Tech Daily Dose

Put 'Em In The [IP] Hall Of Fame

The nonprofit Intellectual Property Hall of Fame is seeking nominations for 2008 inductees. The award is designed to honor individuals who have made significant contributions to today’s IP regime and is limited to five inductees this year. The award is sponsored by the U.K.-based Intellectual Asset Management Magazine.

Previous winners include former U.S. commissioner of patents and trademarks Gerald Mossinghoff; U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman; and Microsoft IP Chief Marshall Phelps. Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were also honored for their insistence that IP rights be specifically safeguarded by the Constitution. (Hat tip to Patently-O for the info).

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Constitutional Flaw Could Impact Patent Rulings

The New York Times ran an interesting story on Tuesday about a George Washington University law professor who has discovered a constitutional flaw in the appointment process over the last eight years for judges who decide patent appeals and disputes. John Duffy's short paper documenting the problem seems poised to undo thousands of patent decisions concerning claims worth billions of dollars.

Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official without the constitutional power to do so, the paper reports. "I actually ran it by a number of colleagues who teach administrative law and constitutional law," Duffy said, recalling his own astonishment at finding such a chink in the legal armor.

Although a spokesman for the Justice Department would not offer a comment, the agency has already all but conceded that Duffy is right, the article states. Given the opportunity to dispute him in a December appeals court filing, government lawyers said only that they were at work on a legislative solution. Read the full story here.

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NY AG Cracks Down On IP Theft (With Tina Fey)

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced an aggressive new approach to fighting piracy in the Empire State on Monday. Cuomo, who was joined at a press briefing by Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman and NBC President Jeff Zucker, announced that he is appointing a special intellectual property deputy and is proposing new legislation that would boost penalties for movie theather camcording.

Cuomo's proposal would update the existing illegal recording statute by making it a misdemeanor to either illegally record a film or live performance or use an illegal recording for commercial purposes. First time offenders would face of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine and multiple repeat offenders would be charged with a felony and even higher penalties. Currently, the state only charges illegal film recording as a violation and slaps offenders with a small fee.

"New York has become the hub for a criminal network dedicated to film piracy," Cuomo said. The piracy costs the state vital economic resources, including thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue, he said, adding: "We are all paying a price for the leniency given to this type of organized crime, and I will not let it continue on my watch."

My obsession with NBC's "30 Rock" requires I mention that the show's star, Tina Fey, was also part of the press conference. "It's discouraging to see the widespread effects piracy has had on our industry," she said in a press release. "Piracy is an issue that is often overlooked, but is one that has an enormous negative impact on every person who works in entertainment, from the stagehands, to the actors, to the producers and so on."

C'mon Tina. That wasn’t a very funny quote. I was expecting something better. When you do these public service announcement type of things you gotta bring your A-game -- like this.

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Global Music Education Effort Launches

Childnet International launched a global awareness campaign on Wednesday aimed at explaining the world of legal and illegal music downloading to teachers and parents. A new pocket-sized guide will be distributed at schools and colleges; libraries; record stores; and Web sites in 21 countries, the U.K.-based group said in a press release.

The booklet, "Young People, Music and the Internet," helps young people use the Internet and mobile phones safely and legally to acquire their favorite tunes. "There are so many wonderful online music services but there are risks to children including breach of copyright the threat of viruses, loss of privacy and security," Childnet's Stephen Carrick-Davies said. Read more about the effort here.

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NewEconomyPatents.org Launched

Advocates of continued protection for business process patents last week launched NewEconomyPatents.org. The informational Web site debuted three weeks before an appeals court hearing that stakeholders say could lead to a precedent-setting decision on what types of innovation can be patented in the future. [Read more from CongressDaily here]

The site provides resources on the business process patent debate including: a history of the case at hand, which involves a battle between inventor Bernard Bilski and the Patent and Trademark Office; a fact sheet; news articles; court filings; patent legislation; and other relevant information. The case will be heard May 8 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

The site is backed by global management consulting firm Accenture. The company's intellectual property chief Wayne Sobon warned in a press release that: "The new global economy is driven by services and information, and America is leading it. But efforts to curtail business process patenting threaten to undermine that leadership position."

