U.S. the Best for Intellectual Property; U.S. News & World Report, 2/10/16

Isabella Gutierrez, U.S. News & World Report; U.S. the Best for Intellectual Property:

"For the fourth consecutive year, the U.S. has been listed as having the best environment in the world for intellectual property, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday, although the country ranks only fifth when it comes to enforcing intellectual property rights.

The chamber's annual International IP Index compared 38 countries that together account for around 85 percent of the world's gross domestic product, assessing them on major factors involved in intellectual property like patent and copyright protections and the safeguarding of trade secrets.

In the U.S., intellectual property industries account for 40 million jobs and 38 percent of GDP, Donohue said. The country took first place for its overall intellectual property environment in part because of its trade secret and copyright protections and membership in international treaties.

Behind the U.S. were the United Kingdom, Germany and France, surpassing countries like China, Japan and Canada."

Martin Shkreli Sued by Artist Over Wu-Tang Clan Album; Associated Press via New York Times, 2/9/16

Associated Press via New York Times; Martin Shkreli Sued by Artist Over Wu-Tang Clan Album:

"A Long Island artist sued ex-pharmaceutical CEO Martin Shkreli and others Tuesday over the use of his art in a Wu-Tang Clan album, saying he never expected portraits he posted on a fan blog two years ago to be used without his permission.

Artist Jason Koza said in the Manhattan federal court copyright infringement lawsuit that his portraits of members of the New York-based hip-hop group were used without authorization on an album Shkreli bought for $2 million."

Appeals court upholds Warner Bros.’ Superman rights; ComicBookResources.com, 2/11/16

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; Appeals court upholds Warner Bros.’ Superman rights:

"A federal appeals court has again sided with DC Comics and Warner Bros. in the long-running feud over the rights to the Man of Steel.

As first reported by THR, Esq., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld a 2013 ruling that the heirs of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel relinquished their claim to the character in a 2001 settlement with DC, and therefore are not able to terminate the copyright.

This legal dispute has proved as resilient as the Man of Steel, so we won’t label this a “definitive judgment.” However, the Siegel family would appear to have few options left beyond a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court. For now at least, Superman remains in the hands of Warner Bros. and DC."

’80s X-Men characters come to life in rocking music video; ComicBookResources.com, 2/10/16

Brett White, ComicBookResources.com; ’80s X-Men characters come to life in rocking music video:

"In addition to a spot-on Lila Cheney (performed by singer Sage Montclair in full ’80s Joan Jett glory) and Dazzler (Gentry Roth) on backing vocals, the fan-made music video features the complete nine-person New Mutants roster (that’s Cannonball, Sunspot, Mirage, Karma, Wolfsbane, Magma, Magik, Cypher and Warlock), the team’s dance instructor Stevie Hunter (complete with a shout-out to Kitty Pryde) and Strong Guy. Yes, Strong Guy. If you’re a fan of the X-Men and don’t mind having a super catchy song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, then “I Will Steal Your Heart!” is necessary viewing."

‘Happy Birthday to You’ Is Finally Out of Copyright; New York Magazine, 2/10/16

Samuel Lieberman, New York Magazine; ‘Happy Birthday to You’ Is Finally Out of Copyright:

"The rights to the song “Happy Birthday to You” have been the subject of 80 years of legal battles, but they're coming to an end on March 14. On that day, the seven-note tune will finally go into the public domain, as the music publisher Warner/Chappell — which has been charging moviemakers and TV networks many thousands of dollars whenever they film people singing around a cake — has agreed to pay a $14 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by people who've paid to use the song."

How Google Stole the Work of Millions of Authors; Wall Street Journal, 2/7/16

Roxana Robinson, Wall Street Journal; How Google Stole the Work of Millions of Authors:

"Last week publishers, copyright experts and other supporters filed amicus briefs petitioning the Supreme Court to hear the copyright-infringement case against Google brought by the Authors Guild."

Artur Fischer, Inventor With More Patents Than Edison, Dies at 96; New York Times, 2/8/16

William Grimes, New York Times; Artur Fischer, Inventor With More Patents Than Edison, Dies at 96:

"Artur Fischer, a German inventor who registered more than 1,100 patents, including the first synchronized camera flash and an anchor that millions of do-it-yourselfers use to secure screws into walls, died on Jan. 27 at his home in Waldachtal, in southwestern Germany. He was 96...

“What Bill Gates was to the personal computer, Artur Fischer is to do-it-yourself home repair,” Der Spiegel wrote in its interview.

Mr. Fischer’s other inventions included Fischertechnik model-making kits, cup holders with retractable lids, ventilation nozzles and edible play-modeling material made from potato starch.

“I am interested in any problem to which I can provide a solution,” Mr. Fischer told the German magazine Technology Review in 2007.

His total number of inventions put him just ahead of Thomas Edison, who had 1,093 patents to his name. In recognition of Mr. Fischer’s work, the European Patent Office gave him a lifetime achievement award in 2014."

Give Up Your Data to Cure Disease; New York Times, 2/6/16

David B. Agus, New York Times; Give Up Your Data to Cure Disease:

"HOW far would you go to protect your health records? Your privacy matters, of course, but consider this: Mass data can inform medicine like nothing else and save countless lives, including, perhaps, your own.

Over the past several years, using some $30 billion in federal stimulus money, doctors and hospitals have been installing electronic health record systems. More than 80 percent of office-based doctors, including me, use some form of E.H.R. These systems are supposed to make things better by giving people easier access to their medical information and avoiding the duplication of tests and potentially fatal errors.

