From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Aug 2 14:18:38 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Mon, 02 Aug 2004 14:18:38 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] DVD - Patent and license fees
Message-ID: <410DFFE6.6010801@sarai.net>
The contemporary hardening regime around IP makes sense in the context
of these kind of `rent` flows.
From DVD Faq (through google search)
"Any company making DVD products must license essential technology
patents from the "3C
' pool (LG,
Philips, Pioneer, Sony: 3.5% per player/drive, minimum $3.50; additional
$0.75 for Video CD compatibility; 5 cents per disc), the "6C
" pool (Hitachi, IBM, Matsushita, Mitsubishi,
Time Warner, Toshiba, Victor: 4% per player/drive, minimum $4; 4% per
"DVD Video decoder", minimum $1; 7.5 cents per disc) and from Thomson
(~$1 per player/drive). Patent royalties may also be owed to Discovision
Associates , which owns about 1300 optical
disc patents (usually paid by the replicator).
The licensor of CSS encryption technology is DVD CCA
(Copy Control Association), a non-profit
trade association with offices at 225 B Cochrane Circle, Morgan Hill,
CA. There is a $15,000 annual licensing fee, but no per-product
royalties. Send license requests to css-license at lmicp.com
, technical info requests to
css-info at lmicp.com . Before December 15,
1999, CSS licensing was administered on an interim basis by Matsushita.
Macrovision licenses its analog
anti-recording technology to hardware makers. There is a $30,000 initial
charge, with a $15,000 yearly renewal fee. The fees support
certification of players to ensure widest compatibility with
televisions. There are no royalty charges for player manufacturers.
Macrovision charges a royalty to content publishers (approximately 4 to
10 cents per disc, compared to 2 to 5 cents for a VHS tape)."
From sudhir at circuit.sarai.net Tue Aug 3 12:34:58 2004
From: sudhir at circuit.sarai.net (sudhir at circuit.sarai.net)
Date: Tue, 3 Aug 2004 09:04:58 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Commons-Law] IPR Essay Competition August 15th Deadline
Message-ID: <4280.210.214.120.227.1091516698.squirrel@210.214.120.227>
Annual Essay Contest on Intellectual Property Rights
EXTENSION OF DEADLINE
Deadline for receiving essays has been extended to 15th August
2004 from 15th July 2004
Indea IP: An Intellectual Property Write
Annual Essay Contest on Intellectual Property Rights
The Contest
"Indea IP: An Intellectual Property Write" is the first annual essay
contest conducted by the Vidya Intellectual Property Foundation
The contest seeks to encourage in-depth research and writing into key
themes in intellectual property law in the context of India. The contest
is open to everyone- students, engineers, lawyers, scientists,
journalists, etc.
The competition is being sponsored by Tata Sons Ltd. and is being
conducted in association with the Intellectual Property Rights Unit (IPR),
University of Delhi.
The Theme
The main theme of the competition is 'Indian Intellectual Property'.
Participants are free to choose from any of the following sub-themes:
1.. Are our IP laws promoting or suppressing Indian Intellectual Property?
2.. Case study (or studies) on Indian inventions and innovations
3.. Indian Intellectual Property - 20 years from now
4.. Change the IP paradigm- no holds barred to unleash the creative
force within
Entries are invited on any topic in one or more of the above sub-themes.
The Prizes
Three prizes will be awarded. The prize-winning essays will be published
and the winners will be awarded Rs.20, 000/-, Rs. 15, 000/- and Rs.10,
000/- respectively as prize money.
The Deadline
Essays should not exceed 2000 words. Please send in 2 hard copies of your
essay on or before 15th July 2004.
The Jury
The prizewinning essays will be selected by a jury consisting of lawyers,
scientists, judges and journalists.
Send your essays along with your name and contact details to:
Indea IP: An Intellectual Property Write
C/o Anand & Anand
B-41, Nizamuddin East
New Delhi - 110013
For clarifications, you may contact indeaip at anandandanand.com or visit
www.ipmoot.org
From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 3 20:15:00 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Tue, 03 Aug 2004 20:15:00 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Call for Student Stipends for Research on
Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property
Message-ID: <410FA4EC.1040705@sarai.net>
Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics ::
A Conference on Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property
6th - 8th January 2005 in New Delhi
Call for Student Stipends for Research on Inequalities, Conflicts and
Intellectual Property
The Sarai Programme of the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, New
Delhi and Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore invite students of all
disciplines (e.g. law, history, literature, media, anthropology,
sociology, politics, philosophy, economics, programming etc.) to
participate in the student workshop which precedes the conference and
act as public rapporteurs to the conference. To apply, you must submit
your CV and a 600 word note exploring any one of the themes of the
conference and displaying a keen understanding of the contemporary
conflicts surrounding intellectual property, in the context of social
inequality. We encourage students to write inter-disciplinary essays
which display a careful attention to the thematics of the conference
rather than academic essays such as submitted at your University.
The conference brief
The past three years have seen conflicts over the regulation of
information, knowledge and cultural materials increase in intensity and
scope. This conflict has widened to include new geographical spaces,
particularly China, India, South Africa and Brazil. Moreover, a range of
new problems, including the expansion of intellectual property
protection to almost all spheres of our social life, has intensified the
nature of the conflict. Here it is important to recognize that the
nature of the conflict gets configured differently as we move from the
United States and Europe to social landscapes marked by sharp
inequalities in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
In the light of these transformations, we would like to revisit earlier
discussions on creativity, innovation, authorship, and the making of
property. Is it possible to draw comparative registers between earlier
histories of violence and dispossession that accompanied the making of
property, and the current turbulence around intellectual property on
world scale? In this conference, we would like to push comparative
discussions between earlier and contemporary moments of dispossession
and criminalisation, between the open source movement and discussions on
traditional knowledge and bio-diversity. We would also like to build a
dialogue between different moments in media history: print, film, music
and the new media, so as to prise open questions around culture,
circulation and property.
