On Wednesday former journalist Andrew Gowers will release the findings of his U.K. government-commissioned study of U.K. copyright law. Great Britain has been a staunch defender of IP and IP has fueled creative and economic success there, so it begs the question, why have a commission at all? What's the problem? Not surprisingly, the existence of the commission has given some copyright defenders pause.

Gowers gave us a sneak peek of his findings in the Sunday Times (another hat-tip to Alec van Gelder). The piece reminded me of the speeches I read by EU officials related to the digital economy. I find myself agreeing with many of their points, then am concerned by the conclusions they seem to draw from those points.

Continue reading Gowers Sneak Peek . . .

posted by Patrick Ross @ 10:55 AM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , Innovation , International , Internet , Legislation , Markets

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Those who follow the academic literature on software patents may notice a trend over the past few years: academia has slowly turned from predominantly arguing software should not be patentable and how patents spell the doom of the software industry, to how patents help the software sector and what kinds of reforms are needed to sustain their beneficial effects. Now, the more productive discourse in patents discusses optimal tailoring towards industries and business models, rather than remaining stuck in the 1990s.

Recently, one of the most influential scholars in patent law, Professor Robert Merges from Berkeley, talked about shifts in patent policy discourse at a UT Austin patent conference. As an initial skeptic of software patents, Merges' comments are especially noteworthy as they show how perspectives on software patents have change as evidence of their effects manifested over the past decade.

...there was a time, and there were people (...myself included) who thought patents would very seriously harm the software industry. For them (including me, or at least, some past version of me) it is good news indeed that they (we) were wrong. By almost any measure, the software industry in the U.S. is doing really quite well.

...history has largely answered the "section 101" question, viz., is software patentable subject matter, and should it be? There is no doubt now that it is, and the normative question is dropping away in importance. Thus the interesting questions now concern the contours and details of software protection doctrine.

Continue reading Can We Get to "Today's" Patent Debate? . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 4:00 PM | Academia , Innovation , International , Patents

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From the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China

The Trial Tribunal on Intellectual Property of the Supreme People's Court is working hard to draft the "Opinions Concerning the All-round Strengthening of the Intellectual Property Trial Work as a Judicial Guaranttee for the Building of an Innovation-Type of a Country" . . . .

The Decision of the Party Central Committee and the State Council Concerning the Implementation of the Outline of the Science and Technology Plan on Strengthening Independent Innovation Capability" explicitly put forward the major strategic task of building an innovation-type of a country.

Recently, China Intellectual Property Protection and Intellectual Property Strategy Seminar was convened in Beijing. Representatives of the corporate circles and law circles from Australia, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Sweden and other countries as well as from China's intellectual property management departments and intellectual property agents conducted extensive exchanges on China's protection for intellectual property and intellectual property legal affairs

posted by James DeLong @ 11:22 AM | Innovation , International

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At a recent software intellectual property conference, Professors John Allison, Abe Dunn and Ronald Mann from the University of Texas-Austin presented their new research, titled: Software Patents, Incumbents, and Entry. The work builds on previous collaboration between Mann and Allison where they argued that the importance of patents scales along a spectrum of business models, with the value of patents increasing as firms rely on revenue from sales of services, to software, to hardware. The paper adds insight that patenting also commensurates with a firm’s stage of maturity and emphasizes how firms can concurrently integrate into their revenue streams different models of innovation.

Consistent with recent work by Professors Robert Merges, who argues firms have acclimated to and leverage patents for their innovation, and Iain Cockburn who finds that patents help firm entry and survival, the authors hold that patents benefit small firms, which comprise the majority of innovating activity in a non-concentrated software industry: "there is every reason to believe that increased patent protection has contributed to the ability of independent inventors and smaller firms to compete." Several reasons are given why young firms find support from patents.

Continue reading Patenting by the Business Model, Firm Maturity and Innovation Theory . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 10:19 AM | Academia , Innovation , Patents

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I've been neglecting my blogging over the past week since my free time has been occupied with setting up my latest high-tech toy -- Sony's "Location Free TV." To keep pace with the increasingly popular Slingbox, which also allows consumers to space- or place-shift their TV and other video signals, Sony has just released a new box (the LP-20) that retails for $250 bucks and has more features than their first generation Location Free boxes. As I was setting it up and troubleshooting various connection problems (and I had quite a few), I kept wondering about whether or not this new Sony device would raise any copyright issues.

Like the Sling, Sony's Location Free box allows you to watch your home TV signals on your personal computer anywhere you want via an Internet connection. An added bonus with the Sony box is the ability to also watch TV remotely on your PlayStation Portable (PSP) gaming device. It's a very cool feature but my experience with it so far has been a mixed bag. The PSP suffers from more latency issues (probably due to its more limited wireless networking capabilities) and picture quality really becomes unbearable at times as a result.

But watching TV remotely on my laptop looks pretty good and the desktop software that Sony provides makes it very easy to program in my cable set-top box codes and special buttons (like the button I use to call up my PVR archive so I can watch recorded TV shows while I'm on the road). And I can also use the Location Free box to control another video source, such as my DVD player. So, when I'm stuck in an airport trying to keep my kids from melting down, I can remotely access an animated movie sitting in my DVD tray back home. Very, very cool.

Continue reading Sony's "Location Free TV": Any Copyright Issues? . . .

posted by Adam Thierer @ 3:16 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , Innovation

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My first reaction to the Digital Freedom campaign, launched by CEA, EFF and PK, was surprise. Lets see... EFF and PK are known IPR critics; thats a fair comment given their opposition to all economic rights innovators enjoy under copyright and patent doctrines. The CEA on the other hand, is an organization hosting reputable sponsors from the technology industries, the vast majority of whom heavily patent to recoup heavy R&D costs. Hence, the partnership makes sense when I realized that CEA likes patents but not copyrights.