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Movie Chief Lauds IP Crime Fighting, Tech Solutions

Motion Picture Association of America chief Dan Glickman spoke on intellectual property theft in the digital age on Thursday. Here's what he said during comments at an Institute for Policy Innovation summit commemorating World IP Day, which is April 26:

"We want a world in which folks who are abusing the system know that they can't abuse the system forever and there is a limit to illegal infringement activity -- whether that’s in the form of notices and, where appropriate at the end of a legitimate process, termination [of the Internet service account]."

He added that his trade group wants to work with broadband network providers on technological and other solutions to curb the piracy problem. "There's no one answer here," Glickman said, noting that Web filtering techniques are part of the fix. "At least discussions are occurring now and that didn’t happen five years ago," he said.

Read more IPI summit coverage in CongressDaily's PM edition.

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Washington To Celebrate World IP Day

From CongressDaily's AM edition on Monday:

A World Intellectual Property Day policy forum is slated for Thursday, hosted by the Institute for Policy Innovation. Various legislative proposals for emboldening IP enforcement in the United States and abroad are pending in the House and Senate. The IPI summit will feature Motion Picture Association of America CEO Dan Glickman; Recording Industry Association of America CEO Mitch Bainwol; Steve Largent, head of the wireless association CTIA; former Commerce Department undersecretary Robert Cresanti; and World Intellectual Property Organization adviser Lien Verbauwhede Koglin.

George Washington University Law School’s Creative and Innovative Economy Center will also commemorate World IP Day with a panel discussion on Monday evening. Acclaimed Indian filmmaker Bobby Bedi, whose country loses more than an estimated $4 billion per year to piracy, will discuss the impact of IP infringement.

Reps. Tom Feeney, R-Fla., and Robert Wexler, D-Fla., who co-chair the Congressional Caucus on Intellectual Property Promotion and Piracy Prevention, and Congressional Entertainment Caucus Chairwoman Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., are expected to attend.

[For the record, the official WIPO World IP Day is observed each year on April 26. Click here to see activities planned around the globe.]

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Senate Patent Bill In Flux As Specter Bows Out

From Thursday's CongressDaily AM edition:

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy does not have Judiciary ranking member Arlen Specter's support on legislation to overhaul the U.S. patent system -- at least for now. Specter issued a statement Wednesday saying the two have not come to an agreement on language that would address how damages are awarded in infringement lawsuits.

"We thought we had reached an agreement on this matter, but the language continued to shift, so we do not yet have a deal on the package," Specter said. "I am hopeful that we can reach an agreement, but more work has to be done to get it right." Read the full story here.

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Gephardt Hired By Patent Reform Proponents

CongressDaily's AM edition on Tuesday reported that the Coalition for Patent Fairness, which has championed the congressional effort to overhaul the U.S. patent system, hired former Sens. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and John Breaux, D-La., to help lobby on behalf of the group. Tech Daily Dose has now learned that the coalition added another power player to its roster -- former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo. The prominent policymaker, who ended his three-decade political career in 2005, is now senior counsel at the law firm of DLA Piper.

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Sen. Hatch's 'Inequitable Conduct' Pitch

As I reported in Monday's CongressDaily PM edition, some biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry executives are rallying around a proposal by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, to change "inequitable conduct" language in the Senate's pending patent reform bill. Read the full story (with details about Hatch's proposal) here.

Hatch, a longtime follower of intellectual property issues, told me in an e-mail after deadline that his proposal also enjoys the support of the American Bar Association's IP section and he believes current inequitable conduct law is "unworkable." "The punishment for what is deemed inequitable too often doesn’t fit the 'crime.' We need to change it," he said.

Inequitable conduct is a "central piece of the patent reform puzzle" but legislation is a collaborative process, he said, adding that he is confident that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy "is working to get all the necessary pieces together." Updates to the patent bill, which Leahy and Hatch introduced last year, are on the way. Expect to read more on that in CongressDaily soon.

While some are on board with various proposals floated to change the system, others prefer the status quo. Apotex Corporation, Barr Pharmaceuticals, the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, Teva Pharmaceuticals and others wrote to Senate leaders last month asking for them to preserve the inequitable conduct doctrine, which they called "one of the most basic of defenses against gaming the system."

