Intellectual Property Law Internet Law IT Law Computer Law

I would like to comment on the whole issue in one sentence: better protect then sue. I know I shouldn’t issue statements like that because being a lawyer I am obliged to write more sophisticated. Well, it looks like I am not a good lawyer. Ad rem.

Details of how to copy the Oyster cards used on London’s transport network can be published, a Dutch judge has ruled.

More details in the article available at www.bbc.co.uk website, and I think that a quotation of Bruce Schneier is the best punchline.

As bad as the damage is from publishing - and there probably will be some - the damage is much, much worse by not disclosing.

Federico Biancuzzi wrote an article “The Laws of Full Disclosure” which is available at www.securityfocus.com website. There is a little part where he asked me some questions regarding Polish and European legal regimes.

On March 14, 2008, The Polish Patent Office together with The WIPO, The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, The Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, The National chamber of Commerce and The Polish Confederation of Private Employers LEWIATAN organize a conference “IP protection as a condition for women’ success in science and business” which will be located in Warsaw at The Polish National Library. During the above mentioned conference there will be also held an official ending of the 3rd edition of “The Woman-Inventor” competition-plebiscite.

Long the well of gadget blog content, the FCC website is chock-full of unannounced gear ripe for the plucking. Finding these gadgets is a simple process, but for many, knowing where to begin is a difficult task.

How To Discover Secret Gadgets Through the FCC. An article available at www.gizmodo.com website.

O’Grady v. SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA, 2005 CA App. Ct. Pleadings 28579H (CA App. Ct. Pleadings 2005). Some excerpts.

Petitioners seek to stop [**7] a third party from providing the identities of persons who stole highly valuable trade secrets that belong to Apple Computer and were illegally disseminated through Petitioners’ websites. After conducting a thorough but unsuccessful investigation into this unauthorized disclosure, Apple served a narrowly tailored subpoena on an email service provider to recover the stolen materials and discover who had misappropriated Apple’s trade secrets. Asserting special protections they claim attach to their purported role as “journalists,” Petitioners moved for a protective order to block this essential discovery. The trial court denied the motion and this petition followed.

Apple, the real party in interest, is the victim of a serious theft. Unknown individuals stole trade secrets about an unreleased Apple product, code-named “Asteroid,” from secure Apple facilities. Petitioners deliberately posted these misappropriated trade secrets on their websites “PowerPage” and “AppleInsider.” These posts contained little more than outright copies of Apple’s unreleased, copyrighted design, verbatim excerpts from Apple technical specifications, Apple’s pricing projections for Asteroid, and Apple’s comparison of the product to its anticipated competition.
(…)
23. Respondent trial court granted Apple’s application on December 14, 2004, (Order Granting Ex Parte Application for Discovery and Issuance of Subpoenas (”Discovery Order 1″), Ex. 8, 71-72) authorizing Apple to serve subpoenas to “Powerpage.com, Appleinsider.com, and Thinksecret.com requiring each to produce all documents relating to any information posted on its site relating to an unreleased Apple product code named ‘Asteroid’ …” and to serve [*11] subpoenas on each of the Apple News Sites for information leading to the identity of “any individual or individuals who have knowledge regarding the posts on its site disclosing information about the Product … and individuals who received and/or edited information related to the Product.” Apple subsequently drafted and attempted to serve a subpoena on Apple Insider and Monish Bhatia.

And here are informations from different sources.

Apple and Think Secret have settled their lawsuit, reaching an agreement that results in a positive solution for both sides. As part of the confidential settlement, no sources were revealed and Think Secret will no longer be published. Nick Ciarelli, Think Secret’s publisher, said “I’m pleased to have reached this amicable settlement, and will now be able to move forward with my college studies and broader journalistic pursuits.

I invite all of you to my lecture which is scheduled on October 2007 r., at 11 AM at the Main Library of University of Gdansk, Wita Stwosza street 53, Gdańsk-Przymorze, at the OIN main training room (no 054). During the meeting hosted by Three-City Linux User Group I am going to give a short lecture which is titled, “Linux and so-called IP rights”.

Innovators Network has invited me to chair a workshop focusing on SMEs from the IT sector. I’ll teach them how to define intellectual assets and protect it, as well as, to raise capital, develop partnerships, and create new streams of revenue. This workshop is titled “Discover a New Source of Income for Your Company through Usage of Intellectual Property. Turning Your Innovation into a Successful Business”. It will take place on December 6, 2007, in beautiful Kraków. If you are around during this time and you’d like to meet then let me know.

