The Associated Press is reporting an interesting article on the owners to the rights of the bluegrass standard “Rocky Top” who are suing the television network A&E over the use of the tune in a crime documentary.According to the article, the lawsuit claims the network used the tune in a 12-second clip, even after the song owners said A&E could not use it. The lawsuit is seeking financial compensation.
Felice and Boudleoux Bryant penned the song in 1967 and the couple’s children own the rights under the corporate name House of Bryant.
A&E’s attorney Robb Harvey would not discuss the case with The Tennessean newspaper and an attorney for House of Bryant did not return calls for comment.
The A&E show, called “City Confidential,” highlighted an attempted contract killing in Knoxville in 1994. The episode first aired in 2004.
http://news.findlaw.com/ap/e/1403/08-26-2009/20090826102011_29.html
Information from: The Tennessean, http://www.tennessean.com
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A wide variety of accords, including the contested TRIPS and ACTA agreements, are being debated in IGO forums. The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement has been vociferously attacked particularly with regard to generic pharmaceuticals. The Netherlands seized 17 shipments of in-transit generic drugs in 2008, which were reviewed by customs officials under TRIPS guidelines for IP rights (IPR) violations. Adherence to TRIPS is a marked attempt to stop ‘fake’ medication dissemination and decreased drug quality (Mara, “Generic”).
Developing countries assert that TRIPS negatively affects access to affordable generic drugs and other technologies. As India considers signing TRIPS this summer, opponents analyze its impact on this major generic drug producing country, especially in light of the possibly more stringent TRIPS-Plus requirements (Cronin).
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is another highly contested accord set for completion in 2010. The primary issue for opponents is its lack of transparency (New). Coupled with TRIPS, current ACTA negotiations have helped to fuel an anti-IP fervor.
Laws have arisen this summer in answer to various state-based IP issues. In France, the ‘High-Level Authority for the Diffusion of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet,’ or HADOPI, has been called a barrier to what the Council of Europe has recently deemed a ‘fundamental right’ of Internet access (Ermert).
HADOPI is based on a “three strikes” enforcement model wherein illegal downloading of digital content would lead to state mandated internet stoppage for a predetermined period. Opponents of HADOPI claim that it violates civil rights, is unenforceable, and maximizes state surveillance (Porteus).
By mid-June, HADOPI was deemed unconstitutional based mainly on its lack of judicial action. HADOPI personnel would make all judgments regarding infringement and penalties. Censorship of the contested passages is likely (Saez).
Opponents to HADOPI have put forth alternative business models to deal with both copyright and access issues non-reliant on governmental legislation, including free music/paid advertising, OEM “closed systems” compatibility requirements, and global licensing/monthly fees (Gain).
Cris Flagg has been with Express Search for over a decade developing new products, training researchers and spearheading unique workflow processes. In the following interview we asked him about his thoughts on Non-Patent Literature research.
ES: Briefly describe your academic and professional experience.
CF: I’ve been conducting patent research since 1992. I’ve been active in both the research as well as the administrative side of the company since it’s founding. I have a BS from George Mason University in Computer Science, and spent time at Naval Research Laboratories in the Space Systems Development lab in AI on vision systems.
ES: What is Non-Patent Literature and how is it used in prosecution and litigation?
CF: Non-patent literature has traditionally been of lesser importance due to the inaccessibility of journal and scholarly publications. As databases have developed to allow better searching, the number of accessible publications has increased. Databases, such as Dialog, provide a broad range of access to documents at a cost to search and view. More recent innovations in federated databases, such as Scitopia.org and Science.gov, allow greater access to articles from diverse sources with less maintenance and overhead. It is now feasible to conduct a high quality non-patent literature search without incurring any database costs. Important articles can be efficiently located to provide support for validity and clearance projects. Often times these articles point out key elements that were known to those skilled in the art prior to a patent’s publication. Express Search has provided Accelerated Examination Pre-Examination Support Documents based entirely on free databases that have been successfully submitted to the USPTO. This marks a significant change in the attitude of the Patent Office towards both non-patent literature and the databases used for it’s research.
ES: How is Non-Patent Literature research functionally different from patent research?