The submission process
All submissions should be emailed to by September
30th 2004.
We will select 20 students who will be informed by 1st November 2004.
Travel expenses, board and lodge, as well as a modest per diem, will be
provided to the candidates for attending the workshops and the
Conference. Selected students will participate in the student workshop
prior to the Conference on 4th January 2004 and act as public
rapporteurs to the Conference. We will encourage students to be
experimental in using varied strategies to disseminate the conference
proceedings.
--------------
Conference Editors:
>From Sarai/CSDS: Jeebesh Bagchi, Ravi Sundaram
>From ALF: Lawrence Liang, Sudhir Krishnaswamy
--------------------------
Sarai
Center for Study of Developing Studies (CSDS)
29, Rajpur Road
Delhi 110054, India
Ph: 91 11 23960040
Fax: 91 11 23943450
Email:
Alternative Law Forum (ALF)
122/4 Infantry Road,
Bangalore 560 001, Karnataka
Phone: 91 80 22865757
Email:
---------------------------
From monica at sarai.net Wed Aug 4 11:13:47 2004
From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula)
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 11:13:47 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: CMS patent
Message-ID:
Dear all
Isn't this a strange development? There are numerous mulitple
authoring systems that exist for people to contribute to websites,
and as far as i know some of them (such as openmute.org in practice
already, and a system called dischosting which is an application
available on sourceforge) assumes 'content control' from the people
uploading already. Am i missing something here that makes this unique?
best
M
>X-Original-To: monica at sarai.net
>Delivered-To: monica at sarai.net
>Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:17:55 -0400
>From: t byfield
>To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net
>Subject: CMS patent
>Sender: nettime-l-request at bbs.thing.net
>Reply-To: t byfield
>X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on mail.sarai.net
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> version=2.63
>X-Sanitizer: Mail Sanitizer
>
>< http://cmspatent.notlong.com > (pointing at < http://patft.uspto.gov/ ...>)
>
> [US Patent & Trademark Office, Patent Full Text and Image Database]
>
> ( 1 of 1 )
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> United States Patent 6,745,238
> Giljum , et al. June 1, 2004
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Self service system for web site publishing
>
> Abstract
>
> A web site creation and maintenance system permits distributed control
> and centralized management of a web site. The physical implementation
> of the web site resides on a database maintained by a database
> administrator. The web site system permits a site administrator to
> construct the overall structure, design and style of the web site.
> This allows for a comprehensive design as well as a common look and
> feel for the web site. The web site system permits content for the web
> site to originate from multiple content contributors. The publication
> of content is controlled by content owners. This permits assignment of
> content control to those persons familiar with the content. The web
> site system is also a self service web site system for content
> contributors, content owners, and site administrators. The self
> service system displays to users one or more panels that contain input
> fields to permit the users to submit content and web site components
> for publication on the web site. The user, through use of only a web
> browser running on the user computer, transmits the parameter to the
> web site database. In response, the web site is updated at the
> database in accordance with the parameter.
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Inventors: Giljum; Robert (San Francisco, CA); Thorpe; John
> (Washington, DC); Kramer; Jeanne (Silver Spring, MD); Banker; Nilay
> (Fremont, CA); Deep; Vandana (Union City, CA)
> Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Redwood Shores, CA)
> Appl. No.: 540092
> Filed: March 31, 2000
>
> Current U.S. Class: 709/219; 707/102
> Intern'l Class: G06F 015/16
> Field of Search: 709/223,219 707/102,103,104
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> References Cited [10][Referenced By]
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> U.S. Patent Documents
>
> [11]5740549 Apr., 1998 Reilly et al. 705/14.
> [12]5826258 Oct., 1998 Gupta et al. 707/4.
> [13]5911145 Jun., 1999 Arora et al. 715/514.
> [14]5978766 Nov., 1999 Luciw 705/1.
> [15]6014137 Jan., 2000 Burns 345/334.
> [16]6185608 Feb., 2001 Hon et al. 709/216.
> [17]6189029 Feb., 2001 Fuerst 709/217.
> [18]6192415 Feb., 2001 Haverstock et al. 709/245.
> [19]6195652 Feb., 2001 Fish 707/2.
> [20]6195657 Feb., 2001 Rucker et al. 707/5.
> [21]6223177 Apr., 2001 Tatham et al. 707/9.
> [22]6233600 May., 2001 Salas et al. 709/201.
> [23]6243700 Jun., 2001 Zellweger 707/3.
> [24]6308188 Oct., 2001 Bernardo et al. 707/530.
> [25]6317722 Nov., 2001 Jacobi et al. 705/14.
> [26]6366910 Apr., 2002 Rajaraman et al. 707/5.
> [27]6438580 Aug., 2002 Mears et al. 709/204.
> [28]6463460 Oct., 2002 Simonoff 709/203.
> [29]6466918 Oct., 2002 Spiegel et al. 705/27.
> [30]6516329 Feb., 2003 Smith 715/501.
> [31]2001/0042132 Nov., 2001 Mayadas 709/238.
>
> Primary Examiner: Jaroenchonwanit; Bunjob
> Attorney, Agent or Firm: Hickman Palermo Truong & Becker LLP
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Claims
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> What is claimed is:
> 1. A method for displaying content, comprising:
> receiving input that defines a set of perspectives, wherein each
> perspective in the set of perspectives is a cross category grouping of
> one or more content items, and wherein said one or more content items
> is in a plurality of content items;
> storing, in a database, the plurality of content items, wherein each
> of the plurality of content items belongs to one or more categories;
> receiving user input that associates subsets of said set of
> perspectives with each of said plurality of content items; and
> in response to a request to display a web page that contains one of
> said plurality of content items, displaying on said web page a
> selectable control for each perspective in the subset of said set of
> perspectives that is associated with said one of said plurality of
> content items.
> 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
> storing in the database a second plurality of content items that are
> not associated with any member of said set of perspectives.
