A global network of academies dedicated to the teaching of intellectual property (IP) was launched at a meeting convened by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the National Institute of Industrial Property Office (INPI) of Brazil earlier this month in Rio de Janeiro. The global network which includes some ten educational institutes dedicated to teaching, training and research into IP at the national level is designed to enhance international cooperation and strengthen the delivery of IP education. This significant development will boost access to IP learning and strengthen the IP human resource base in all regions. It further reflects the growing recognition by policy-makers around the world of the pivotal importance of establishing IP systems and acquiring IP expertise to promote national development strategies.

The International Symposium on Intellectual Property Academies convened in Rio de Janeiro from March 21 to 23, 2007 discussed and shared experiences and strategies for promoting IP education and brought together representatives of various IP academies, training centers and research institutions including the Intellectual Property Institute of Australia (IPRIA), National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI) of Brazil, State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of China, State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of Croatia, Cuban Industrial Property Office (OCPI), Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI), International Intellectual Property Training Institute (IIPTI) of the Republic of Korea, as well as the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), the European Patent Academy and the WIPO Worldwide Academy.

Participants recognized the important role played by IP academies as the primary promoters of IP education, training and research to diverse groups. The interdisciplinary nature of IP was emphasized as was the need to promote IP education beyond law schools and the legal community – in engineering, sciences, research and development institutions, management, and finance sectors, for example.

Participants agreed that the establishment of the global network will enhance international cooperation in the field of IP education and will facilitate the development of effective strategies to address the common challenges and tasks confronting national IP academies. In a joint declaration, the meeting called on others to join in the global effort to promote IP education. The group also expressed a commitment to undertake a benchmarking exercise of its activities to demonstrate the relevance of its work for national and regional development.

The WIPO Academy was requested to establish an electronic forum to provide information about educational training and research activities and to promote the free-flow of IP educational materials. The group also agreed to carry out a study on the compatibility of e-learning management platforms, to provide translation services on IP educational materials and create an electronic publication on methods and policies on IP education and research. The group also undertook to explore the possibility of creating an International Journal on Intellectual Property and Innovation.

The global network of IP academies decided to set up a small secretariat led by the WIPO Academy together with Brazil where the initial meeting took place and China where the next meeting will be held in 2008.

Since the Italian Renaissance, societies have offered their innovators a deal. In return for publicly describing their invention, they are granted a period of exclusivity. This not only encourages innovators, it gets ideas more quickly out into the open, where others can build upon them.

It is an approach that has served society well over the centuries. Yet recently it has become more controversial. Should life-saving drugs be patented? Should life forms? Should a company get private rights for software without revealing the underlying source code? Does the morass of patents and licenses in the field of biotech actually limit progress?

Amid such arguments, IBM has quietly brought forth a new idea: an “eco-patent commons” (EPC), a process to share intellectual property (IP) related to environmental and ecological technology.

The number of cybersquatting disputes filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2006 increased by 25% as compared to 2005. In a related development, the evolution of the domain name registration system is causing growing concern for trademark owners, in particular some of the effects of the use of computer software to automatically register expired domain names and their ‘parking’ on pay-per-click portal sites, the option to register names free-of-charge for a five-day ‘tasting’ period, the proliferation of new registrars, and the establishment of new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs). The combined result of these developments is to create greater opportunities for the mass, often anonymous, registration of domain names without specific consideration of third-party intellectual property rights.

“While electronic commerce has flourished with the expansion of the Internet, recent developments in the domain name registration system have fostered practices which threaten the interests of trademark owners and cause consumer confusion. Practices such as ‘domain name tasting’ risk turning the domain name system into a mostly speculative market. Domain names used to be primarily specific identifiers of businesses and other Internet users, but many names nowadays are mere commodities for speculative gain,” noted Mr. Francis Gurry, WIPO Deputy Director General, who oversees WIPO’s dispute resolution work. “The rate at which domain names change hands and the difficulty to track such mass automated registrations challenge trademark owners in their pursuit of cybersquatters,” he said. “With domain names becoming moving targets for rights holders, due consideration should be given to concrete policy responses,” he added.

