede to the EPC, the other states with observer status on the Administrative Council and numerous intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations with an interest in the European patent system. [snip] <----------------EPO ON PATENT OF BUSINESS METHODS------------> http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/pubs/oj000/7_00/7_3070.pdf Administrative Council Report on 80th meeting of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organization (6 to 8 June 2000). Amtsblatt EPA /Official Journal EPO /Journal officiel OEB 7/2000 page 310 Another area where there is contro-versy about patentability is business and administrative methods. The EPC explicitly excludes the patent- ability of methods of doing business as such.Even so,there has been a large increase in the number of applications in these areas because of the expansion of e-commerce on the Internet and decisions handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that business methods are not necessarily exclu-ded from patentability in the United States.The number of applications of this type waiting to be searched and examined has more than dou- bled over the last two years and at present totals around 400. In practice,the vast majority of these applications do not simply claim abstract business methods, but rather describe technical means (eg computer networks)for carrying out these methods.They are not considered to relate to methods of doing business as such,and are examined in exactly the same way as any other application.They are thus patentable in Europe if they fulfil the normal requirements for patentability,including novelty, inventive step and industrial appli-cability.However,it has to be stressed that,in a strict interpretation of patent law,an invention must overcome an objective technical problem in a non-obvious way.In other words,it is the technical inven-tion to which a business machine may relate which makes it patent- able, not simply its commercial ingenuity. page 311 Predictably,this topic has generated a great demand for information from representatives,applicants and the public alike.The Office has taken every opportunity to make its posi- tion clear and has frequently sup-plied speakers for seminars and conferences. [snip] <-----Excerpt of Article 52 of European Patent Convention----> Article 52 (2) The following in particular shall not be regarded as inventions within the meaning of paragraph 1 (a) discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods; (b) aesthetic creations; (c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or doing business, and programs for computers; (d) presentations of information. <--------------TRIPS PROVISIONS------------------------------> PART I GENERAL PROVISIONS AND BASIC PRINCIPLES Article 1 Nature and Scope of Obligations 1. Members shall give effect to the provisions of this Agreement. Members may, but shall not be obliged to, implement in their law more extensive protection than is required by this Agreement, provided that such protection does not contravene the provisions of this Agreement. Members shall be free to determine the appropriate method of implementing the provisions of this Agreement within their own legal system and practice. [snip] STANDARDS CONCERNING THE AVAILABILITY, SCOPE AND USE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS SECTION 5: PATENTS Article 27 Patentable Subject Matter 1. Subject to the provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3, patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application.See footnote 5 Subject to paragraph 4 of Article 65, paragraph 8 of Article 70 and paragraph 3 of this Article, patents shall be available and patent rights enjoyable without discrimination as to the place of invention, the field of technology and whether products are imported or locally produced. 2. Members may exclude from patentability inventions, the prevention within their territory of the commercial exploitation of which is necessary to protect ordre public or morality, including to protect human, animal or plant life or health or to avoid serious prejudice to the environment, provided that such exclusion is not made merely because the exploitation is prohibited by their law. 3. Members may also exclude from patentability: (a) diagnostic, therapeutic and surgical methods for the treatment of humans or animals; (b) plants and animals other than micro-organisms, and essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals other than non-biological and microbiological processes. However, Members shall provide for the protection of plant varieties either by patents or by an effective sui generis system or by any combination thereof. The provisions of this subparagraph shall be reviewed four years after the date of entry into force of the WTO Agreement. Footnote: 5. For the purposes of this Article, the terms "inventive step" and "capable of industrial application" may be deemed by a Member to be synonymous with the terms "non-obvious" and "useful" respectively. -- ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Aug 1 19:09:49 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 98FB72A060; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 19:09:47 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id RAA23702; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 17:09:57 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) id RAA21861; Tue, 1 Aug 2000 17:09:45 -0600 (MDT) Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 17:09:45 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200008012309.RAA21861@wijiji.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@gnu.org using -f From: Richard Stallman To: love@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org, ecommerce@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <3985ADEC.4DACCE4D@cptech.org> (message from James Love on Mon, 31 Jul 2000 12:48:44 -0400) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Europe and business methods patents Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <3985ADEC.4DACCE4D@cptech.org> The web site petition.eurolinux.org has a petition against this change. People outside Europe are invited to sign it, as well as Europeans. So when you forward information about the issue, please include the petition. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Aug 2 05:24:19 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3D57F2A05E for ; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 05:24:18 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 2.12 #1) id 13Jul3-0006Uw-00 for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 10:24:13 +0100 Received: from dhcp1e84.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.132] helo=pcklsnt32.ukc.ac.uk) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org id 13Jul3-0001BZ-00; Wed, 2 Aug 2000 10:24:13 +0100 From: Alan Story Sender: acs3@ukc.ac.uk Reply-To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Message-ID: Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 10:27:32 +0100 (GMT Daylight Time) Priority: NORMAL X-Mailer: Simeon for Win32 Version 4.1.4 Build (40) X-Authentication: none MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Subject: [Upd-discuss] Publishers, copyright royalties and dollars Some commercial publishers follow a copyright=20 royalty practice that I am trying to investigate.=20 Say Publisher A holds copyright in an article (X) and=20 Pub. B wants to use X in a book that she/he=20 is publishing. Pub. A often allows Pub. B to publish X for=20 free --that is, no copyright royalty fees are payable -- as=20 along as Pub. B gives proper attribution to Pub. A.=20 One such scheme,the STM Permission Guidelines, is =20 available at:=20 http://www.stm-assoc.org/committees/guidelines.htm When a non-publisher(person C),however, wants to reprint=20 X -- and even if it is for a non-profit, educational=20 purpose --- Pub. A will charge C often quite hefty copyright royalty fees for the use of X. This is a serious problem=20 here in the UK where as much as 70 to 80 per cent of the=20 costs of a student course pack of materials, that perhaps=20 averages =A315, will be composed of copyright licensing fees=20 paid primarily to publishers; the article's author often=20 gets none of this revenue. The discriminatory effect of=20 this practice on students buying course packs(and teachers=20 producing them)is obvious.=20 So my two questions are: 1) Does anyone know any further details of how much =20 publishers, in the U.S. or elsewhere, charge EACH=20 OTHER for the use of copyright protected work?=20 2) Does anyone have any documentary evidence that=20 demonstrates this? Or can you suggest articles ( academic=20 or otherwise) that have investigated this practice? Answers "off list" will be fine.=20 Thanks in advance for this, Alan =20 ---------------------- Alan Story Kent Law School Eliot College University of Kent Canterbury Kent UK CT2 7NS +44 (0)1227 823316=20 a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Aug 17 17:41:49 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 76ECA2A05E; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 17:41:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id RAA13608; Thu, 17 Aug 2000 17:41:49 -0400 Message-ID: <399C5CA5.DA2756BE@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 17:44:05 -0400 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss , pharm-policy Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Basic Proposal for European Patent Convention The basic proposal for revisions in the European Patent Convention are now on the web here: http://www.european-patent-office.org/news/headlns/2000_08_17.htm BASIC PROPOSAL FOR THE REVISION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT CONVENTION CA/100/00 e "The notice from the President of the European Patent Office dated 24 March 2000 (OJ EPO 2000, 195) gave information about the forthcoming revision of the European Patent Convention. "The draft Basic Proposal for the revision is published below. The text will be finalised by the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation at a meeting from 5 to 8 September 2000, and then form the basis for discussion at the revision conference in Munich from 20 to 29 November 2000. ------------------------------ Comment: Of particular interest are changes to Article 52 and 53, which concern scope and exceptions to patentability, and Article 54, which concerns the issue of new uses of known product (so called "Swiss claims"). In Article 52, the proposal would use the broader language from the WTO TRIPS agreement to extend patents to "all fields of technology," and eliminate the current exception for software patents. The proposal appears to bracket the issue of the exclusion of methods of doing business, for further discussion, I think. The changes in Article 54 would strengthen the legal status of patents on new uses for known products. -- ======================================================= James Love, Director | http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org P.O. Box 19367 | voice: 1.202.387.8030 Washington, DC 20036 | fax: 1.202.234.5176 ======================================================= From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Aug 30 18:16:41 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0A3992A060 for ; Wed, 30 Aug 2000 18:16:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA20752 for ; Wed, 30 Aug 2000 18:16:40 -0400 Message-ID: <39AD790D.1ECED516@cptech.org> Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 17:13:49 -0400 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] endorsements for dnso seat on ICANN board Right now there are 5 candidates for one "DNSO" slot on the ICANN board. DNSO stands for the Domain Name Supporting Organization, one of the 3 ICANN supporting organizations (the other two involve protocol and numbering). The election for the DNSO seat has not been widely discussed by the general public. It is different than the "at large" election, where there are several good candidates, including;, for example, Larry Lessig, Barabra Simons and Karl Auerbach for the North American seat. The DNSO seat on the ICANN board will be elected by the a majority 19 members of the DNSO "Names Council." (See http://www.dnso.org for details). The candidates for the DNSO seat include: Jonathan Cohen, Peter de Blanc, Jill Keogh, James P. Love and Ronald N. Weikers. Cohen, an IP lawyer, is the current incumbant. Nominations for the DNSO seat are now closed, but the DNSO is accepting endorsements of the 5 candidates until September 11. The Names Council will then have one week to vote. People can make the endorsements by sending a simple email message to icann-endorsements@dnso.org. The DNSO has a template for the endorsements, which is given below. Note: this does *not* require an ICANN pin number. Cohen and Weikers are both intellectual property lawyers. Peter de Blanc is a fairly interesting person living in the Virgin Islands who represents the registries for 2 digit country codes. Not much is known about Keogh. I am the fifth candidate. Statements from all 5 candidates are on the DNSO web page. My own statement focuses on the need to limit ICANN's powers, and to protect the public's free speech rights in domain names: http://www.dnso.org/clubpublic/icann-nominations/Arc00/msg00015.html Jamie <-----ICANN proceedure for endorsements---------------------> Endorsements should be emailed to the DNSO Secretariat at the following email address: icann-endorsements@dnso.org and use the provided Template for endorsement: 3a. Full name of the endorser: 3b. E-mail address of the endorser: 3c. Full name of the accepted nominee you wish to endorse: (specific statements of endorsements may also be submitted and are encouraged) -- James Love mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Aug 31 09:59:59 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64D992A060; Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:59:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA29625; Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:59:59 -0400 Message-ID: <39AE64E2.B6981E71@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:00:02 -0400 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss , Multiple recipients of list RANDOM-BITS Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Who are the current ICANN board members I was asked my Mickey Davis to give some information on the current ICANN board members. This is taken from: http://www.icann.org/general/abouticann.htm Esther Dyson, chairman of EDventure Holdings Jean-François Abramatic is Chairman of W3C, the World Wide Web Consortium Amadeu Abril i Abril teaches European Union Law, Competition Law, and IT Law at ESADE Law School, Ramon Llull University (a private University based in Barcelona) ROBERT BLOKZIJL is currently employed by the National Institute of Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics (NIKHEF). Géraldine Capdeboscq is Executive Vice President for Strategy, Technology and Partnerships, BULL (France). Vinton G. Cerf is senior vice president of Internet Architecture and Technology for MCI WorldCom. Jonathan Cohen is the Senior, Managing Partner of the Shapiro Cohen Group of Intellectual Property Practices. George Conrades is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Akamai Technologies, Inc. and also serves as a venture partner at Polaris Venture Partners Greg Crew is currently Chairman of the Australian Communications Industry Forum Ltd., Chairman of the Australian Information Technology Engineering Centre Ltd., and a director of ERG Ltd. (Perth) and of Silicon Wireless Ltd. (California). Phil Davidson is Head of BT Group Standards in the BT Group Engineering and Technology Directorate. Frank Fitzsimmons is Senior Vice President, Global Marketing for Dun & Bradstreet Ken Fockler is the President of Tenac Consulting Hans Kraaijenbrink is a member of the Executive Board of ETNO, the European Telecommunications Network Operators association, located in Brussels. He is also Manager, European Policy and Regulation with Royal KPN N.V., the Netherlands where he is responsible for European and international regulatory strategic affairs. Sang Hyun Kyong, (I don't have information on his employer) Jun Murai is currently Professor, Faculty of Environmental Information, Keio University (Japan); Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies, United Nations University; Instructor at Tokyo University of Art and Music; President of the Japan Network Information Center (JPNIC); General Chairperson of the WIDE Project (a Japanese Internet research consortium). Alejandro Pisanty is currently Director of Computing Academic Services at UNAM, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, in Mexico City. Michael M. Roberts is President and CEO of ICANN Eugenio Triana is an International Management Consultant on telecom policy, space and satellite systems, copyright and intellectual property rights in Madrid, Spain. Linda S. Wilson is president emerita of Radcliffe College, a member of the Board of Directors for Citizens Financial Group, Inc., Inacom, Inc., and Value Line, Inc. Pindar Wong is the Chairman of the Asia & Pacific Internet Association, Executive Committee Chairman of the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Conference on Operational Technologies, advisor to the Asia Pacific Networking Group and member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Cisco Systems' Internet Protocol Journal. He is also the Chairman of VeriFi (Hong Kong) Ltd., a discrete Internet infrastructure consultancy. -- James Love mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Sep 7 13:38:41 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C16D72A061 for ; Thu, 7 Sep 2000 13:38:41 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA25566 for ; Thu, 7 Sep 2000 13:38:41 -0400 Message-ID: <39B7D25E.B8F41CC7@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2000 13:37:34 -0400 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] DNSO election I finally got around to creating a web page for my candidacy for the DNSO seat on the ICANN board. http://www.cptech.org/jamie/dnso-icann.html Thanks to RMS and other list members for endorsing my candidacy. Jamie -- James Love mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Sep 8 11:17:32 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7AEA62A395 for ; Fri, 8 Sep 2000 11:17:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA18523 for ; Fri, 8 Sep 2000 11:17:32 -0400 Date: Fri, 8 Sep 2000 11:17:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Weissman To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] News Release from RAFI (fwd) News Release Thursday, September 7, 2000 "Hippocrates, We Have a Problem!" Patent Evils Threaten Public Goods International agricultural research centres - struggling for survival, may find themselves brought up before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights by the poor they are pledged to help, new RAFI report warns. An Occasional Paper published today by RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International) "In Search of Higher Ground" (the full text can be found at www.rafi.org) warns that the world's leading international public science institutions are in crisis and their inept patent policies and inexperience with multinational corporations could put them at odds with those their research is meant to serve. According to the study, public science patent policies could undermine the very concept of "public goods" and the original premises which made it possible for agricultural centres to obtain more than 600,000 samples of farmers' seed varieties throughout the Third World. "Trojan Trade Reps": Focusing on international agricultural research centres, the report argues that public science is the victim of declining financial support (often the result of the mistaken assumption that giant companies can do science better) and intense pressure from agribusiness to adopt patents on living materials and particularly, U.S.-style patent policies. Such policies will compromise or distort "public goods" in favour of corporate interests. Asserting that international scientific bodies are "genetically-incapable" of managing patent policies, the report warns that institutions are becoming "Trojan trade reps" for the U.S. Government when they fail to acknowledge the sovereign right of countries and the human rights of farmers especially in the Third World- to access the technologies they need for their well-being. "International scientists seem to believe it is unethical to utilize patented technologies in countries where the patents are non-applicable with! out the permission of the patent-holder. If a company does not apply for patent protection in Ethiopia, Ethiopians have every right to avail themselves of the technology. That's international law," Pat Mooney, RAFI's Executive Director, says. "If public science fails to disseminate technologies that could be beneficial to Third World countries merely because they would offend patent-holders in other countries, they are siding with the multinationals against the poor. If they acquire licenses to use patented technologies and then pass on licensing restrictions to countries where the patent is invalid, they are, again, siding with the multinationals," Mooney insists. "Public science has to decide who they are serving. They cannot become the Trojan trade reps of the multinationals." Human Rights Violations? The RAFI report notes that both the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Human Rights Commission have recently warned that the World Trade Organization's TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property) agreement could be in conflict with more than one Human Rights covenant. In June, the UNDP's Human Development Report specifically criticized the TRIPS accord as a threat to Human Rights. On August 17th, the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights unanimously challenged TRIPS as impacting negatively on the rights of poor people to benefit from new technologies. "International Agricultural Research Centres, by submitting to the national patent laws of some Northern countries, are denying countries in the South access to potentially useful technologies, and/or imposing unethical constraints on their use, and/or misusing public financial contributions to pay patent-holders for technologies that are actually freely-available," Hope Shand, RAFI's Research Director, states, "This is unacceptable and it must not be permitted. The integrity of international public science is at stake." "Hippocrates, we have a problem!" Despite its conclusion that international public science should not be allowed to set patent policy, the RAFI report is sympathetic to the conundrum facing researchers. "These are good and decent people trying their best for world agriculture," Pat Mooney acknowledges. "They are caught between a rock and a hard place. If they ignore corporate patents they could face reprisals not only from the companies but also from the Northern governments who fund international science. If they acquiesce to corporate demands, farmers and consumers could - and should - protest their actions before the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Their predicament is not of their making," Mooney adds. "But they have the predicament nonetheless," Hope Shand concurs, "and they have to get themselves out of it. Rather than being taken to the Human Rights Commissioner, they should join with those they wish to serve and ask Mary Robinson (the UN High Commissione! r for Human Rights) to investigate the problem." RAFI's report identifies three major steps that science networks such as the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) should take. "First, CGIAR should join with Civil Society Organizations in asking the Human Rights Commission to investigate and advise on this conflict," Shand says. "Second, when the CGIAR holds its annual meeting in Washington this October, it should ask either UNDP or FAO to seek an advisory opinion from the World Court on the implications of patents on biological materials and the consequences for national sovereignty and Human Rights. Third," Hope Shand concludes, "CGIAR should join with others in seeking political solutions to the problem through a Special Session of the UN General Assembly on science and innovation." 28 Steps to Higher Ground: Although "In Search of Higher Ground" emphasizes the perils of patenting and the failures of public science to meet the policy challenge, it also offers 28 specific steps that institutes could take to defend their interests. Among the 28 are several that would modify current patent regimes to safeguard public goods. There are also "trade union" opportunities for public science to adopt collective bargaining strategies and make common cause with wider social movements. "For scientists, a protest letter in Nature constitutes a primal scream. They just have no sense of political strategy or of policy alternatives," Pat Mooney worries. Not all of RAFI's concerns are leveled at public scientists. "As Civil Society Organizations, we have to decide whether we want to safeguard public goods and public research, or let these institutions be absorbed into corporate globalization," Mooney continues, "Most of us, quite rightly, disagree with the biotech strategy being pursued by many of these institutions and it is hard to sympathize with their problems. Nevertheless, international science has shown itself to be much more responsive to farmers' concerns in recent years." "I think we have to fight first for the public's right to access the technologies they want," says Shand, "and to develop new technologies in the public domain - high-tech or wide-tech (farmer-led research). Then we have to confront the institutions with our dissatisfaction over their research methods and priorities. If they will join us before the Human Rights Commission - be 'doers' rather than be 'done to' - this could be the beginning of resurgence in public support for public science." RAFI (The Rural Advancement Foundation International) is an international civil society organization based in Canada. RAFI is dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, and to the socially responsible development of technologies useful to rural societies. RAFI is concerned about the loss of agricultural biodiversity, and the impact of intellectual property on farmers and food security. For more information, contact: Pat Mooney, Executive Director, RAFI mooney@rafi.org Hope Shand, Director of Research, RAFI hope@rafi.org To add or remove your name from the RAFI listserver, please go to www.rafi.org and then "Sign Up" where you will be given the choice of adding or removing your name. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Sep 14 20:50:55 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from user1.channel1.com (user1.channel1.com [199.1.13.9]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 086CC2A05E for ; Thu, 14 Sep 2000 20:50:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [205.240.180.37] (xdial37.channel1.com [205.240.180.37]) by user1.channel1.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA24319; Thu, 14 Sep 2000 20:50:47 -0400 (EDT) X-Envelope-To: X-Sender: dutton@pop.channel1.com Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 20:52:30 -0400 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org From: Geoffrey Dutton Cc: James Love Subject: [Upd-discuss] Whose owns personal information? There's a public domain issue that is never framed as such that I'd like to discuss: trading of personal information. Use and abuse of personal data collected through web sites is of course a hot button issue, and is being addressed by Congess, state legislatures and agencies like the FTC. Ebusinesses may issue detailed and circumspect privacy policies, but nearly all of them operate on the assumption that personal data collected is a free good, flowing out of the public domain, potentially available for private use. This attitude leads commercial interests to appropriate, "add value" to and otherwise exploit personal data. My humble proposition is that if some company wants to use a person's data, that person should be compensated. If I write an article, it isn't in the public domain unless I put it there. If I buy a widget, the data I leave behind is mine too, and if its possessor wishes to publish it somehow, my permission should be required. I may ask for compensation if I choose. It should be my call, not their's. Should a company be able to enrich itself by selling raw or processed personal data without those who supplied it being compensated? Nobody seems to be asking this question. It may be that the most effective safeguard against abuse of personal information would be to specify -- by law -- that it is personal property. To treat it otherwise is to condone theft. Personal information springs from the private domain, not the public or corporate domains. We should take steps to create laws that codify and enforce this principle. -Geoff Dutton From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Sep 25 22:26:35 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 434FE2A05E; Mon, 25 Sep 2000 22:26:35 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (ppp-2.essential.org [216.0.125.2]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA11785; Mon, 25 Sep 2000 22:26:33 -0400 Message-ID: <39D01B82.C80E6F87@cptech.org> Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2000 23:44:02 -0400 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Multiple recipients of list RANDOM-BITS , upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Felicity Barringer: Olympics, IPR and speech This is an amazing story about the expansion of intellectual property rights and the control over the expression and speech of individuals. Jamie http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/25/technology/25WEB.html Web-Leery Olympics Limit News By FELICITY BARRINGER Christie Ambrosi, the hard-hitting outfielder for the United States Olympic women's softball team, has long had friendly dealings with her hometown newspaper, The Kansas City Star. So, when asked, she readily agreed to write an Olympic diary for The Star's World Wide Web site. But shortly before she left for Sydney, Australia, in August, she sent an e-mail message to the newspaper, saying, "As far as the diary entry, we aren't allowed to do them during the Olympics." The International Olympic Committee was putting teeth into its often-ignored rule against publication of athletes' Olympic diaries during the Games. Ms. Ambrosi was not alone. Siri Mullinix, the North Carolina-born goalkeeper of the women's soccer team, stopped her online chats with The Greensboro News & Record and said she could not contribute a diary during the Games. The Hartford Courant got the same message from Karen Scavotto, the 18-year-old archer from Enfield, Conn. The 27th Olympic Games may be remembered for many things - world records, peacetime logistical planning - but it will surely be a benchmark in the struggle between those who hold intellectual property rights in sporting events and those seeking to cover sports, especially for the ever-expanding universe of news outlets on the Internet. Concerned that the power of the Internet could eventually undermine the economic foundation of the modern Olympic movement, the Olympic committee is going to great lengths to control how and where the images and accounts of the Sydney extravaganza reach the public. The committee's actions echo what is happening in other areas of sports, as both amateur and professional teams and leagues aggressively invoke their property rights to control how and by whom events are covered. Most of the committee's attention is focused on the Web. Here, streaming video - still in its infancy - may eventually attain both the technical quality and reach to cut into television audiences. This could, in turn, dilute the value of the most valuable asset of the Olympics: broadcasting rights. The Web could also spawn a horde of virtual storefronts where those with no rights to Olympic trademarks piggyback on the Olympic name to hawk their wares without returning anything to the nonprofit committee, which supports the athletes and the Games. [snip]  More than 20 private Web monitors on three continents are using the latest search engine technology to monitor possible violations of the I.O.C.'s property rights. The strict enforcement of the diary rule hit local newspapers hard. Mike Fannin, the sports editor of The Kansas City Star, said, "I would assume that it is their ball and if you want to play, you play by their rules." But, he added: "The readers miss that connection with their local athlete. Christie Ambrosi's a softball player in the Kansas City suburbs. When she walks into a bar, people know who she is. The Olympics - it's all about representing your hometown, your city, your country." Franklin Servan-Schreiber, the director of communications and new media for the International Olympic Committee, is keenly aware of the tension between property rights and unfettered coverage of the Games. But, he said, "I don't think the I.O.C. can be seen in any way limiting speech about the Olympics." He pointed out that 20,000 journalists are in Sydney - nearly twice as many media people as athletes, all free to cover the Games as they see fit. [snip] The aggressive enforcement effort, he said, is meant to ensure that "the association between the athlete, the sport, the values and the symbol that represents all this is clear." The Internet has offered little revenue to the Olympics so far. There are concerns that the Web could cut into television audiences and undermine the economic underpinnings of the Olympic movement. The committee took in about $1.3 billion for television rights to the Sydney games alone. NBC paid $705 million for United States rights. [snip] Floyd Abrams, a constitutional lawyer with Cahill, Gordon & Reindel, said it was odd that "the increased availability of a means of communication leads to a ruling seeking to assure that less is said." But he said the I.O.C. was not a United States agency and so was not bound by the First Amendment. The gradual fencing off of information and imagery by sports franchises was well under way before the Olympics. In the last few years, debates have been joined over whether game developments can be distributed instantly by pager (they can, a federal appeals court has ruled). [snip] -- James Love, Consumer Project on Technology v. 1.202.387.8030, fax 1.202.234.5176 love@cptech.org, http://www.cptech.org From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Sep 29 13:54:36 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2FC912A060 for ; Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:54:36 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (coleonyx.essential.org [216.0.124.52]) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA14443 for ; Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:54:35 -0400 Message-ID: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org> Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:57:31 -0400 From: Alan Bushnell X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] hr 3249 apply to free software? Has anyone on this list been tracking H.R. 3249, the Artists' Contribution to American Heritage Act? It would allow artists to claim a tax credit for the appraised market value of a "literary, musical, artistic, or scholarly composition, or similar property, or the copyright thereon" when the work is donated to a nonprofit organization. This seems that it would generally encourage intellectual property resources for the benefit of civil society, though not strictly the public domain. The bill is largely being pushed by art museums and libraries that want to encourage artists to donate to their collections. This bill sees like it could be of interest to civil society intellectual property constituencies outside of the ones that the authors intended, particularly for the free software movement (I'd be interested to hear of any other constituencies). I'm curious whether software "artists" would be eligible for this tax credit if they assigned the copyright of their work to a nonprofit. My understanding of copyright law is that computer programs are considered literary works, so I don't see why they wouldn't be eligible. If the tax credit can be realized by programmers for their work, what about free software writers? (I'll loosely define free software as software for which the source code is available and may be freely distributed and modified.) A tax credit would provide additional incentive to write free software. Given that a piece of software that is "free" is more valuable to society than the same piece of software when it is proprietary, it seems that society could get a good deal by encouraging free software to be written. A large potential stumbling block is determining the market value of a work of free software, which the legislation requires. Adobe Photoshop and the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) have a roughly equivalent feature set; I would assume that Adobe Photoshop has a market value in the many millions of dollars. What's the market value of the GIMP, a piece of software that can be downloaded for free? Its seems similar to asking "what's the market value of the public domain?" It's not clear to me how the market would value non-scarce intellectual property resources, I'd appreciate any references to literature on this point. The only things that I can think of that is similar are the recent attempts to value natural resources by enviro-economists. Here are some references on the bill: House bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.03249: Companion in the senate: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:s.02781: Leahy letter to Treasury: http://www.cptech.org/akb/leahy-letter.txt "Fairness for Artists" Maniscalco Gallery: http://www.maniscalcogallery.com/fairness_for_artists.htm thanks for any comments you have, alan __ Alan Bushnell , Policy Intern Consumer Project on Technology / http://www.cptech.org PO Box 19367, Washington DC 20036 phone: 1(202)387-8030 fax: 1(202)234-5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Sep 30 12:57:16 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B38592A060 for ; Sat, 30 Sep 2000 12:57:15 -0400 (EDT) Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id KAA10102; Sat, 30 Sep 2000 10:57:14 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) id KAA08284; Sat, 30 Sep 2000 10:57:13 -0600 (MDT) Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2000 10:57:13 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200009301657.KAA08284@wijiji.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@wijiji.santafe.edu using -f From: Richard Stallman To: akb@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org> (message from Alan Bushnell on Fri, 29 Sep 2000 13:57:31 -0400) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] hr 3249 apply to free software? Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org> Sender: rms@santafe.edu Our legal advisor, Professor Moglen, says that it is already possible for a company to get a tax credit for donating proprietary software to an organization such as the FSF. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Sep 29 20:25:55 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from eldritchpress.org (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.241.25]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97AED2A060 for ; Fri, 29 Sep 2000 20:25:51 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from eldred@localhost) by eldritchpress.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id UAA16865; Fri, 29 Sep 2000 20:27:28 -0400 Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 20:27:18 -0400 From: Eric Eldred To: Alan Bushnell Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] hr 3249 apply to free software? Message-ID: <20000929202718.F16406@eldritchpress.org> References: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org>; from akb@cptech.org on Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 01:57:31PM -0400 Organization: http://www.EldritchPress.org Alan, Thank you very much for this reference! Larry Lessig and I are now in the process of trying to form a non-profit organization that can accept such donations. We want to try to use a private institution to promote the public domain because governmental institutions no longer can (unless we win in our suit Eldred v Reno to overturn the CTEA, and in the DeCSS case against the DMCA, etc.) Lessig is seeking funding for the proposal, which we call the "Intellectual Property Conservancy". It seems to me that current tax law already provides for such donations. For example, earlier this year Procter and Gamble donated a bunch of patents it could no longer use, to Western Michigan State University, which has some expertise in packaging technology and could better exploit the patents. However, we need to get a ruling from the IRS or Tax Court on this practice, to be certain that everything is within the law. We don't intend to appraise the works ourselves. We are also a bit shy about accepting donations of money to buy rights. This might artificially modify the market for prices of works. So we need a lot of investigation and legal assistance for this to work. As you point out, appraisal of certain works might be very difficult in the absence of a market. But the IRS has some experience with such cases and we will have to let them handle it. A new law such as HR3249 might expedite the process, if crafted well. For example, if the incentive to donate is not enough, maybe the incentive needs to be raised some other way. Furthermore, we plan to include patents as well as copyrights. (However, when we approached Richard M. Stallman, he noted that paying money for software patents might be unethical, if it only encourages the--to him--noxious practice of patenting software--but, is buying and liberating slaves ethical or not?) I would also like to involve Steve Shavell, a really good expert in legal economics, who can represent these ideas to the conservative wing very well. He is a Harvard professor. Aside from the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, we already have plans to involve MIT, Stanford, and Duke (do you know Jamie Boyle?) in the project. But the board really ought to include a bunch of CEOs in the publishing and corporate end of things, who can go out and sell the ideas to their peers. If it is just a bunch of crazy geeks like RMS (he's not, but others might think so) then it will perhaps not succeed. Since I don't look very crazy, and am crazy about this idea, I have chosen myself to be the evangelist. I will have to get in touch with Senator Leahy and staff to see if we can join forces. The next question is, can UPD help? Is there interest by Jamie or others in this project? Can you share this with others? Even if UPD is only a catalyst, we appreciate the pointers so far! And if you are in D.C., consider attending the oral hearings Oct 5 in DC Circuit Court of Appeals on Eldred v Reno, or watch the webcast, at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 01:57:31PM -0400, Alan Bushnell wrote: > > Has anyone on this list been tracking H.R. 3249, the Artists' > Contribution to American Heritage Act? It would allow artists to claim > > a tax credit for the appraised market value of a "literary, musical, > artistic, or scholarly composition, or similar property, or the > copyright thereon" when the work is donated to a nonprofit > organization. This seems that it would generally encourage intellectual > > property resources for the benefit of civil society, though not strictly > > the public domain. The bill is largely being pushed by art museums and > libraries that want to encourage artists to donate to their collections. > > This bill sees like it could be of interest to civil society > intellectual property constituencies outside of the ones that the > authors intended, particularly for the free software movement (I'd be > interested to hear of any other constituencies). I'm curious whether > software "artists" would be eligible for this tax credit if they > assigned the copyright of their work to a nonprofit. My understanding > of copyright law is that computer programs are considered literary > works, so I don't see why they wouldn't be eligible. > > If the tax credit can be realized by programmers for their work, what > about free software writers? (I'll loosely define free software as > software for which the source code is available and may be freely > distributed and modified.) A tax credit would provide additional > incentive to write free software. Given that a piece of software that > is "free" is more valuable to society than the same piece of software > when it is proprietary, it seems that society could get a good deal by > encouraging free software to be written. > > A large potential stumbling block is determining the market value of a > work of free software, which the legislation requires. Adobe Photoshop > and the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) have a roughly equivalent > feature set; I would assume that Adobe Photoshop has a market value in > the many millions of dollars. What's the market value of the GIMP, a > piece of software that can be downloaded for free? Its seems similar to > > asking "what's the market value of the public domain?" It's not clear > to me how the market would value non-scarce intellectual property > resources, I'd appreciate any references to literature on this point. > The only things that I can think of that is similar are the recent > attempts to value natural resources by enviro-economists. > > Here are some references on the bill: > > House bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:h.r.03249: > Companion in the senate: > http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d106:s.02781: > Leahy letter to Treasury: http://www.cptech.org/akb/leahy-letter.txt > "Fairness for Artists" Maniscalco Gallery: > http://www.maniscalcogallery.com/fairness_for_artists.htm > > thanks for any comments you have, > alan > > __ > Alan Bushnell , Policy Intern > Consumer Project on Technology / http://www.cptech.org > PO Box 19367, Washington DC 20036 > phone: 1(202)387-8030 > fax: 1(202)234-5176 > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss -- "Eric" Eric Eldred Eldritch Press mailto:Eldred@EldritchPress.org http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Oct 1 23:24:02 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from onering.urth (port-27.ottawa4.achilles.net [209.151.2.126]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 738022A05E for ; Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:24:00 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from keb@localhost) by onering.urth (8.9.3/8.9.3) id XAA14611; Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:23:43 -0400 From: "Krishna E. Bera" Message-Id: <200010020323.XAA14611@onering.urth> To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Date: Sun, 1 Oct 2000 23:23:43 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL0pre8] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] good news - SNPs being published to enhance public domain knowledge In an article in the 23 September 2000 Ottawa Citizen, reporter Tom Spears describes research results as "Scientists find sources of genetic variation". The results are also published in the journal /Nature/. "[Single nucleotide polymorphisms] are the bedrock of human genetics," said Seema Kumar of the Whitehead Institute. "They can be used to track inheritance of and gene, contribute to the traits that make us unique, and (they) underlie our suceptibilities to common diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease." The good news is, The genome researchers have posted masses of SNP data on a Web site, hoping to make it impossible for anyone to patent the findings and control access to them. It's imperative to have "a high-resolution SNP map that is accurate, reliable, and freely available to medical researchers worldwide," said Eric Lander, Whitehead's director. My questions are: 1. How likely is web-publishing in order to prevent patents to succeed? 2. What is the qualitative difference between an SNP map and any other scientific research? Isn't it imperative to have _all_ scientific knowledge be reliable, accurate and freely available to researchers worldwide? -- Krishna E. Bera "Programmer on the loose" keb@cyblings.on.ca From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Oct 3 09:22:17 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C5AA92A05E for ; Tue, 3 Oct 2000 09:22:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org (coleonyx.essential.org [216.0.124.52]) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA05123; Tue, 3 Oct 2000 09:22:12 -0400 Message-ID: <39D9DE3B.4BE6EC4D@cptech.org> Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 09:25:16 -0400 From: Alan Bushnell X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: rms@gnu.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] hr 3249 apply to free software? References: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org> <200009301657.KAA08284@wijiji.santafe.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Richard, My understanding is that the original authors cannot claim this credit, hr3249 proposes that it be extended to them. Do you think that giving individuals the benefit of claiming this credit will encourage more GPL'ed works? Has FSF received donations of this type from companies that have claimed the credit? alan Richard Stallman wrote: > Our legal advisor, Professor Moglen, says that it is already possible > for a company to get a tax credit for donating proprietary software to > an organization such as the FSF. > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss __ Alan Bushnell , Policy Intern Consumer Project on Technology / http://www.cptech.org PO Box 19367, Washington DC 20036 phone: 1(202)387-8030 fax: 1(202)234-5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Oct 4 10:09:29 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D91392A066 for ; Wed, 4 Oct 2000 10:09:27 -0400 (EDT) Received: from taos.santafe.edu (taos [192.12.12.10]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA04791; Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:09:06 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from rms@localhost) by taos.santafe.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) id IAA12169; Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:09:06 -0600 (MDT) Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 08:09:06 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <200010041409.IAA12169@taos.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: taos.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@taos.santafe.edu using -f From: Richard Stallman To: akb@cptech.org Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <39D9DE3B.4BE6EC4D@cptech.org> (message from Alan Bushnell on Tue, 03 Oct 2000 09:25:16 -0400) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] hr 3249 apply to free software? Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <39D4D80B.187C6375@cptech.org> <200009301657.KAA08284@wijiji.santafe.edu> <39D9DE3B.4BE6EC4D@cptech.org> Sender: rms@santafe.edu My understanding is that the original authors cannot claim this credit, hr3249 proposes that it be extended to them. Do you think that giving individuals the benefit of claiming this credit will encourage more GPL'ed works? I have no way of knowing. I don't see how it could do any harm, as regards individuals who write code to donate. Has FSF received donations of this type from companies that have claimed the credit? No, not as of yet. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Oct 6 12:26:43 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F0CFB2A3C3 for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 12:26:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (rob@localhost) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id MAA02723; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 12:26:42 -0400 Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 12:26:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Weissman To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Another IP dispute with a political ad From today's Congress Daily: POLITICS ... As Mattingly's First Ad In Georgia Race Ruffles Some Feathers Former GOP Sen. Mack Mattingly, who is facing Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., in the special election to fill the remaining four years of the late GOP Sen. Paul Coverdell's term, has ruffled some feathers with his first ad. The commercial, which began airing Wednesday, parodies the popular AFLAC ad that features a duck quacking the name of the Georgia-based insurance company, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. In Mattingly's ad, the duck repeatedly quacks, "Back Mack" in exasperation as two people assess their options in the special election. But AFLAC is crying foul, claiming Mattingly borrowed the image without permission. "We are pleased with the AFLAC duck's popularity. But the duck is copyrighted. And he sells supplemental insurance, not campaigns or candidates," an AFLAC spokeswoman said. AFLAC officials would not comment on possible action. However, the company's CEO, Dan Amos, is a member of Miller's finance committee. And Miller's campaign was not amused. "What's he going to steal next?" a Miller spokesman asked. "Coke's polar bears? Chick-fil-A's cows?" Robert Weissman Essential Information P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC 20036, USA Tel: 1-202-387-8030 Fax: 1-202-234-5176 www.essential.org From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Oct 6 22:51:14 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from eldritchpress.org (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.241.25]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7A9A82A060 for ; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 22:51:14 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from eldred@localhost) by eldritchpress.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id WAA27823; Fri, 6 Oct 2000 22:54:08 -0400 Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 22:54:03 -0400 From: Eric Eldred To: Robert Weissman Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Another IP dispute with a political ad Message-ID: <20001006225403.A27800@eldritchpress.org> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: ; from rob@milan.essential.org on Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 12:26:42PM -0400 Organization: http://www.EldritchPress.org I think it was back in 1964 that Budweiser plastered Florida with billboard ads, "Vote for Bud"--at the same time as a candidate named "Bud" was running for Governor (Budweiser failed to realize this). As a cub reporter, I had the pleasure of calling the Adolph Busch family (I talked to Sr. and Jr.) and filing a small, amusing story. Back then almost everybody took long distance calls from the operator, and nobody sued anybody else over a joke. But during those times the public domain was treasured and had yet to be so privatized. Should we laugh or cry now? On Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 12:26:42PM -0400, Robert Weissman wrote: > >From today's Congress Daily: > > POLITICS > ... As Mattingly's First Ad In Georgia Race Ruffles Some Feathers > Former GOP Sen. Mack Mattingly, who is facing Sen. Zell > Miller, D-Ga., in the special election to fill the remaining four > years of the late GOP Sen. Paul Coverdell's term, has ruffled > some feathers with his first ad. > The commercial, which began airing Wednesday, parodies the > popular AFLAC ad that features a duck quacking the name of the > Georgia-based insurance company, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution > reported. In Mattingly's ad, the duck repeatedly quacks, "Back > Mack" in exasperation as two people assess their options in the > special election. > But AFLAC is crying foul, claiming Mattingly borrowed the > image without permission. "We are pleased with the AFLAC duck's > popularity. But the duck is copyrighted. And he sells > supplemental insurance, not campaigns or candidates," an AFLAC > spokeswoman said. > AFLAC officials would not comment on possible action. However, > the company's CEO, Dan Amos, is a member of Miller's finance > committee. And Miller's campaign was not amused. "What's he going > to steal next?" a Miller spokesman asked. "Coke's polar bears? > Chick-fil-A's cows?" > > > Robert Weissman > Essential Information > P.O. Box 19405, Washington, DC 20036, USA > Tel: 1-202-387-8030 > Fax: 1-202-234-5176 > www.essential.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss -- "Eric" Eric Eldred Eldritch Press mailto:Eldred@EldritchPress.org http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Oct 9 16:42:58 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from prserv.net (out1.prserv.net [32.97.166.31]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BAC9C2A3BA for ; Mon, 9 Oct 2000 16:42:57 -0400 (EDT) Received: from cptech.org ([32.101.208.126]) by prserv.net (out1) with SMTP id <2000100920425325201gnijke>; Mon, 9 Oct 2000 20:42:54 +0000 Message-ID: <39E22DE0.3FD939E9@cptech.org> Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2000 16:43:12 -0400 From: James Love X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Notes from Oct5 meeting on Hague treaty on jurisdiction and foreign judgments October 5, 2000 (corrected Oct 9) Meeting of E-Commerce Roundtable on Hague Treaty Held at American Library Association Offices These are my notes from our October 5 meeting on the Hague Convention Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgements. Participants: USG: Jeff Kovar, State Department Hugh Stevenson, FTC Maneesha Mithal, FTC NGO/unions: Sarah Andrews, Electronic Privacy Information Center Thiru Balasubramanian, Consumer Project on Technology (CPT) Alan Bushnell, CPT Jamie Love, CPT Rick Weingarten, ALA (chair of meeting) Miriam Nisbet, American Library Association (ALA) Carrie Russell, ALA Manon Ress, Debs, Jones, Douglass Institute Rob Weisman, Essential Action Joel Yudken, AFL-CIO Press: Dugie Standeford, Washington Internet Daily Will Rodger, USA Today Documents: Jeff Kovar provide copies of a 10 page letter from him to UK official Alasdair Wallace, dated September 10, 2000, that discussed specific issues in the negotiations, and his June 29, 2000 testimony on the treaty to the House Subcommittee on Courts and Intellectual Property. We asked that these documents be put on the USDOS web page. US-DOS was also asked to provide details of the various Hague meeting dates and agendas on its web pages. Basic rationale for treaty and dates of meetings The treaty was described at a litigation convention. The basic rationale for the USG pushing the treaty goes something like this: 1. The USA is the most receptive country to recognizing foreign judgments. 2. Foreign judgments are already regularly enforced in US courts. 3. Few countries recognize US judgments. 4. Better foreign recognition of judgments would allow US citizens to collect US judgements abroad. Why then would foreign countries want to have the treaty? Apparently there is some foreign resistance to the treaty, in part, for example, over the big US judgments, and resentment over the fact that the US system which allows jury verdicts in many civil trials. There is also foreign opposition to the US practice of permitting extensive off shore discovery, and other aspects of the US assertion of "long arm" jurisdiction. Some governments would like to force the USA into a more consistent framework regarding jurisdiction, cutting back of the current "long arm" approach to jurisdiction. This is a simplified version of things, of course, and it was mentioned, for example, that currently in France any French citizen can sue anyone, anywhere in the world, for anything, in a French court. The push for the treaty by the US was described as coming from "middle class" litigants -- apparently relatively small parties (not giant corporations), who had claims against foreign parties that would not pay. "It's a plaintiffs treaty," USG says. Apparently some plaintiff lawyers emphasized cases such as foreign sales of unsafe children cribs or other goods, where they are seeking to make US judgements collectable abroad. Europe is now also dealing with changes in the Brussels convention, which addresses the same issues regarding judgements and jurisdiction. The talks on the treaty began in 1992, but the first drafts did not appear until 1998, and the first complete drafts were made available in June and then October 1999. The treaty was supposed to be finished this month (Oct 2000). Of course, when people started talking about the treaty, no one was thinking about the Internet, and how the treaty would affect the Internet, where the amount of cross border transactions has skyrocketed. In October 1999, the US government opposed many aspects of the Draft the treaty, registering opposition, for example, to articles 7 and 8 of the October 1999 text, and raising a number of other issues, as outlined in Mr. Kovar's September 10, 2000 letter to Alasdair Wallace. The U.S., along with a several other countries, pressed for the negotiating schedule to be revised and for additional negotiating sessions to be held. The current schedule for discussions on the treaty are: October 30- November 1, international negotiations on the text, held at the US Department of State in Washington, DC December 11-12, ICC/OECD/Hague meeting in the Hague on ADR, with discussion of relationship between ADR and Hague. December 13-15, Basel, Switzerland, government negotiations on the treaty text January 30-31, Geneva WIPO meeting on jurisdiction and choice of Law for intellectual property disputes Last week in February (3 to 5 day meeting), in Ottawa, on E- Commerce June 2001, the first session of a two-part diplomatic conference to complete the treaty Date unknown, the second part of the diplomatic conference, which may be the end of 2001, or the beginning of 2002. The rules are different for each meeting. NGOs can seek to have a Representative become a member of the US delegation at several of these meetings. Indeed, business groups already have requested. The October Washington, DC meeting will be closed, except to members of the country delegations. The December 11-12 Hague meeting will be restricted to 250 participants, worldwide. The Basel meeting will be closed, unless you can get on a country delegation. The WIPO meeting is open, according to WIPO. It is possible to be invited as an expert to the Ottawa meeting. International NGOs can also ask to participate (business NGOs do), and there will be private citizens on the US delegation. The ordinary Hague Conference rules will be for the diplomatic convention in June: government delegations (which may include private advisers) and international NGO's accredited to the Hague Conference. Mr. Kovar said to contact him for specific guidance on attendance at any of these meetings. He also asked whether consumer NGO's wished to put forward one person to be considered as a member of the U.S. delegation. He noted that this would entail some loss of independence to the individual while serving as a member of the delegation but offered the opportunity for direct input. Substantive Issues The USG will be provide written answers to the two letters I sent on September 29, 2000, regarding questions about the Hague treaty. Here are some notes from discussions about some of these issues. Libel and Slander Foreign libel or slander judgments that raise US first amendment issues are currently difficult to collect in the US. Under the proposed treaty, there are specific "Grounds for refusal of recognition or enforcement of judgments." These are set out in Article 28. Apparently the relevant 1st amendment provision is Article 28 (f), which is: 28(f) recognition or enforcement would be manifestly incompatible with the public policy of the state addressed. There was some question about broad the 28(f) provision would be. The USG seemed to think the 1st amendment would fit here, but it also seemed to be the case that many intellectual property concerns would likely not qualify. The American Library Association asked that Article 28 be expanded to include specific reference for US concepts on fair use. (Not discussed in the meeting was the controversy over Article 10.4, which concerns limits on damages for torts where injuries are alleged in more than one county, a section said to be relevant to defamation suits.) Default judgments There was discussion about cases where someone could not afford to be represented in foreign litigation. According to Article 27(2), the draft treaty says: Article 27 Verification of jurisdiction 2. In verifying the jurisdiction of the court of origin, the court addressed shall be bound by the findings of fact on which the court of origin based its jurisdiction, unless the judgment was given by default. Thus, if you are subject to the judgement by default, the US court is not bound by the foreign findings of fact. However, you can still be liable for the foreign judgment, even if it involves laws which are different from the US laws. Intellectual Property On the issue of intellectual property, both CPT and the American Library Association expressed interest in an exclusion for all intellectual property issues from the treaty. I suggested the exclusions could be based upon the rights defined under the WTO TRIPS accord. (This may not be broad enough). One argument for the exclusion is that there exists separate mechanisms for global harmonization of minimum rights (WIPO and WTO). But more generally, there was a concern that the public's rights would be extremely narrow if everyone was subject to claims from all Hague member countries. The examples of this were the fact that the EU has restrictive laws on fair use under copyright and trademark, while the US has very aggressive expansions of patents to business methods, and some countries have very poor examination processes, and issue very broad patents. With foreign judgement recognition, one could imagine a very small sub-set of public rights. The issue of which laws will apply for intellectual property is not addressed directly in the treaty -- it addresses choice of court rather than choice of law, but often the choice of court will have consequences in terms of the choice of law. Article 12 of the treaty deals with special cases of exclusive jurisdiction. Paragraphs 12.4 and 12.5 of the draft deal with intellectual property issues. In 12.4, there is bracketed language that would provide for exclusive jurisdiction based upon country of registration for matters involving infringement of patents, trademarks and "similar" rights. This would not apply to copyrights. In 12.5, there is bracketed language that would seem to permit broader jurisdiction in patent cases. There was talk that IPR issues could sink the whole treaty, because lots of people did not want to be subject to all of these IPR laws, and lose rights under national laws. And, it was also discussed that IPR laws are in a state of flux, and that we didn't even know what the laws would be in the future, and that it was important to retain the right to obtain national protection from foreign judgements that do not reflect national policy values, for example on the scope of rights, fair use or other matters. The treaty does in fact have carve-outs. In Article 1.1 the treaty begins with a statement on scope: "The Convention applies to civil and commercial matters. It shall not extend in particular to revenue, customs or administrative matters." Then, in Article 1.2, there are several exceptions, including such things as wills, social security, insolvency proceedings, matrimonial property disputes, and admiralty or maritime matters. (Interestingly, in Article 1.3 a dispute is not excluded solely because a government or agent is involved.) It would seem that there could be a campaign for an exclusion for intellectual property, and indeed, apparently the maritime exclusion came about after it was clear that the US maritime industry could not reach consensus on its position under the treaty. (See too excerpts from Kovar to Loon letter, below) Contracts of Adhesion For contracts concluded by consumers, Article 7.3 of the current draft of the treaty excludes contractual provisions that determine the choice of court. And, Article 7.2 would require a business to sue a consumer in the courts where the consumer lives. However, both of these provisions have been opposed by the US negotiators as (they said) being too broad and therefore inconsistent with U.S. law. The Global Business Dialogue, the International Chamber of Commerce and a dozen other business groups say that Article 7 must be eliminated, and they are asking that the treaty take an approach whereby rights and jurisdiction would be determined by choice of forum clauses in contracts. They say that ecommerce would otherwise be hampered by a system based upon a patchwork of national laws. This debate is very similar to the US debate over UCITA, and will likely cover a lot more than consumer protection and privacy issues. Today there are countless contractual provisions that address issues such as restrictions on criticisms of products, reverse engineering, rights to link web pages, rights to collect prices (ebay), the redistribution of data, software, music and other content, and a plethora of other issues (see http://www.cptech.org/ecom/ucita/licenses/ for examples). The US government has asked for the elimination of Article 7, in part upon the grounds that it changes US law, a position challenged by others in our meeting. There was discussion of a US Supreme Court case, where the Court indicated that contracts on jurisdiction could be considered unreasonable for remote jurisdictions. There is some difference of opinion, within the US government, on this issue, and the FTC has expressed some concern about contracts that would force US consumers to seek redress in foreign jurisdictions. But there is also considerable concern by NGOs that high level policy makers in the USG are pushing a "safe harbor" private sector ADR approach as a way of privatizing policy making and law enforcement for consumer protection and privacy rules. (See the TACD statements on jurisdiction, safe harbor and ADR). There was also a discussion of Article 8, concerning individual contracts of employment. In the current draft, Article 8 is very favorable to the employee, and gives the employee the right to bring an action against his employer in a court where he lives, and requires the employer to sue the employee where the employee lives. Again, the US has opposed Article 8 for similar reasons to Article 7 on consumers. This Article is significant for many reasons. An employer can include in contracts a wide variety of issues concerning limits on speech, prohibitions on future employment, disclosures of company information, the rights to intellectual property, compensation, and countless other items. Treatment of electronic commerce I asked if it would be possible to exclude electronic commerce from the treaty. The answer was no -- because the sense was that this was the future of commerce and it was unclear to the US government how You could separate ecommerce from other modes of commerce. Other topics We did not really get much of an opportunity to further into substantive issues at this meeting. It should be noted that there are many areas of controversy, including such topics as the treatment of antitrust and human rights litigation. ---------------------------- Excerpts from: Jeff Kovar letter of February 22, 2000 to J.H.A. van Loon: . . . the United States is opposed to scheduling a diplomatic conference this year or next. We believe it would be helpful to convene a stock-taking session where delegations can discuss in a frank, informal, and serious way whether there is the desire and political will to depart from the current text and seek new avenues for agreement. If there is such a will, then a much more open-ended schedule of work may be possible along with agreement on more consensus-based negotiating methods. Indeed, the informal experts sessions on electronic commerce and intellectual property issues are examples of the kind of process that should be given time to explore critical issues before any decision can be made on a future diplomatic conference. . . . . . . this would leave open the possibility that the underlying views and dynamics could mature over time, with the hope that achieving a viable Hague convention would ultimately be possible. This would also be the safer course in relation to the revolutionary changes underway in our lives through the electronic medium, which we have not even begun to assess as part of this negotiation. During a suspension, technical discussions could continue on specific issues, major shifts in domestic and regional law and legal institutions could be completed and consolidated, and revolutionary changes in commercial practice in the area of electronic commerce could have time to mature and be evaluated. * * * * It is impossible to give an adequate point-by-point assessment of the preliminary draft convention because of the enormous scope and complexity of its provisions. Nevertheless, a summary of some of our more pronounced concerns is offered here as an illustration of the obstacles facing the current text from a U.S. perspective. It is important to stress, however, that this list is not intended to be comprehensive or final. The list does not, for example, attempt to address crucial concerns related to electronic commerce and intellectual property issues. . . . - Article 7 (Consumer Contracts): This article repeats formulations from the Brussels Convention. These formulations have raised a storm of controversy in the electronic commerce world. It is an important illustration of the broader problems with electronic commerce mentioned above to note the severe policy problems this article raises. - Article 8 (Employment Contracts): This article, which is derived from the Brussels Convention, seems to us to be out of touch with modern employment practice, good economic policy, and evolving practices. It does not permit even sophisticated employees (e.g., senior and middle management of major multinationals from all Conference member states) to agree to a choice of forum. . . . In short, we believe serious discussions about the future of the project are necessary. If those discussions, and the experience of alternative work methods in experts meetings on electronic commerce and intellectual property issues, do not reveal an adequate basis to be confident that a text representing a wide global consensus can be negotiated, then we believe the project should be suspended so that it can be resumed at a more propitious time. James Love, Consumer Project on Technology v. 1.202.387.8030, fax 1.202.234.5176 love@cptech.org, http://www.cptech.org From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Oct 14 10:37:34 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 770AE2A31B for ; Sat, 14 Oct 2000 10:37:34 -0400 (EDT) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA10222 for ; Sat, 14 Oct 2000 10:37:34 -0400 Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 10:37:34 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Software patents: will Europe roll over for the multinationals? http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13942.html -- Software patents: will Europe roll over for the multinationals? By: Graham Lea Posted: 12/10/2000 at 13:38 GMT Software patents could become the kiss-of-death for many software developers, because it is becoming impossible to write a program without a serious risk of falling foul of some patent - frequently, an undeserved and opportunist one. The threat is also grave for many smaller businesses in Europe. They could easily be threatened by out-of-the-blue demands for patent licensing fees for their software, or for some process on their Internet site. At a well-attended meeting sponsored by French MEP Gilles Savary and arranged by the Eurolinux Alliance at the European Parliament in Brussels this week, attention was drawn to new moves in Europe to legalise software patents. In Europe there exist two totally independent bodies with responsibility for legal issues connected with patents: the European Union set up by the Treaty of Rome and now having 15 members, and the European Patent Office (EPO) set up by the Munich Convention and having 19 members. The EPO has granted more than 10,000 patents that include software, despite it being clear that, at the moment, patents based on computer programs are illegal in Europe. For example, a patent is likely to be granted by the EPO if a relational database is involved, whilst exactly the same process using a document database would not receive a patent because it is deemed to be not technical. Software patents also fly in the face of the 1991 EU software directive. Unfortunately, software patents cannot easily be successfully challenged at the EPO, not just because of the expense to the smaller organisations who are likely to suffer from the enforcement of software patents that should not have been granted, but because the EPO Boards of Appeal are the same building in Munich, and they