> 3. The method of claim 1, wherein said input that defines said set of
> perspectives is received in response to user manipulation of a
> graphical user interface presented by a second web page.
> 4. The method of claim 1, wherein each member of said set of
> perspectives is a key word.
> 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising, in response to input
> received at said web page, where the input selects the selectable
> control of a particular perspective in the subset of perspectives
> associated with said one of said content items, performing the steps
> of:
> performing a search within said database for a set of content items
> that are associated with said particular perspective; and
> displaying, on a second web page, at least one content item identified
> in said search.
> 6. The method of claim 5 wherein the step of displaying, on a second
> web page, at least one content item includes displaying, on said
> second web page, a plurality of content items that are associated,
> within said database, with said particular perspective.
> 7. A computer-readable medium carrying one or more sequences of
> instructions which, when executed by one or more processors, causes
> the one or more processors to perform the steps of:
> receiving input that defines a set of perspectives, wherein each
> perspective in the set of perspectives is a cross category grouping of
> one or more content items, and wherein said one or more content items
> is in a plurality of content items;
> storing, in a database, the plurality of content items, wherein each
> of the plurality of content items belongs to one or more categories;
> receiving user input that associates subsets of said set of
> perspectives with each of said plurality of content items; and
> in response to a request to display a web page that contains one of
> said plurality of content items, displaying on said web page a
> selectable control for each perspective in the subset of said set of
> perspectives that is associated with said one of said plurality of
> content items.
> 8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, further comprising
> instructions for:
> storing in the database a second plurality of content items that are
> not associated with any member of said set of perspectives.
> 9. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein said input that
> defines said set of perspectives is received in response to user
> manipulation of a graphical user interface presented by a second web
> page.
> 10. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein each member of
> said set of perspectives is a key word.
> 11. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, further comprising
> instructions for, in response to input received at said web page,
> where the input selects the selectable control of a particular
> perspective in the subset of perspectives associated with said one of
> said content items, performing the steps of:
> performing a search within said database for a set of content items
> that are associated with said particular perspective; and
> displaying, on a second web page, at least one content item identified
> in said search.
> 12. The computer-readable medium of claim 11 wherein the step of
> displaying, on a second web page, at least one content item includes
> displaying, on said second web page, a plurality of content items that
> are associated, within said database, with said particular
> perspective.
> 13. An apparatus for displaying content, comprising:
> means for receiving input that defines a set of perspectives, wherein
> each perspective in the set of perspectives is a cross category
> grouping of one or more content items, and wherein said content item
> is in a plurality of content items;
> means for storing in a database the plurality of content items,
> wherein each of the plurality of content items belongs to one or more
> categories;
> means for receiving user input that associates subsets of said set of
> perspectives with each of said content items; and
> means for displaying on a web page a selectable control for each
> perspective in the subset of said set of perspectives that is
> associated with said one of said content items in response to a
> request to display a web page that contains one of said content items.
> 14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising:
> means for storing in the database a second plurality of content items
> that are not associated with any member of said set of perspectives.
> 15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein said input that defines said
> set of perspectives is received in response to user manipulation of a
> graphical use interface presented by a second web page.
> 16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein each member of said set of
> perspectives is a key word.
> 17. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein said web page is a first web
> page, and further comprising:
> means for performing a search within said database for a set of
> content items that are associated with a particular perspective in
> response to input received at said first web page, where the input
> selects the selectable control of said particular perspective in the
> subset of perspectives associated with said one of said content items;
> and
> means for displaying, on a second web page, at least one content item
> identified in said search in response to input received at said first
> web page, where the input selects the selectable control of said
> particular perspective in the subset of perspectives associated with
> said one of said content items.
> 18. The apparatus of claim 17 wherein the means for displaying, on a
> second web page, at least one content item includes means for
> displaying, on said second web page, a plurality of content items that
> are associated, within said database, with said particular
> perspective.
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> Description
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
> 1. Field of the Invention
> The present invention is directed toward the field of web sites, and
> more particularly toward designing, creating, and maintaining web
> sites.
> 2. Art Background
> Generally, a web site is a collection of text and images configured
> for presentation in a predetermined way. A web site may be published
> by a single person or published by a group of people. A company or
> organization is an example of a group of people that publish a web
> site. For example, a company may have a web site for use by its
> customers (e.g., sale of products), and a company may have a web site
> for internal use (i.e., Intranet). Typically, web sites published by a
> group are created and maintained through a collaborative effort. For
> example, a company that sells hi-tech gadgets may include, on its web
> site, material that describes and shows uses for the hi-tech gadgets
> as well as content that describes the basic technology of the hi-tech
> gadgets. The material that discloses uses of the hi-tech gadgets may
> be submitted by the company's marketing department, whereas the
> content that describes the basic technology of the gadgets may be
> submitted by the company's engineering department. Thus, it is typical
> to assemble content for a web site from multiple sources when creating
> and maintaining a web site.
> Typically, to create a web site, the person, referred to as the
> content contributor, submits the content (e.g., files and images) to
> the web site administrator for publication. The web site administrator
> assumes the role of both constructing the web site and maintaining the
> implementation of the web site. The task of constructing the web site
> includes using HTML to link the files and images. The task of
> maintaining the implementation of the web site includes ensuring
> proper operation of the host computer, such as a web server, as well
> as maintaining up to date back ups of the web site. The content
> contributor may not be technical and may not have any knowledge of
> HTML. Thus, the content contributors rely on the web site
> administrators to publish the content.
> One problem associated with this traditional approach is that
> funneling all the content for publication through the site
> administrator creates a bottleneck. For example, if a web site has
> multiple content contributors, all of the content contributors must
> funnel the content through the web site administrator prior to
> publishing the content. Also, this approach places all of the
> responsibility of approving publication of content on the web site
> administrator when the web site administrator may have little or no
> knowledge of the content. Furthermore, under this approach, there is
> no single responsible person for ensuring that the content is up to
> date and accurate.