"In the context of pharmaceuticals, the defense enables a fair and timely resolution to litigation and a competitive marketplace, not to mention the removal of improperly obtained patents from our system," they explained. Without the defense, the patent system "could become more vulnerable, patent quality could decrease, and affordable generics could be kept off the market," they warned.

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Business Group Applauds New IP Crime Film

U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue called on governments, businesses, and consumers around the world to join the fight in protecting intellectual property at the Tuesday night premiere of the National Geographic film, "Illicit: The Dark Trade." The film is based on a best-selling book that exposes criminal networks that fuel the multi-billion dollar global trade of illicit goods.

Donohue said the ability to protect innovation and creativity "is at the very core of U.S. economic competitiveness" and IP theft is "wreaking havoc on legitimate commerce at the expense of human safety and jobs." He said the film should "sound an alarm bell… that the time to act is now."

The trade group chief challenged consumers to do three things to aid in the fight -- commit to only purchasing legitimate goods from legitimate vendors; encourage the U.S. Congress to pass pending IP enforcement legislation; and join the chamber's global IP protection campaign.

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CEI Anti-Gore Video 'Censored'

The Competitive Enterprise Institute complained Tuesday that a new anti-Al Gore advertisement produced by the think tank has been "censored" by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, which claimed copyright infringement over seven seconds of footage in the YouTube video.

The snippet was taken from a documentary that the association itself posted on YouTube and a takedown notice led to the ad being yanked off the popular video-sharing site over the weekend. CEI has since put the ad, which addresses the importance of affordable energy, on its own Web site.

The CEI spot aired in a dozen cities in the last two weeks. It comes just before Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection is expected to launch a major ad blitz for his global warming proposals. "Electric co-ops receive massive government subsidies, and the association’s move appears motivated by global warming politics," CEI argued.

CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman said NRECA's copyright claim is without merit. "Our use of this miniscule amount of material – from a film which NRECA itself posted on YouTube and distributes freely – meets every criterion of 'fair use.'" No word yet from NRECA on the copyright controversy.

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Patent Tracker Unmasked

Patently-O reports: "After learning that Ray Niro paid $10,000+ for information leading to his actual identity, the Patent Troll Tracker has revealed his identity -- Cisco IP Director Rick Frenkel." Until now, the frequently cited compiler of patent stats was known only by an online bio that read: "Just a lawyer, interested in patent cases, but not interested in publicity."

"I got an anonymous email, from the guy who probably collected the bounty, telling me I better tell everyone who I am (and he clearly knew), or else he would take care of it for me," Frenkel wrote on his blog. "The clear threat in the email is that he would do it in a way I wouldn't be happy about. I don't know what that means, but as I have been growing weary of anonymity anyway, here I am."

The blogger began his IP career more than 10 years ago as a clerk at Lyon & Lyon in Los Angeles then he litigated patent cases for several years at Irell & Manella. Two years ago, he moved to Silicon Valley and joined Cisco Systems. Cisco is a champion of legislation currently before Congress that would make sweeping changes to the U.S. patent system.

"My blog fulfilled a long-felt need - the need for people to share information about who are the entities out there asserting patents," Frenkel wrote. "I never expected the blog to get quite the following it did. It has brought new information to me, in the many emails from people alerting me to this, that, and the other." Read more here.

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U.K. Web Piracy Proposal Raises Concerns

From CongressDaily's AM:

News that Internet service providers in the United Kingdom might be legally required to take action against computer users who access pirated material raised concerns on Capitol Hill Tuesday and among those who track U.S. intellectual property policy. The British newspaper The Times recently reported a leaked proposal that calls for those suspected of downloading illegitimate movies or music to get an initial warning e-mail, followed by a suspension for a second offense, then a termination of their service contract for a third offense. [Read the full story]

A spokesman for the U.K. Internet Services Providers' Association told Tech Daily Dose after deadline that the trade group is "currently in talks with the Motion Picture Association of America and liaises with government on this issue." ISPs are "mere conduits" of information and bear no liability for illegal file-sharing since the content is not hosted on their servers, the official said.

"ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the post office is able to open every envelope," the spokesman said. "ISPs deal with many more packets of data each day than postal services and data protection legislation actually prevents ISPs from looking at the content."