Yet neither doctors nor patients are happy. Doctors complain about the time it takes to update digital records, while patients worry about confidentiality. Last month the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons went so far as to warn that E.H.R.s could “crash” the medical system.

We need to get over it. These digital databases offer an incredible opportunity to examine trends that will fundamentally change how doctors treat patients. They will help develop cures, discover new uses for drugs and better track the spread of scary new illnesses like the Zika virus."

YouTube stars U-turn on trademarks after online fury; BBC News, 2/2/16

Chris Baraniuk, BBC News; YouTube stars U-turn on trademarks after online fury:

"One YouTuber who had expressed disappointment over the trademark applications was Jon, from Many a True Nerd.

"I'm delighted, but not hugely surprised," he told the BBC after hearing about the U-turn.

"Given the huge subscriber number falls they've seen, sometimes over 10,000 lost subscriber per hour, the risk to their business was too great to ignore."

Jon added, though, that he felt The Fine Brothers would struggle to regain trust among those alienated by the episode.

"I think this movement and its consequences represent that YouTube as a community is quite determined to stay a free and open platform, and that makes me optimistic for the future," he said."

THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES RELEASED A FREE COLORING BOOK OF WEIRD PATENTS; Popular Science, 2/5/16

Kelsey D. Atherton, Popular Science; THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES RELEASED A FREE COLORING BOOK OF WEIRD PATENTS:

"The National Archives of the United States just released a coloring book full of strange patents. It’s all available now as a free PDF, and it’s 17 glorious pages of sheer inventive weirdness. The patents range for chicken goggles to a hat that automatically salutes to the landing craft used in D-Day. It’s an utter delight.

Why the coloring book? Coloring books for adults are having something of a cultural moment not seen since the sarirical coloring books of the 1960s, with the task heralded for its mindfulness and derided as something merely for children."

When a Public Family Is Publicly Attacked; New York Times, 2/5/16

KJ Dell'Antonia, New York Times; When a Public Family Is Publicly Attacked:

"While Ms. Howerton and her supporters report Twitter accounts for abuse, she is also asking YouTube to take down the video commentary that makes use of her video and other family images. She has filed a privacy complaint, which YouTube rejected, and is waiting for it to respond to her new complaint, alleging copyright violation. Neil Richards, a law professor at Washington University and author of “Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age,” said he thinks Ms. Howerton’s belief that she can regain control of the footage may be overly optimistic.

“The use of home video and family images for political debate is something that has real consequences,” he said. “She has made her life choices, her experiences, her children’ experiences, a matter for public debate. When people do this they do expose themselves to criticism and attacks and some of them are quite unpleasant.”

Eric Goldman, a professor of law and director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law, agreed that because Ms. Howerton herself used family video as part of a political discussion, she may have little legal recourse when that video is used as part of a larger video engaged in social commentary on the same topic. In many situations, videos or pictures posted online can become “fair game” for critics to use in online attacks against the poster’s position or for other undesirable political or social statements, Mr. Goldman said in an email."

Senator Rob Portman to Oppose Pacific Trade Pact; New York Times, 2/4/16

Jackie Calmes, New York Times; Senator Rob Portman to Oppose Pacific Trade Pact:

"In a clear sign of the trouble facing President Obama’s trade pact with Pacific Rim nations, one of the most influential congressional Republicans on trade issues announced on Thursday that he would oppose it unless significant changes were made.

The lawmaker, Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who was a trade ambassador under President George W. Bush, objects to the accord’s provisions on currency manipulation, auto parts and pharmaceutical industry protections. Lawmakers in both parties have raised the same issues, but Mr. Portman’s authority on trade is certain to carry extra weight with colleagues...

The separate objection of many Republicans, that the pact weakens patent protections for pharmaceutical companies to make drugs more affordable and accessible globally, has been led by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Senate committee responsible for trade, a longtime proponent of the drug industry...

Only Malaysia has ratified it so far."

[Press Release] WVU Press and Libraries launch open access reader on West Virginia history, 1/15/16

[Press Release] WVU Press and Libraries launch open access reader on West Virginia history:

"West Virginia University Press and the WVU Libraries have launched West Virginia History: An Open Access Reader, a free, online collection of previously published essays drawn from the journal West Virginia History and other WVU Press publications.

The collection covers the history of the territory that became West Virginia from European settlement to mountaintop removal, and is especially suitable for use in courses on state history. It is available at https://textbooks.lib.wvu.edu/index.html.

“I love everything about this project – serving the needs of students, sharing the history of West Virginia, harnessing the power of technology, and collaborating between West Virginia University and Marshall,” WVU President Gordon Gee said. “This is the kind of responsive and innovative work that we want to become the ‘new normal’ for higher education in meeting the needs of our state.”"

African Avengers: the comic book creators shaking up superhero genre; Guardian, 2/3/16

David Barnett, Guardian; African Avengers: the comic book creators shaking up superhero genre:

"“I don’t think Africa and Africans are well represented in mainstream western comics. That is why we are here ... to give us a place in this genre and to show the world what Africans are capable of.”

Interestingly, half the digital downloads from Comic Republic come from outside Africa – specifically, the US and the UK. Martin says the general response has been “amazing” and adds, “Africa and the world in general has welcomed us with open arms and we are grateful."...