lunch together... In the US (and Japan), software patents and patents on business processes are being granted at an alarming rate, although they may be at odds with the 1947 GATT treaty and the TRIPS agreement. Legality in retrospect? Now the EPO wants to ensure that software patents are made legal, and plans to revise the European Patent Convention (EPC) at a diplomatic conference in Munich from 21 to 29 November. The EPO's legal sleight of hand is to claim that although article 52 (2) (c) of the EPC says that "programs for computers... shall not be regarded as inventions", with total disdain for any notion of integrity the EPO argues that this was interpreted so that it "in no way excludes appropriate protection for software-related inventions, i.e. inventions whose subject matter consists of or includes a computer program". The ponderous EU, with three of the European Commission directorates involved in the patents issue as well as the two co-legislators (the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers) that superintend it, has been threatening a directive (as European laws are called) on software patents, but has been too slow and now accepts that its directive will not appear until after the EPO meeting. The EU does have a champion in enterprise and information society commissioner Erkki Liikanen, who said in an email read at the Brussels meeting (yes, he replies to his own email): "I am absolutely against the US patent practice in this field" and is urging internal market commissioner Frits Bolkestein to arrange a consultation about the EPO's plans. The EPO is the close buddy of the multinationals, who see intellectual property as being a source of income. With more than 60 per cent of Europeans being employed in small and medium sized businesses (and also accounting for 60 per cent of European GDP), the multinationals are hoping to stifle creativity by filing patents on the fundamental processes in computer programs. Their intention is to extract upfront payments, licensing fees, and to set restrictive conditions (for example, geographical limitation). Meanwhile, through cross-licensing with other multinationals with large patent portfolios, they can protect their own position. [snip] A preliminary administrative EPO roll call has shown that the countries wearing the white hats are the UK, France and Germany, who remarkably have reversed their previous stance in the face of the mounting evidence of harm to their economies if software patenting is approved by the EPO. They are supported by Denmark, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Sweden in calling for more time to study the issue. The guys wearing the black hats and wanting software patents in Europe are Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Switzerland, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Greece, and the Netherlands, with Finland not having voted and new-member Turkey also thought likely to be wearing a black hat. To change the EPC, a 75 per cent majority is required, and each country, regardless of size, has one vote. Questions need to be asked as to how much lobbying it took to get Liechtenstein's vote, and why France didn't get the message across to Monaco. The issue has been elevated from a nice little earner for the multinationals, patent lawyers and the fonctionnaires of the patents issuers to an important political issue with fundamental consequences for employment and software development. Although Eurolinux is to be congratulated for drawing attention to the issue, it is something of far more fundamental importance than the concerns of, for example, the 6,000 members (that's a lot) of the Skane Sjaelland Linux Group based in Copenhagen. Software patents, when enforced - for that is the next stage - will have a fundamental effect on software development and the use of software by smaller organisations who cannot maintain a gang of patent lawyers. Software patents are also fundamentally against EU objectives decided at the June Feira meeting, which declared support for European open software initiatives and the promotion of open source software in the public sector. It's also beginning to look as though enforced software patents may be used as a way of countering the threat posed by the open software movement, which is particularly ironic in view of the fact that much of the fundamental software in the industry - BIND and SENDMAIL for example - was via this route. Nor is this just a European issue: it is of fundamental world-wide importance to all developers and users of software who are concerned that their freedom is being usurped by multinationals and their patent lawyers: they do not deserve to profit from the work of those who have given their time and software development expertise to the community. Patents are a controlled grant of exemption from competition law, in that they give a limited waiver from competition rules, and are intended to protect the inventors of physical objects. But to suggest that "distributing cooking recipes in a supermarket to generate more sales" is patentable because computer can be involved in printing out the list of ingredients is plain bonkers. Software is best protected through copyright patent law, and if software patents are not de-legalised, it will only be a matter of time before Bill Gates gets a patent on binary code. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sun Oct 15 11:52:59 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B4F12A30E for ; Sun, 15 Oct 2000 11:52:59 -0400 (EDT) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA25212 for ; Sun, 15 Oct 2000 11:52:59 -0400 Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 11:52:59 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Coble database bill dead for now http://www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/00/156576.html By Robert MacMillan, Newsbytes WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 12 Oct 2000, 1:20 PM CST A controversial approach to protecting databases from misappropriation will have to be reintroduced next year after its chances for any passage this year have essentially been extinguished, said Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C. [snip] Chairman Thomas Bliley, R-Va., whose own bill, H.R. 1858 - the Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act - has received more support from the high-tech industry than Coble's bill. IT industry groups largely believe that Coble's bill would hinder the growth of electronic commerce. The Coble bill sets up a number of intellectual property protections for database owners, but according to the Commerce Committee, makes them so stringent that private citizens, companies and investors would be punished by fines and jail time for the relatively innocuous appropriation of material contained in other people's databases. Opposition to Coble's bill is fierce, coming from many sources, including the US Chamber of Commerce, AT&T Corp., MCI WorldCom Inc., Bell Atlantic Corp., and Yahoo Corp., as well as Bliley, Commerce Committee Ranking Democrat John Dingell, D-Mich., and Commerce Committee member Michael Oxley, R-Ohio. One of Coble's star supporters, however, is the National Association of Realtors, which chiefly is interested in protecting its Multiple Listing Services database, especially after a member sold it to an outside source, violating NAR code. Judiciary staffers were unwilling to say how Bliley's retirement from Congress would affect the strategies for supporting the Coble bill, but one said that "there is forever a jurisdictional flare-up between these two committees on these issues." "It was very artfully drafted to invoke jurisdiction on their part," the staffer said of Bliley's bill. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Oct 16 14:42:39 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from sol.east.ora.com (ruby.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8AAFD29AE8 for ; Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:42:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: (from andyo@localhost) by sol.east.ora.com (8.11.0/8.10.1) id e9GIgaj11804; Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:42:36 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 2000 14:42:36 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <200010161842.e9GIgaj11804@sol.east.ora.com> From: Andy Oram To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] The Future Brings "Infirmation Technology" (Just for fun) October 15, 2020--"We're not opposed to the progress of technology," announced Phil Rex, spokesman for the Medical Doctor's Association of America (MDAA). "We're bringing charges against Viral Exchange because practicing medicine without a license, as they're doing, is harmful to the public as well as to physicians." Ben De Mores of Viral Exchange countered, "We provide merely a genetic code categorization and search service. We are not responsible if our users trade information on gene alteration among themselves. In fact, we're proud that people can share cures through our distributed technology for conditions ranging from sunburns to chronic diseases." According to biological law expert Ginger Lee, the MDAA-sponsored case treads a narrow boundary in the field recently dubbed "infirmation technology." While unwilling to predict the outcome of the case, Lee discussed the larger context with the warning, "No ruling is going to halt the popularity of the new home cures." She pointed out the growing epidemics of serious disease caused by environmental degradation and pollution. "Large companies want to continue getting rich off treatments for diseases that were rare just a generation ago," she said. "Yet Viral Exchange should be viewed not just as a protest against these developments, but as an important new player in the emerging field of community medical research. We cannot simply dismiss a system that led to a successful, free cure for AIDS." Neither side is commenting heavily, because prominent participants in previous "infirmation technology" cases have often succumbed to mysterious diseases. However, the MDAA was recently embarrassed by a survey showing that 80% of its members had consulted Viral Exchange for help concerning their own patients during the past three months. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Oram O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. email: andyo@oreilly.com Editor 90 Sherman Street phone: (617) 499-7479 Cambridge, MA 02140-3233 fax: (617) 661-1116 USA http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ Stories at Web site: The Bug in the Seven Modules Code the Obscure The Disconnected ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Oct 19 22:40:01 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9907F2A318 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2000 22:40:01 -0400 (EDT) Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by genoa.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA19175 for ; Thu, 19 Oct 2000 22:40:01 -0400 Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2000 22:40:01 -0400 (EDT) From: James Love X-Sender: love@milan.essential.org To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: [Upd-discuss] Unocal Patent on Clean Fuel Stirs Outrage http://www.latimes.com/cgi-bin/slwebcli?DBLIST=lt00&DOCNUM=90091&DBPUB=20001009qQaSitKq&QDesc=Unocal%20Patent%20on%20Clean%20Fuel%20Stirs%20Outrage Monday, October 9, 2000 Home Edition Section: Part A Page: A-3 California and the West Unocal Patent on Clean Fuel Stirs Outrage Gasoline: Denounced by 33 states and other oil firms, the patent may be ruled on by the Supreme Court. The company denies any impropriety. By: JULIE TAMAKI TIMES STAFF WRITER SACRAMENTO -- California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer accuses Unocal Corp. of seeking to "hijack and distort" the state regulatory process. Competing firms accuse the company of manipulating and exploiting the nation's patent system. Economists also have few kind words, warning that Unocal's activities could wind up costing consumers at the gas pump. Unocal's lawyer says the company simply made a "brilliant" discovery--one the public will grow to appreciate. What the El Segundo-based company did to cause such a stir was to quietly apply for a patent on cleaner-burning gasoline. Rival companies say that the patent was based on information already well known in the industry that they all had shared as part of a research committee. A legal battle over the patent has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to decide as early as this week whether it will hear the case. Unocal was among a group of oil refiners and auto makers that began meeting in the late 1980s to develop cleaner-burning gasoline. The coalition shared research with state regulators who were charged with setting new emission standards. Then, in a controversial move, Unocal quietly applied for a patent in 1990 on what it describes as independent research by two of its scientists. In 1995--a year before state regulations took effect requiring all Californians to use environmentally friendly fuel--the company announced it held a patent on cleaner-burning gasoline. The legal battle ensued between Unocal and a group of its competitors, with Unocal racking up a string of court victories. So far, five oil companies have paid Unocal $91 million as a result of the infringement case. Millions more in potential royalty payments to Unocal hang in the balance as litigation continues. The stakes are likely to rise because Unocal has obtained four additional patents on reformulated gasoline, and tough federal air standards took effect this year in other polluted regions of the nation. Company officials contend they have done nothing wrong. No law or agreement required them to disclose their patent application; no evidence has emerged linking their patents to higher gas prices. Lawyers for Unocal say that their competitors suffer from sour grapes and that Unocal invented a way to help reduce air pollution. "What Unocal did here was brilliant," said David Beehler, the company's attorney. "It stood alone." Unocal's critics--and they are many--argue otherwise. They say Unocal filed a broad patent application in anticipation of state requirements for cleaner gasoline. Unocal, they add, later amended the document to reflect the new requirements, making it difficult for competitors to blend reformulated gasoline without infringing on their formulas. Concern over the case has moved beyond the boardrooms of corporate America and into the political arena. Lockyer, for example, organized support from attorneys general from 32 other states who signed a brief he filed with the Supreme Court last month urging the high court to review the case. "We think when you patent something that is required by state regulators, it raises a whole host of questions as to the propriety of the patent," said Marc Melnick, a deputy attorney general in Lockyer's office. [snip] "In a perfect world, Unocal wouldn't be allowed to do this sort of thing because I do think it ultimately made consumers worse off," said Severin Borenstein, an economist and director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley. Automobile makers and oil companies were drawn together in the first place by the common fear that gasoline would be outlawed in favor of alternative fuels, such as methanol. "There was a perception that [the coalition] already knew how to change gasoline to make it cleaner-burning," said Peter Jessup, one of two Unocal scientists who conducted the research that resulted in the patent. "The idea was to create convincing science to show that it was possible." From the outset, however, Jessup and colleague Michael Croudace differed with the coalition's approach to the necessary experiments. The coalition wanted to study four gasoline properties for their emission effects; Jessup and Croudace proposed expanding the number to 10. The coalition rejected the pair's proposal in October 1989. Jessup and Croudace went back to Unocal, which gave them the go-ahead to pursue their research. "Once the [coalition] rejected it and Unocal told Peter he could pursue it on his own, at that point it was clear whatever they discovered would be Unocal's property," Beehler said. Jessup said that by March 1990, he and Croudace had come up with a unique combination of properties that would create cleaner-burning fuels. The patent application was filed the following December. Unocal officials continued to participate in the coalition and to meet with the staff at the California Air Resources Control Board, which tightened gasoline regulations in 1991. "We had held many meetings and we were very open with which direction we were going," said John Courtis, who then was in charge of monitoring the California Air Resources Board's fuel group. "When the Unocal patent came out and it covered the same thing, everybody felt betrayed." Unocal's amendments to its patent application are a key source of controversy, with critics charging that the changes merely tracked California's cleaner-burning gasoline regulations. "Unocal invented nothing here," said Casey Johnson, an attorney for Exxon Mobil Corp. Exxon and Mobil, when they were still separate companies, were part of the coalition. [snip] From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Oct 20 10:20:10 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from law.csuohio.edu (mail.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.17]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 448842A318 for ; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 10:20:06 -0400 (EDT) Received: from law.csuohio.edu (ip122.eagle3.ny.pub-ip.psi.net [38.26.216.122]) (AUTH: LOGIN mdavis) by law.csuohio.edu with esmtp; Fri, 20 Oct 2000 10:22:54 -0400 Message-ID: <39F0541F.A142E4BB@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 10:18:07 -0400 From: "Prof. Michael H. Davis" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: James Love Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Unocal Patent on Clean Fuel Stirs Outrage References: Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------C2A38E04682AA17B53959476" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------C2A38E04682AA17B53959476 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jamie: I find the story about Unocal somewhat disconcerting. Why is this such a big issue? According to the story: ""We think when you patent something that is required by state regulators, it raises a whole host of questions as to the propriety of the patent," said Marc Melnick, a deputy attorney general in Lockyer's office. Isn't that kind of shortsighted? If you rephrase the issue, it seems to me the real problem appears: "We think when you patent something that is required for medical health (or human welfare, or education, or cultural survival, or social welfare), it raises a whole host of questions as to the propriety of the patent," said ... This appears to be another of those whose-ox-is-gored issues. People driving around in cars instead of taking public transportation are now whining. The real problem appears to be the monopolization of a purportedly free market, under the auspices of the government which is supposed to prevent monopolization in the first place. And people like these wonder why there is a problem? Please! Mickey --------------C2A38E04682AA17B53959476 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="michael.davis.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Prof. Michael H. Davis Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="michael.davis.vcf" begin:vcard n:H.;Davis, tel;fax:216-687-6881 tel;work:216-687-2228 x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:Cleveland State University;College of Law adr:;;1801 Euclid Avenue;Cleveland;OH;44115; version:2.1 email;internet:michael.davis@law.csuohio.edu title:Professor of Law note:Patent Attorney Admitted to Practice Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office fn:Davis, Prof. Michael H. end:vcard --------------C2A38E04682AA17B53959476-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Mon Oct 23 14:23:55 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from quicksilver.ukc.ac.uk (quicksilver.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6A4F329AE8 for ; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 14:23:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by quicksilver.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 13nmFl-0000Ng-00 for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:23:21 +0100 Received: from dhcp1e84.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.132] helo=pcklsnt32) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org id 13nmG0-0006Ul-00; Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:23:36 +0100 Message-ID: <012101c03d1e$ae739ee0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> From: "Alan Story" To: Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 19:25:55 +0100 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Subject: [Upd-discuss] Pharmaceuticals without patents. I am doing some research for Oxfam International on TRIPS, access to essential medicines, patents and pharmaceuticals, etc. and I am trying to compile a list of persons and drugs that have been developed without the incentive of or interest in obtaining patent protection . Can you add to the list? 1) Jonas Salk (U.S.) - polio vaccine. 2) Alexander Fleming ( UK) - penicillin 3) Manuel Patarroyo ( Colombia) - malaria vaccine ( turned over patent to the World Health Organization) A cite/site with a few details would also be appreciated, but not necessary. Cheers Alan Story Alan Story Kent Law School University of Kent Canterbury Kent U.K CT2 7NS. a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk 44 (0)1227 823316 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Tue Oct 31 12:17:41 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A628929B0E for ; Tue, 31 Oct 2000 12:17:41 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9986918185 for ; Tue, 31 Oct 2000 12:17:41 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <39FF00B1.21CA63A9@cptech.org> Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2000 12:26:09 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] WIPO forum on private international law and intellectual property On January 30-31, 2000, WIPO is holding this important meeting in Geneva. WIPO forum on private international law and intellectual property The meeting will be important in terms of how the proposed Hague treaty on jurisdiction and foreign judgments addresses the issue of jurisdiction for IPR matters. For example, it will address such issues as cross border liability for alleged infringements of ecommerce and software patents, violations of different national laws covering reverse engineering or copyright, tarnishment of trademarks, unfair competition laws, and many other things. The meeting is open, and anyone can attend. It will be very important to have participants at the meeting who understand the importance of the public's rights in IP policy. Software publishers, the RIAA, MPAA and other IP owner groups have been *very* active in pushing these issues in the Hague treaty negotiations. WIPO's Joelle Roge will be coordinating the meeting, and her assistant will probably be the best contact for details on the meeting in the short term, as Joelle Roge will be traveling. I'll have her assistant's name and email address tomorrow. People can also contact Manon Ress for information on this, and the February meetings in Ottawa on the Hague Conference and electronic commerce, or check the cptech.org web page on the treaty, here: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html Jamie -- James Love mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Nov 1 09:34:23 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5B4DD29AE8 for ; Wed, 1 Nov 2000 09:34:23 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 13qyxb-0007kP-00 for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org; Wed, 01 Nov 2000 14:33:51 +0000 Received: from dhcp1e84.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.132] helo=pcklsnt32) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org id 13qyy5-0005Zy-00; Wed, 1 Nov 2000 14:34:21 +0000 Message-ID: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> From: "Alan Story" To: Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 14:36:32 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Subject: [Upd-discuss] copyright query Apologies if you have already got this message.... Dear List Members.... PLEASE DO NOT FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO OTHER LISTS, SUCH AS CNI-COPYRIGHT, Can anyone help me (and other UK academics and universities) with following problem: A major legal battle is just starting between UK universities and the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)...which operates something like the US Copyright Clearance Center. UK universities are taking the CLA before the UK Copyright Tribunal and asking, among other things, to reduce the fees of this licensing scheme. In response, the CLA has asked that there be a 600 per cent fee increase. (If you want to learn more about this issue, check out the website of CHEW(with which I work....) http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/copyright/ The CLA suggests that the figures it wants to charge universities and students (for the use of copyright protected material) should be based on the cost of production of a typical academic book and journal, which they say averages 14.9 pence (about US22 cents....). This, the CLA suggests, is "the true economic price per page of materials copied." Of course, the idea that the cost per page of a book or journal you buy should be the same price as the license/copyright royalty rate to allow photocopying is absolutely ridiculous...Still, the issue requires research. So would anyone on the list know someone whom we could contact who would be able to answer the two following questions ( e.g. they have expertise or have written on the subject): 1) How much does it cost, on a per page basis, to publish a "typical" academic journal/book and what are the factors used by academic, including commercial publishers to set their prices? (Of course, there is no "typical" journal or book and obviously the factors vary) 2) What factors are or should be taken into account in setting the per page rate in the type of copyright licensing scheme operated by the CCC...or in our case, the CLA? Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.... . Regards Alan Story Alan Story Kent Law School University of Kent Canterbury Kent U.K CT2 7NS. a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk 44 (0)1227 823316 Alan Story Kent Law School University of Kent Canterbury Kent U.K CT2 7NS. a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk 44 (0)1227 823316 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Nov 1 09:58:24 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from spitfire.law.miami.edu (spitfire.law.miami.edu [129.171.187.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D0AD629AE8 for ; Wed, 1 Nov 2000 09:58:23 -0500 (EST) Received: from spitfire.law.miami.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by spitfire.law.miami.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32FA95C3CB9; Wed, 1 Nov 2000 09:58:23 -0500 (EST) Received: by spitfire.law.miami.edu (Postfix, from userid 1113) id E8BE95C3CB9; Wed, 1 Nov 2000 09:58:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by spitfire.law.miami.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id DF9F45D3AF0; Wed, 1 Nov 2000 09:58:22 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 1 Nov 2000 09:58:22 -0500 (EST) From: "Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law" To: Alan Story Cc: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] copyright query In-Reply-To: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII It now has a marginal cost of almost zero, since we publish it on the web. :> On Wed, 1 Nov 2000, Alan Story wrote: > 1) How much does it cost, on a per page basis, to publish a "typical" > academic journal/book and what are the factors used by academic, including > commercial publishers to set their prices? (Of course, there is no "typical" > journal or book and obviously the factors vary) > > 2) What factors are or should be taken into account in setting the per page > rate in the type of copyright licensing scheme operated by the CCC...or in > our case, the CLA? > > Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.... > > . > Regards > Alan Story > > > > Alan Story > Kent Law School > University of Kent > Canterbury Kent U.K > CT2 7NS. > a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk > 44 (0)1227 823316 > > Alan Story > Kent Law School > University of Kent > Canterbury Kent U.K > CT2 7NS. > a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk > 44 (0)1227 823316 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > -- Please visit http://www.icannwatch.org A. Michael Froomkin | Professor of Law | froomkin@law.tm U. Miami School of Law, P.O. Box 248087, Coral Gables, FL 33124 USA +1 (305) 284-4285 | +1 (305) 284-6506 (fax) | http://www.law.tm -->It's warm here.<-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Nov 2 10:24:55 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AFDF029AE8 for ; Thu, 2 Nov 2000 10:24:54 -0500 (EST) Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAA28448; Thu, 2 Nov 2000 08:24:51 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) id IAA04820; Thu, 2 Nov 2000 08:24:51 -0700 (MST) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 2000 08:24:51 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200011021524.IAA04820@wijiji.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@wijiji.santafe.edu using -f From: Richard Stallman To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> (a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] copyright query Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> 1) How much does it cost, on a per page basis, to publish a "typical" academic journal/book and what are the factors used by academic, including The most relevant point, I believe, is that most of the authors do not make money from these books. The publishers in general claim that copyright should be enforced for the sake of the authors, when authors make no money, and here that is 100% hypocrisy, not just 95% hypocrisy as usual. The fees should be eliminated and these books should be freely copiable. Hal Abelson of MIT had a good idea for how to fight this racket: universities should make contracts with the professors who write these books, insisting on unlimited nonexclusive rights to publish all academic works on the web, including (at least) the right to allow others to print copies for use within an organization. This prior obligation will make it impossible for professors to sell a publisher an exclusive right to block that or charge money for that sort of use. This way, the publishers will be unable to squeeze money out of universities for using each others' work. This lawsuit is a great opportunity to show the universities that they are mainly the victims of this racket, and that they should join together to break the racket for good and all. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Nov 3 04:36:36 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 352E029AE8 for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 04:36:36 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 13rdGQ-0004sv-00; Fri, 03 Nov 2000 09:35:58 +0000 Received: from dhcp1e84.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.132] helo=pcklsnt32) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) id 13rdGu-0002SY-00; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 09:36:28 +0000 Message-ID: <009201c04579$d7b9a0c0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> From: "Alan Story" To: Cc: References: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> <200011021524.IAA04820@wijiji.santafe.edu> Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] copyright query Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 09:38:37 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Richard: I appreciate your note...and I am sympathetic to your approach and that of Abelson. The idea that academics should be receive a few dollars ( or pounds) a month in copyright royalty payments from their own students or other students is quite distasteful to me. In fact, I would go further. This "right to copy" ( for educational non-profit uses) should not be limited to academics within that particular organisation, that is academics teaching at ANY institute of technology ANYWHERE should be able to use the work of academics from MIT or wherever. As to your point about happens to the copyright royalty, I have done a piece on this within the UK context that is available at http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/copyright/revenues.html You write: "This lawsuit is a great opportunity to show the universities that they are mainly the victims of this racket, and that they should join together to break the racket for good and all." I wish it were so. The UK case revolves basically around the terms and costs of the copyright licence, not the issue you have raised. It is the UK Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals --- equivalent to a U.S. organisation of university presidents--- which is one of the two parties to the litigation and that organisation, not our group CHEW, is in the driver's seat. CHEW just tries to keep pushing them in generally the right direction. By the way, Richard, I am sure you will be pleased to know that your piece, " Why Software Should Be Free" (which is included in the course pack for my undergrad and graduate courses in IP) yesterday provided a wonderful catalyst in my graduate class for a discussion of software and copyright. Cheers Alan Story ----- Original Message ----- From: "Richard Stallman" To: Cc: Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2000 3:24 PM Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] copyright query > 1) How much does it cost, on a per page basis, to publish a "typical" > academic journal/book and what are the factors used by academic, including > > The most relevant point, I believe, is that most of the authors > do not make money from these books. The publishers in general > claim that copyright should be enforced for the sake of the authors, > when authors make no money, and here that is 100% hypocrisy, > not just 95% hypocrisy as usual. > > The fees should be eliminated and these books should be freely > copiable. > > Hal Abelson of MIT had a good idea for how to fight this racket: > universities should make contracts with the professors who write these > books, insisting on unlimited nonexclusive rights to publish all > academic works on the web, including (at least) the right to allow > others to print copies for use within an organization. This prior > obligation will make it impossible for professors to sell a publisher > an exclusive right to block that or charge money for that sort of use. > > This way, the publishers will be unable to squeeze money out of > universities for using each others' work. > > This lawsuit is a great opportunity to show the universities that they > are mainly the victims of this racket, and that they should join > together to break the racket for good and all. > > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss > From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Nov 4 11:53:54 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from pele.santafe.edu (pele.santafe.edu [192.12.12.119]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C79AE29AE8 for ; Sat, 4 Nov 2000 11:53:53 -0500 (EST) Received: from wijiji.santafe.edu (wijiji [192.12.12.5]) by pele.santafe.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA20381; Sat, 4 Nov 2000 09:53:47 -0700 (MST) Received: (from rms@localhost) by wijiji.santafe.edu (8.9.3+Sun/8.9.1) id JAA07837; Sat, 4 Nov 2000 09:53:47 -0700 (MST) Date: Sat, 4 Nov 2000 09:53:47 -0700 (MST) Message-Id: <200011041653.JAA07837@wijiji.santafe.edu> X-Authentication-Warning: wijiji.santafe.edu: rms set sender to rms@wijiji.santafe.edu using -f From: Richard Stallman To: a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org In-reply-to: <009201c04579$d7b9a0c0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> (a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk) Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] copyright query Reply-To: rms@gnu.org References: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> <200011021524.IAA04820@wijiji.santafe.edu> <009201c04579$d7b9a0c0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> "This lawsuit is a great opportunity to show the universities that they are mainly the victims of this racket, and that they should join together to break the racket for good and all." I wish it were so. The UK case revolves basically around the terms and costs of the copyright licence, not the issue you have raised. The lawsuit is about the terms of the license, but the issue is bigger than the lawsuit. The issue is how journals should be handled by society. The existence of this lawsuit is an opportunity to educate the universities about the racket--and for that purpose, the details of the lawsuit are beside the point. It is the UK Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals --- equivalent to a U.S. organisation of university presidents--- which is one of the two parties to the litigation and that organisation, not our group CHEW, is in the driver's seat. They are in charge of this lawsuit, but they are not in charge of action on the issue. You can use the lawsuit to start raising the larger issue, and pressuring for real change which the lawsuit itself cannot achieve. From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Nov 3 12:56:53 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from eldritchpress.org (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.241.25]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77C6D29AE8 for ; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 12:56:42 -0500 (EST) Received: (from eldred@localhost) by eldritchpress.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id NAA03685; Fri, 3 Nov 2000 13:04:45 -0500 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 13:04:40 -0500 From: Eric Eldred To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Cc: rms@gnu.org, Alan Story Subject: Scholarly journals (Was Re: [Upd-discuss] copyright query) Message-ID: <20001103130440.C3602@eldritchpress.org> References: <00f201c04411$2120e2b0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> <200011021524.IAA04820@wijiji.santafe.edu> <009201c04579$d7b9a0c0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i In-Reply-To: <009201c04579$d7b9a0c0$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk>; from a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk on Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 09:38:37AM -0000 Organization: http://www.EldritchPress.org On Fri, Nov 03, 2000 at 09:38:37AM -0000, Alan Story wrote: > Richard: > > I appreciate your note...and I am sympathetic to your approach and that of > Abelson. The idea that academics should be receive a few dollars ( or > pounds) a month in copyright royalty payments from their own students or > other students is quite distasteful to me. In fact, I would go further. This > "right to copy" ( for educational non-profit uses) should not be limited to > academics within that particular organisation, that is academics teaching at > ANY institute of technology ANYWHERE should be able to use the work of > academics from MIT or wherever. I agree with that--and the idea might require attention to contracts between universities and scholars, as well as between scholars and grant providers. Already there are books available at colleges only on the intranet, not on the Internet--not only CD-ROM collections such as from Oxford, but also by-subscription works. An interesting perspective on copyright and prices of scholarly journals is in today's New York Times, at http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/03/business/03PUBL.html (free registration required) For those such as RMS who may not access the web :-}, I'll note that the article is clear about why subscriptions to science journals have increased in price so dramatically. First, the secular rate from demand and other natural causes has been higher than the inflation rate. Second, consolidation in the science journal publishing field has caused competition to fall, so monopoly publishers can raise prices dramatically in a short period. The result is that librarians have had to cut book purchases significantly, and prune their journal lists. The U.S. Association of Research Libraries has sent a letter of complaint to the U.S. Justice Department antitrust division. One avenue that is now open would be to speak out against the planned takeover of Harcourt General by Reed Elsevier, since that merger would most likely cause medical journal prices to escalate greatly. British librarians might wish to unite with their brothers and sisters in the former colonies and have better chances of prevailing against the deep pockets of monopoly publishers. It seems to me a heinous crime for doctors and patients to be denied the best information available to treat disease. After all, the researchers donate the information freely, and participate in peer review thinking that is a common responsibility. Then the publishers want to sell them journals--complete with many drug advertisements--at a prohibitive price of thousands of dollars a year. Even in the rich countries this has become intolerable, and for the poorest countries in the world has long been a severe problem that technology has not been able to cope with--the technology of publishing on the Internet has been available for years, but the copyright and publishing business models of the big publishers has been the barrier. -- "Eric" Eric Eldred Eldritch Press mailto:Eldred@EldritchPress.org http://www.eldritchpress.org/EricEldred.vcf From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Nov 10 09:04:19 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from quicksilver.ukc.ac.uk (quicksilver.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 228B129B09 for ; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 09:04:19 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by quicksilver.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 13uEmS-0007DX-00 for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 14:03:48 +0000 Received: from dhcp1e84.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.132] helo=pcklsnt32) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) for upd-discuss@lists.essential.org id 13uEmr-00043f-00; Fri, 10 Nov 2000 14:04:13 +0000 Message-ID: <008d01c04b1f$65623c20$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> From: "Alan Story" To: Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 14:06:18 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Subject: [Upd-discuss] returning rights Thanks to those list members who replied to my request re: the "true cost " of a published page. When this legal matter in the UK is completed, likely in 2001, I will send a note/report to the list. Another query: A few years ago when I was living in the States, I remember hearing about the case of some early --- well, I believe, 1950's-1960's--- blues singers and songwriters whose copyright in their own work had been blatantly fleeced by some record/music companies....and how they were fighting to have their rights returned to them with some success.Does this story ring any bells---sorry for the pun---and if so, might you know any more details (e.g. the names of singers/songwriters, the legal group involved, etc.)? Cheers Alan Story Alan Story Kent Law School University of Kent Canterbury Kent U.K CT2 7NS. a.c.story@ukc.ac.uk 44 (0)1227 823316 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Nov 15 03:21:44 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from eldritchpress.org (eldred.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.241.25]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6D60E29AF2 for ; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 03:21:21 -0500 (EST) Received: (from eldred@localhost) by eldritchpress.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id DAA19044 for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 03:31:48 -0500 Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 03:31:43 -0500 From: Eric Eldred To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Message-ID: <20001115033143.A19035@eldritchpress.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0i Organization: http://www.EldritchPress.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] Guardian special on Europe gene patents The Mnachester Guardian has done a big job in presenting a special investigation into gene patents in Europe, "The race to buy life." http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/genes/ From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Nov 15 17:49:32 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from law.csuohio.edu (mail.law.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.17]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6B3329B2E for ; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 17:49:31 -0500 (EST) Received: from law.csuohio.edu (lawfac62-225.csuohio.edu [137.148.62.225]) (AUTH: LOGIN mdavis) by law.csuohio.edu with esmtp; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 17:52:51 -0500 Message-ID: <3A131319.D75DD9AD@law.csuohio.edu> Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 17:50:01 -0500 From: "Michael H. Davis" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eric Eldred Cc: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: Re: [Upd-discuss] Guardian special on Europe gene patents References: <20001115033143.A19035@eldritchpress.org> Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------12B34367F44B316988F5232A" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------12B34367F44B316988F5232A Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Eric: This is provocative. The article treads all too obviously carefully on some difficult issues (calling a patent a kind of a license instead of admitting it is a kind of a monopoly) and has an unsurprising corporate flavor. Worse, however, is that its careful tread contains some serious missteps, this one being a serious mistake: "One of the claimed advantages of the patent system is that it obliges the inventor to publish details of his or her invention, allowing academic scientists to study it. But as soon as a researcher tries to make commercial use of developments based on the original patent - by going into partnership with a drugs firm, for instance, or charging patients at cost for a genetic test - the patent holder can step in to stop them, or oblige them to pay a licence fee." Actually, under US patent law, others are forbidden from practicing the invention at any point, not just when they decide to commercialize. Thus, laboratory research is constrained by patents which in that way constitute a serious impediment to progress and innovation. The Guardian simply has it wrong, as applied to US law, and I believe the so-called experimental use exceptiion, to the extent it may exist in Europe, is far more limited than what is stated here, and shrinking all the time if it exists at all (except in a few special areas of biotechnology). By misstating this point, they effectively avoid confronting the monstrous economic horror that patents constitute in a post-industrial mixed economy where the public has all kinds of interests in what patent law treats as a private matter. Mickey Davis Eric Eldred wrote: > The Mnachester Guardian has done a big job in > presenting a special investigation into gene > patents in Europe, "The race to buy life." > http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/genes/ > > _______________________________________________ > Upd-discuss mailing list > Upd-discuss@lists.essential.org > http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/upd-discuss --------------12B34367F44B316988F5232A Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=us-ascii; name="michael.davis.vcf" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Description: Card for Michael H. Davis Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="michael.davis.vcf" begin:vcard n:DAVIS;Prof. Michael H. tel;fax:216-687-6881 tel;work:216-687-2228 x-mozilla-html:FALSE org:Cleveland State University;College of Law adr:;;1801 Euclild Avenue;Cleveland;OH;44115;US version:2.1 email;internet:michael.davis@law.csuohio.edu title: Professor of Law note:Patent Attorney Admitted to Practice Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office fn:Prof. Michael H. DAVIS end:vcard --------------12B34367F44B316988F5232A-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Nov 22 10:00:05 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 32A5729AF1 for ; Wed, 22 Nov 2000 10:00:05 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22B08181EC for ; Wed, 22 Nov 2000 10:00:05 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A1BE25A.D4B85482@cptech.org> Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 10:12:26 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] CPT comments in USPTO RFC on IPR and Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments Attached are the November 21, 2000 comments of the Consumer Project on Technology, submitted in the current United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) request for comments on the intellectual property provisions of the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments. We are concerned that this proposed Convention would create a "worst of all possible worlds" situation for intellectual property, as all national IPR laws would have greater reach, creating particularly significant risks for the Internet. While we have asked for an extension, the current deadline for comments is December 1, 2000. (People can email comments directly to the USPTO by email at this address: elizabeth.shaw2@uspto.gov). We encourage others to submit comments to the USPTO on this issue. Background on the Convention and the USPTO RFC, and a new email discussion list for the Convention, are here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/notices/prdrconjud.html http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html http://lists.essential.org/mailman/admin/hague-jur-commercial-law/ Jamie Love <---------CPT comments on Hague Convention------------> To: Elizabeth Shaw From: James Love Re: Public Comments on IPR aspects of Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters Date: November 21, 2000 I request that the United States Patent and Trademark Office extend the deadline for this comment period to January 15, 2000, to permit broader public debate on this issue. In addition, I present the preliminary comments of the Consumer Project on Technology to the 16 questions raised in the USPTO's October 17, 2000 Federal Register Notice, that is on the web here: (http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/notices/prdrconjud.html) Preliminary Answers to 16 questions by the Consumer Project on Technology: 1. What are your experiences in having judgments involving intellectual property from one jurisdiction recognized in a foreign court? No personal experience. 