In 2006, a total of 1,823 (gTLDs and country code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs)) complaints alleging cybersquatting – the abusive registration as domain names of trademarks – were filed with WIPO’s Arbitration and Mediation Center (Center), representing the highest number of cybersquatting cases handled by WIPO since the year 2000.

Since commencement in December 1999 of the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – a quick and cost effective dispute resolution procedure – through December 2006, 10,177 UDRP or UDRP-based cases (gTLD and ccTLD) have been filed with the Center, covering 18,760 separate domain names.

When .info Sunrise, .biz STOP, .name ERDRP and .mobi Sunrise and Premium Name cases are added to these UDRP figures, the total number of cases comes to 25,815 (Annex 1). Due to the temporary applicability of these policies, the non-UDRP cases are received on a one-off basis. All of the .info and .biz cases were completed in 2006; of the .mobi cases, five Sunrise cases have been completed and 74 Premium Name cases were completed in 2006.

A total of 9,389 (97% of total cases) UDRP cases received by the Center have so far been resolved. Of the gTLD cases resolved, decisions have been rendered in 7,328 cases with some 84% of those cases ending with the transfer of the domain name to the complainant and approximately 16% being denied. 2,061 cases have terminated on other grounds, primarily on the basis of settlement agreements between parties transferring the domain name to the complainant.

Another development in 2006 was the filing of the 10,000th WIPO UDRP complaint. An American party (Sam Ash Music Corporation) filed a complaint against an individual from China who had registered the domain name . The language of the proceeding was Chinese and a WIPO panel decision transferring the name was notified in early February of 2007. In addition, the 25,000th WIPO domain name case under all policies (UDRP and ‘Sunrise’) was filed on August 19, 2006. The WIPO panelist ordered the transfer of the domain name to the trademark owner, the Red Lion Hotels chain.

The WIPO dispute resolution procedure served a wide range of users, ranging from well-known brands, to smaller enterprises and organizations, as well as individuals. They covered categories including luxury items, famous persons, entertainment, hospitality, sports, gambling, and pharmaceuticals. In addition, charitable organizations and educational institutions were involved.

A number of disputes relating to newly merged or collaborating corporations were also filed. Such merger cases suggest that cybersquatters tend to follow newsworthy events. This is also evident from the spate of cases involving the Tamiflu trademark filed at the height of international concern about an avian flu pandemic in 2006 in relation to such domain names as , , and . The complainants were Swiss company F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG and its American subsidiary, the manufacturers of Tamiflu, an antiviral pharmaceutical preparation for the treatment and prevention of influenza. A total of 34 cases covering 64 domain names were filed with WIPO in 2006 which were related in some form to the Tamiflu trademark.

Hoffmann-La Roche have also filed UDRP complaints based on other trademarked products, such as Valium. Other pharmaceutical companies that have filed WIPO cases in the past include Pharmacia & Upjohn (in relation to Rogaine), American Home Products, McNeil Consumer Brands (Tylenol), Pfizer (Viagra), Merck, Sanofi-Aventis (Ambien), CVS Pharmacy, Lilly ICOS, Valeant, and Bayer.

Since registration of domain names in non-Roman scripts such as Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic or Korean (“internationalized” domain names) became available a few years ago, the Center has received a total of 60 cases involving such names, of which eight were received in 2006. With the spreading of Internet connections and online commerce, the proportion of domain name disputes of this type is expected to increase in coming years.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Despite macroeconomic numbers that point to an improved economy in Peru, the copyright industries continue to have difficulties in commercializing their products due to piracy. These industries report that 2006 was a difficult year to obtain effective criminal and administrative copyright enforcement in Peru. Optical disc piracy is on the rise and street piracy remains uncontained. More police actions and administrative investigations are needed, prosecutors must pursue piracy cases, and judges should impose the deterrent-level sentences afforded in the criminal code. The government has yet to enforce its software legalization program within government agencies and illegal photocopying on university campuses continues. Border control remains weak. IIPA supports the Free Trade Agreement process and urges U.S. Congressional ratification of the U.S.-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement.