And could the rise of the African comic industry also herald a sea-change in the way the continent is portrayed in mainstream comics over here? It wouldn’t be that difficult, according to Richardson. “We live in an information age,” she says. “Go out and do a little damn reading. No one is keeping that from you. But this is a great opportunity for someone to tap into a narrative not yet being utilised. I notice fictional media and entertainment in general, will paint a very one-sided representation of African countries and its people. I imagine the world would have an obscured view of the United States if all that was ever seen of its people were the ghettos, the impoverished, the starving and the vitriolic, you’d probably not want to visit."

Cops will adapt big data platform to secure Super Bowl; FedScoop.com, 2/5/16

Alex Koma, FedScoop.com; Cops will adapt big data platform to secure Super Bowl:

"Law enforcement agents and first responders in Northern California are turning to some software that harnesses the power of data to help keep fans safe at the Super Bowl, one of the most daunting security challenges of the year.

The state first started using the program last year — known as the “California Common Operating Picture” and powered by Haystax Technology’s “Constellation” analytics platform — and now law enforcement agencies of all shapes and sizes are preparing to use it to collect thousands of pieces of data about potential threats ahead of the big matchup in Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium.

In a briefing here at Haystax’s headquarters, Chief Technology Officer Bryan Ware laid out just how federal, state and local agents across the region have been using the system to keep a close eye on potential trouble makers and targets ahead of the Super Bowl, and how 13 different monitoring centers run by various government agencies will use it the night of the game to stay ahead of any security concerns."

If China Ever Uses Copyright to Censor Tank Man, It Will Be America’s Fault; Motherboard, 2/1/16

Sarah Jeong, Motherboard; If China Ever Uses Copyright to Censor Tank Man, It Will Be America’s Fault:

"Imagine a future where news agencies, historical archives, academic resources, and humanitarian organizations across the world all receive the same US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice, sent by a Chinese firm: Take down the Tank Man photo, or be sued for copyright infringement.

There is perhaps no better-known image associated with the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre: an unknown man in a white shirt and black trousers, grasping a bag in one hand, stands in front of a line of tanks, halting their progress.

Tank Man is a subversive image for the Chinese government, and for internet users in that the country, the photo—like many other references to the 1989 protests—has been censored by the authorities. It would be insanity if copyright were used to expand that censorship beyond China’s borders, but thanks to the United States copyright lobby, this absurd hypothetical is a little more realistic than you’d expect.

There’s more than one photograph of Tank Man, but for such a long, momentous stand-off, the photographs are surprisingly few. At least one of these photographs now belongs to Visual China Group, which purchased it from none other than Bill Gates himself, included inside of a massive bundle of copyrights to “historic news, documentary, and artistic images” that includes images of the Tiananmen Square protests.

Visual China Group has announced a partnership with Getty to license the images, so censorship doesn’t look like it’s in the cards."

Out of a Rare Super Bowl I Recording, a Clash With the N.F.L. Unspools; New York Times, 2/2/16

Richard Sandomir, New York Times; Out of a Rare Super Bowl I Recording, a Clash With the N.F.L. Unspools:

"Haupt owns the recording but not its content, which belongs to the N.F.L. If the league refuses to buy it, he cannot sell the tapes to a third party, like CBS or a collector who would like to own a piece of sports history that was believed to be lost. He would like to persuade the league to sell the tapes jointly and donate some of the proceeds to their favorite charities. His mother said that she would give some of her share of the sale to the Wounded Warrior Project.

“They’re not doing anybody any good sitting in a vault,” he said. “Let’s help some great charities.”

But that is unlikely to happen. A letter from the league to Harwood last year provided a sharp warning to Haupt. “Since you have already indicated that your client is exploring opportunities for exploitation of the N.F.L.’s Super Bowl I copyrighted footage with yet-unidentified third parties,” Dolores DiBella, a league counsel, wrote, “please be aware that any resulting copyright infringement will be considered intentional, subjecting your client and those parties to injunctive relief and special damages, among other remedies.”

The law favors the league, said Jodi Balsam, a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

“What the league technically has is a property right in the game information and they are the only ones who can profit from that,” said Balsam, a former N.F.L. lawyer."

At Berkeley, a New Digital Privacy Protest; New York Times, 2/1/16

Steve Lohr, New York Times; At Berkeley, a New Digital Privacy Protest:

"While some of the professors criticize the monitoring program as one that invades their privacy, the University of California has responded that “privacy perishes in the absence of security.”

It’s part of the larger challenge that fast-moving technology poses for social values. Every day, corporations, government agencies and universities must balance the need for computer security with the expected right to privacy of the people who use their networks. In different settings, there are different rules, expectations and levels of threat.

“We’re really just starting to sort out the risks and rules for digital security and data collection and use,” said Elana Zeide, a privacy expert at New York University’s Information Law Institute."

Adele tells Donald Trump to stop pinching her songs for his campaign; Guardian, 2/1/16

Mark Tran and Amber Jamieson, Guardian; Adele tells Donald Trump to stop pinching her songs for his campaign:

"Was there anything artists could do to make sure someone with completely different political views to them stays away from their music?

“Not really,” said Gordon."

Unpublished Black History; New York Times, 2/1/16

Rachel L. Swarns, Darcy Eveleigh, and Damien Cave, New York Times; Unpublished Black History:

"Hundreds of stunning images from black history, drawn from old negatives, have long been buried in the musty envelopes and crowded bins of the New York Times archives.

None of them were published by The Times until now.

Were the photos — or the people in them — not deemed newsworthy enough? Did the images not arrive in time for publication? Were they pushed aside by words here at an institution long known as the Gray Lady?...

