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Category Archives: Intellectual Property

Researchers around the world increasingly turning to pirated papers due to prohibitive publisher costs

Follow up to previous posting, Controversy over free journal access database keeps Sci-Hub in legal and research spotlight, via Science – Who’s downloading pirated papers? Everyone by John Bohannon – “These statistics are based on extensive server log data supplied by Alexandra Elbakyan, the neuroscientist who created Sci-Hub in 2011 as a 22-year-old graduate student… Continue Reading

CRS – Protection of Trade Secrets: Overview of Current Law and Legislation

Protection of Trade Secrets: Overview of Current Law and Legislation, Brian T. Yeh, Legislative Attorney. April 22, 2016. “A trade secret is confidential, commercially valuable information that provides a company with a competitive advantage, such as customer lists, methods of production, marketing strategies, pricing information, and chemical formulae. (Well- known examples of trade secrets include… Continue Reading

GAO Reports: Elections, Data Act, High Containment Laboratories, Tax Filing, Unaccompanied Children, VA Health Care

Elections: DOD Needs More Comprehensive Planning to Address Military and Overseas Absentee Voting Challenges, GAO-16-378: Published: Apr 20, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 20, 2016. Data Act: Section 5 Pilot Design Issues Need to Be Addressed to Meet Goal of Reducing Recipient Reporting Burden, GAO-16-438: Published: Apr 19, 2016. Publicly Released: Apr 19, 2016. High-Containment Laboratories:… Continue Reading

Project seeks to thwart patent trolls

“All Prior Art is a project attempting to algorithmically create and publicly publish all possible new prior art, thereby making the published concepts not patent-able. The concept is to democratize ideas, provide an impetus for change in the patent system, and to preempt patent trolls. The system works by pulling text from the entire database… Continue Reading

RightsStatements.org – 11 standardized rights statements for online cultural heritage

“RightsStatements.org is a joint initiative of Europeana and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). Europeana, the Digital Public Library of America, and many other libraries, archives and other cultural heritage institutions believe that everyone should be able to engage with their cultural heritage online. We can help achieve this by providing cultural heritage institutions… Continue Reading

Google Books case ends as Supreme Court will not intervene

WSJ.com: “The Supreme Court on Monday declined to intervene in a case examining whether Alphabet Inc.’s Google engaged in copyright infringement when it scanned millions of books and made them searchable online, a final blow to authors who sued the company. The justices, in a brief written order, said they won’t take up an appeal by the… Continue Reading

Paper – Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice

Urban, Jennifer M. and Karaganis, Joe and Schofield, Brianna L., Notice and Takedown in Everyday Practice (March 29, 2016). Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2755628 “It has been nearly twenty years since section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act established the so-called notice and takedown process. Despite its importance to copyright holders, online service… Continue Reading

NYPL – Photographers’ Identities Catalog

“Photographers’ Identities Catalog (PIC) is an experimental interface to a collection of biographical data describing photographers, studios, manufacturers, and others involved in the production of photographic images. Consisting of names, nationalities, dates, locations and more, PIC is a vast and growing resource for the historian, student, genealogist, or any lover of photography’s history. The information… Continue Reading

Wellcome Trust Open Access Publishing Data

Follow up to previous posting – Controversy over free journal access database keeps Sci-Hub in legal and research spotlight – see Wellcome Trust and COAF Open Access Spend, 2014-15: “…Once a year we ask all those institutions in receipt of an open access (OA) grant from the Trust to provide details on how the grant… Continue Reading

Solar Climate Engineering and Intellectual Property: Toward a Research Commons

Reynolds, Jesse and Contreras, Jorge L. and Sarnoff, Joshua D., Solar Climate Engineering and Intellectual Property: Toward a Research Commons (February 29, 2016). Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, Forthcoming. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2753833 “Climate change is one of the greatest challenges confronting society today. Solar climate engineering (SCE) has the potential… Continue Reading

Cybersquatting Cases Up in 2015, Driven by New gTLDs

Via WIPO –  Geneva, March 18, 2016 PR/2016/789 – “Amid the roll-out of hundreds of new generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) such as .GURU, .NINJA and .NYC, trademark owners filed 2,754 cases under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) with WIPO in 2015, an increase of 4.6 % over the previous year. Videos: Highlights Video/YouTube |… Continue Reading

U.S. Extends Lead in International Patent and Trademark Filings

Via WIPO – The United States of America (U.S.) extended its long-standing position as the top source of international patent applications via WIPO amid another strong year of worldwide intellectual property (IP) filing growth, as an electronics manufacturer displaced a watch maker as the leading depositor of international industrial design applications. Videos: Highlights Video/YouTube |… Continue Reading