Kalev Leetaru, Forbes; Should Open Access And Open Data Come With Open Ethics?
"In the end, the academic community must decide if “openness” and “transparency” apply only to the final outputs of our scholarly institutions, with individual researchers, many from fields without histories of ethical prereview, are exclusively empowered to decide what constitutes ethical and moral conduct and just how much privacy should be permitted in our digital society, or if we should add “open ethics” to our focus on open access and open data and open universities up to public discourse on just what the future of “big data” research should look like."
Friday, July 21, 2017
Thursday, July 20, 2017
The spread of 3D models creates intellectual-property problems; The Economist, July 20, 2017
The Economist; The spread of 3D models creates intellectual-property problems
"GROOT, a character from Disney’s film “Guardians of the Galaxy”, is usually mass-produced by the entertainment company as a small, collectable figurine and sold by retailers such as Toys “R” Us. But just before the release of the second film in the franchise earlier this year, Byambasuren Erdenejargal, a Mongolian enthusiast, noticed that people in a 3D-printing group on Facebook were searching for a computer model of Groot. So Mr Erdenejargal decided to create one. He spent four days perfecting the design and its printability before uploading his creation to Thingiverse, an online 3D-printing community based in New York. His digital model of the arboreal creature has since been downloaded (and probably printed in physical form) over 75,000 times."
"GROOT, a character from Disney’s film “Guardians of the Galaxy”, is usually mass-produced by the entertainment company as a small, collectable figurine and sold by retailers such as Toys “R” Us. But just before the release of the second film in the franchise earlier this year, Byambasuren Erdenejargal, a Mongolian enthusiast, noticed that people in a 3D-printing group on Facebook were searching for a computer model of Groot. So Mr Erdenejargal decided to create one. He spent four days perfecting the design and its printability before uploading his creation to Thingiverse, an online 3D-printing community based in New York. His digital model of the arboreal creature has since been downloaded (and probably printed in physical form) over 75,000 times."
RadioShack brand to survive under new owner: sources; Reuters, July 19, 2017
Jessica DiNapoli, Reuters; RadioShack brand to survive under new owner: sources
"The RadioShack brand will live on after a family office already owed $23 million by the bankrupt U.S. electronics chain agreed to assume ownership of it, as no other buyers submitted better bids this week, people familiar with the matter said.
An affiliate of Kensington Capital Holdings, a family office based in the suburbs of Boston, will acquire RadioShack's intellectual property after it submitted a $15 million bid, the people said on Wednesday."
"The RadioShack brand will live on after a family office already owed $23 million by the bankrupt U.S. electronics chain agreed to assume ownership of it, as no other buyers submitted better bids this week, people familiar with the matter said.
An affiliate of Kensington Capital Holdings, a family office based in the suburbs of Boston, will acquire RadioShack's intellectual property after it submitted a $15 million bid, the people said on Wednesday."
Copyright Case Over Richard Prince Instagram Show to Go Forward; New York Times, July 20, 2017
Andrew R. Chow, New York Times; Copyright Case Over Richard Prince Instagram Show to Go Forward
"Richard Prince, who has pushed the legal limits of artistic appropriation for decades, will continue to fight for his art in court. This week, a federal judge in New York refused to throw out a photographer’s lawsuit against Mr. Prince over Mr. Prince’s use of an image in an exhibition. The case will continue, and could set a precedent for how the fair-use doctrine relates to Instagram, the photo-sharing app."
"Richard Prince, who has pushed the legal limits of artistic appropriation for decades, will continue to fight for his art in court. This week, a federal judge in New York refused to throw out a photographer’s lawsuit against Mr. Prince over Mr. Prince’s use of an image in an exhibition. The case will continue, and could set a precedent for how the fair-use doctrine relates to Instagram, the photo-sharing app."
Frances Gabe, Creator of the Only Self-Cleaning Home, Dies at 101; New York Times, July 18, 2017
Margalit Fox, New York Times; Frances Gabe, Creator of the Only Self-Cleaning Home, Dies at 101
"More than half a century ago, incensed by the housecleaning that was a woman’s chronic lot, Ms. Gabe began to dream of a house that would see to its own hygiene: tenderly washing, rinsing and drying itself at the touch of a button.
“Housework is a thankless, unending job,” she told The Ottawa Citizen in 1996. “It’s a nerve-twangling bore. Who wants it? Nobody!”
And so, with her own money and her own hands, she built just such a house, receiving United States patent 4,428,085 in 1984.
In a 1982 column about Ms. Gabe’s work, the humorist Erma Bombeck proposed her as “a new face for Mount Rushmore.”"
"More than half a century ago, incensed by the housecleaning that was a woman’s chronic lot, Ms. Gabe began to dream of a house that would see to its own hygiene: tenderly washing, rinsing and drying itself at the touch of a button.
“Housework is a thankless, unending job,” she told The Ottawa Citizen in 1996. “It’s a nerve-twangling bore. Who wants it? Nobody!”
And so, with her own money and her own hands, she built just such a house, receiving United States patent 4,428,085 in 1984.
In a 1982 column about Ms. Gabe’s work, the humorist Erma Bombeck proposed her as “a new face for Mount Rushmore.”"
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Inventors Corner: How long does the patent process take?; Sioux Falls Business Journal via Argus Leader, July 18, 2017
Jeffrey Proehl, Sioux Falls Business Journal via Argus Leader; Inventors Corner: How long does the patent process take?
"Recent USPTO statistics suggest that this time period is becoming shorter, with the average length being about 16 months in 2016 as compared to about 28 months in 2011. Once the first communication is issued by the USPTO, things tend to move faster because of the deadlines imposed upon the applicant to respond to the communication and upon the patent examiner to act upon the applicant’s response.
The overall consideration time for a patent application also varies significantly, with the average being approximately 25 months unless the applicant needs to file a request for continued examination to obtain additional consideration by the examiner, in which case the time averages approximately 54 months."
"Recent USPTO statistics suggest that this time period is becoming shorter, with the average length being about 16 months in 2016 as compared to about 28 months in 2011. Once the first communication is issued by the USPTO, things tend to move faster because of the deadlines imposed upon the applicant to respond to the communication and upon the patent examiner to act upon the applicant’s response.
The overall consideration time for a patent application also varies significantly, with the average being approximately 25 months unless the applicant needs to file a request for continued examination to obtain additional consideration by the examiner, in which case the time averages approximately 54 months."
How to make sure we all benefit when nonprofits patent technologies like CRISPR; The Conversation via The Associated Press via WTOP, July 19, 2017
The Conversation via The Associated Press via WTOP; How to make sure we all benefit when nonprofits patent technologies like CRISPR
"(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
"(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Shobita Parthasarathy, University of Michigan
(THE CONVERSATION) Universities and other nonprofit research institutions are under increasing fire about their commitments to the public interest. In return for tax-exempt status, their work is supposed to benefit society.
But are they really operating in the public interest when they wield their patent rights in ways that constrict research? Or when potentially lifesaving inventions are priced so high that access is limited? The public partially underwrites nonprofit discoveries via tax breaks and isn’t seeing a lot of benefit in return.
Questions like these arose recently in the case of CRISPR, the promising new gene-editing technology. After patenting it, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard sold the exclusive right to develop CRISPR-based therapies to its sister company Editas Medicine. Critics worry that this monopoly could limit important research and result in exorbitant prices on emerging treatments."
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