In the United States, ISPs also have "a strong record of responsibility and cooperation when it comes to protection of intellectual property online," said Dave McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association. He pointed out that American laws differ from those abroad. "Here in the U.S., we must balance our desire to support content companies with the mandates of fair use, state and federal privacy laws, and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act," McClure said.

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IP Task Force To Focus On Small Business

The multi-agency task force responsible for coordinating the federal government's intellectual property enforcement efforts will increase its focus on IP protection for small- and medium-sized enterprises in 2008, according to a report sent to Congress on Monday.

The National IP Law Enforcement Coordination Council will develop and market programs to help those firms protect and enforce IP domestically and abroad. NIPLECC will seek to identify sources to assist SMEs to finance foreign IP registrations and evaluate assets through IP audits, the report said. CongressDaily has more coverage of the council's annual report here.

House Small Business Committee Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez, D-N.Y., said that in seven years, President Bush "has done little to help small firms." Making them an IP priority this year "is a start, but we should be much further along." Small firms are "at the core of the nation’s competitiveness" and protecting their IP is essential to strengthening the economy.

Ranking Republican Steve Chabot of Ohio said innovation "is the heart and soul of this country" and IP rights have enabled U.S. businesses, large and small, to flourish. At the same time, innovation has also brought theft, counterfeiting and piracy, he said.

Continue reading "IP Task Force To Focus On Small Business" »

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1.8 Mil. Pages Of Case Law Put Online For Public Use

High-tech activist Carl Malamud, who wants to force the federal government to make government information widely available to the public, has partnered with the Creative Commons to put 1.8 million pages of U.S. case law online.

The files are all marked with the new Creative Commons "CCØ" label, indicating that the contents are works of the federal government and are free of copyright or other restrictions for dissemination and reuse. The papers had previously only been accessible in law libraries or through subscriptions to Thomson and LexisNexis.

Monday's release covers all Supreme Court decisions and all federal appeals court decisions from 1950 through the present. The release is equivalent to 1,858 volumes of case law in book form, a stack of books 348 feet tall, according to a press release on Malamud's public.resource.org Web site.

Former Justice Department special trial counsel David Boies, who supported the project, said "practical access for all Americans to legal cases and material is essential to the rule of law." The initiative is "an important step in reducing the barriers to effective representation of average citizens and public interest advocates," he said.

Continue reading "1.8 Mil. Pages Of Case Law Put Online For Public Use" »

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Copyright Board Denies DiMA Request

Digital media firms were dealt a blow by the Copyright Royalty Board this week when the three-judge panel denied their request to decide whether fees that have historically applied to compact discs and downloads should apply to Web sites that offer music like America Online, Napster and Yahoo. The Digital Media Association, which represents the groups, argued their case before the board late last month.

DiMA believes digital streams are like radio and should only require a performance license. Music publishers have argued that "on demand" or "interactive" offerings are subject to both performance and "mechanical" rights. During the public hearing, Judge William Roberts asked attorney DiMA lawyer Fernando Laguarda why the group waited so long to broach a subject that was "certainly an issue ... going back to at least 2001."

The CRB wrote in its decision that there has been much discussion regarding the term "interactive streaming," which is neither defined nor mentioned in the Copyright Act. Therefore, the panel decided that there was not a "novel material question of substantive law" at issue.

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Music Industry Cracks Down On Piracy In China

The recording industry on Monday took a series of steps to try to develop a music business in China based on respecting intellectual property rather than blatant violation of copyright laws, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

After months of negotiations, legal proceedings were filed against the country's biggest Internet firm, Baidu. Separate actions were taken against Sohu and its associate company Sogou. Yahoo China also faces fresh proceedings, IFPI said.

The firms involved operate similar services based on delivering music to their users via "deep links" to hundreds of thousands of infringing tracks on third party sites, with the aim of driving their own advertising revenue, the group said.

"The music industry in China wants partnership with the technology companies - but you cannot build partnership on the basis of systemic theft of copyrighted music and that is why we have been forced to take further actions," IFPI Chairman John Kennedy said.

China has potentially the largest online music-buying public in the world with as many broadband connections as the United States, the organization noted. But right now, more than 99 percent of all music files distributed there are pirate. China's total legitimate music market ($76 million) accounts for less than one percent of global music sales.

Read more about the smackdown here.