CF: Where patent literature provides a classification system that aids in research, non-patent literature can be located in a myriad of locations, some more accessible than others. Since there are several orders of magnitude more articles than there are patents, it is not conceivable to locate every relevant article, no matter how much time is allotted to the research. Researchers experienced in non-patent literature research usually have a set of databases that are searched on a regular basis, with a cadre of additional sources of relevance. An additional hindrance to non-patent literature searching is quality of search engines available. Some databases, such as IEEE, provide advanced search features such as proximity. Other databases, such as ACM, only provide rudimentary Boolean operators. The quality of the articles available from these engines is comparable, but one provides a much deeper and exact searching experience. On the other hand, non-patent literature does not suffer as greatly from a diverse set of keywords. Non-patent literature articles tend to use a standard industry lexicon whereas patents strive to use terminology different from their closest neighbors. Keyword searching is in a sense more uniform when working with non-patent literature.
ES: How have research tools changed?
CF: The viability of non-patent literature as an aid to patent research has greatly increased over the past decade. Prior to online collections of data, the only source for non-patent literature was the library. While university libraries had good collections of journals, it was not feasible to review all of the older copies by hand in any effective manner. With the advent of online database collections, it became possible to search a large number of articles in depth. There was a cost associated with connecting to the database, as well as costs to search and costs to view. The strength of these databases was the collection of thousands of journals that could be searched using a uniform keyword syntax. The result was a system that was usable by institutions, such as universities and the USPTO, but not readily available to the private sector.
ES: Where are their strengths and where are their weaknesses with regard to finding strong pieces of art?
CF: When conducting the search, the major limitation was not on the time spent doing the research, but the cost of access itself. Researchers hit the cost limitations of the client long before the number of hours searched became a factor. Within the past five years, federated databases have taken a share of the database collections and made them available for free over the internet. The shift away from monolithic search engines towards federated databases is evidenced through the recent sale of Dialog by Thomson. Scitopia.org and Science.gov are two examples of federated databases that allow large collections of scientific data to be reviewed through a single web portal. The cost for conducting a non-patent literature search has swung back to the number of hours a researcher can spend doing the research. The only limitation to the federated databases is that the accepted Boolean operators are limited to a subset of the operators of all of the search engines. Scitopia.org provides access to IEEE journal articles, but does not include access to the advanced proximity operators offered by the native IEEE search engine.
ES: What is the future of Non-Patent Literature access likely to be?
CF: As federated databases gain ground, publishers will strive to join as many federations as possible to circulate more articles, thus driving up the revenue from article sales. Additionally, federated databases are already working to provide advanced Boolean search and proximity tools that are simply downgraded when working with a less advanced database. This will push the underlying databases to improve their capabilities. Lastly, efforts by independent authors and organizations such as Google have been increasing the number of articles that are available in full over the internet. Increased full-text articles will improve searching overall and advance any particular database federation to the forefront.
The OECD released its “Policy Responses to the Economic Crisis: Investing in Innovation for Long-Term Growth” wherein increasing R&D measures, “greening” the economy, and increasing support for entrepreneurs are suggested as initiatives. ‘Innovation movements’ in environmentalism are not contested (Saez). What is contested is whether or not IP is a hindrance in the global push toward environmental sustainability.
Those who claim IP is a hindrance to greentech development, particularly as an impediment to technology transfer and diffusion to lesser developed countries (LDCs), decry the IP process as outdated and counterproductive. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) has held numerous summer meetings debating the viability of IP in light of climate change mitigation and sustainability.
LDCs claim an increased need for climate change technologies and call for preferential pricing and compulsory licensing. The private sector, they claim, has little interest in climate change technology investment and thus reduced interest in IP rights in those areas. A decrease in IP rights protection, they argue, should lead to an increase in technology transfer (Mara).
EU proponents of lessening IP rights (IPR) are calling for a “move away from the old obsession with technological competitiveness viewed through a very narrow framework”. Some supportive academics are pointing to the Lisbon Strategy financial unification plan, with its IP core, as the root of non-environmentally friendly economics (Cronin).
Pro-IP UNFCC members propound alternative solutions for technology transfer. A decrease in IPR will lead to a commensurate decrease in R&D, which would stimey innovation. Interest in private sector investment is far greater than acknowledged. Alternatives, they list, include production of cost-effective versions of technologies, domestic technological adaptations, and continued IPR protection resulting in optimizing environments for innovation venues (Mara).