This is an index of the web sites included in the 1999-2006 annual lists issued by the Mars Best of Free Reference Web Sites Committee of the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA to recognize outstanding reference sites on the World Wide Web.

About the Wireless Common License

The Wireless Commons License (WCL) describes the terms and conditions of the free and open networks, so enables individuals, communities, organizations, companies, governments or any type of organization to adopt or support this License

When the network is being built with wireless technologies, this license refers to the use of the unlicensed frequencies.

The license is inspired in the free and open networks principles. In a summary:

. You are free to use the network for any purpose unless you are affecting to the network availability and/or the freedom of the other users.

. You are free to know how works the network and its components.

. You are free to use the network for any type of communication and promote it.

. By joining to the free and open network, you are helping to extend the network in the same conditions.

About the free and open network

The free and open network is the expression of fundamental principles like freedom, equality of opportunities, togetherness and brotherhood through the right of free communications and obtain the maximum possible benefit of the network features. In case that appear some doubt while applying this license, we have to look at this principles.

The network have to allow access to anybody who wants to, with the only limitation of this license If there are artifacts controlling the access, they should be for network management purposes, and not for exclude others access.

Although the network devices and infrastructures can be linked to multiple types of ownerships or entitlements, the network as a whole does not have any owner or proprietor, regardless of how significant is everyone contribution to the network.

The network participants who have adopted the WCL, extend the network in the same terms and conditions by allowing others data to transit on their own network segments, without manipulating that transit for any other reason that just for network management.

The network participants get engaged only to the terms of this license, any other engagement must be explicitly expressed and accepted.

In order to maximize connectivity and network growth, the network members are encouraged to provide permission to other network participants for installing their devices in their own facilities, although this permission is always discretionary and can be revoked at any time.

The adoption of the WCL can be expressed as an individual or as an organization and implies the acceptance of the WCL terms and conditions. At any time any member can revoke this adoption and therefore rescue their own network devices or equipments. The ownership is never lost, regardless of where are placed.

About the network management and traffic priorities (Quality of Service – QoS)

The network management criteria must be publicized

Whenever possible, the general criteria must be (by order of priorization):

. Interactive traffic (like instant messaging, VoIP, web browsing, etc.)

. Massive traffic or batch (big data transfers, email, file copy, etc.)

In case that a network member does not apply the criteria described above in more cases than just provide priority to his own traffic, should publish that criteria

There is no warranty of network availability as a whole. Anyway the best warranty is transparency: If possible, network information and availability will be published to allow the network members to diagnose incidents by themselves. However is allowed to provide service levels of availability in specific network segments, in that case who offer those services must provide detailed information and their terms of conditions.

About the use of the spectrum

The non licensed frequencies are considerer as an universal and public asset, like the air or the riversides public usage of those assets like the described in the WCL must prevail over the private or commercial usage. WCL supporters and adopters ask to regulator authorities and governments to develop spaces for make this happen.

The WCL adopters will do a responsible and reasonable usage of the spectrum and will not exceed the necessary transmission power.

About security

Every network participant is responsible of his own security, avoid intrusion on their systems and crypt their traffic if necessary or if he wants to. The open and free network just provides the support for making that possible.

Although private networks can be connected to the open network and use firewalls to control the access and traffic between those networks. Those private networks are not under the terms and conditions of the WCL, and their owners are responsible of their own security.

The open free network is never responsible of the usage or any damage caused by the network participants.

About liability

The open free network is never liable because of the usage or behavior of their participants.

About contents and services

The WCL describes the terms and conditions to build open free networks, but does not include or affect the contents and services of the network, including internet. There is already a choice of licenses for the contents and services. However and still related to contents and services, a few general principles apply also to them and they are:

There is a freedom to create contents and services to everybody who wants to.