> With the increased popularity of the Internet and corporate Intranets,
> there is an increased demand for tools that aid in the creation and
> maintenance of web sites. Accordingly, it is desirable to generate a
> web site creation and maintenance tool that permits non-technical
> people to publish content on a web site. It is also desirable to
> generate a web site creation and maintenance tool that apportions
> responsibility for web site creation and maintenance task to the most
> appropriate individuals.
> SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
> A self service web site system permits content contributors to publish
> content without knowledge of HTML. The web site is implemented at a
> central repository, such as a web server. In one embodiment, the
> physical implementation of the web site resides on a database. The
> self service system displays to users, on the users' computers, one or
> more panels. The panels contain input fields to permit the users to
> submit content and web site components for publication on the web
> site. In one embodiment, the self service system permits a content
> contributor to add an item, add an item to a folder, associate an item
> with a perspective, and classify the item in a category. The user,
> through use of only a web browser running on the user computer,
> transmits the parameter to the central repository. In response, the
> web site is updated at the central repository in accordance with the
> parameter. The web site system also permits, through a self service
> implementation, administration and management of the web site.
> BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
> FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of the web site
> creation and maintenance paradigm of the present invention.
> FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment for the Web Site
> Database system.
> FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment for implementing
> the Web Site Database system.
> FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment for generating a
> Web Site using the Web Site Database system.
> FIG. 5 illustrates one embodiment for an administration page.
> FIG. 6 illustrates one embodiment for the user manager.
> FIG. 7 illustrates one embodiment for a detailed user screen.
> FIG. 8 illustrates an example Web Site home page using the Web Site
> Database system.
> FIG. 9 illustrates one embodiment for the example web site home page
> of FIG. 8 in edit mode.
> FIG. 10 illustrates an example logon welcome screen.
> FIG. 11 illustrates one embodiment for displaying personal folders for
> the Web Site database system.
> FIG. 12 illustrates one screen for an item wizard to "Add an Item."
> FIG. 13 illustrates a screen for a second step in the item Wizard in
> accordance with one embodiment of the Web Site Database System.
> FIG. 14 illustrates a screen for a third step in the item Wizard in
> accordance with one embodiment of the Web Site Database System.
> FIG. 15 illustrates an example Web Site screen display after adding
> the item.
> FIG. 16 illustrates one embodiment for a create custom item type
> panel.
> FIG. 17 illustrates one embodiment for specifying attributes in a
> custom item type.
> FIG. 18 illustrates a screen for the user to specify the type of
> procedure and the text of the link display to execute the procedure.
> FIG. 19 illustrates one embodiment for a folder dashboard.
> FIG. 20 illustrates one embodiment for a create folder panel.
> FIG. 21 illustrates an example Web Page for the new folder created.
> FIG. 22 illustrates one embodiment for specifying folder attributes in
> the folder manager.
> FIG. 23 illustrates a screen for the folder manager for specifying
> navigation bar features.
> FIG. 24 illustrates a screen display to customize the navigation bar
> for a folder.
> FIG. 25 illustrates a category dashboard to provide quick and easy
> access to the category features of the Web Site Database System.
> FIG. 26 illustrates an example create category panel.
> FIG. 27 illustrates one embodiment for a create perspectives panel.
> FIG. 28 illustrates one embodiment for the perspective dashboard.
> FIG. 29 illustrates one embodiment for a create style panel.
> FIG. 30 illustrates one embodiment for the find style panel of the
> style manager.
> FIG. 31 illustrates one embodiment for the style editor.
> FIG. 32 illustrates an example style manager for the navigation bar.
> FIG. 33 illustrates one embodiment for the site style diagram for a
> banner.
> FIG. 34 illustrates one embodiment for the color page.
> FIG. 35 illustrates one embodiment for the style editor.
> FIG. 36 illustrates one embodiment for a create group panel.
> FIG. 37 illustrates one embodiment to modify groups.
> FIG. 38 illustrates one embodiment for granting user privileges.
> FIG. 39 illustrates one embodiment for setting group privileges to a
> folder.
> FIG. 40 illustrates one embodiment for displaying content.
> FIG. 41 illustrates one embodiment of a system for displaying content.
> DETAILED DESCRIPTION
> Web Site Paradigm
> FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment of the web site
> creations and maintenance paradigm of the present invention. A web
> site 110 contains one or more items (4102). By way of example, the web
> site 110 may include documents (114), graphics (112), and forms (116).
> However, Web Site 110 may include any type of item (4102) (i.e.,
> content) for use with the web site paradigm of the present invention.
> In general, different entities are responsible for the creation,
> contribution, and maintenance of the web site. Specifically, for the
> example of FIG. 1, the creation, contribution, and maintenance of web
> site 110 is accomplished by database administrator 140, site
> administrator 100, content owners or folder owners 120, content
> contributors 160, and end-users viewers 150. Each of these entities
> may consist of one or more persons.
> As is described more fully below, in one embodiment, the web site 110
> is entirely maintained (4004) in a database (e.g., database 130 in
> FIG. 1). Database administrator 140 (e.g., information technology
> department) maintains the database. For example, database
> administrator 140 backs-up the database from the operating computer
> (e.g., web server), and ensures proper operation on the web server.
> Thus, this permits centralized technology maintenance of web site 110
> through maintenance of database 130.
> For this embodiment, site administrator 100 is responsible for the
> overall creation of web site 110. Specifically, site administrator 100
> may design the overall structure and flow of web site 110, as well as
> the look and feel of web site 110. Also, in another embodiment, site
> administrator 100 assigns style administrators that design the look
> and feel of the web site (e.g., colors, font, etc.).