Every day during Black History Month, we will publish at least one of these photographs online, illuminating stories that were never told in our pages and others that have been mostly forgotten...

Many of these photographs, and their stories, are equally intriguing. But the collection is far from comprehensive. There are gaps, for many reasons."

Five Charged in U.S. With Stealing Secrets From GlaxoSmithKline; Reuters via New York Times, 1/20/16

Reuters via New York Times; Five Charged in U.S. With Stealing Secrets From GlaxoSmithKline:

"Five people, including two former GlaxoSmithKline researchers, were charged with a scheme to steal trade secrets from the British drugmaker for potential sale in China, according to indictments announced by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia on Wednesday.

The indictments include charges of conspiracy to steal trade secrets, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, theft of trade secrets, and wire fraud...

The alleged conspirators established three corporations in China, all using the name Renopharma, to sell the stolen information that could be used to reproduce Glaxo products and drugs in development, to competitors in China, according to the complaint."

Aaron Swartz and copyright wars in the Internet age; Boston Globe, 1/28/16

Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe; Aaron Swartz and copyright wars in the Internet age:

"Swartz is a particularly tragic casualty of a conflict as old as the Gutenberg Bible. When copycats can easily republish the latest Charles Dickens novel or Adele CD, how will artists and publishers get paid? But laws to protect intellectual-property rights can cripple the free exchange of ideas.

Justin Peters seems as helpless as the rest of us to resolve this dilemma. But in his lucid and witty new book, he ably sketches the contours of the dilemma...

Peters places Swartz’s well-meant misdeeds in historical context, showing how this young man was one of many smart, ambitious combatants on both sides of the copyright wars.

"I can’t fault Peters’s sympathy for Swartz, and I share his opinion that the prosecutorial sledgehammer fell much too hard. But Peters seems a little too inclined to play the populist, sneering at the pro-copyright arguments of publishers. Yes, our current intellectual property statutes are absurdly restrictive. But apart from strong protections, how would artists and writers hope to make a decent living?

The conundrum continues, with activists on both sides engaged in constant efforts to redraw the boundaries. Peters’s new book is an excellent survey of the battlefield, and a sobering memorial to its most tragic victim."

Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free; Atlantic, 1/26/16

Jane C. Hu, Atlantic; Academics Want You to Read Their Work for Free:

"Whitaker, who founded two other Elsevier journals and has a combined 50 years of editorial experience with the company, came into his new position after he heard about the former Lingua board’s actions and contacted Elsevier to express his dismay. “I disagreed with just about everything they were doing,” he said. He came out of retirement to sign a new contract with Elsevier in early January, and has since recruited several interim editors. He says that he and his editorial staff have received a fair amount of animosity from Glossa supporters.

But Whitaker stands firmly in favor of for-profit publishing; noting that publishers’ profits allow them to invest in new projects. (Elsevier gave Whitaker funds to found two new journals—Brain and Cognition and Brain and Language.) Plus, he says, profits ensure longevity. “That’s one of the many reasons I support the idea of a publisher that makes money,” he says. “Lingua will be here when I retire, and Lingua will be here when I die.”

The fate of Cognition, meanwhile remains to be seen. Barner and Snedeker plan to submit their petition to Elsevier on Wednesday. “The battle has been taken from a very small region—linguistics—to a much larger one,” says Rooryck. Barner and Snedeker are staying silent about their long-term plans, but their request sends a clear message to publishers: Scientists are ready for change."

‘Let’s Play’ enters the public domain as USPTO kills Sony’s trademark attempt; Digital Trends, 1/29/16

Danny Cowan, Digital Trends; ‘Let’s Play’ enters the public domain as USPTO kills Sony’s trademark attempt:

"After reviewing the matter, the USPTO found that “Let’s Play” was part of a larger vernacular, and is therefore ineligible for trademark. The new decision all but ensures that Sony’s attempted trademark is dead in the water.

The McArthur Law Firm takes credit for the revised decision, noting that it submitted “over 50 examples of how Let’s Play is generic and descriptive of video game streaming” in order to thwart Sony’s trademark attempt.

“The gaming community spoke, and the USPTO listened!” the firm announced this week."

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office News, 1/28/16

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office News:

"A report issued today by the U.S. Department of Commerce recommends amendments to copyright law that would provide courts with both more guidance and greater flexibility in awarding statutory damages.

In its "White Paper on Remixes, First Sale, and Statutory Damages," the Department’s Internet Policy Task Force (IPTF) sets forth its conclusions on three important copyright topics in the digital age: (1) the legal framework for the creation of remixes; (2) the relevance and scope of the “first sale doctrine;” and (3) the appropriate calibration of statutory damages in the contexts of individual file sharers and secondary liability for large-scale infringement.

The White Paper recommends amending the Copyright Act to incorporate a list of factors for courts and juries to consider when determining the amount of a statutory damages award. In addition, it advises changes to remove a bar to eligibility for the Act’s “innocent infringer” provision, and to lessen the risk of excessive statutory damages in the context of non-willful secondary liability for online service providers...

This new report follows up on issues first discussed in a 2013 IPTF Green Paper, "Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy," and is the product of two sets of written comments and five public meetings and roundtables conducted through the following year.

The IPTF is made up of representatives from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and other Commerce Department agencies.

The White Paper and additional background information can be found online at: www.uspto.gov/copyright-white-paper-2016."