CEA's dislike of copyrights, despite the heavy reliance of its member consumer device firms on another form of appropriation, patents, touches on an important issue in IP policy. Such a position ignores the unitary nature of copyrights and patents, both of which rest upon the economic basis of what we call intellectual property rights.

Ideas... can be copied freely and used by anyone ...without depriving others... But ideas ...take time and money to create... ideas are so easy to spread and so hard to control, only with difficulty may creators recoup their investment... absent IP... most would prefer to copy... inefficiently few new ideas would be created. Mark Lemley, Ex Ante Versus Ex Post Justifications for IP, 71 UChicago L. Rev. 129, 131 (2004).

Continue reading Common Basis for Copyrights and Patents . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 4:20 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , DMCA , DRM , Innovation , Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation , Patents

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Loyal readers of this blog know that last school year my daughter engaged in a bit of plagiarism in a school essay on Jesse Owens. Since that time we've had many discussions about the value of intellectual property.

This weekend brought two bits of pride to her father. One, she wrote a 5-paragraph essay for school on Egyptian culture and used all her own words (it was a good read, too, I learned a lot about mummies). Two, she showed an understanding of the patent system that the commons movement still lacks.

Continue reading My Daughter the Capitalist . . .

posted by Patrick Ross @ 10:55 AM | Innovation , Patents

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Earlier I wrote on work by Professor Iain Cockburn from the Natl Bureau of Econ Research and Boston Univ, where he finds that patenting firms are more likely to overcome entry barriers to compete in markets where other firms hold patents. A complementary article by Cockburn and Professor Stefan Wagner from the Munich School of Mgmt looks at how patents increased survival prospects of dot.com boom era firms, focusing on public and Internet related companies. Patents and the Survival of Internet-related IPOs. Draft Paper, February 2006. The importance of the time period for studying patents arises from the formation of many firms due to market confidence in capital intensive risk ventures, the rapid demise of many of those firms, in concurrence with surge in software patenting.

The issue of firm survival stands alongside market entry in patent policy. Healthy levels of new firms entering markets is important for competition, technical progress and consumers. Survival tells us of the viability of these entrants. Thus, the benefits of market entry appears heavily reliant on new firms' survival.

...we gathered data on 356 firms that made an IPO ...on the NASDAQ stock exchange between February 1998 and August 2001. ..firms were characterized by IPO.com... as operating in the Internet Services, Internet Software and Computer Software Segments. We were able to obtain comprehensive information on these firms including ...measures (of) their patent holdings... obtained from ...Delphion, USPTO, Compustat...

Continue reading Patents in the Bubble Burst . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 8:00 AM | Innovation , Markets , Patents

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James DeLong previously mentioned Professor Robert Merges' article on software patents, entry and innovation. In that paper, Merges cited the pattern of entry for firms into new markets where incumbents hold patents, as indication of a thriving software industry .

Patent scholars agree that introduction of new firms is strongly associated with technological change and new products/services. Now, research by Professors Iain Cockburn and Megan MacGarvie from Boston Univ., and the National Bureau of Economic Research, adds to this theoretical understanding and also complements Merges's previous findings. Entry, Exit and Patenting in the Software Industry (October 2006), NBER Working Paper No. W12563. The article is extensive- drawing from a database of nearly 20,000 companies in 27 tech markets spanning 1990-2004.

Cockburn and MacGarvie find a solid correlation between patents and firms’ ability to enter and survive in markets. Firms are three times more likely to enter markets for which they hold patents, and over three times more likely to stay in those markets compared to non-patent holders. Further, though barriers may exist from patents held by incumbents, these are offset by advantages entrants gain coming into a market with patents at the outset.

Continue reading Entering and Staying in Markets With Patents . . .

posted by Noel Le @ 12:29 AM | Innovation , Patents

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The rumors Jim spoke of were correct, and the founders and investors of YouTube are $1.65 billion richer as a result. A lot has been written on this acquisition by Google already and more will be written. Three quick points:

1.) Despite the deals Jim mentions, I have to think that Google is a bigger target for copyright infringement suits than cash-poor YouTube. After all, as of the time of this post, Google's market cap was $131.93 billion, larger than the gross national product of Israel, Venezuela and 187 other nations.
2) Google is sitting on $9.82 billion in cash, money that's burning a hole in the company's collective pocket. Why not take a spin on an Internet sensation?
3) Google has been famous for developing new services and having them adopted by consumers. More mature tech companies have found it more difficult to innovate internally as they've grown, and have been more inclined to purchase innovation and bring it in-house. Is this a sign Google is maturing?

The Dow just topped its 2000 high last week, meaning it took more than six years to recover from the Internet bubble. Here's hoping this purchase isn't a sign of Bubble 2.0.

UPDATE: Through a link in a News.com comment, I found this site that claims YouTube's numbers are dramatically inflated from people using automated tools to increase how many times a video is "viewed," thus moving it up the popularity list. (Wonder if the professional folks behind lonelygirl15 did that?) Did Google buy the eyeballs they thought they did, and what does that do to their ad revenue projections?

FURTHER UPDATE: I mentioned Google's huge cash pile above, but should note they made the purchase in Google stock. The Big Picture points out that with Google's subsequent rise in stock value, the purchase was essentially free. Of course, who knows what that stock price will look like a year from now if Google is facing per-view infringement penalties for massive copyright infringement.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 11:27 AM | Innovation , Markets: Business, Investment & Innovation

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posted by Noel Le @ 1:16 PM | Academia , Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain , Big Tent , DMCA , DRM , Innovation , Patents

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