> The web site is organized into a plurality of folders. The web site
> paradigm permits the creator of the Web Site to specify who owns a
> folder, who can add content to the folder (i.e., contributor) and who
> can view the items in the folder. In one embodiment, site
> administrator 100 may designate one or more content or folder owners
> 120. The folder owners 120 are responsible for controlling both the
> content published on web site 110 and for controlling viewing of that
> content. The Web Site paradigm also permits dividing these privileges
> to match sub-folders, classified under a parent folder. The
> sub-folders represent a more detailed level of classification that is
> best implemented via folders.
> The content or folder owners 120 control the contents of their
> assigned folders, as well as assign privileges to those that may view
> the contents of their folder. The web site paradigm also permits a
> user to develop a security model for the user community for the
> overall structure of the web site. As shown in FIG. 1, content
> contributors 160 provided content to the web site 110. The content is
> controlled or filtered by folder owners 120 depicted as by control
> 170. Also, as shown in FIG. 1, end-user viewers 150 view the contents
> or items of the web site 110. The viewing of the web site contents or
> items is controlled by folder owners 120, as depicted by control 180.
> In the prior art, content contributors must go through the information
> technology department in order to publish content. This prior art
> methodology places content publication and maintenance on a single
> source. In contrast, the web site paradigm of the present invention
> provides for distributed control by, allowing the folder owners 120 to
> control content for a portion of the web site. The paradigm of the
> present invention eliminates the traditional bottleneck by providing
> distributed control for content management. Furthermore, because the
> web site is implemented on a centralized database, maintenance,
> including appropriate backups of the web site, is easily maintained.
> Furthermore, the overall structure and style of the web site is
> controlled by a single entity (e.g., the site administrator),
> permitting uniformity and commonality for the overall structure and
> flow of the web site. In an example motion picture web site, the
> contributors may comprise "movie team", the owner of the content may
> be "movie department head", and the viewers of the movie may be
> "everybody."
> The web site paradigm is described herein with reference to certain
> nomenclature. Specifically, the system is referred to as a Web Site
> Database system (i.e., referring to the database implementation).
> However, the features of the web-based system described herein apply
> to other implementations. Also, the term Web Site, with "W" and "S" in
> capital letters, refers to a web site created and maintained using the
> web paradigm of the present invention. Furthermore, the Web Site
> Database system consists of a web site development tool for the
> creation and maintenance of the Web Site. A user, as referred to
> herein, is anyone involved in the creation, maintenance and use of the
> Web Site, and an end-user refers to a person viewing content of the
> Web Site.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database not only provides information
> to its users, but also includes all the tools necessary to manage and
> maintain the Web Site itself (i.e., the Web Site Development Tools).
> When the Web Site is first displayed, users may only view public
> information. Users, with a valid user name and password, may log onto
> the Web Site and view information that they have been explicitly
> granted access to view. In addition, if the user has the necessary
> privileges, they may enter into an edit mode. In the edit mode, the
> user may add new information (e.g., content) to the site, or edit
> existing information.
> The Web Site Database has a built-in structure for organizing,
> classifying and cross-referencing items in a web site. The Web Site
> Database of the present invention enables the creation of a taxonomy
> for the classification and organization of site content. In prior art
> web site design, the smallest component is a page. A page consists of
> an assortment of links, images and text. In the Web Site Database, the
> smallest component is an item. For this embodiment, pages are
> dynamically generated, and collections of items are displayed.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database is organized into Web Site
> folders. These folders are similar to folders in a file system with
> multiple items existing within a folder. Each Web Site item also has
> an associated number of stored attributes. These attributes maintain
> information such as title, description and author. In general, folders
> divide a Web Site into distinct areas to make it easier for end-users
> to find the information they need. The Web Site folders provide a
> mechanism for the user to easily find information. A folder is
> generally a collection of related items (e.g., files, text, URLs,
> etc.). For example, a Web Site about travel may include the folders
> "Africa", "Americas", and "Europe", representing areas for travel.
> In one embodiment, each item is classified by a category. An item may
> be classified in only a single category. The categories direct a user
> as to what a particular item is, so the user may determine whether the
> item contains the information sought. For an example travel Web Site,
> categories may include "flights", "lodging", and "restaurants." With
> use of categories, category pages may be called at runtime to show the
> end-user all items that are classified by the specified category.
> The Web Site Database is optionally organized using perspectives. In
> general, perspectives identify areas of interest. An item may have
> more than one perspective. Using perspectives, the user may find items
> relating to their own preferences even though those items reside in
> different folders. For example, the travel Web Site may include
> perspectives for "resort", "Safari", and "skiing." Perspectives
> provide another dimension of classification, and items may be assigned
> many perspectives. Perspective pages may also be called at runtime to
> show the end-user all items classified by the specified perspective.
> In general, styles specify the appearance of the site navigation bar,
> the banner at the top of each page, and the main content area. The
> site administrator may use one of the standard styles provided, or
> create a new style to ensure a common look across the entire Web Site.
> Site administrators may assign style administrators to create and
> manage Web Site styles.
> In addition to the Web Site Database components, the Web Site further
> includes several other features to improve information retrieval,
> including search, quickpicks, news and announcements, and interest
> lists features. The basic search finds all available items that
> contain the specified words in the title, description, or keyboard
> list. In addition, an advanced search feature limits the search to a
> specific folder, category, perspective, author, or to recently created
> items. A quickpick is an item display option that provides quick
> access to frequently used items. Links to quick pick items are
> displayed at the top of the page. For the travel Web Site example,
> quickpicks may include a currency converter and travel guide. News and
> announcements are item display options that identify items of
> particular and current interest. In one embodiment, links to news
> items are displayed under a special news banner. Links to announcement
> items are displayed in the center the page under the quick picks.
> Users logged onto a Web Site may add folders to their interest list.
> In one embodiment, links to the folders are displayed under an
> interest banner on a home page for that user. This provides quick
> access to the areas of the Web Site that most interest the user.
> FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment for the
> implementation of the Web Site Database. For this embodiment, the Web
> Site is maintained on a database, database 250. In turn, database 250
> is implemented on web server 230. The users (i.e., content
> contributors and content viewers) use a plurality of computers, shown
> as desktop computers in FIG. 2 (e.g., 200, 205, 210 and 215). Each
> user is permitted to view Web pages of the Web Site (e.g., user 200
> views web page 202, user 205 views web page 207, user 210 views web
> page 212, and user 215 views web page 214). For this embodiment, to
> view content from the Web Site, the users, from the user computers,
> only transmit a URL to the web server 230. The client computers need
> only run web browser software (e.g., Netscape navigator, Microsoft
> Explorer) to utilize the Web Site. No additional client software
> (i.e., software at the user computer) is necessary. Accordingly, the
> users have complete web site functionality through use of a web
> browser running on the user computer.
> As shown in FIG. 2, the web server 230 runs software, depicted as HTTP
> listener 220. In general, HTTP Listener 220 is a server application
> that transforms URL identifiers for operation with the Web Site
> Database system. When the Web Site Database is installed, the database
> administrator may choose to install the Web Site Database HTTP
> listener. The HTTP listener is a lightweight web server that includes
> a PL/SQL gateway to enable communication between web browsers and the
> database. Once installation is complete, the database administrator
> may change the listener and the PL/SQL gateway settings at any time
> from within the Web Site. Accordingly, as shown in FIG. 2, users of
> the Web Site Database system do not require additional client software
> to utilize the Web Site Database system.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database is contained entirely in a
> database (e.g., Oracle database 8i, available from or Oracle
> Corporation, Redwood Shores, Calif.). First, to initiate the process
> of building a Web Site, space is allocated on a computer for
> implementation of the database. In one embodiment, to accomplish this
> task, a database administrator uses a site creation wizard, part of
> the Web Site Development Tool, to allocate space for the database.
> Because the Web Site is contained entirely in a database, when the
> database is backed-up, the entire Web Site and all its contents are
> also backed-up. In addition, the Web Site Database is portable, such
> that moving the Web Site Database from one server to another is as
> easy as transporting the database from server to server.
> When contributors add an item to the Web Site, the Web Site Database
> up loads the item, if necessary, to the database, and creates a link
> to the item on the appropriate folder page. In addition, if the item
> is a HTML file, the Web Site Database lists the supporting files
> (e.g., images) that are already available and require up loading.
> Using the Web Site Database, the folder page is automatically
> generated. The contributor does not require any knowledge of HTML to
> perform this process.
> FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating one embodiment for implementing
> the Web Site database system. In general, FIG. 3 depicts a database
> schema for implementing the components of the Web Site Database
> system. Specifically, for this embodiment, the Web Site Database
> system includes a folder table 320, an items table 330, a navigation
> bar table 340, a style table 350, a perspective table 360, and a
> category table 370. Also, as shown in FIG. 3, conversion code 310
> converts HTTP input from user computers to PL/SQL retrieve and stored
> procedures for operation in the database schema. For this embodiment,
> each folder comprises an entry (i.e., row source) in the folders table
> 320 (e.g., entry 325). As depicted in the folders table 320, folders
> are linked to sub folders, also contained in the folders table 320.
> There is a one to many relationship between an entry in the folders
> table 320 to entries in the items table 330. This relationship
> represents the one or more items contained in a single folder.
> An item entry in the items table 330, representing items for the Web
> Site, has a one to many relationship with entries in the perspective
> table 320, and has a one-to-one relationship with an entry in the
> category table 370. Thus, an item entry may be assigned to one or more
> perspectives, and an item entry may be assigned to one category. As
> shown in FIG. 3, entries in the folders table 360 have a one-to-one
> relationship with entries in both the style table 350 and navigation
> bar table 340. The entries in the style table 350 define the style for
> the corresponding folder, and the entries of the navigation bar define
> the links on the navigation bar.
> Designing the Overall Structure of the Web Site Database
> FIG. 4 is a flow diagram illustrating one embodiment for generating a
> Web Site using the Web Site Database system. First, the database
> administrator or information technology administrator creates a
> database (e.g., on a web server) for implementation of the Web Site
> Database system (block 400). The site administrator designs the Site,
> and assigns folder owners (block 410). Folder owners assign content
> providers to provide content for their folders (block 420). Then,
> content contributors add content to the Web Site (block 430).
> Thereafter, the Web Site user community may search the site and view,
> depending upon the viewer's privileges, the Web Site contents (block
> 440).
> The Web Site Development Tool permits database administrators to
> create new users and manage existing user privileges all within the
> Web Site. Specifically, the Web Site Development Tool includes all the
> necessary features for managing database users such as: creating new
> users; creating levels and assigning users to those levels; granting
> privileges on database objects to users and levels; and granting user
> privileges to build objects and browse schemas. During the Web Site
> creation process, a site administrator user account is created. When a
> site administrator logs onto the Web Site, the site administrator may
> design the initial parameters for the Web Site. This task includes:
> creating a style, creating folders, creating categories and creating
> perspectives.
> The site administrator logs on to the Web Site database system by
> typing the administrator user name into the logon dialog box. In one
> embodiment, after logon, the Web Site database displays the sites
> administration page. FIG. 5 illustrates one embodiment for an
> administration page. As shown in FIG. 5, the administration page
> includes a section for web site managers, content managers, access
> managers, as well as a toolbox. In the web site managers section,
> tools for "Site" and "style" are included. In the "Site" section, the
> site administrator may establish site wide features and settings;
> setup listener settings; control logs; system purges; and news. In the
> style section, the site administrator may create and manage styles to
> control frames, navigation bars, text, color and background images.
> The content managers section includes tools to manage "folders",
> "categories", "perspectives", and "custom item types." The folder
> manager permits the user to manage site structure and navigation,
> control access by users in groups, and apply styles to images and
> folders. The category tools permit the user to create and manage
> categories as well as associate categories with graphic images. The
> perspective tool permits the user to create and manage perspectives as
> well as establish their display choices. Custom item type tools permit
> the user to create custom item types and establish optional attributes
> and procedures.