The European Commissioner for Scientific Research emphasized “successful management” of IPR as a key to growth. With only 3% of the European GDP going to R&D, Europe can ill afford to reduce attention toward efforts at innovation spurred by IPR (Cronin, “Prevent”). Economic growth, IPR, and environmental mitigation appear indelibly entwined, thus opponents of an ‘IP scuttle’ invariably address all three issues jointly.
Support for IPR in the US has been spearheaded by Innovation, Development & Employment Alliance (IDEA), representing the US Chamber of Commerce. Their response to UNFCCs global “anti-IP push focused on education and promotion of IPR in clean technologies. IPR protection would increase investment, R&D, create “green jobs”, and find solutions to environmental challenges. “Strengthening patent regimes in emerging markets could stimulate both local innovation and transfer of technologies from foreign patent holders” (Lane).
Greentechnology joins the ranks of other contemporary issues, such as generic pharmaceuticals and agrigenetics, in heated international debate over IP applicability. The global community backs away from strategies based on the remedial deconstruction of IPR. A solid foundation of study on the subject indicates that the relationship between IP and technology diffusion is mutually beneficial as opposed to mutually exclusive.
The Patent Reform Bill has been stuck in Congress for years. The congruence of economics and Constitutional law, along with parochial political interests and confusion in the courts, have helped enable the current legislative slump. The US Senate approved the Patent Law Reform Act of 2009 (S. 515) on April 2nd in a 15 - 4 vote.
The passage of this legislation paves the way for the bill to go to the Senate floor with only minor difficulties. The recent announcement that Justice Souter is stepping down in October and the nomination Judge Sotomayor to fill the vacancy, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been working overtime on the summer Supreme Court nominee battle.
Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee dealt with the nomination hearings until late summer, finally confirming Sotomayor on August 6th. With these issues finally under control, the Senate may focus on other legislation, such as the Patent Reform Bill.
The Senate is much further along than the House as it has passed its legislation out of Committee. However the House will not be bogged down in Congressional Hearings for the Supreme Court nominee. Additionally, the rules and procedures in the House allow for much faster consideration of legislation than in the Senate.
In Congress, timing is key. The Federal fiscal year begins on October 1, and the rush to pass Federal appropriations bills and other last minute legislation will continue to push the Patent Reform Bill further off schedule. Additionally, the issue of Immigration Reform, which Congressional leaders considers a high priority, must also go through the Judiciary Committee.
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According to the USPTO, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke on Thursday conducted a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony for Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. In his remarks before thousands of employees on the USPTO campus, Secretary Locke said “David is taking on a big job… Promoting and protecting U.S. inventions, innovation and creativity directly affects our nation‘s welfare and prosperity.”See the new Director’s full speech at the following link.
According to an article in the British Telegraph and various tech blogs - Tsera has filed a lawsuit against some of the largest tech companies in the word - including Microsoft and Apple. The issue is a possible infringement of a Tsera patent on touchpads that are currently being used on the iPod Classic and the ip Nano - to name a few.
According to Geek.com ,”Tsera was issued the patent in question back in 2003 after applying for it in 1999. It covers, ‘Methods and apparatus for controlling a portable electronic device using a touchpad’”.
“Apparatus and methods for controlling a portable electronic device, such as an MP3 player; portable radio, voice recorder, or portable CD player are disclosed. A touchpad is mounted on the housing of the device, and a user enters commands by tracing patterns with his finger on a surface of the touchpad. No immediate visual feedback is provided as a command pattern is traced, and the user does not need to view the device to enter commands.”
According to an article in InformationWeek - Former Founder and CEO of Microsoft, Bill Gates was one of several names that surfaced last week on five patents filed by Searete, which is associated with a Bellevue, Wash. company called Intellectual Ventures formed by former Microsoft executives as a factory for new inventions.
According to the article, the idea behind some of these patents is to create equipment that would lower the force of hurricanes by cooling the water, altering its surface tension, and shifting it away from recreational areas. Very interesting stuff… http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/legal/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218500495