Pass the Defend Trade Secrets Act; The Hill, 1/27/16

Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Chris Coons (D-Del.), The Hill; Pass the Defend Trade Secrets Act:

"Every year, industrial spies infiltrate American companies, stealing valuable trade secrets and leaking them to domestic competitors and corporations overseas. This crime cripples innovation and hampers economic growth, costing U.S. businesses billions of dollars each year. What’s worse, federal law does little to protect against this form of intellectual property theft. In fact, trade secrets are the only form of intellectual property lacking remedies under federal civil law. To safeguard American ingenuity and give companies the protections they deserve, Congress should act now to pass the Defend Trade Secrets Act, which we authored earlier this year.

In addition to the billions of dollars in direct economic costs, trade secret theft also stifles innovation by deterring companies from investing in research and development. Consider the case of DuPont—the chemical company that invented the life-saving Kevlar body armor used by our service members. DuPont invested significant time and resources developing a Kevlar material strong enough to withstand the penetrating trauma of rifle rounds and grenade shrapnel. Because of the company’s efforts, DuPont has saved thousands of lives.

But six years ago, a rogue employee leaked the manufacturing process of Kevlar to a rival company in South Korea, costing DuPont nearly $1 billion in economic losses. In an instant, the company’s comparative advantage—which it had earned after investing thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars—disappeared. Lacking a federal private right of action, DuPont executives were fortunate that the FBI was able to conduct a successful criminal investigation under the Economic Espionage Act. But the FBI lacks the resources to investigate the tens of thousand or more thefts that take place each year. Last year, in fact, the Department of Justice brought only 15 criminal cases for trade secret theft. The absence of a federal private right of action for trade secret misappropriation leaves American intellectual property vulnerable to theft and discourages research and innovation."

With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company; New York Times, 1/27/16

Mike McPhate, New York Times; With Corbis Sale, Tiananmen Protest Images Go to Chinese Media Company:

"Corbis, the photography archive owned by Bill Gates that includes some of the most famous pictures ever made, has sold its image and licensing division to a Chinese company.

The sale gives the new owner, Visual China Group, control over photographs of immense cultural and commercial value — Marilyn Monroe on a subway grate, Rosa Parks on a bus, Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock and Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue.

But it has been the transfer of images from the 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, an event that China’s Communist Party has aggressively blotted out of public view ever since, that has perhaps raised the most alarm."

Hacking the Patent System: Improved, Expanded Guide to Patent Licensing Alternatives; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 1/26/16

Elliott Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Hacking the Patent System: Improved, Expanded Guide to Patent Licensing Alternatives:

"We're pleased to announce the 2016 edition of Hacking the Patent System, a guide to alternative patent licensing produced by the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property & Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law School in partnership with EFF and Engine. First published in 2014, the guide provides a high-level overview of several tools that inventors and innovators could use to avert unnecessary and costly patent litigation (or at least to avoid trollish behavior themselves).

The tools we cover fall roughly into three categories: defensive patent aggregators, defensive patent pledges, and insurance. Generally speaking, defensive aggregators use the pooled resources of member companies to purchase patents that may otherwise have been purchased by trolls."

CHORUS Inks Agreement with NSF, USGS, NIST; Library Journal, 1/21/16

Lisa Peet, Library Journal; CHORUS Inks Agreement with NSF, USGS, NIST:

"CHORUS (the Clearinghouse for the Open Research of the United States) has partnered with a number of federal agencies over the past six months to help them comply with the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directives requiring open access to federally funded research. The United States Department of Energy (DOE), the Smithsonian Institution, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), and U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have all reached agreements with CHORUS.

CHORUS was formed as a not-for-profit membership organization in 2013 in response to the OSTP memo, which required all federal funding agencies to develop public access plans for sharing both research data and peer-reviewed publications. Using metadata such as funder identifiers, award numbers, and Open Researcher and Contributor IDs (ORCIDs), CHORUS provides stable digital identifiers to full-text peer-reviewed articles after an embargo period, customarily 12 months. These can then be accessed by funders, institutions, researchers, publishers, and the public through CHORUS’s open application programming interfaces (APIs), which include search and dashboard services. CHORUS identifies federal funding through Funding Data, previously called FundRef, which collects funding source information for publications deposited with the nonprofit citation linker Crossref."

‘X-Men: Danger Room Protocols’ shut down after one episode; ComicBookResources.com, 1/25/16

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; ‘X-Men: Danger Room Protocols’ shut down after one episode:

"“X-Men: Danger Room Protocols,” a fan-made animated tribute to the 1990s cartoon and comics, has ended after just one episode, purportedly due to legal pressure from Marvel.

“When I set out to make this project, I never really thought this was going to be an issue,” creator Joel Furtado said in a video posted this morning. “I didn’t think that Marvel was going to react this way, and this outcome, for me, is a little bit shocking.”

When contacted by ROBOT 6, Marvel declined comment.

Launched last week, the project was planned as a series of 18 episodes, each pairing two X-Men in a Danger Room training exercise (hence the title). Furtado had described “Danger Room Protocols” as “a love letter to Marvel and my childhood, as well as a way to give something back to the fans.”"

Watson helped IBM win more patents than any other company last year; New York Business Journal, 1/13/16

Michael del Castillo, New York Business Journal; Watson helped IBM win more patents than any other company last year:

"Even after 104 years, IBM is still the most innovative company in the United States by at least by one important metric: patents.