> The access managers section includes tools for "group", "user",
> "privilege", and "personal information." The group tools permit the
> user to create and manage groups as well as assign group
> administrators. The user tools permit a user to create and manage
> users, and assign administrator privileges to a single user. The
> privilege tools permit a user to assign administrator privileges to
> users, and the personal information tool permits the user to enter
> information for the user logged on. The toolbox section of the
> administration page includes functions for site statistics and search
> capabilities. The site statistics tool permits the user to produce and
> view online reports for site and folder page requests, searches, and
> user access privileges. The search pool permits a user to establish
> basic search features for search engines, as well as advance search
> features for text searches.
> From the access managers section, the user may click "user" to display
> the user manager. FIG. 6 illustrates one embodiment for the user
> manager. As shown in FIG. 6, the page displayed is divided into two
> panels. A "create user" panel permits a site administrator to create
> the user. The "find user" section permits searching for users. The
> user may desire to search for users assigned as site administrators.
> For example, the user may type "M%" to display user names that start
> with the letter M.
> FIG. 7 illustrates one embodiment for a detailed user screen. As shown
> in FIG. 7, the user may set "administration privileges." In one
> embodiment, there are three types of administrators: site
> administrators, style administrators, and news administrators. Site
> administrators have the highest level of privileges in the Web Site
> Database system. Site administrators may view or modify anything on
> the site. For example, site administrators may create users, groups of
> users, and control access to the site. Site administrators may also
> perform all file and news administrator functions. Style
> administrators establish the look and feel of the Web Site. Style
> administrators have control over the color screens, text, fonts and
> background images for pages used on the Site. News administrators have
> the authority to add news to the home page, approved news submitted by
> public users, and perform other functions related to site wide news
> management.
> Overview of the Web Site Database Embodiments
> FIG. 8 illustrates an example Web Site home page using the Web Site
> Database system. This example Web Site is displayed in view mode. This
> example display shows a "product management" folder for storing and
> organizing product management documents, requirements, issues, etc.
> The product management folder includes categories for "general",
> "presentation", and "collateral." Under each of the categories, there
> is one or more sub folders. For this example, sub folders exist for
> "application requirements", "customer requirements", "demos", "portal
> development", "plans", "enterprise search", "work in progress", and
> "status reports." As shown in FIG. 8, items may be displayed beneath
> the sub folders.
> In addition to categories and folders, the example Web Site displayed
> in FIG. 8 also includes perspectives. For this example, a perspective
> for "external" and a perspective for "internal" exist. Specifically,
> the item "Yahoo Item" is assigned to the perspective "external", and
> the item "sample file load" is assigned to the perspective "internal."
> To transition from view mode to edit mode, a user selects the "edit"
> icon displayed in the upper right in corner of FIG. 8. FIG. 9
> illustrates one embodiment for the example web site home page of FIG.
> 8 in edit mode. As shown in FIG. 9, a display bar, including several
> functions, is displayed at the top of the screen. Specifically,
> functions are provided to "Add Item", "Add Folder", "Folder Property",
> "Navigation Bar", "Style Editor", and "Administration." A description
> of these functions is provided below.
> 1. Items of the Web Site Database:
> In general, items are the information building blocks on the Web Site
> Database. All content on the Web Site Database, such as text,
> graphics, or links, are added as items. When an item is added, the Web
> Site Database permits the user to specify its title, display option,
> and optional information about the item. An item type defines the
> display and functional characteristics of items that a contributor
> adds to a Web Site Database. When adding items, the user selects from
> one of the item types. When selected, the URL item type adds a URL to
> a folder. The title of each URL item is displayed as a link that users
> can select to view another Web Site or Web page. For a file item type,
> the Web Site Development Tool up loads a file and stores it in the
> database of the Web Site.
> Each file item title is displayed as a link. Users may click the link
> to view the file or download the file to their computer. For a text
> item type, the Web Site Development Tool places text (up to 32KB) on
> the database of the Web Site. When the text item is added to a folder,
> the items title is displayed on the folders page as a link that users
> may click to display the text. For an image map item type, the Web
> Site Database inserts an image map, with clickable regions and
> associated URLs on the Web Site. To add a folder link item type, the
> Web Site Database places the link to a folder on the Web Site.
> For a Web Site component, the Web Site Development Tool adds a Web
> Site component such as forms, menus, frame drivers, and reports to the
> Web Site. In one embodiment, these components are created with a Web
> Site component builder and an appropriate build wizard. The title of
> each Web Site component item is displayed as a link that users may
> click to execute the component. For a "PL/SQL" call item type, the Web
> Site Development Tool displays the results of some "PL/SQL" code. The
> title of each "PL/SQL" call is displayed as a link that users click to
> execute. For the multiple files item type, the Web Site Development
> Tool up loads multiple separately independent files into a specific
> folder. The title of each multiple file item is displayed as a link
> that users may click to view the files or download them to their
> computer.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database provides an assortment of
> default item types. For this embodiment, the item types include: file,
> text item, URL, folder link, PL/SQL call, web site database component,
> and image map. Once users identify the item type, they are provided a
> list of attributes to define that item. Table 1 below lists attributes
> that are available in an example web site database default item type.
> TABLE 1
> File Text URL Folder PL/SQL Com- Image
> Attribute Item Item Item Link Call ponent Map
> Name X
> Title X X X X X X X
> Description X X X X X X X
> Category X X X X X X X
> Perspectives X X X X X X X
> (multiple)
> Author X X X X X X X
> Expiration X X X X X X X
> Date
> Image X X X X X X X
> Rollover X X X
> Image
> Keywords X X X X X X X
> Display In X X X
> Place
> Display In X X X
> Frame
> Display In X X X X X X
> Full
> Browser
> Enable X X X X X X X
> Check Out
>
> The web site database default item types are limited to the default
> attributes assigned to them. If the user desires to append additional
> attributes to a default item type, then an extended item type is
> created. When creating an extended item type, the default item type is
> copied, along with its related attributes. Then, a user may extend the
> copied item type by adding attributes that the user creates. Extended
> item types may be used to collect additional information via the items
> attributes.