The open free network is only the support over which the contents can transit, but the network itself have nothing to do with them and is not liable because of them.

The content creators or owners can license them with the license of their choice with no restriction. If not expressed, by default they are considered under the Creative Commons (by-sa). If is about servers that provide some sort of feature to the users, if not specified they are also considered free and offered “as is”, without warranty but expect to fit a purpose and is assumed to be a common self service service.

Network participants agree in not use the network for transmitting inappropriate or illegal contents that might damage the other participants, and avoid offensive, non solicited messages and any non-desirable content.

About Internet Access: There are two possible models:

Based on sharing or managing unused bandwidth. In this context, if done without any other transaction, the Internet access is a privilege, not a right or a service. The network is just the vehicle that allows a consolidation of aggregated self services, and therefore, does not apply any regulation about markets or ISP services, and does not require or apply any contract with an Internet service provider.

. Internet access as a service. With this model, regulations may apply depending in the formula used by who provides the service

. The network as a whole can't be claimed for availability of Internet access or any other service. Has to be who offer those services according to 3.4: The WCL adopters have the freedom of subscribing/offer this services

This text of the Wireless Commons License is released under the Creative Commons (by-nc-sa) license.

Non commercial use

Must give credit to this WCL original

Derivative works are welcome if those works are released with the
same conditions
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sobre la Licencia Wireless Commons

La Licencia Wireless Commons describe los términos y condiciones de una red abierta con el objetivo de que aquellos individuos, colectivos, empresas o administraciones que lo deseen puedan acogerse a ellos o bien manifestar su soporte.

Cuando la comunicación es inhalámbrica, se refiere a su utilitzación en exteriores del espacio radioeléctrico público de uso común, y en el que no se requiere ninguna licencia.

Los principios generales de la declaración de licencia Wireless Commons se inspiran en hacer una red libre y abierta y se pueden resumir en:

Eres libre de utilizar la red para cualquier propósito en tanto no perjudiques el funcionamiento de la propia red o a la libertad de los demás usuarios.

Eres libre de saber como es la red, sus componentes y como funciona.

Eres libre de usar la red para cualquier tipo de comunicación y difundir su funcionamiento.

Incorporándote a la red, ayudas a extender estas libertades en las mismas condiciones.

Sobre la red abierta (o red libre)

La red abierta es una expresión de valores fundamentales como la libertad, la igualdad de oportunidades, la solidaridad y fraternidad a través del derecho a comunicarse libremente y a extrear el máximo de prestaciones posibles. En caso de cualquier duda sobre algún aspecto concreto, siempre nos referimos a estos principios fundamentales.

La red permite el acceso a todos los que lo deseen, y es el resultado de intercomunicar a todos sus miembros con la única condición de respetar la licencia Wireless Commons. Si hay mecanismos de control en su acceso se utilizarán para la correcta gestión de la red desde un punto de vista tecnológico y nunca para excluir el acceso a la red.

Si bien los equipos e infraestructuras pueden responder a múltiples modelos de propiedad o titularidad, la red como tal nunca puede tener un dueño o propietario, con independencia de cual haya sido la aportación de cada parte a la red.

Los participantes de la red abierta que se acogen a la licencia Wireless Commons, extienden la cobertura de la red en las mismas condiciones, aceptando la libre circulación de comunicaciones de otros miembros, sin manipularlas más allá de lo necessario para la gestión de la red.

Los miembros de la red abierta se comprometen únicamente a los terminos y condiciones de la licencia Wireless Commons. Cualquier otro compromiso lo deben expresar explícitamente.

Los miembros de la red, con tal de facilitar el crecimiento y conectividad, se comprometen a considerar otorgar permiso para dejar instalar equipos que sean propiedad de otros miembros en sus instalaciones, aunque siempre se reserven la última decisión en este sentido y aunque lo autoricen, ésta autorización no genera ninguna servitud y es revocable.