Ms Marybeth Peters (US Register of Copyrights) is not an owner of a personal computer. It is not a problem for her to decide and discuss crucial aspects of copyright law and IT issues. More details are presented in the article available at www.news.com website. Meanwhile, as reagard to previous post there is also very interesting article available at www.torrentfreak.com website about Media Defender’s “anti-piracy tools” that have “leaked” to the Net.

I have to write that Media Defender has no luck with good PR and the net. More details and comments supporting my opinion are available at www.arstechnica.com and in hundreds of post published around the Internet. However, I was thinking about the reaction of legal advisors who are representing MediaDefender. It is well-know fact that many lawyers correspondong with operators of the infamous www.thepiratebay.org website faced the ironic consequence of how improper is to write to European countries citizens with claims based in the US law. The bitter response to Media Defender’s lawers is available at www.meganova.org website. Other comments regarding mentioned leaks are available at www.torrentfreak.com website.

Intellectual property scholars have begun to explore the curious dynamics of IP’s negative spaces, areas in which IP law offers scant protection for innovators, but where innovation nevertheless seems to thrive. Such negative spaces pose a puzzle for the traditional theory of IP, which holds that IP law is necessary to create incentives for innovation.

This paper presents a study of one such negative space which has so far garnered some curiosity but little sustained attention - the world of performing magicians. This paper argues that idiosyncratic dynamics among magicians make traditional copyright, patent, and trade secret law ill-suited to protecting magicians’ most valuable intellectual property. Yet, the paper further argues that the magic community has developed its own set of unique IP norms which effectively operate in law’s absence. The paper details the structure of these informal norms that protect the creation, dissemination, and performance of magic tricks. The paper also discusses broader implications for IP theory, suggesting that a norm-based approach may offer a promising explanation for the puzzling persistence of some of IP’s negative spaces.

Loshin, Jacob, “Secrets Revealed: How Magicians Protect Intellectual Property without Law” (July 25, 2007). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1005564. I found it at www.boingboing.net website.

July 21st is amongst other things, a day of the official premiere of the book “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in English-speaking countries. There was a lot of articles written about extra measures taken only to protect this book against a leak. For example, a fresh story described in the article at www.reuters.com website. However, I momentally recall myself the case of Canadian publisher Raincoast Books from 2005. Professor Michael Geist wrote an interesting post which included many details and comments as regards to the problem with pre-sold books about adventures of sorcerers from Hogwarts. Some additional and official statements are available at www.raincoast.com website. Richard Stallman was the one who also wrote short and bitter comment about the injunction granted by Judge Gill in connection with the right to read idea.

Update on July 17, 2007.
There is an article at www.salon.com website about “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” leak which was done with the use of a pone with digital camera. I saw such release Harry.Potter.The.Deadly.Hallows.eBOOK-iND.

I couldn’t resist writing about that. I will cite the whole post taken from www.hackint0sh.org.

We managed to obtain and crack the hashs of the user passwords for the iPhone OS. More information could be found at our development Wiki here (link removed).

Edit: cause you digg people broke the poor wiki:

The password for root is “alpine”
The “mobile” user accounts password is “dottie”

Is it sick to have root pasword to all iPhones worldwide? Well not really, there is no terminal yet to login :P

Who will be the first one to code terminal? We all know that iPhone’s operating system (Mac OS X) will allow to run third-parties applications. More details available at www.apple.com website.

Update on July 6, 2007.
I wonder if Apple’s legal team should sue Greg’s mom as regard to copyright infringement. Why I think so? Just check www.daddytypes.com. Isn’t it a “fake”?!

Update on July 7, 2007.
We got fully operational terminal. More details in a thread from a forum at www.hackint0sh.org website. A list of available commands at www.fiveforty.net website. I wonder what will Apple do.

India’s Supreme Court ordered Coca Cola and Pepsi companies to reveal trade secrets concerning their leading products. The case was based on a study released this week that claimed that those beverages contained unacceptable levels of insecticides. If both companies don’t comply with Justice S. B. Sinha and Justice Dalveer Bhandari judgement, the court will use its authority to suspend sales. More details in the article at www.timesonline.co.uk.