President Obama picks David Kappos as USPTO Director, first open source fan to run USPTO

Our impressions about this appointment are positive, but we would like to hear from others. IBM has been very smart on IPR issues lately, recognizing that knowledge is often more valuable when shared. Coming from a successful technology firm, he will have both credibility and insight into innovation policy. He brings more balance to the job than anyone we can remember. Below are some interesting quotes from various articles.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

TACD issues resolution on IPR enforcement

On June 18, 2009, The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) issued a 2,000 word resolution on the enforcement of copyright, trademarks, patents and other intellectual property rights. The resolution is on the TACD web page here. A press release from the TACD IP-Working Group, with comments from several TACD members, is available on the web here.

Continue Reading

Uncategorized

Amazon’s Soundproof Kindle books

In a 2002 article on "The Soundproof Book," George Kerscher and Jim Fruchterman explored the exclusionary impact of books with text-to-speech disabled.*  In 2008, Amazon began to disable text-to-speech in thousands of Kindle editions of ebooks.  Below are examples of the new Amazon soundproof books.

[*George Kerscher and Jim Fruchterman, "The Soundproof Book: Exploration of Rights Conflict and Access to Commercial EBooks for People with Disabilities," First Monday, Volume. 7, Number 6 – 3 June 2002.]

Continue Reading

WHA: Statement by the Government of Bolivia

This is the statement that the government of Bolivia delivered today to the 62nd World Health Assembly at the conclusion of the discussions on the Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (WHA 61.21).

Statement of Bolivia on resolving outstanding elements of agenda item 12.8

Joint Statement on behalf of

Bangladesh, Barbados, Bolivia and Suriname, and
Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela

Continue Reading

Uncategorized