La adhesión a la red se puede expresar a titulo individual o colectivo, y comporta la acceptación de los terminos de la licencia Wireless Commons. En cualquier momento un miembro adherido a la red puede anular su adhesión, recuperando la disposición de los equipos por parte de su propietario. La titularidad de un equipo no se pierde nunca, independientemente de donde esté instalado.

Sobre la gestión de la red y prioridades en el tráfico (calidad de servicio)

La gestión de la red debe ser pública y todos los que lo deseen deben poder participar.

Cuando sea posible, las prioridades del tráfico generales se implementan en este orden:

Trafico de tipo interactivo (mensajeria instantánea, conferencias de voz sobre IP, navegación web, etc.)

Trafico de tipo masivo o en diferido (transferéncias, correo electrónico, copias, etc.)

Los miembros de la red harán públicas las prioridades implementadas en sus tramos de red que puedan afectar a los demás usuarios en caso de modificación de las expresadas en el punto anterior y que vayan más allá de darse prioridad en su tramo de red.

No se puede garantizar la disponibilidad de la red como tal de forma global. Así mismo la mejor garantía es la transparencia: en función de las posibilidades, se procurará publicar información sobre la disponibilidad y estado de la red. En tramos concretos, quien quiera ofrecer garantias de nivel de servicios si se hacen cargo, explique como lo hace y en que condiciones.

Sobre el espacio radioeléctrico

Se considera el uso en exteriores del espacio radioeléctrico que no requiere licéncia como un bien de uso universal, como el aire o el aigua, donde el uso abierto como el descrito en las Wireless Commons o similares prevalece ante el uso privativo o explotación comercial. Se pide a los gobiernos, legisladores y organismos reguladores que creen los espacios necesarios y hagan las regulaciones adequadas para que esto sea posible.

Quien se acoge a las Wireless Commons se compromete a hacer un uso responsable y a no excederse inecesariamente en las potencias de emisión.

Sobre la Seguridad

Cada miembro de la red es responsable de su seguredad, evitar la intrusión en sus propios sistemas de información y de cifrar sus comunicaciones si así lo desea. La red abierta simplemente proporciona el medio de transporte para hacerlo posible.

Se pueden conectar redes privadas a la red abierta, y poner cortafuegos para controlar el acceso. Estos tramos de redes quedan excluidos de las Wireless Commons y de su seguridad se responsabiliza el que lo implementa.

La red abierta no se hace responsable de ningun daño causado a sus miembros durante el uso de la red.

Sobre la responsabilidad

La red abierta como tal nunca es responsable del uso que hacen sus miembros.

Sobre los contenidos.

Las Wireless Commons describen los términos y condiciones para crear redes abiertas, pero no incluyen ningún tipo de servicios que se ofrecen, incluido internet, ni sus contenidos. Para las condiciones de sus contenidos o los servicios que se puedan ofrecer a través de la red ya hay múltiples formulaciones de licencias. Así mismo, se recogen unos principios generales que son los siguientes:

Libertad de crear contenidos y servicios de cualquier tipo para todo el que quiera.

La red abierta es el soporte sobre el cual se hace la transmisión libre de contenidos, pero no tiene nada que ver ni se hace responsable.
Los creadores o titulares de los contenidos escogen los términos y condiciones para su uso. Si no las expresan, se entiende que son de libre distribución en las mismas condiciones, tal y com se describe en el Creative Commons (by-sa). Cuando se trata de servidores que ofrecen alguna funcionalidad a los usuarios, si no se especifica lo contrario o se indica que es "tal como es" se entiende que se trata de una autoprestación colectiva sobre la que no se ofrece ningun tipo de garantía.

Sus miembros se comprometen a no crear trafico en la red de contenidos inapropiados o ilegales, que puedan perjudicar al resto de miembros de la red , ofensivos, mensajes no solicitados y similares contenidos indeseables.