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Google Copyright Czar Riled By RIAA

Google Senior Copyright Counsel William Patry posted some interesting thoughts on his blog reacting to a quote I used from a Recording Industry Association of America official in Wednesday's Technology Daily PM Edition.

The sound-bite was from RIAA's Mitch Glazier, summing up his thoughts about a closed-door Capitol Hill discussion between key members of the copyright community. The Friday talks focused on a section of pending legislation that critics say would unnecessarily ramp up statutory damages in infringement cases.

Glazier told me that opponents of the provision tried to turn what was supposed to be a narrow conversation "into a referendum on the copyright system in general." That didn’t sit well with Patry who called his statement "completely false." He said the comment was "a sad effort to denigrate what was a productive exchange of views among a diverse cross-section of interests."

Patry said the section's foes as well as its supporters "stayed on the high ground … focusing on the question of statutory damages and how to recompense copyright owners for their monetary injury." "No one attacked the system of copyright, and no one suggested that copyright owners should not receive every penny of their actual harm, nor that they shouldn't receive statutory damages at their election."

Read more of Patry's comments here.

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RIAA To Members: Get Ready To Rumble

Recording Industry Association of America chiefs Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman sent an e-mail to senior executives of their major label members on Monday night informing them that the Copyright Royalty Board's effort to update a century-old portion of U.S. copyright law had begun.

Tech Daily Dose has obtained a copy of the lengthy letter, which you can read in its entirety after the jump. In the correspondence, Bainwol and Sherman explain the significance of the proceeding and why private negotiations between stakeholders have not worked.

Here's their bottom line: "The last thing we'd want is to damage the songwriters who are so crucial to the music community. But all of us -- songwriters and publishers, artists and record companies -- must recognize that our business has gone through a fundamental change, the effects of which are still reverberating."

Continue reading "RIAA To Members: Get Ready To Rumble" »

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Section 115's All-Star Witness Line-Up

The Copyright Royalty Board on Monday kicked off its examination of a century-old provision of U.S. copyright law that has not been updated for the digital age. The statute in question is "Section 115," which allows music licensing without permission from rights holders as long as licensees pay royalties and abide by certain terms.

You can read about opening arguments here, but one detail that was left out of my coverage was the all-star witness list. Here's a partial rundown.

National Music Publishers' Association:

Steve Bogard, songwriter, Rascal Flatts' "Prayin' For Daylight"
Rick Carnes, president of the Songwriters Guild of America
Roger Faxon, former president of EMI Music
Nicholas Firth, CEO of BMG Music Publishing
Jud Friedman, songwriter, Whitney Houston's "Run To You"
Phil Galdston, songwriter, Vanessa Williams' "Save the Best For Last"
Stephen Paulus, composer, "The Postman Always Rings Twice"
Irwin Robinson, chairman of Paramount Allegra Music
Victoria Shaw, songwriter, Garth Brooks' "The River"

Recording Industry Association of America:

Victoria Bassetti, vice president of EMI
Andrea Finkelstein, senior vice president, Sony BMG
Tom Mackay, Universal Music Group
David Munns, former vice chairman of EMI Music
JJ Rosen, vice president, Sony BMG
Ron Wilcox, former executive vice president of Sony BMG
Linda McLaughlin, NERA Economic Consulting
Richard Boulton, director, LECG
David Teece, vice chairman, LECG

The Digital Media Association, which represents America Online, Napster, Yahoo and others will also furnish their own expert witnesses.

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Copyright Royalty Board Celebrates Two Years

The Copyright Royalty Board -- a three-judge panel that sets rates and terms for copyright statutory licenses and decides how royalties collected by the Copyright Office are distributed -- marked its second anniversary earlier this month with considerable cause for celebration.

The board, which Congress created in 2004 to replace a widely criticized predecessor, has tackled a number of challenges faced by the music industry in its short tenure. That includes one crucial rate-setting, which kicked off on Monday [read more in Technology Daily's PM Edition].

Judges James Sledge, William Roberts and Stanley Wisniewski have navigated a number of proceedings involving digital distribution services, music labels, publishers and songwriters, with an astonishingly small administrative and legal staff and, until recently, a temporary hearing room.

