SPICY IP: Indian "Bayh Dole" Conference at NUJS in September

SPICY IP: Indian "Bayh Dole" Conference at NUJS in September

technolex: Three Indicted in Largest Hacking and Corporate Identity Theft Case in History

technolex: Three Indicted in Largest Hacking and Corporate Identity Theft Case in History

There Should Be a Tough Punishmemt for Software Piracy

As per the recent developements and views from BSA( Business software Alliance)we can say that due to weak law on software piracy there are only few convictions so far but because of our current justice system, some cases are still on appeal while some individual who have been convicted opted to go on probation.
cases.
According to senior officials of BSA of Anti-Piracy Asia-Pacific,from the last 12 months, the BSA hotline has received over 500 calls from reporters who gave valuable information regarding organisations using pirated software.In India as per the recent survey around 50 % organisations are using pirated softwares.We can say that these calls in the BSA hotline only prove that peoples are now started to realize the importance of fighting software piracy.
What i feel that to implement a tougher law against copyright infringement, adding that it has been more than 5 decades since the Copyright Act was passed in most of the countries.Now various business groups are already in talks with the Supreme Court (SC)and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) of USA to come up with special rules on intellectual property cases.

Whether Market experimentation can be protected as Intellectual Property

Whether Market experimentation can be protected as Intellectual Property? Why don’t intellectual property theory and property rights theory more generally support the idea of Intellectual property protection for market experimentation? In certain cases exclusive rights have been used to encourage market experimentation. Exclusive franchise agreements are a widely employed means by which franchisors encourage new franchisees to risk developing a business in new geographic locations.Likewise British “patents of importation,” which provided exclusive rights for the importer of a technology already existing outside of Britain, were permissible for several years. USA took the leading role to promote market experimentation by rejecting the patents of importation. The current systems of intellectual property have several doctrines that are difficult to explain unless the relevant intellectual property rights are recognized as partially supporting the goal of encouraging market experimentation. Few observers said that there are companies in USA which do not produce any actual products but merely obtain and enforce patents. The traditional theory of the patent system believes in the basic idea that for obtaining exclusive patent rights is against the disclosure of the technology set forth in the patent document itself. Some patentee who makes a sufficient disclosure and obtains a valid patent cannot be playing with the system. So when the patent system will have two goals one spurring the disclosure of technological information and the other fostering actual investment in real-world market experiments—then the concern over patent trolls proves logical. It means that the law can be more liberal to organizations that have both made technological disclosure in patent specifications and taken risk in making investments in new technology based businesses.

New Begining of Cyberlaw in Newzealand Mr.Frank March, a senior special advisor with the IT and Telecommunications Policy Group at the Ministry of Economic Development has been appointed as a president of the Internet Policy making body of Newzealand. The said organization also administers domain names. The organisation (Internet NZ) uses the fees it receives from users who register .nz domain names to fund its advocacy work. The current issue in Newzealand is copyright, but content filtering, access guarantees, and the right to free speech, is also debated from the last few years. Social networking is already raising a whole new set of moral and personal security and privacy issues.” The group is actively involved in the IPV6 steering group (the next generation of internet protocol), and funds a Cyberlaw fellowship. This is a very encouraging development in Newzealand which further boost the cyberlaw in the country

ITIP MASALA: Patenting of Life forms and food security

ITIP MASALA: Patenting of Life forms and food security

Patenting of Life forms and food security

Does Granting Patent On Life Forms In Developing Countries Ensure Food Security? In fact many developing countries have been facing economic challenges, achieving basic food security. Hence, food security, as component element of sustainable development, is prominent on the domestic, as well as the international agendas of many countries from the South. In the ongoing debate of food security , thus, several strategies have been proposed in developing countries. It has been suggested that the path to sustainable food security in developing countries should emphasize, among other things, a transformation process that can move agriculture from its subsistence level through improved traditional farming, market and cash oriented agriculture by application of modern biotechnology and genetic engineering to the agricultural production process. It is said that it can be possible by enhancing IPRs on life forms and processes. Accordingly, developing countries are being encouraged for the application of IPRs to life forms and processes. But it also has its negative aspects which can create new problems. For eg. Threat to soil fertility, unnatural change in the gene structure may give rise to some new problems. Balancing of the rights of the plant breeders and farmers.

RIAA has got big success agaisnt Music Piracy

Beware Before Downloading Music on Internet. Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has got big success in the new strategy by working in association with Internet service providers to stop illegal music sharing. Yesterday a Boston University student, Tenebaum, who admitted illegally downloading, 30 songs, hundreds of tunes over Kazaa's file-sharing software was ordered to pay $675,000 to four record companies. The recording companies were Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and subsidiaries of Sony. The case is only the second time an individual has gone to trial for illegally downloading music. In June, 2009, a federal jury ordered Jammie Thomas-Rasset to pay record companies $1.92 million for illegally downloading 24 songs. The argument of Tenebaum’s attorney that he was just a kid doing what kids do on the Internet. The said argument was not accepted by the court and made him liable The court awarded lesser amount, $22,500 per track, than it could have awarded to as much as $150,000 per track, or $4.5 million. The RIAA argued that "real people" have been damaged by the illegal downloading of copyrighted music. So it brought legal action against thousands of individuals it claimed were guilty of music piracy. Tenenbaum was connected to that sweep. Tenenbaum's lawyer is planning to appeal against the jury's decision. Tenenbaum have decided that he would file for bankruptcy if the verdict is not overturned. This can be a good lesson for the Indian Music Industry as now it is losing many Billion Dollars annually due to music piracy.