Sobre el acceso a internet hay dos modelos:

Basado en la explotación de los excedentes de accesos de miembros de la red. En este contexto, quando se realiza sin contraprestación económica, el acceso a internet es un privilegio que otorga el que comparte dicho excedente, y no un derecho ni tampoco un servicio.

La red actúa como el vehículo que permite una consolidación agregada de autoprestaciones, y como tal, no aplican las disposiciones reguladoras de los mercados de telecomunicaciones, ni ninguna restricción contractual o regulación sobre la redistribución del ancho de banda.

Acceso a internet como servicio. En este modelo de usuarios de este servicio pueden adoptar las fórmulas de financiación y gestión que acuerden oportunas.

La red como tal no puede dar garantías de disponibilidad de acceso a internet o ningún otro servicio. Si alguien desea ofrecerlas o quiere obtenerlas lo puede hacer de la manera que se describe en el apartado 3.4: Los adheridos a la red tienen libertad para ofrecer o contrattarlas en el ámbito de la red o sus componentes.

Este texto del Wireless Commons está bajo licencia Creative Commons (by-nc-sa).

No se puede hacer un uso comercial

La distribución y copia es libre referenciando que proviene de estas Wireless Commons

Se pueden modificar los contenidos y hacer trabajos derivados si el resultado se distribuye de nuevo bajo las mismas condiciones.

Un dia un cerdito encontro una caja magica que podia replicar cualquier cosa que se ponga dentro. Entonces el cerdito se volvio celoso y sospechaba de todo aquel que quisiera usar la caja, finalmente el cerdito decidio tomar una medida drastica...

El cerdito y la caja magica es un libro para niños que ilustra el concepto de Copyleft.

El Cerdito y La Caja Magica ...

Two trade secret stories received considerable media attention recently. One featured Apple Computer's decision to drop an appeal in a case involving two online journalists who published company secrets. The other reported federal indictment of a former Coca-Cola secretary and associates who offered to sell secrets to Pepsi.

ipfrontline.com

This is an online version of our open source book based on the version published by Morgan Kaufmann in April 2005. We post it online in the hopes that people will find it useful. Feel free to link to it.

This book is intended for anyone considering using Open Source. It describes what open source is, discusses business reasons for using open source, and describes how an open source project works in a day-to-day manner. It will help you decide on whether open source is right for your project, and, if so, what steps you should take to proceed and some mistakes you should avoid.

© 2005 by Ron Goldman & Richard P. Gabriel.
A version of this work has been published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

This online version is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Some rights reserved.

Front Matter
1. Introduction
2. Innovation Happens Elsewhere
3. What Is Open Source?
4. Why Consider Open Source?
5. Licenses
6. How To Do Open-Source Development
7. Going with Open Source
8. How To Build Momentum
9. What To Avoid--Known Problems and Failures
10. Closing Thoughts
Appendix A: Resources
Appendix B: Licenses
Appendix C: Contributor Agreements
Appendix D: Codename Spinnaker
Bibliography
Index

In mid-March of this year, the TACD held a two-day conference on "The Politics and Ideology of Intellectual Property" in Brussels with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The dominant message that emerged from this conference was that intellectual property protection needs profound reassessment if it is to do more than defend vested interests. The broad-ranging discussions stretched from the philosophical basis for intellectual property to the concrete examples of how lobbying had influenced the fate of the EU's software patent directive.

Several significant points came to fore over the course of the two-day debate. It was widely acknowledged that consumers and civil society are starting to make an impact on the global debate on intellectual property, and that the digital communications revolution is putting stronger tools into their hands to continue the campaign. In parallel to this development, it was also clear that defenders of intellectual property are reinforcing their own resistance to any weakening of protection, and are energetically pursuing extension of rights. At present, no consensus exists on the critical point at which protection of private interests ceases to be a gain, and starts to become a loss for innovation and the public interest, let alone a methodology for computing it.

ipfrontline.com