The CRB's new digs aren't too bad -- with bright lights, modern tables and chairs and fresh, white paint on the walls. One problem, however, is that the acoustics in the space couldn’t be worse. "This room is designed to have a sound system," Sledge said at the outset of Monday's hearing. "Let me know if you find it."

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Top Patent-Holder List Released

IFI Patent Intelligence unveiled its annual compilation of the world's top-ranked U.S. patent holders for 2007, according to intellectual property policy blogger Peter Zura. The report shows that most of the top 25 companies attained fewer grants in 2007 than in 2006, with several exceptions including Samsung (up 11 percent); Microsoft (up 12 percent); and Nokia (up 14 percent).

“While 2007 didn’t bring any marked improvements in terms of reducing America’s backlog of patents pending, it wasn’t far off the annual average of the past seven years either,” said Darlene Slaughter, general manager of IFI. “Although the total number of patents issued is down from 2006’s record high, it did beat 2005’s relatively low showing."

"The List" Top 10
1. IBM - 3,148
2. Samsung - 2,725
3 Cannon - 1,987
4. Matsushita - 1,941
5. Intel Corp. - 1,865
6. Microsoft - 1,637
7. Toshiba - 1,549
8. Sony - 1,481
9. Micron Technology - 1,476
10. Hewlett-Packard - 1,470

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Can The Phrase 'Tech President' Be Trademarked?

That question is at the core of a complaint that techPresident Editor Micah Sifry has lodged against Michael Arrington and his TechCrunch blog, which on Thursday announced plans for the "TechCrunch Tech President Primaries."

TechCrunch has been interviewing presidential candidates in recent weeks -- the first five to participate were Republicans Mitt Romney and John McCain, and Democrats John Edwards, Mike Gravel and Barack Obama -- and its primaries are running from Dec. 18 to Jan. 18. The site will endorse one candidate from each major party "as the 'Tech President' candidate based on the popular results of reader voting and blog input from our community of technology leaders and entrepreneurs."

Ten specific issues are being emphasized in the primary: network neutrality, immigration and H1-B visas, taxes and Internet taxes, technology education, the "digital divide," identity theft, the mobile spectrum auction scheduled for January, China, intellectual property, and renewable energy.

Ironically, techPresident's Sifry accused TechCrunch of violations in two of those areas -- identity theft (later retracted) and intellectual property -- for allegedly stealing the brand that techPresident has been working to build since it launched in February. Sifry titled his post "TechCrunch Commits Identity Theft."

Continue reading "Can The Phrase 'Tech President' Be Trademarked?" »

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Amusing Observations From The House IP Hearing

The House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee held a pretty lively hearing on Thursday on a new bill that would boost U.S. intellectual property enforcement efforts.

The bill, sponsored by full committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., has been cheered by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and many industries that rely on IP -- but some folks still have major concerns. Read Technology Daily's PM Edition for more details.

Several amusing occurrences worth mentioning:

At the start of the hearing, Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., said he couldn’t bang the gavel because it was missing. Does this warrant an all-points-bulletin on the committee's missing mallet?

A few members remarked on the lengthy title of the bill -- the "Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act." Staffers love acronyms and the "PRO-IP Act" is no exception.

California Democrat Brad Sherman showed his enthusiasm for moving the bill forward by quoting, oddly enough, redneck comedian Larry the Cable Guy. His motto is "get 'er done."

Full committee ranking Republican Lamar Smith chose a more academic quote. The Texan referenced Charles Duell, the U.S. patent commissioner in 1899, who said: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." A century later, "it is abundantly clear that he was wrong."

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Report Shows Costs, Benefits Of Boosting IP Protection

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce-led coalition aimed at combating counterfeiting and piracy released a new study to a handful of reporters on Wednesday that the group says demonstrates the value of strengthening U.S. intellectual property enforcement efforts.

The report by Laura Tyson, the former head of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, was embargoed until Thursday -- the day of a crucial hearing chaired by California Democrat Howard Berman of the House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee.

According to Tyson, the coalition's proposal to embolden American IP protection, components of which were included in H.R. 4279, would cost the government money but would save the country much more in the long run.

"Measured in present value terms, the CACP initiative would cost between $0.289 and $0.489 during the first three years," according to the report. Most of the costs incurred would pertain to the hiring and training of additional federal employees to fight IP crime.