2. Have you had different experiences in having those judgments recognized in U.S. courts? N/A 3. Are uniform rules for international enforcement of judgments desirable? As a general rule, no, if the uniform rules are bad rules. The benefits or disadvantages of uniform rules will depend upon the content of the rules. Harmonization on bad rules is a bad thing. Harmonization on good rules is a good thing. But since not everyone agrees on what would be good or bad rules, this presents a problem. In the area of intellectual property rules, there are special reasons to avoid extending the reach of all foreign IPR regimes. The US has strong traditions for fair use that are not followed in all countries. The US has a stronger system for patent examination than do some countries, and indeed, some countries have a registration system that places every greater burdens on the public to defend infringement suits. Some countries will predictably issue overly broad patents, patents that do not represent real or important inventions, or patents that offend the sensibilities, such as patents on life forms or business methods. Some countries have sui generis IPR regimes that lead to anticompetitive or monopolistic outcomes. The European laws on protection of databases create rights in facts that do not exist in the United States. Some countries have crown copyrights in government documents, and use those rights to prevent citizens from publishing information about governments on the Internet. The United States issues ill advised patents on business methods, creating a nightmare of litigation and anticompetive outcomes, and these patents should not be forced on the whole world. Some countries have trademark or unfair competition laws which make it illegal to engage in comparative advertising, or even to criticize commercial products. In some countries, it is against the law to link to documents from a web page, without a license. In some countries, the first sale doctrine is extremely limited. Trade secret protections in some countries can be used as a weapon against whistle blowers or to prevent criticism or debate on company practices. In general, if countries think they can collect money abroad more easily, they will have incentives to be even more aggressive in issuing intellectual property, including overly broad patents, sui generis rights that don't make sense, restrictive copyright rights, etc, because the "consumers" will often be foreign consumers, and the countries will seek to exploit the foreign consumers. 4. Do you support or oppose the United States becoming party to a jurisdiction/enforcement of judgments convention? We oppose the United States entering into a treaty on the enforcement of judgments for intellectual property claims at this time. The laws on intellectual property on the Internet are undergoing enormous change and are subject to much controversy. It makes no sense at all to lock in the whole world to a system that extends every nation's IPR regime to everyone. The fact that IPR regimes are so different now, and undergoing so much change, is a good reason to exclude IPR issues from the Hague Convention, as has been done for maritime law and other areas where there is not agreement upon jurisdiction issues. 5. What would be the benefits or drawbacks of the United States becoming a party to the proposed Hague convention? The drawback would be an enormous shrinkage of the public's rights, as people would be subject to the most restrictive IPR regimes in the world. Publishers, patent owners and others could pursue litigation in the most restrictive jurisdictions. People who do nothing more than publish web pages or use the Internet would be exposed to all sorts of new risks, including the costs of defending oneself in foreign courts. 6. Would the elimination of tag or general ``doing business'' jurisdiction have any impact on intellectual property owners' ability to protect their rights either domestically or internationally? Under review. 7. What other changes to U.S. law would be needed to implement the proposed convention? Please identify any drawbacks and/or advantages to such changes. The Article 4 provisions regarding contracts determining jurisdiction will place burdens on US citizens who are forced to litigate disputes in foreign courts. 8. What effect, if any, could this Convention have on other international intellectual property obligations, including, but not limited to, the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Paris Convention, and the Berne Convention? The Convention will have the practical effect of limiting country freedom to authorize certain exceptions and limitation on intellectual property rights, as the rights will be determined by contracts, and litigated in foreign courts, often under foreign laws. 9. What effect, if any, could this Convention have on the enforcement of intellectual property with respect to the Internet? The Convention will create enormous risks for those who develop free software that is distributed over the Internet, or used for Internet servers or applications software. Volunteer developers may find themselves the subject of foreign infringement suits involving infringements of patents, trade secrets, copyrights or other rights, even when their efforts are completely legal under the laws of the country where they live. Anyone who links web pages, reports facts or news, or forwards articles in newsgroups or mailing lists will risk being sued in foreign courts where IPR laws are very restrictive. 10. Would application of Article 10 change existing jurisdictional principles as applied to intellectual property infringement actions? If yes, please describe any changes in detail and provide any relevant legal authority. Under review. 11. Would the limitation of worldwide damages in Article 10(4) have any significant impact in cases involving worldwide infringement of trademark or other intellectual property rights? Under review. 12. With respect to Article 12(4), under what circumstances would application of this subsection change existing jurisdictional principles, with and without the bracketed language included? Please describe any changes in detail and provide any relevant legal authority. Under review. 13. What effect, if any, would Article 12(4) have on trademark owners seeking to litigate rights related to registered versus common law marks? Under review. 14. Is exclusive jurisdiction needed for infringement and/or validity actions involving patents, trademarks, and/or copyrights? IPR should be excluded from the Convention, as is maritime law. 15. What changes, if any, should be made to the proposed Convention? Please describe any changes in detail and provide any relevant legal authorities that support such suggestions. IPR should be excluded from the Convention, as is maritime law. 16. Please identify any other potential concerns or advantages raised by the proposed convention. I do not believe the US government appreciates the extend to which this Convention would shrink the public's rights, harm the development of free software, or create incentives for countries to adopt bad IPR regimes. The Consumer Project on Technology has created a web page on the Convention here: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html We have also created a public discussion list on the Convention here: http://lists.essential.org/mailman/admin/hague-jur-commercial-law/ -- James Love mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Nov 29 04:52:39 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from mercury.ukc.ac.uk (mercury.ukc.ac.uk [129.12.21.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 73EFD29B1D for ; Wed, 29 Nov 2000 04:52:38 -0500 (EST) Received: from pelican.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.200.26]) by mercury.ukc.ac.uk with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 1413uk-0001vI-00 for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org; Wed, 29 Nov 2000 09:52:34 +0000 Received: from dhcp1e84.ukc.ac.uk ([129.12.30.132] helo=pcklsnt32) by pelican.ukc.ac.uk with smtp (Exim 1.92 #1) for upd-discuss@venice.essential.org id 1413um-0003Eq-00; Wed, 29 Nov 2000 09:52:36 +0000 Message-ID: <001101c059ea$5b41c470$841e0c81@ukc.ac.uk> From: "Alan Story" To: "upd-discuss" Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 09:54:25 -0000 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_000E_01C059EA.5B2032B0" X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4133.2400 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Subject: [Upd-discuss] The Register Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_000E_01C059EA.5B2032B0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If anyone in the U.S. (or elsewhere) is interested in keeping up to date on the European software patent debate, Graham Lea in a publiciation called "The Register" is doing some good articles that are far above the standard of most journalism on this subject. URL of one recent piece: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14933.html Alan Story Kent Law School Canterbury UK ------=_NextPart_000_000E_01C059EA.5B2032B0 Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="The Register.url" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="The Register.url" [DEFAULT] BASEURL=http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14933.html [InternetShortcut] URL=http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/14933.html Modified=B0D5C1D0E959C00119 ------=_NextPart_000_000E_01C059EA.5B2032B0-- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Dec 1 18:07:23 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from smtp.well.com (smtp.well.com [208.178.101.27]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E1D7229B5C; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 18:07:22 -0500 (EST) Received: from [208.177.135.210] (w210.z208177135.sjc-ca.dsl.cnc.net [208.177.135.210]) by smtp.well.com (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id PAA25265; Fri, 1 Dec 2000 15:07:20 -0800 (PST) Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Sender: jwarren@mail.well.com Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20001201225528.23928.qmail@quark.cpsr.org> References: <20001201225528.23928.qmail@quark.cpsr.org> Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2000 15:08:18 -0800 To: "upd-discuss" From: Jim Warren Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Subject: [Upd-discuss] FWD: UCITA in Berkeley 12/13 Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: >CPSR Berkeley is co-sponsoring this conference on the Uniform Computer >Information Transactions Act (UCITA) at Boalt Hall on the UCB campus, >December 13. There is no charge for registration, but you must RSVP -- >seating is limited. This is one of a series of national and state >activities around UCITA that is being sponsored by the Association for >Research Libraries. > >Not sure what UCITA is ? See CPSR's New UCITA Fact Page >http://www.cpsr.org/program/UCITA/ucita-fact.html . > >*********** >UCITA: A Guide to Understanding and Action A Satellite Teleconference > >This teleconference will provide a valuable "primer" on UCITA, >strategies for dealing with the legislation in California, >and an opportunity to ask the panelists questions. > >Date: Wednesday, December 13, 2000 > >Time: 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. > (check-in and continental breakfast from 9-10 a.m.) > >Place: 117 Dwinelle Hall > University California, Berkeley > > >Registration: > >There is no charge for registration, but seating is limited. >Please R.S.V.P by phone, fax or e-mail to: > >Golden Gateway Library Network >25 Tower Road >San Mateo, CA 94402 >phone:(650) 349-5538 >fax (650) 349-5089 >E-mail: plsadmin@pls.lib.ca.us > >Panelists: > >James Neal, Dean of University Libraries, Johns Hopkins University >Rodney Petersen, Director, Policy and Planning, Office of Information > Technology at the University of Maryland >Sarah K. (Sally) Wiant, Director of the Law Library and Professor of Law, > Washington and Lee University >Catherine Wojewodzki, Librarian, Reference Department, University of > Delaware Library and former member of the Delaware legislature > >Panelist bios, agenda details and UCITA links are available at >. > >------ > >National Sponsors: > >American Association of Law Libraries >Association of Research Libraries >Medical Library Association >Special Libraries Association > >Local Sponsors: > >Northern California Association of Law Libraries >Librarians Association of University of California-Berkeley >Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (Berkeley Chapter) >Golden Gateway Library Network >University Council - American Federation of Teachers > > >> -- >Susan Evoy * Managing Director >http://www.cpsr.org/ >Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility >P.O. Box 717 * Palo Alto * CA * 94302 >Phone: (650) 322-3778 * >Email: evoy@cpsr.org From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Dec 15 14:30:38 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EA5D929B1A; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:30:37 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB1681822D; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:30:37 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A3A73FF.F61447B6@cptech.org> Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:41:51 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss , ecommerce Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] USPTO extends date for Hague/IPR comments Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: [Federal Register: December 11, 2000 (Volume 65, Number 238)] [Notices] [Page 77347] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] [DOCID:fr11de00-38] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office RIN 0651-AB25 Reopening of the Time Period for Acceptance of Comments on Preliminary Draft Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters AGENCY: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Commerce. ACTION: Reopening of time period for acceptance of comments. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: On Tuesday, October 17, 2000, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published a notice seeking comments on a convention being negotiated by the Hague Conference on Private International Law that is designed to create common jurisdictional rules for international recognition and enforcement of judgments issued under these rules (65 F.R. 61306 (2000)). Interested members of the public were invited to present written comments on the topics outlined in the Issues for Public Comment section of the Notice by December 1, 2000. This notice reopens the time period for submission of comments. Comments will be accepted through January 12, 2001. EFFECTIVE DATE: All comments are due by January 12, 2001. ADDRESSES: Persons wishing to offer written comments should address those comments to Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Box 4, United States Patent and Trademark Office, Washington, DC 20231, marked to the attention of Elizabeth Shaw. Comments may also be submitted by facsimile transmission to (703) 305-7575 or by electronic mail through the Internet to elizabeth.shaw2@uspto.gov. All comments will be maintained for public inspection in Room 902 of Crystal Park II, 2121 Crystal Drive, Arlington, Virginia. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jennifer Lucas by telephone at (703) 305-9300; by facsimile at (703) 305-8885; by electronic mail at jennifer.lucas@uspto.gov; or by mail marked to the attention of Jennifer Lucas, Attorney-Advisor, addressed to Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Box 4, Washington, DC 20231. Dated: December 5, 2000. Albin F. Drost, Acting General Counsel. [FR Doc. 00-31355 Filed 12-8-00; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 3510-16-U -- James Love http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 200036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Fri Dec 15 14:49:44 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CF08E29B1A for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:49:44 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (jamie.essential.org [216.0.124.36]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BEA31181EC for ; Fri, 15 Dec 2000 14:49:44 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A3A787A.79AC93C9@cptech.org> Date: Fri, 15 Dec 2000 15:00:58 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] EU's IPR helpdesk Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Interesting IPR web page created by the EU's DG Enterprise. Jamie http://www.ipr-helpdesk.org/t_en/home.asp -- James Love http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 200036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Dec 27 09:10:09 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from smtp2.oreilly.com (sol.ora.com [63.80.158.10]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C917F29B01 for ; Wed, 27 Dec 2000 09:10:08 -0500 (EST) Received: (from andyo@localhost) by smtp2.oreilly.com (8.11.1/8.11.1) id eBRE9sa04181; Wed, 27 Dec 2000 09:09:54 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 09:09:54 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <200012271409.eBRE9sa04181@smtp2.oreilly.com> From: Andy Oram To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Subject: [Upd-discuss] Article: Year-End Worldwide Round-Up on Intellectual Property and the Internet Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ar/roundup_ip.html December 27, 2000 Year-End Worldwide Round-Up on Intellectual Property and the Internet by Andy Oram American Reporter Correspondent CAMBRIDGE, MASS.--In previous Decembers, I have created end-of-the-year columns for American Reporter concerning the year's most salient Internet policy issue. This year, two issues vie for attention. I covered surveillance in a column published last weekend, and today I will deal with intellectual property. The very phrase "intellectual property" offends many people heavily involved in Internet policy, so I will look a bit later at the philosophy behind the term. First let's tour the menagerie of laws, court cases, and regulations concerning copyright and related issues to find some common trends. At the forefront of reader's minds, no doubt, are the past year's lawsuits against MP3.com and Napster for distributing music without the permission of copyright holders. MP3 audio files happen to be at the center of current disputes because their short playing length, imposed either by studio executive fiat or poverty of musical thought, makes them the popular medium most appropriate for storage and transfer with today's disk space and bandwidth. The MP3.com and Napster cases are, in one sense, shaky ground on which to start building a new consensus around intellectual property in the digital age. Both sites found it hard to fight the argument that they were engaging in copyright infringement. Their supporters had to resort to deflecting debate toward a millennial "all the old rules are gone" claim that ultimately proved unpersuasive in the courts. Both sites came out losers in initial rulings and scrambled to strike deals with their accusers. The upshot is that the Internet is still following the "old rules," at least so far as businesses are concerned. It is important, though, to return to the millennial claim. A fundamental battle underlies all the ground-breaking intellectual property disputes on the Internet, including MP3.com and Napster: the question of who can promote innovation. Does the organization that originally provided a work of art or a collection of information get to dictate all future uses of that material? Or can the viewers and customers do things that perhaps were never anticipated and that may add tremendous social value? That is the question arising from what, for me, is the most disturbing trend in recent intellectual property cases: the trend toward removing the right to hyperlink (create a path from your document to somebody else's). The Web has made its fortune on hyperlinks. If I want to talk about a good article on the C|NET online news service about the risks of court injunctions against linking, I don't have to cite the publication and date; I just link to it. Content creators see a hyperlink as a reference, bringing no onus on the person making the link. Given that hyperlinking one author's work to another has been the main feature of the Web from its beginning, one would expect a person sinking millions of dollars into a Web-based business to first ask the question, "How would my business model be affected if somebody outside linked to my pages?" But instead, too many waited for the event to occur and then reacted with a hysterical sense of entitlement. For many reasons, several commercial sites have tried to prevent others from linking to their pages. eBay sued AuctionWatch.com and Bidder's Edge because they offered comparisons between eBay other auction sites; this embarrassed eBay and threatened to take business from it as the dominant player. A minor irritant for eBay may have been the ability of customers to look at auctions without seeing the ads on the main eBay page. Since advertising is a major source of income for commercial Web sites, many of their owners react violently when someone else links to their material. This financial concern was the basis for several cases in the United States and England in 1997 (Shetland Times, Ticketmaster, and Total News). All were settled with an acknowledgment that the site making links required permission from the site providing the material. In a narrow sense, the alarming precedent set by these cases is the notion that links are not references (as most Web authors consider them) but rather the use of facilities provided by the target site. These rulings declare that the target site thus has grounds for refusing the use of its facilities--that is, for refusing links. (In the final ruling for eBay against Bidder's Edge the judge invoked a hoary old doctrine called "trespass to chattels" in order to claim that Bidder's Edge was making unfair use of the eBay server's CPU and bandwidth--an awkward justification for suppressing the right to link.) Even more disturbing is the rulings' subtle bias toward turning the Web away from education and exploration and making it simply another channel for broadcasting commercial material. Another, very different, form of pressure restricts the right to link by making the linker party to some illegal act. In Germany, several years ago, a court told a political activist to take down a link to an anarchist site carrying such material as instructions for derailing trains. Once again, the court treated a link in a way it could not have treated a reference in a publication. The person making a link was tarred with the guilt of the site to which the link was made. Recent cases in France and Germany regarding Nazi material have focused on the site hosting the material, but the same laws could easily be deployed against sites simply making links to the material. Anarchist and Nazi material do not involve questions of intellectual property, but the vicarious guilt behind linking is usually invoked by those claiming copyright infringement. The trend reached its logical extreme this past year in the DeCSS case. DeCSS is a program with the rather obscure purpose of decoding the encryption keys that scramble movies on DVDs. The practical application of DeCSS is to allow the creation of new, unlicensed devices that display the movies. There should be an obvious link here--this time a mental one--to the theme of this article: allowing innovation from people other than the owners of intellectual property. Basically, DeCSS is a break in the weak link of the chain that allows companies to maintain total control over movies, ranging from the media holding them to the devices displaying them. But the issue has been framed very differently by the companies that make DVDs and the courts that ruled in their favor. Companies that make DVDs claimed that DeCSS was a mechanism for making illegal copies. In characterizing the technology this way, they succeeded in invoking a section of a comprehensive 1998 copyright bill that prohibited the manufacture and distribution of any device whose "primary purpose" is to defeat a "technical mechanism" like the encryption used on the DVD. While the technical mechanism section of the law was always controversial and the connection to the goal of DeCSS developers tenuous, a court had no hesitation in ruling DeCSS illegal. This serious constraint on freedom of speech was compounded by a ruling that anyone posting source code for DeCSS was guilty of "distributing" the device, and finally that anyone making a link to a site with the source code shared its guilt. Those who claim the death of copyright are not the only millennialists in the debate, for the 1998 bill is titled the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It covers a huge range of issues that can arise as information travels the Internet or settles down into physical media in digital form. The section on technical mechanisms used by copyright holders shows a recognition that nothing they do is completely impervious to cracking. Big studios, database publishers, and software manufacturers are wielding the law in tandem with technical barriers to the free use of their material. Web sites may legitimately use traditional doctrines, like that of unfair business practices, to limit specific uses of linking. But in striking out to protect themselves, they have brought forth serious distortions in the legal status of the Web. And in preparation for future battles, they are hewing even bigger clubs from the pillars of the law. One such club is database protection, an idea that caught on first in Europe. It grew out of the fear that companies investing enormous efforts collecting information like legal cases or telephone numbers could have their work ripped off by cheap imitators. But database protection brings with it a tremendous danger: it prohibits the