With 7,355 patents granted in 2015 IBM — which was founded in 1911 — crushed the competition, thanks in part to its artificial intelligence system, Watson, based in Astor Place in the East Village.

“More than 2,000 of IBM’s patents last year were related to its cloud and cognitive computing,” an IBM representative wrote to the New York Business Journal this morning. “Many of which are in use and part of the Watson offering’s capabilities.”

Two patents specifically mentioned in the IBM press release are Patent US9117446, which helps machines understand human emotion, and Patent US9146917, which helps machines learn from human beings."

If Patents Are So Valuable Why Does IBM's Intellectual Property Revenue Continue To Decline; Forbes, 1/19/16

Chuck Jones, Forbes; If Patents Are So Valuable Why Does IBM's Intellectual Property Revenue Continue To Decline:

"IBM was awarded 7,355 patents in 2015 which was the 23rd year in a row it has received the most patents. Over 2,000 of last year’s patents were related to cognitive computing and the company’s cloud platform. Over the 23 years IBM has received over 88,000 patents and I would estimate they have generated about $20 billion or more of IP (intellectual property) related revenue.

While the value of patents isn’t calculated just by the revenue they generate, it is interesting to see how IBM is doing with this financial line item. Between 2008 and 2012 IBM’s patent portfolio generated between $1.1 and $1.2 billion per year. It has fallen each year since then to $742 million in 2014 and could fall again in 2015 to under $700 million."

US Copyright Office is taking comments about how well the DMCA is working; ArsTechnica.com, 1/6/16

Joe Mullin, ArsTechnica.com; US Copyright Office is taking comments about how well the DMCA is working:

"If you're feeling down about the DMCA this winter—or feeling just skippy about it—there's a government agency that wants to hear from you. On December 31, the US Copyright Office said it intends to take public comments about the effectiveness of the DMCA and its "safe harbor" provisions.

The comments will be part of a "public study to evaluate the impact and effectiveness of the safe harbor provisions" of the DMCA. Questions that the office wants to consider include:...

There are 30 numbered questions in all (but there's no requirement to address every point.) The questions and other information about the study are listed in the Federal Register notice.

Specific instructions on how to submit the comments will be posted by February 1 on the Copyright Office website, and comments are due by March 21. While a comment to the Copyright Office is a long way from influencing policy, the discussion could be interesting. Many of those on the receiving end of DMCA notices tend to think it's a "shoot first, ask questions later" approach to the problem, while content owners concerned about piracy have long held that the DMCA is too burdensome on them."

What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us; New York Times, 1/22/16

Joe Karaganis and David McClure, New York Times; What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us:

"COLLEGE course syllabuses are curious documents. They represent the best efforts by faculty and instructors to distill human knowledge on a given subject into 14-week chunks. They structure the main activity of colleges and universities. And then, for the most part, they disappear.

Some schools archive them, some don’t. Some syllabus archives are public, some aren’t. Some faculty members treat their syllabuses as trade secrets, others are happy to post them online. Despite the bureaucratization of higher education over the past few decades, syllabuses have escaped systematic treatment.

Until now. Over the past two years, we and our partners at the Open Syllabus Project (based at the American Assembly at Columbia) have collected more than a million syllabuses from university websites. We have also begun to extract some of their key components — their metadata — starting with their dates, their schools, their fields of study and the texts that they assign.

This past week, we made available online a beta version of our Syllabus Explorer, which allows this database to be searched. Our hope and expectation is that this tool will enable people to learn new things about teaching, publishing and intellectual history."

Celebrating Copyright Week with a Theatrical Copyright Revue; Public Knowledge, 1/20/16

Meredith Filak Rose, Public Knowledge; Celebrating Copyright Week with a Theatrical Copyright Revue:

"We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, copyright allies are taking on different elements of the law, addressing what's at stake, and discussing what we need to do to make sure that copyright promotes creativity and innovation.

Happy Copyright Week! To celebrate, I’m looking back on all the exciting copyright cases that have occurred since last year’s Copyright Week, with courts and the music industry alike tackling everything from uncredited sampling to fair use dancing babies. I’ve rounded up some of the highlights of the year’s upheaval, and took the liberty of suggesting a few edits to reflect the changing times. (And yes, that does mean I’ll be reviewing landmark music copyright cases via lyrical skits.)"

Copyright Week; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Copyright Week

Open Access Movement Demands More: 2015 in Review; Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), 1/2/16

Elliot Harmon, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF); Open Access Movement Demands More: 2015 in Review:

"In October 2015, all six editors of the linguistics journal Lingua quit at once, along with its 31-member editorial board. The walkout brought mainstream attention to a debate that has been brewing for years over the future of academic publishing.

Elsevier—Lingua’s publisher—classifies it as a hybrid journal. By default, Lingua is available only to subscribers (or to institutions that purchase access to journals in bulk). Individual writers can choose to have their articles shared openly if they pay an additional fee. In principle, there’s nothing wrong with those fees—most major open journals have article processing charges, as do many closed journals. But Lingua’s editors believed that their journal’s fee was prohibitively high and didn’t correspond to increased support from Elsevier. The same team is planning to launch a new journal next year with the growing open access publisher Ubiquity Press.

In a lot of ways, what happened at Lingua is emblematic of something that’s been happening all year. If 2014 was the year that the open access movement became mainstream, then this is the year we stopped compromising with closed publishers.

One of the biggest tactics the open access movement can use to effect change is encouraging research funders to adopt open access policies—that is, policies that require that any work they fund be shared openly. Creative Commons reports that in 2015, five major foundations adopted policies requiring any research they fund to be published under an open license: the Ford Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the Vancouver Foundation."