U.S. companies lose at least $225 billion annually to piracy and counterfeiting, the report pointed out. Tyson said the coalition's proposal would reduce those losses by between $18.4 billion and $36.8 billion in three years' time. Savings could be as high as 10 percent by the third year, she said.

If enacted, the IP enhancements would increase U.S. output by about $27 billion a year and would boost employment by about 174,000 a year after three years, the report said. Those figures rise to $54 billion and 348,000 jobs after that initial period.

Continue reading "Report Shows Costs, Benefits Of Boosting IP Protection" »

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Microsoft Schizophrenic Over IP Bill?

A trade group that represents Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and other technology companies has some concerns about a new intellectual property enforcement bill sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers and ranking Republican Lamar Smith of Texas.

Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black said IP laws "should penalize pirates, not pioneers" and said H.R. 4279, which the Michigan Democrat introduced on Wednesday, "moves us in the wrong direction."

Rather than increasing IP enforcement rights against piracy and counterfeiting at home and abroad, aspects of the bill increase the risk that some U.S. businesses will be "baselessly persecuted and subjected to frivolous litigation," he said.

Interestingly, Microsoft, which is one of CCIA's most prominent members, is also a part of the Copyright Alliance. That group, which works to preserve content creators' rights in the digital age, released a statement in support of the legislation.

Read more reactions to the IP measure in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

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New Patent Reform Report Creates Stir

There has been a bit of dry spell on the patent reform front since I reported last month that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid planned to take action on the controversial update to the intellectual property regime in early 2008. But that drought ended Monday with the release of a new buzz-worthy paper.

The report, written by former Bush administration official Viet Dinh for the Coalition for Patent Fairness, hailed the reform effort as a step toward fixing an outdated system. I spoke with the author and filed a story for Technology Daily's PM Edition.

Opponents of H.R. 1908 and S. 1145, like the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, were quick to speak out. PhRMA's Ken Johnson said the document "only emphasizes our view that any changes to the patent system should be balanced, appropriate and fair to all innovators."

Changes to the system may be necessary to address the concerns of some business sectors but no changes to the patent system should be made at the expense of research-based industries, he said.

“It is critically important that our patent system continue to encourage investment and support innovation," Johnson said, calling for a "careful and deliberate dialogue" that leads to "a truly strengthened system."

Meanwhile, a condensed version of Dinh's commentary was also published in The American Spectator. Read that op-ed here.

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Candidates Pressed On Key Tech Issues

The Copyright Alliance made a big announcement on Tuesday afternoon with respect to its outreach to presidential candidates. Read all about it in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

In related intellectual property news, none of the White House hopefuls -- with the exception of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Mitt Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts -- have shown interest in patent reform, Foley & Lardner attorney Harold Wegner said in an e-mail.

An undated Obama statement on the issue notes that providing the Patent and Trademark Office with greater resources and opening up the patent process to citizen review "will reduce the uncertainty and wasteful litigation that is currently a significant drag on innovation."

A Nov. 15 memo from Romney said his initial goals include ensuring that the PTO's director is "a distinguished U.S. patent lawyer with many years of experience" and carefully considering appointees to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears patent cases from around the country.

"If there is to be a meaningful step forward for the patent system, it is imperative that the United States elect a president who will do more than pay lip service" to critical patent policy topics, Wegner said.

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Patent Reform ... Pending

Popular patent law pundit Peter Zura pointed out on his blog this week that it appears that a massive overhaul of U.S. patent laws will not occur this calendar year. He cites a staffer for Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, as saying the bill will probably go to the floor after Congress returns from holiday break in early 2008.

That jives with what Technology Daily reported last Friday. We cited an aide to Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Senator Reid expects to take up the patent reform legislation as early as possible in January," Jim Manley told us.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the measure, S. 1145, in July; the full House passed a companion measure, H.R. 1908, in September. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Reid, D-Nev., met late last week to discuss the legislation's fate.

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PTO Shows Progress In Annual Report

The Patent and Trademark Office has released its annual 2007 report. The agency achieved "record breaking year-end numbers that reveal historic improvement in the quality of patent and trademark reviews and subsequently the quality of issued patents and registered trademarks," officials said.