reuse of facts, where copyright protects merely expression. The recognition that overly loose database protection could essentially remove facts from the realm of public research and debate led the framers of "collection of information" laws to limit the circumstances under which databases are protected and to define characteristics that hopefully separate legitimate use from illegitimate copying. Unfortunately, finding a clear boundary line is impossible. A law protecting collections of information could conceivably be invoked by Web sites to outlaw links. It would have the potential to hold back many innovative types of derivative applications and data mining, bringing us back to the theme of the article: does the provider of information get to control the use of the information? While the European Union passed a directive protecting collections of information in 1996, soon to turn up as laws in most member nations, similar laws came up four years straight in the U.S. without being passed. Representative Coble of North Carolina, the bills' faithful backer, promises to bring it up again next year. It looks like the issue will not go away until Congress passes either the Coble bill or the more modest alternative that was introduced this year. The accusation of copyright infringement came up on the Internet as early as 1994, when Church of Scientology became notorious for using it to trample the privacy of critics, news publications, Internet service providers, and anybody else who touched Church material. I suppose a religious organization has the right to copyright its teachings. But the right to copyright should always be balanced against the public's right to comment and criticism. Here, interestingly enough, the Church's crusade intersects with the business plans of U.S. software manufacturers. I am referring here, of course, to UCITA, a set of new rules for shrink-wrap licenses. This article cannot possibly explain a proposal that runs over a hundred pages, but suffice it to say that coded and fuzzy wording allowed many risky provisions to survive the criticism of consumer advocates and independent software developers. Shrink-wrap licenses are not subject to the usual rules of copyright: they need not protect fair use, right of first sale, or even the right to quote from and describe a product for the purpose of review and criticism. In a number of other subtle ways, UCITA allows software companies to restrict consumer choice and avoid liability for problems in their products. UCITA has been making very slow progress, since it must be passed on a state-by-state basis. Virginia and Maryland have passed it, but the legislatures have either cut back its most controversial provisions or put review procedures in place. It still has a good deal of momentum, though. Many consumer advocates fear that UCITA represents the future of intellectual property, as well as product liability and customer relations in general. Intellectual property is not limited to copyright or quasi-copyright issues. Some of the other controversies of the past year involve: Trademarks. Owners of brands both famous and obscure, once they discovered the Web, became supersensitive about Internet domain names. Numerous people have been sued for using words that companies have trademarked, even if the use is in a totally unrelated field or involves legitimate criticism. The trademark holders are trying to extend the reach of trademark law far beyond its traditional limits, and where they are unsatisfied with their progress (as in ICANN, the policy-making body for domain names) they have succeeded in passing draconian legislation in the U.S. without public debate. Patents on software and on business methods. The U.S. Patent Office is supposed to screen out patent applications on obvious procedures, but filers have managed to slip through patents on such things as hypertext links, overlapping windows, and multimedia. Patents weren't even allowed on software until the 1980s, and the floodgates to business method patents were opened only in 1998. But now there are thousands of such patents granted in the U.S. ever year--and some are being belligerently enforced. Heavy pressure is on the European Union to allow software patents, but they have declined so far to do so, leaving the issue open for the future. Trade secrets. These turned up in the DeCSS case, and have been used by other companies as well to protect information that could be used to embarrass them or to undermine their monopoly on use. And I haven't even touched on various odds and ends like the attempt of America Online to keep its instant messaging protocols proprietary. It is time, however, to take a broad look at the field of intellectual property. Judging from my way of stating of the issues, you can guess that in technology I am a prolifer: I support the proliferation of information and new uses for information. Nevertheless, I recognize the value of copyrights and brands and depend on them for my own livelihood as a writer and editor. Thus, this article has tried to build rather than to burn; to foresee a new age of soaring creativity while letting the old system descend to a soft landing. I am not a freedom-of-information absolutist. If I see a beautiful painting in a friend's house, I don't harangue her to leave her home open day and night so the entire public can appreciate it. Why shouldn't publishers have some say over the use of online information too? The doctrine of author's moral rights, as understood in the European tradition of intellectual property, is worth respecting: it declares that the author of an illustrious work should not have to watch it edited and twisted by others to the point where it is degraded. But we are flying quickly toward the other extreme in the way intellectual property is enforced today. Fair use and the right of first sale are being shredded. Middlemen rake in superprofits on popular culture, often cheating the original creative artist even more than the public that pays the tab. And the potential for valuable derivative works is being squashed. When I see the elaborate technical and legal maneuvers that copyright holders undertake to control their users, it makes me sad. Studios have forgotten the role of the audience in art--forgotten the way that fans themselves created such towering figures as Nicolo Paganini, Judy Garland, or Elvis. The modern view of artistic expression seems to exclude the audience entirely, to the point of artistic solipsism. The artist deals with the studio, and the result is a static work disseminated to a purely passive audience. Despite companies' cynical manipulation of the public for "buzz" and "viral marketing," they want nothing new to come from the outside. And therein lies my discomfort with current notions of intellectual property. I do not disparage the term itself, but the exploitation of the concept to freeze what should be fluid. Let alone the excessive glorification of information as the basis of our economy and society. While I respect and love many works of art and culture, I see their role change as they interact with their viewers. To me, information is far too precious to hold on to it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This opinion piece was originally printed at the American Reporter site: http://www.american-reporter.com/ The article can be reposted in full for non-profit use. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Oram O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. email: andyo@oreilly.com Editor 90 Sherman Street phone: (617) 499-7479 Cambridge, MA 02140-3233 fax: (617) 661-1116 USA http://www.oreilly.com/~andyo/ Stories at Web site: The Bug in the Seven Modules Code the Obscure The Disconnected ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Jan 11 12:23:11 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E860F29B01; Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:23:10 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (flip.essential.org [216.0.124.53]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2CA018239; Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:23:10 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A5DF326.A445C90F@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2001 12:53:42 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Multiple recipients of list RANDOM-BITS , upd-discuss , ecommerce Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Hague convention: DFC comments to USPTO on the IPR aspects Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: January 11, 2001 Elizabeth Shaw United States Patent and Trademark Office Re: IPR Aspects of Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgements in Civil and Commercial Matters Dear Ms. Shaw: The Digital Future Coalition (DFC) appreciates this opportunity to comment on the IPR aspects of the Hague Convention. DFC, founded in 1995, consists of forty-two national organizations representing, computer and telecommunications industry businesses, educators, librarians, archivists, authors and scientists. DFC is committed to striking an appropriate balance in law and public policy between protecting intellectual property and affording public access to it. Our comments will focus on question 9 -- what effect, if any, could this Convention have on the enforcement of intellectual property with respect to the Internet? We have serious concerns that the Convention in its present form could subject Internet users in the United States to intellectual property infringement liability in other countries for activities which are lawful in the United States. In particular, users may be sued for engaging in conduct falling within the fair use doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. Section 107. The Convention provides for jurisdiction for tort actions where the injury occurs or where the wrongful act was committed. If a copyright violation or other IP infringement is considered a tort, then an alleged infringer can be sued where the injury resulting from the infringement occurs or where the infringement was committed. When a user uploads a work on a server in the United States, that work can be downloaded all over the world. The reproduction the user makes when she uploads the work may be a fair use under U.S. law, but the viewing of the work, or its downloading, may be an infringement under the copyright laws of the country where it is viewed or downloaded. By the same token, the uploading of a database in the U.S. may be lawful under Feist v. Rural Telephones, but its downloading in France may violate the sui generis protection of the EU Database Directive. Under the Convention, the U.S. user might be considered a direct or contributory infringer in the foreign country. In that event, a U.S. court might have to enforce a judgement of the foreign country's court against the U.S. user. The Hague Convention must not become a mechanism for circumventing the limitations and exceptions which exist in U.S. intellectual property law. The U.S intellectual property system strikes a delicate balance between the interests of creators and users, a balance which has well served both U.S. industry and the U.S. public. The Convention must be amended to eliminate any threat to this balance. Please let us know if you have any questions. Sincerely, Michael K. Blevins Coordinator From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Jan 13 14:22:13 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2BCCE29B0B for ; Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:22:13 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (ppp-8.essential.org [216.0.125.8]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E275818239 for ; Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:22:09 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A60AB62.83E4C3A@cptech.org> Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2001 14:24:18 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Hague Convention/IPR CPT's Jan 12, 2001 comments to USPTO Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: These are the comments CPT filed on January 12, 2001 in the US Patent and Trademark Office request for comments on the IPR aspects of the Hague Convention on Foreign Judgments. The US government delegation is beginning consultations on the IPR issues in the Hague, and the World intellectual Property Organization will hold two days of public meetings on IPR and Jurisdiction on January 30 and 31 in Geneva, followed by one day of informal country negotiations on this issue. On February 6 the US FTC will hold a one day meeting on consumer issues in the Hague Convention, and the government of Australia has a request for comment on the Convention, ending February 16. For additional information on the schedule of Hague negotiations, see the CPT web page on the Hague Convention, or contact Dr. Manon Ress , who is coordinating several NGO events, and is organizing a Washington, DC spring public meeting on IPR consequences of the Hague Convention. Jamie Love http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html http://www.cptech.org/ecom/hague/CPT-Hague-IPR-Jan12-USPTO.html To: Elizabeth Shaw Jennifer Lucas cc: Jeffrey D. Kovar Manon Anne Ress From: James Love Consumer Project on Technology http://www.cptech.org Re: CPT's January 12, 2001 comments on IPR aspects of Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters In June 2001, there will be an important diplomatic conference to consider a proposed Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters. This convention is the first major effort to address important jurisdiction issues for cyberspace, as they related to commercial matters. There are many important Internet related issues in the proposed convention, but perhaps non more vexing than those involving speech and intellectual property issues. By making foreign judgments easier to collect, the proposed Convention will effectively extend the reach of national laws concerning patents, trademarks, copyright, trade secrets, unfair competition, libel, slander and of course nearly all other commercial matters. This can result in citizens of any country being impacted by laws in other countries. This will be true even for bad laws. Governments who are involved in the Hague Convention negotiations are supposed to decide, by June 2001, if there will be a new global convention on jurisdiction and recognition of judgments, and if so, what will be the rules, and which areas of law will be covered. In the current draft, all aspects of civil and commercial law are covered, unless it is specifically exempted in Article 2. (It should be noted that the convention covers governments when they are engaged in civil or commercial disputes.) The Convention is complex and the subject of several controversies, details of which are available here: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html These comments will focus on only two important areas, the impact of the convention of free speech, and on the public's rights under intellectual property laws. CPT asks that the convention be modified to explicitly protect free speech, and to exclude intellectual property, as it has for maritime, matrimonial, insolvency, wills and successions, and other areas of law. In facilitating the collection of foreign judgments, the convention will increase the liability that citizen's face when publishing or receiving information or software, conducting business, or otherwise using the Internet. The reach and importance of foreign libel, patent, copyright, trademark and other laws will be expanded. Activities that are legal in one country can result in costly liabilities, so long as they constitute infringements or other civil liabilities in foreign countries. Here are a few examples of areas where the proposed convention will present important problems: 1. Software and E-Commerce patents. At present there are national differences on the policies regarding the issuance of patents on software. Some countries, like the US, have opened the doors to patents on software, while others have not. Formally at least, patents on software are excluded from the European Patent Convention, and are a topic of considerable debate and controversy within Europe. There is also continual pressure for countries to accept patents on software. For example, some EU and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIP0) officials claim that Article 27.1 of the WTO/TRIPS accord requires countries to adopt software patents, arguing that software is a "field technology" that has an "industrial application." Whatever the merits of this argument, it at least presents the possibility that all countries that are WTO members will be required to grant software patents. While the USA is considered the most aggressive country in terms of issuing software patents, there is no reason to believe that this will be true in the long run, particularly if software patents are issued in countries that (a) have even worse systems for examining patents than the USA, or (b) seek to adopt an even more aggressive patent strategy in order to "tax" foreign e-commerce. By making it easier to collect foreign judgments, the Hague convention will shift the burden of paying for such patents to foreign citizens, giving every country an incentive to adopt anti-consumer policies. Foreign countries have latitude in determining how damages for infringement are calculated, and a wide range of activities can generate foreign infringement liability. Business Methods patents raise the same issues. Right now there is considerable controversy in the USA over the appropriateness of issuing patents on business methods, and indeed, even if one accepts the controversial notion that business methods are an appropriate topic for patents, there is ample evidence many such patents are of poor quality, for example due to inadequate research of prior art or poor judgments regarding standards for novelty. One can argue that this is a US domestic problem. But if the Hague convention on judgments covers patents, it will be a much larger issue. Why wouldn't one see foreign countries become very aggressive in terms of issuing business methods patents? And if they did, what recourse would we have under the Hague Convention? And what evidence do we have that foreign governments can do a better job than the US PTO on patent examination, or that the foreign courts will provide a competent and fair forum for evaluating business methods and software patent infringement claims? 2. Fair Use under copyright laws. There are large differences between countries with regard to copyright laws. Of particular concern to CPT are national policies on fair use. Many persons participate in Internet news groups and mailing lists, often redistributing portions of or even entire articles of selected stories in discussions of a wide range of topics. Teachers circulate information in classrooms for non-commercial use, including, for example, foreign video clips or articles from foreign web sites. NGOs and individuals provide hypertext links to articles from other web pages. Authors quote from other authors. Stories, books and movies explore ideas or themes used or developed earlier by others. Musicians sample music, or in various ways borrow or use from others. Software, telecommunications and computer engineers, pharmaceutical companies, automobile manufacturers and others use reverse engineering to understand how machines, software, drugs and other products are made, or how they can make interoperable products. Some of these activities are considered infringements, and others are considered fair use under various national legal systems. By including copyright infringement claims in the Hague Convention on foreign judgments, every author, every software developer, every musician, every student, and every citizen who uses or receives information, will have liability for foreign copyright laws. If there is an expectation that foreign copyright laws are more restrictive than domestic laws, then users lose rights. The public domain is reduced. This is our primary concern. We do not believe there is enough consensus regarding the scope and enforcement of copyright laws to rush toward a system to recognize foreign judgments for copyright infringement. On many of these areas, US law is considerably better in terms of protecting the public's rights than are at least some foreign laws. Indeed, with a large number of countries in the Convention, there will of course nearly always be some countries that have worse laws than the US, from the point of view of fair use. This provides opportunities for publishers to forum shop, and to litigate infringement claims in countries that are the least protective of the public's rights. 3. Free Software. The free software movement has created a large number of software programs that currently power the internet. Programs and distributions such as GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Apache, sendmail, bind, gimp, GNOME, KDE, X- Windows, Emacs, and countless others are used throughout the world to run servers, create applications and provide services to businesses, non-commercial institutions and individuals. Microsoft sees the free software movement as its most important competitor in the server market, and this competition has kept the Internet more competitive and less monopolistic. Much of this free software is written by volunteers. If the Hague convention exposes these volunteers to new risks for foreign infringement suits, it may have a disastrous impact on the continued growth and development of the free software movement, and harm the Internet. 4. Sui generis IPR regimes. One particularly difficult area for the Hague Convention concerns the US liability for new sui generis IPR regimes, including those that do not exist in the USA. Some of these laws run counter to US legal traditions, are highly anticompetitive, or suffer from poor administration. An example of a problematic foreign sui generis regime is the new EU database protection laws. 5. Use of Government Copyright to suppress dissent or criticism. Many foreign governments claim copyright in government documents. For example, in the UK, the government has sued David Shayler, a former MI5 employee, and nine publications, over crown copyright claims in documents David Shayler had disclosed, that reveal official government wrongdoing. There is another UK case involving Nottinghamshire's County Council, where the government used the copyright law to suppress an embarrassing report regarding an investigation into child abuse. The Nottinghamshire government threatened copyright litigation against several parties for publishing this report on the Internet, including US web sites. According to recent news reports, Hitler attempted to use copyright laws to repress US circulation of materials he wrote. Under a new Hague Convention, one can imagine China, a Hague conference member that has a repressive government, using government copyright laws to suppress publication of information about government activities. US citizens have an interest in these issues, even when the enforcement of the foreign judgments take place in non-USA jurisdictions. For example, when sued, David Shayler was living in Paris, but the information he disclosed was of interest to the entire world, including to US citizens. (For more information regarding the Nottinghamshire case, see: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/comp_law/index.html#Not http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~dlheb/Default.htm http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/comp_law/notts.txt, and for an analysis of the Shayler case, see: http://www.thenation.com/issue/000522/0522wiener.shtml) These are only a few examples of a much large class of problems that are presented by inclusion of intellectual property in the Hague Convention on Jurisdiction and Foreign Judgments. CPT encourages the US government to hold public meetings to discuss the IPR aspects of the Hague convention. As noted above, CPT's web page on the Hague Convention is here: http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.html. CPT also asks that the US government find the resources to provide a web page on the Hague convention that is updated regularly with current information about the Convention, and provide information about how citizens can provide comments to governments who are participating in the Hague negotiations, or participate in important Hague meetings, including the June 2001 diplomatic convention. Sincerely, James Love Director Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367 Washington, DC 20036 http://www.cptech.org -- James Love http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 200036 voice 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Wed Jan 17 20:31:25 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from gtei2.bellatlantic.net (gtei2.bellatlantic.net [199.45.40.146]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5777729B0E for ; Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:31:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from robertba.pipeline.com (adsl-141-155-100-69.bellatlantic.net [141.155.100.69]) by gtei2.bellatlantic.net (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id UAA13394 for ; Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:31:18 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010117203200.00ab8f00@pop.pipeline.com> X-Sender: rabaron@pop.pipeline.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 20:32:15 -0500 To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org From: "Robert A. Baron" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii" Subject: [Upd-discuss] CAA Copyright Town Meeting, Chicago Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive:
[Kindly excuse the inevitable duplication of this notice. It results from multiple postings.]