Dutch lead European push to flip journals to open access; Nature, 1/6/16

Declan Butler, Nature; Dutch lead European push to flip journals to open access:

"The Netherlands is leading what it hopes will be a pan-European effort in 2016 to push scholarly publishers towards open-access (OA) business models: making more papers free for all users as soon as they are published.

In 2014, publishers worldwide made 17% of new papers OA immediately on publication, up from 12% in 2011 (see ‘Growth of open access’). But most papers are still locked behind paywalls when they are first published. The Dutch government, which took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union council of ministers this month, has declared furthering OA to be one of its top priorities...

A major driving force for the Dutch and British deals was to combat the expensive and controversial ‘hybrid’ business models that have been adopted by many subscription journals worldwide. Hybrid journals collect subscriptions but allow authors to make individual papers open for a fee. They charge higher fees, on average, than do fully OA journals, yet scientists who want OA papers often choose to publish with them because they are generally more established or prestigious than many recently launched OA journals."

U.S. Top Court to Examine How Government Agency Reviews Patents; Reuters via New York Times, 1/15/16

Reuters via New York Times; U.S. Top Court to Examine How Government Agency Reviews Patents:

"The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether a federal agency's procedures have made it too easy to successfully cancel patents after agreeing on Friday to decide a case involving a vehicle speedometer that alerts drivers if they are speeding.

The nine justices will hear an appeal filed by Cuozzo Speed Technologies LLC, whose speedometer patent was invalidated in a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review procedure after being challenged by GPS device maker Garmin Ltd in 2012.

Companies that are frequent targets of patent suits, including Apple Inc and Google Inc, have taken advantage of the patent office procedure, known as inter partes review (IPR), in unexpectedly high numbers since it was put in place in 2012.

These reviews allow anyone to challenge the validity of a patent far more cheaply and quickly than in a U.S. federal court.

The high court justices will now consider whether the patent office is improperly interpreting the patents that come before it in the reviews. Critics say this leads to a high rate of patent cancellations."

Fan-made ‘X-Men: Danger Room Protocols’ calls in the Sentinels; ComicBookResources.com, 1/19/16

Kevin Melrose, ComicBookResources.com; Fan-made ‘X-Men: Danger Room Protocols’ calls in the Sentinels:

"Wolverine and Jean Grey team up against the Sentinels in the premiere episode of the animated web series X-Men: Danger Room Protocols, a fan tribute to the 1990s cartoon and comics.

Announced earlier this month, the biweekly project by Joel Furtado is exactly as advertised: Classic X-Men are placed by Professor X into teams of two and put through their paces in the Danger Room.

Anne Frank's diary caught in fierce European copyright battle; Guardian, 1/18/16

Alison Flood, Guardian; Anne Frank's diary caught in fierce European copyright battle:

"In a letter to Ertzscheid sent in late December, the foundation asks him to “cease and desist” from making The Diary of a Young Girl available online, to “immediately” announce he was “misinformed” about the copyright in the diary, to compensate damages, and to pay €1,000 each day he does not comply with the instructions, or risk court proceedings.

Ertzscheid went ahead, however, describing it as a “gift”. “This first of January 2016, 70 years after the death of Anne Frank, because this is enough time and because it is legal, this diary, her diary, enters the public domain. It belongs to everyone. And it is up to each of us to weigh its importance,” he wrote."

Yosemite to Rename Several Iconic Places; Outside, 1/14/16

Christopher Solomon, Outside; Yosemite to Rename Several Iconic Places:

"The outgoing company also trademarked “Yosemite National Park” for merchandising purposes, said Gediman. Will you be able to buy a Yosemite T-shirt at the gift shop come March 1? “That’s something that remains to be determined,” he said.

The announcement is the latest drama in a long legal dispute between the park service and the concessionaire, DNC Parks & Resorts at Yosemite, Inc. And it comes as the agency kicks off the centennial celebration year of America’s national parks system—when the park service would rather be feting America’s parks, not painting over signs at one of its marquee locations.

The news angered some park watchers.

“It’s a really unfortunate situation where the National Park Service is being held hostage by a corporate concessionaire who clearly does not have the public interest at heart,” said Amy Trainer, executive director of the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin. “I think this is pretty outrageous that the park service, because of a 50-plus-million-dollar lawsuit, is forced to change these historic namesakes,” Trainer said. “It’s a tragedy.”...

The federal government might find some relief, however, in a law Congress passed in late 2014 that allows the government to keep a name that’s historically associated with a building or structure that is either on, or eligible, to be included on the National Register of Historic Places, says Sitzmann."

Before I Can Fix This Tractor, We Have to Fix Copyright Law; Future Tense, 1/13/16

Kyle Wiens, Future Tense; Before I Can Fix This Tractor, We Have to Fix Copyright Law:

"These hard-won exemptions last only until the next rulemaking. (That’s how unlocking your cellphone went from legal to illegal, before Congress stepped in.) In three years, proponents will have to find a way to do this all over again. This is not sustainable process—not for participants and not for the Copyright Office.

It’s time to level the playing field. Let’s make these exemptions less restrictive and shift the burden of proof a little. Instead of making supporters go to extreme lengths to show that an exemption is absolutely necessary, how about asking the opposition to show that an exemption is absolutely unnecessary? At the very least, Congress should remove the expiration date on exemptions. Once granted, exemptions should be permanent.

