Atlanteknology - Technology News for Atlantic Canada

Social networking in the USA - Watch out!

Senator John McCain, whom I generally view as a decent sort, recently introduced what, at first blush, looks like a staggeringly broad initiative in the USA Senate.

According to the proposed legislation, the following types of individuals or businesses would be required to file reports to the  National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: any Web site with a message board; any chat room; any social-networking site; any e-mail service; any instant-messaging service; any Internet content hosting service; any domain name registration service; any Internet search service; any electronic communication service; and any image or video-sharing service. Various types of business entities already have to do so.

The proposal does not stop there. It would create a federal registry of "any e-mail address, instant-message address, or other similar Internet identifier" used by convicted sex offenders and then require any social-networking site to take "effective measures" to remove any web page that is  "associated" with a sex offender.

Dubious and overly broad. But, in a political climate where the Congress is passing various knee jerk type bills related to the internet, a prudent business with a USA presence should make itself aware of what might be coming down the pipe and to prepare accordingly.

The Wild West – or is it the Wild.eu?

Recently, the European Union's domain administrator, EURid, suspended 74,000 .eu domain names after an investigation found that the domain names had been stockpiled for sale rather than use. The domain names had been registered using shell companies.

The potential for the problem was predicted by GoDaddy’s CEO, Bob Parsons, who noted that there were 800 domain name registrars shortly before the “land rush” of .eu domain names registrations began and that, immediately before the rush began, 300 more registrars appeared.

If you are considering a .eu registration it is advisable to check carefully with the domain name registrar you will be using to ensure that it is a legitimate business and your registration will not be challenged for circumstances beyond your control.

Zippo this.

Most people are familiar with the Zippo lighter, whether or not they have every partaken of a cigar, cigarette or other consumable. The distinctive shape of the Zippo lighter is as familiar to your grandparents as it probably is to your children.

Not surprisingly, Zippo is very diligent in enforcing its intellectual property rights.

In a recent case in India, Zippo obtained an injunction against a rival firm that was duplicating the shape of the Zippo lighter. The case is unremarkable in the sense that the outcome was relatively predictable but it does highlight the fact that if a company has a valuable trade-mark/industrial design, it needs to be diligent throughout the world in investigating and eliminating infringement.

Blackjack, Blackberry, or black and blue?

You may have seen ads for the new Samsung Blackjack smartphone type devise. When I saw one I immediately thought that the name was close enough to RIM's Blackberry to cause some concern.

And, indeed, RIM is concerned - concerned enough to sue Samsung alleging, among other things, trade-mark dilution.

One has to be careful in selecting a name for a new product or service. I definitely recommend in depth due diligence if the product/service is going to be a major one in terms of its contribution to the bottom line and/or cost to roll out. It has happened (and will unfortunately happen again and again) where a company creates some product/service, does all kinds of testing, creates the ads, has packaging lined up, the whole thing is ready.....and they discover some problem/conflict between the name of the product/service and some other product/service.

As the old saying goes - a gram of prevention is worth a kilo of cure. Words to live by.

Congressional agenda/areas of interest

The Congressional Internet Caucus met recently to discuss potential issues which may be examined for legislative initiative in the next session of the USA Congress. There is certainly no guarantee that any one in particular will make it to the legislative agenda but the list certainly provides some insight as to the issues which legislators and interested parties feel are important from a policy and business standpoint (among others). The list is as follows (in no particular order):

1. RFID tags;

2. Identity theft and fraud;

3. Cyber crime;

4. Universal and assured access to the Internet;

5. The Internet’s infrastructure;

6. Network resilience;

7. Internet taxation;

8. Internet governance and net neutrality;

9. Data mining and privacy;

10. Information security and privacy;

11. IP and innovation protection as it applies to the Internet.

Remember, remember the 5th of November?

You may (but probably do not) recall a post I wrote a while back about the poor sod who received nasty and threatening letters from the lawyers for the owners of the copyright and trade-mark rights to everyone's favourite purple dinosaur - Barney.

Well, the chap fought back and won. In a settlement announced last week (but made on November 21, 2006) of this week, the owners agreed to pay 5000 and, essentially, to stop bothering the fellow.

The settlement makes for a good read. It can be found here.

When I commented on the whole matter I noted that one should be very careful in enforcing intellectual property rights (or at least the manner in which you go about it). In this case the negative publicity was certainly much more damaging to poor Barney's reputation than that website which parodied him.

Now, if a person is using someone's copyrighted material for commercial gain, that is a whole different matter....

One of the best quotes on why to learn about IP

This is one of the best quotes ever, and I mean ever. It is from an article written by a chap named John Cummerford. He provides a list of ten reasons why a business person should learn the laws on intellectual property. This is number 10:

10. It's cheaper and easier to operate with a handshake than to write it down. This is true. It's also cheaper and easier not to go to the dentist, and that's not a smart idea either. Although some contracts must be written down to be enforceable (e.g., contracts to sell land), "handshake agreements" can be enforceable contracts but with one serious drawback: proving what you agreed to. Remember, a person's word is usually as good as what he or she will sign.

So true.

That is SO obvious...or is it?

The USA Supreme Court is currently hearing a case that could have enormous implications for patent holders in the USA and for companies, no matter where they operate.

The case is KSR International v. Teleflex Inc., and revolves around the issue of whether an invention is obvious and therefore ineligible for a patent.

Teleflex Inc. sued KSR in 2002 for infringing its patent on a gas pedal. Teleflex combined a gas pedal that can be adjusted for the height of the driver with one that controls acceleration electronically, rather than through a mechanical cable. KSR subsequently made a similar pedal. And so Teleflex sued KSR.

One of KSR’s arguments in defence is that the combination of the two features was an obvious one and as a result the patent was invalid.

The difficulty here is that if the USA Supreme Court sides in favour of KSR and finds that Teleflex’s patent in invalid, it will not only set an important precedent for future patent applications but it will open the barn doors and give some companies an incredible weapon to attack patents which have been issued in the past. However, it is unquestionable that the USA Patent Office has issued some very questionable patents in the past, especially (in my view) in the area of business method patents and the time may be ripe to have some new, and more restrictive, law on what is or is not obvious vis-à-vis inventions.

Stay tuned.