ANNOUNCEMENT and INVITATION:

The Committee on Intellectual Property of the College Art Association (CAA), in conjunction with the National Initiative for a Networked Cultural Heritage (NINCH), wishes to announce the program for the forthcoming fifth annual Copyright Town Meeting devoted to the topic of intellectual property in academe.

Scheduled as part of the upcoming Conference of the College Art Association (Chicago, February 28-March 3; see http://www.collegeart.org), the Town Meeting will be held Saturday, March 3, 2001 in two sessions: 9:30-noon for presentations, and 12:30-2:00 for discussion. The sessions are open to all -- to registered conference attendees and to unregistered individuals who purchase a single-session ticket at the conference.

Detailed information about the program, attendance, the speakers, their topics and more may be found at the following location:

http://www.pipeline.com/~rabaron/ctm/CTM.htm

THEME:

This fifth edition of the annual NINCH/CAA Copyright Town Meeting is devoted to intellectual property that has been specifically prepared to be licensed for educational and scholarly use. It concerns the distribution of copyrighted and other materials especially crafted to meet the current and emerging needs of university artists and of art historians, among others. The presenters will be given opportunity to explain how their products can alter, improve, or re-create the methods of education and research. The speakers have been asked to discuss how their services and products specifically help fulfill educational and scholarly missions in ways that unlicensed collections typically do not or can not.

PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS:

SASKIA is a traditional art-history slide resource that is working to transform its catalogue and methods from analog distribution to digital and, in the process is inventing new formats and licensing products.

AMICO is a highly regarded repository and resource of digital images for educational use. AMICO offers institutional subscriptions to its expanding library.

QUESTIA is an innovative effort to provide indexed digital access to tens of thousands of published works used in undergraduate humanities education.

Not presenting, but sitting on the Q&A panel during the second half of the program will be a representative from the Academic Image Cooperative (AIC), a unique program engaged in collecting public domain and otherwise legally unencumbered images for eventual use by art historians, among others.

In addition, Robert Panzer, the executive director of the Visual Artists Gallery Association (VAGA) will discuss his organization's role as licensing agency for artists and the means by which VAGA serves scholarly and educational interests alongside commercial ones. In addition Mr. Panzer is a member of the CAA Committee on Intellectual Property (CIP).

Finally, Tom Bower, a member of the intellectual property group of the National Museum of American History and the Committee on Intellectual Property of the College Art Association (CIP), will dissect the process by which educators and scholars request permission to publish images. The purpose of this exercise is to increase the likelihood of applicants obtaining favorable treatment and receiving the traditional benefits extended to scholars.

PARTICIPATING INDIVIDUALS:

Co-chairs: David Green (NINCH) and Robert Baron (CAA Committee on Intellectual Property)

Renate Wiedenhoeft, SASKIA Cultural Documentation, Ltd. (http://www.saskia.com)

Jennifer Trant, Executive Director, Art Museum Image Consortium (AMICO) (http://www.amico.org)

Carol Hughes, Director of Collections Management, Questia Media, Inc. (http://www.questia.com)

Robert Panzer, Visual Artists and Galleries Association (VAGA) (mailto:rpanzer.vaga@erols.com)

Thomas W. Bower, Deputy Registrar, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. (http://americanhistory.si.edu)

Max Marmor, Director, Yale Art Library, for The Academic Image Cooperative (AIC), (http://www.clir.org/diglib/collections/aic.htm)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

For additional information and questions contact Marta Teegan at the College Art Association (mailto:mteegen@collegeart.org) or Robert Baron (mailto:robert@studiolo.org)

From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Jan 18 18:53:47 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from milan.essential.org (milan.essential.org [216.0.124.12]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B416429B07 for ; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:53:47 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (rob@localhost) by milan.essential.org (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA01492 for ; Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:53:47 -0500 Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 18:53:47 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Weissman To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Subject: [Upd-discuss] Public Citizen defends alitaliasucks.com Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Jan. 18, 2001 Irate Airline Passenger Has First Amendment Right to Tell Story on the Web Airline Lost Bag and Man Lost His Patience; Web Site Name ¯ www.alitaliasucks.com ¯ Isn't Trademark Infringement, Public Citizen Says WASHINGTON, D.C. ¯ An airline passenger irate about his lost luggage not only has a First Amendment right to set up a Web site critical of the airline, but his Web site's name ¯ www.alitaliasucks.com ¯ does not violate a 1999 anti-cybersquatting law, Public Citizen has told a federal court. William Porta, who runs a gift delivery business, set up the site in December after Alitalia lost a bag containing clothing for a friend's wedding in India. Porta was to be best man. But he attended one black tie event in the two-day old casual clothes he traveled in, and his hosts had to scramble right before their wedding to find suitable attire, he said in an Oct. 26 letter to the airline outlining his complaint. Further, the airline failed to live up to its initial promises for compensation, he said. So in December, Porta established "www.alitaliasucks.com," on which he posted a copy of his letter. The airline then sued Porta in U.S. District Court, the Southern District of New York, alleging that he was violating trademark law and the 1999 Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, passed in response to a rash of people snapping up Internet domain names using trademarked names of companies and organizations. The airline has asked the court to order Porta to dismantle his site and prohibit him from using the Alitalia name in any Internet domain name or registering such a domain name with any search engines. Because of its long interest in defending people's First Amendment rights, Public Citizen has intervened in the case and today filed a memorandum on Porta's behalf. "The law is quite clear about consumers' speech rights," said Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen Litigation Group. "Consumer commentary is protected. That means that anyone can take out a full-page ad about the company or post criticism on the Web. In fact, the law specifically protects the information Mr. Porta posted." Trademark infringements occur when a company's name is used for profit, which clearly doesn't apply in this case, Public Citizen's memo to the court explains. Porta's site carries no advertising, sells no goods and doesn't link to any commercial sites. Indeed, Porta's criticisms would be pointless if he had to omit the name of the company he was criticizing, the memo points out. The action Alitalia is seeking ¯ essentially barring Porta from speaking, printing or broadcasting statements of public concern ¯ can only be justified in extraordinary circumstances, such as a grave threat to the government, Public Citizen argues. Alitalia's claim that Porta broke the anti-cybersquatting law is also misguided, Levy said. When they wrote the law, congressional lawmakers specifically noted that they did not intend to enable companies to sue people who establish Web sites for the purpose of commenting on companies. Alitalia's lawsuit also claims that Porta's site could confuse Web surfers seeking Alitalia's site ¯ an allegation that is absurd, Levy said. "No consumer looks for a company on the Internet by typing in 'www.companysucks.com,' " Levy said. "Any consumer visiting Porta's site would know it wasn't sponsored by the airline." Porta is also being represented by Nina Morrison and John Cuti of Emery Cuti Brinckerhoff & Abady PC in New York City. ### To read Public Citizen's brief in this case, please visit http://www.citizen.org/litigation/briefs/portapiopp.htm. If you no longer wish to receive Public Citizen press releases, please subscribe to the above address and type "unsubscribe." From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Sat Jan 20 11:14:35 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Received: from prserv.net (out4.prserv.net [32.97.166.34]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4536229B00 for ; Sat, 20 Jan 2001 11:14:35 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (slip139-92-111-188.gen.ch.prserv.net[139.92.111.188]) by prserv.net (out4) with SMTP id <200101201614332040190miae>; Sat, 20 Jan 2001 16:14:33 +0000 Message-ID: <3A69BA23.A486F19F@cptech.org> Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 11:17:39 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Three WIPO papers on IPR jurisdiction and Hague Convention Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Random-bits] Three WIPO papers on IPR jurisdiction and Hague Convention Date: Sat, 20 Jan 2001 11:16:02 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org To: Multiple recipients of list RANDOM-BITS WIPO has distributed three papers in advance of its January 30-31, 2001, WIPO Forum on Private International Law and Intellectual Property. This is a meeting on IPR jurisdiction and the proposed Hague Convention. (I am invited panel member for this meeting). Jamie http://www.cptech.org/ecom/hague/Ginsburg2000.doc Jane C. Ginsburg and Morton L. Janklow, Private International Law Aspects Of The Protection Of Works And Objects Of Related Rights Transmitted Through Digital Networks. http://www.cptech.org/ecom/hague/Lucas2000.doc Andre Lucas, "Aspects De Droit International Prive De La Protection D'oeuvres Et D'objets De Droits Connexes Transmis Par Reseaux Numeriques Mondiaux." http://www.cptech.org/ecom/hague/Blumer.doc Fritz Blumer, "Patent Law and International Private Law on Both Sides of the Atlantic." -- James Love Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 http://www.cptech.org love@cptech.org 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 _______________________________________________ Random-bits mailing list Random-bits@lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/random-bits From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Jan 25 10:11:11 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C0D829B06 for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:11:11 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (flip.essential.org [216.0.124.53]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5A2F3181EC for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:11:11 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A7042E5.DD374DED@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 10:14:45 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] Brian Kahin: The Expansion of the Patent System: Politics and Political Economy Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: This is a useful article about the issue of ecommerce patents. Jamie http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_1/kahin/index.html Brian Kahin The Expansion of the Patent System: Politics and Political Economy -- James Love Consumer Project on Technology P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036 http://www.cptech.org love@cptech.org 1.202.387.8030 fax 1.202.234.5176 From owner-upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Thu Jan 25 12:47:29 2001 Return-Path: Delivered-To: upd-discuss@venice.essential.org Received: from genoa.essential.org (genoa.essential.org [216.0.124.11]) by venice.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9589B29B01 for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:47:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from cptech.org (flip.essential.org [216.0.124.53]) by genoa.essential.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 85116181EC for ; Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:47:29 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: <3A706788.58F72C11@cptech.org> Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2001 12:51:04 -0500 From: James Love Organization: http://www.cptech.org X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: upd-discuss Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: [Upd-discuss] David Lawsky on Smucker protects peanut butter-jelly sandwich patent Sender: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org Errors-To: upd-discuss-admin@lists.essential.org X-BeenThere: upd-discuss@lists.essential.org Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Discussion list for Union for the Public Domain List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: -------- Original Messa