I’m a repairman. I recognize broken things when I see them. I got into this fight because I wanted to help people repair their broken stuff. Turns out, copyright law is the thing that was broken all along."

David Bowie Wasn't Just An Incredible Music Visionary, But An Internet & Business Model Visionary Too; Techdirt.com, 1/11/16

Mike Masnick, Techdirt.com; David Bowie Wasn't Just An Incredible Music Visionary, But An Internet & Business Model Visionary Too:

All the way back in 1996, he was the first major musician to release music only on the internet, launching the single for "Telling Lies" as a direct download off of his website, and announcing it in an online chat session. Yes, nearly 20 years ago, Bowie embraced internet distribution for his music."

European Union: European Commission On Harmonisation Of EU Copyright Rules; Mondaq.com, 1/11/16

Peter L'Ecluse and Thibaut D'hulst, Mondaq.com; European Union: European Commission On Harmonisation Of EU Copyright Rules:

"As announced in its 2016 Work Programme (See, VBB on Business Law, Volume 2015, No. 10, p. 15, available at www.vbb.com), the European Commission presented on 9 December 2015 its vision on a further harmonisation of EU copyright rules as part of its Digital Single Market Strategy (the "Communication"). To achieve a wide availability of creative contents across the European Union while maintaining a high level of protection for right holders, the European Commission considers it necessary to have a higher level of harmonisation and adapt copyright rules to new technological realities. To achieve this goal, the European Commission focuses on the following courses of action."

U.S. Marshalls raid a Chinese hoverboard maker’s booth at CES; Digital Trends, 1/8/16

Ed Oswald, Digital Trends; U.S. Marshalls raid a Chinese hoverboard maker’s booth at CES:

"The company sent a cease-and-desist letter to Changzhou in December, but received no response. Future Motion’s lawyer told Bloomberg that his company again tried to reach out the day before the show opened, but failed to achieve any resolution. On Wednesday, Future Motion filed a request with a federal judge to bar Changzhou from displaying its version, which the judge approved, and the result was Thursday’s raid.

As far as we can tell, this is the first time a seizure of this magnitude has happened on the floor of CES. The show itself actually has policies intended to discourage disputes on the show floor, including prohibiting “loud” disputes, and limiting the number of company representatives (two employees, a translator, and a lawyer) who can approach another company’s booth over an intellectual property infringement claim."

The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’; Washington Post, 1/10/16

Justin Jouvenal, Washington Post; The new way police are surveilling you: Calculating your threat ‘score’ :

"Police officials say such tools can provide critical information that can help uncover terrorists or thwart mass shootings, ensure the safety of officers and the public, find suspects, and crack open cases. They say that last year’s attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have only underscored the need for such measures.

But the powerful systems also have become flash points for civil libertarians and activists, who say they represent a troubling intrusion on privacy, have been deployed with little public oversight and have potential for abuse or error. Some say laws are needed to protect the public."

Monkey Has No Rights to Its Selfie, Federal Judge Says; New York Times, 1/8/16

Mike McPhate, New York Times; Monkey Has No Rights to Its Selfie, Federal Judge Says:

"“A monkey, an animal-rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue for infringement of the monkey’s claimed copyright. What seems like the setup for a punch line is really happening.”

Judge Orrick explained from the bench on Wednesday that he had no authority to extend such rights to animals.

“This is an issue for Congress and the president,” he said, according to Ars Technica. “If they think animals should have the right of copyright, they’re free, I think, under the Constitution, to do that.”"

‘The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet,’ by Justin Peters; New York Times Book Review, 1/8/16

Stephen Witt, New York Times Book Review; ‘The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet,’ by Justin Peters:

"By the end of “The Idealist,” Peters has dropped the pretension of neutrality and taken up Swartz’s crusade. This is fine, I think — it wouldn’t be a good biography if it didn’t have a point of view. But in the final pages, as Peters dons the sports coat of the history lecturer and draws a lame comparison between Aaron Swartz and Noah Webster, he disappoints once again. It’s the whole book in microcosm: superb when it focuses on its subject, unnecessary when it veers away."

New York Public Library Invites a Deep Digital Dive; New York Times, 1/6/16

Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times; New York Public Library Invites a Deep Digital Dive:

"But the game is what you might call a marketing teaser for a major redistribution of property, digitally speaking: the release of more than 180,000 photographs, postcards, maps and other public-domain items from the library’s special collections in downloadable high-resolution files — along with an invitation to users to grab them and do with them whatever they please.

Digitization has been all the rage over the past decade, as libraries, museums and other institutions have scanned millions of items and posted them online. But the library’s initiative (nypl.org/publicdomain), which goes live on Wednesday, goes beyond the practical questions of how and what to digitize to the deeper one of what happens next...

A growing number of institutions have been rallying under the banner of “open content.” While the library’s new initiative represents one of the largest releases of visually rich material since the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam began making more than 200,000 works available in high-quality scans free of charge in 2012, it’s notable for more than its size.

“It’s not just a data dump,” said Dan Cohen, the executive director of the Digital Public Library of America, a consortium that offers one-stop access to digitized holdings from more than 1,300 institutions.

The New York Public has “really been thinking about how they can get others to use this material,” Mr. Cohen continued. “It’s a next step that I would like to see more institutions take.”

Most items in the public-domain release have already been visible at the library’s digital collections portal. The difference is that the highest-quality files will now be available for free and immediate download, along with the programming interfaces, known as APIs, that allow developers to use them more easily."