Thomas A. Kennedy, Fortune;
"Is there a bounty on your intellectual property?
It’s more likely than you think. Earlier this month,
news broke that FBI agents investigating a case of corporate cyber theft
seized a handbook revealing what China was willing to pay to
“individuals or entities who can provide certain technologies.”
Nation-states have been using cyber hacking to
actively target valuable intellectual property, or IP, for years.
However, what may be startling to the public is that state-sponsored IP
theft is so organized and methodical; criminal hackers receive catalogs
of the most-wanted technologies, referred to as “collection
requirements,” each with associated bounties.
For business, university, and research lab leaders,
it begs a couple of questions: Do any of your employees have such
handbooks? And if they were stockpiling and exporting sensitive data,
would you know before it was too late?"
Mary Juetten, Forbes;
[Kip Currier: Cautionary real-world tale about the vital need for Intellectual Property literacy, and "consulting with a lawyer on a regular basis", as the author of this article--the first in a Forbes series of "IP Tales from the Crypt"-esque stories--encourages.]
"In the startup tips series, both the need for intellectual property (IP) protection and foundational protections, like employment and contract agreements
were outlined. However, I would like to shift gears now and start a
series of lessons learned or in some cases, IP horror stories. If you
are interested in contributing please see below.
I spoke with New Orleans lawyer, Andrew Legrand of Spera Law
about an interesting cautionary tale concerning an artist who had
developed a logo for a small business about ten years prior and the
business that paid for it but did not have the rights assigned. In
other words, you do not necessarily get what you pay for. There will be a
theme in our stories where clients either do not know that they need to
identify and protect their IP or they consciously decide that it’s not
worth the time or money."
Lexology; A Presentation on Legal Issues for Podcasters - Who Owns What?
"Last week, I spoke at Podcast Movement 2018 – a large conference of podcasters held in Philadelphia. My presentation, Legal Issues In Podcasting – What Broadcasters Need to Know, was part of the Broadcasters Meet Podcasters Track. The slides from my presentation are available here. In the presentation, I discussed copyright issues, including some of the music rights issues discussed in my articles here and here,
making clear that broadcaster’s current music licenses from ASCAP, BMI,
SESAC and even SoundExchange don’t provide them the rights to use music
in podcasts. Instead, those rights need to be cleared directly with the
holders of the copyrights in both the underlying musical compositions
as well as in any sound recording of the song used in the podcast."
Susan Decker, Bloomberg News; Seeking a Vulgar Trademark? Better Wait for Supreme Court Review
"The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has placed suspensions on trademark
applications that contain “scandalous or vulgar” words while it
considers whether to ask the Supreme Court to look at the issue...
There’s always the chance that the trademark office will put other
roadblocks in front of applications even if the “scandalous” standard
goes away, like saying that the trademark doesn’t really identify the
source of a good or service, or that it’s only an ornamental use.
And
there’s no indication the ruling has led to a rise in applications for
what many would consider hate speech, Baird said. One reason -- you have
to pay the application fees and show you actually are using the
trademark."
Guest blog by Linda Hosler, Deputy Program Manager for USPTO partnerships;
A conversation with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at the 2018 Trademark Expo
"On July 27 and 28, guests poured in to the Smithsonian’s National
Museum of American History to participate in the 2018 National Trademark
Exposition. This free biennial event supports the USPTO’s mission of
educating the public about the vital role intellectual property
protections—in this case trademarks— play
in our increasingly competitive global marketplace. More than twenty
exhibitors, including government entities, non-profits, small
businesses, and corporations from all over the country provided
thought-provoking interactive displays and educational workshops.
Keynoting at this year’s expo was NBA All-Star, author, and
entrepreneur, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. I had the opportunity to sit down
with Abdul-Jabbar to find out what made him the industry giant he is
today—not surprisingly, it is much more than his 7 foot 2 inch stature."
Tara Matthews, Technical.ly; Why Pittsburgh’s Innovation and Performance team takes an open-source approach to open data
"This is a guest post by Tara Matthews, the
senior digital services analyst at the City of Pittsburgh's Department
of Innovation and Performance.
Picture it: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. October 2015.
It was the birth of what would be named the Western Pennsylvania Regional Data Center (also known as the WPRDC, also known as “Whopper Duck”), an all-star collaboration between the City of Pittsburgh, Allegheny County and the University of Pittsburgh.
This
put us in the unique position of hosting not just city and county data,
but data from non-governmental organizations such as the Carnegie Library and Bike PGH, as well as other local service providers such as the Port Authority of Allegheny County. This required a specialized set-up, which is why WPRDC is based in CKAN, an open-source data management system that allowed for a completely custom configuration.
The Data Center launch coincided with the kickoff of the city’s Open Data program, managed by the city’s Department of Innovation and Performance."