According to the report, PTO's patent examiners:
• Examined 362,227 applications - the highest number in history.
• Quality compliance was 96.5 percent - equaling last year's results, "the best in a quarter century."
• Patent examiner decisions were upheld by the PTO's patent appeals board 69 percent of the time, up from 51 percent in 2005.

Posted by Andrew at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Songwriters Bring Anti-Piracy Message To The Hill

Up-and-coming musician Wynter Gordon, whose debut album will be released by Atlantic Records this spring, appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday to speak to local middle school students about the importance of legal downloading. She has quite a following on MySpace and has posted some videos on YouTube.

Songwriter Bill Danoff, whose toe-tappers "Afternoon Delight" and "Take Me Home Country Roads" became hits in the 1970s, was also on hand. The former was reintroduced to a new generation in the recent Will Ferrell movie "Anchorman" and the latter is a sentimental John Denver ditty for a couple of us Mountaineers on staff at Technology Daily.

Read more about their visit to the Hill in our PM Edition.

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Kids Say The Darnedest Things

The TorrentFreak blog has posted an interview with a 9-year-old girl who uses the popular file-sharing program LimeWire. Here's an excerpt:

TF. Do you think it's legal or illegal to copy a CD or DVD?
- Some men right, they sell you a DVD at the market but when you get home it doesn't play, that's illegal.
TF. Why is it illegal?
- Duh!! Because they tell you it works and when you get it home it's rubbish and jumps in the middle and its a waste of money!
TF. Do you think you should be paying for stuff off LimeWire? You have to buy CD’s from the shop…
- You have to pay for CD’s because they’re actually on a disc not on the computer. My cousin, right, she uses LimeWire when she doesn’t have any money for CDs.

(Thanks, Consumerist)

Posted by Andrew at 04:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

VCs Write To Leahy On Patent Bill

The venture capital community lauded Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy this week for his commitment to patent reform but said the current bill under consideration, S.1145, needs to be changed.

The measure, which passed the Vermont Democrat's panel in July, awaits action by the full chamber. The VCs proposed several modifications "in an effort to enact patent reform that is balanced and protects innovators."

On the issue of damages, the group suggested an approach that would maintain the current multi-factored analysis and define limited circumstances in which apportionment may apply.

They also voiced concern that the creation of a new proceeding within the Patent and Trademark Office "to permit extended administrative challenges of validly-issued patents could improperly question the reliability of an emerging company’s intellectual property."

Additionally, the legislation does not curtail the "inequitable conduct" defense, the group said. S. 1145 codifies the current intent standard but lowers the standard of materiality to a prima facie case of unpatentability. Read more about patent reform in Technology Daily's PM Edition.

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Prince's Purple Reign

As we reported in September, pop singer Prince asked video-sharing site YouTube to remove clips of his recent concerts in London in an attempt to "reclaim his art on the Internet."

Now, BBC reports that the "Little Red Corvette" crooner is threatening legal action against fan-run sites unless they remove photographs of him. Prince Fans United claims the star is trying to "stifle all critical commentary" and he is in "violation of the freedom of speech."

Web Sheriff, the U.K. firm Prince has hired to enforce the ban, told the BBC it was "not an attack on fans." "The dispute, in so far as there is one, is related to the use of photographs and images of Prince, many of which are Prince's copyright," officials said.

The owners of three key fan sites joined forces to fight "what amounts to an injustice to the fan sites and the very fans who have supported Prince's career," they said in a press release. The sites are "fully prepared to defend their position in the proper court of law, as well as fully prosecute any claims to which they are justly entitled."

My favorite coverage of the story on Wednesday came from MSNBC, which ran a banner that read: "Purple Reign of Terror: Prince Suing Fans."

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Mitt Romney Tests Fox's 'Fair Use' Stance

The confrontation over intellectual property between Fox News and presidential candidates who want to use footage from the debates where they are the star attractions just got another player.

The Caucus reports that Republican candidate Mitt Romney has a new advertisement that uses Fox footage from last week's GOP debate. Fox cried foul when fellow Republican John McCain made a similar move last week.

Add to the mix the bloggers and online activists across the political spectrum who yesterday entered the fray by telling Fox to back off, and you have an intriguing "fair use" fight over copyright law developing on the fringe of a heated presidential race. Fun, fun, fun!

Here's the Romney ad:

Posted by Danny at 01:44 PM | Permalink | Comments