> In one embodiment, in addition to the standard item types, the Web
> Site Database also supports creating custom item types. Custom item
> types enabled the user to customize the existing item types to make
> them map more specifically to the items included in the Web Site. For
> example, a custom item type may enable the user to add notes about a
> text item and to specify a string to pass to a search engine.
> 2. Categories In The Web Site Database:
> In general, a category is a classification for an item that answers
> the question "what is this item?" Categories are used by end users of
> the Web Site Database to filter information. The site administrator
> may create categories specifically for the different types of content
> that is planned for display using the Web Site Development Tool. In
> one embodiment, only regular items are assigned a category (categories
> are not available for news, announcement or quick to pick items). By
> organizing items in categories, the content provider presents to end
> users of the Web Site Database a clear understanding of the types of
> content they may expect on the Web Site, and a general understanding
> of how to Web Site is organized. Using categories, the end user may
> view items by category. In addition, end-users may specify categories
> when they perform an advanced search in the Web Site Database. For the
> example travel Web Site discussed above, there may be categories for
> "maps", "excursions", and "hotel reviews." In one embodiment, items
> associated with categories are alphabetically organized and displayed
> on a folder page by item name.
> 3. Folders In The Web Site Database:
> As discussed above, to perform any folder tasks, the user or group
> must have the appropriate folder privileges set by the folder owner or
> site administrator. In general, a folder is a collection of related
> objects, including items and even other folders. For the example
> travel Web Site, folders may exist for "Africa", "America's", and
> "Europe." Folders are the basic building blocks of the Web Site
> Database. All Web Site Database sites consist of folders. The folders,
> in turn, contain content or items. For example, the items accessible
> within a folder may include text files, graphical images, and even
> URLs for other related sites. To further refine the Web Site's
> structure, the creator may generate folders within folders (i.e., sub
> folders). Sub folders may be nested many levels deep depending upon
> the complexity of the content and broadness of the audience.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site's home page is actually the Web Site
> database's root folder. Each folder has a navigation bar from which
> the user can navigate to other folders in areas on the web site. Each
> folder also has a content area in which the folder's content appears.
> Dividing a Web Site into folders allows the Web Site creator to
> organize content according to a structure similar to that of a file
> system on a personal computer. Thus, this paradigm makes it easier for
> users to find the information they need.
> Each folder has a folder owner. The folder owner is responsible for
> the content of that folder. Dedicating responsibility to each folder
> results in a system that is maintained by somebody who's familiar with
> the information and who's able to keep the information accurate and
> up-to-date. Site administrators may create folders anywhere in the Web
> Site. A folder owner may create folders within the folders that they
> own. A folder owner may make folders containing general information
> accessible to anyone that reviews the Web Site. Alternatively, the
> folder owner may restrict access to folders containing sensitive
> information to specific users who must first logon to the Web Site.
> After creating a folder or editing a folder, the folder owner permits
> a user to configure and control the behavior and functionality of a
> particular folder. In one embodiment, there are six folder properties
> that contain specific folder configuration settings. In one
> embodiment, these configuration settings are presented to the user in
> the form of tabs. A "main" tab identifies the folder to users, makes
> folders available to public users, and provides options to set the
> display order for the subfolders. The "style" tab lets the user
> customize the folder's style for the navigation bar, banner, and
> content area. If the style for the folder is not set, then the folder
> inherits the parent folders style. An "image" tab lets the user choose
> the folder image and overall image for the navigation bar, as well as
> the banner image for the page title. The "navigation bar" tab permits
> the user to choose the navigation bar to apply to the folder. The
> navigation bar also lets the user select specific folder, category,
> and perspective links. The "users" tab provides a mechanism to grant
> folder privileges to users. Also, the "groups" tab provides a
> mechanism to grant folder privileges to groups.
> 4. Styles In Web Site Database
> In general, a style is a template that controls the look and feel of
> the home page and each folder page on the Web Site. In one embodiment,
> the style template governs the navigation bar and page body, colors,
> text font, size, background images, banners, and other graphic
> elements that are common to each page. With the Web Site Database, the
> user does not control the detailed layout of each page; instead, the
> pages are dynamically generated by the Web Site Database, based on the
> settings and parameters specified in the style template. The Web Site
> Database provides a default style. In addition, the user may generate
> custom styles to suit particular needs. A single style may be chosen
> for the entire Web Site (e.g., the home page and each folder).
> Alternatively, the user may assign different styles to give each
> folder a distinct look and feel.
> 5. Perspectives In The Web Site Database
> A perspective is a cross category grouping of an item (4104). By
> assigning a perspective, the Web Site creator is answering the
> question "who will be interested in this item?" For the example travel
> Web Site, perspectives may include "Vacations for Nordic Enthusiasts",
> "Archaeology Expeditions", "Extreme Vacations for Adventurers", etc.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database includes a perspective
> manager. The perspective manager allows users,to create perspectives
> for items that potentially interest the audience.
> When a user adds or edits an item, they have the option of assigning
> (4006) one or more perspectives to that item. Unlike categories, the
> user is not required to assign perspectives to an item (4010).
> However, when perspectives are assigned, they may be used by end users
> of the Web Site to filter information (4012). Specifically, end users
> of the Web Site may view items by perspective and may also specify
> perspectives when they perform an advanced search. Perspectives are
> available for regular items.
> The Web Site Database permits the user to associate an icon with a
> perspective. If an icon is associated with a perspective, the
> perspective icon is displayed (4008) next to, the item's title. The
> Web Site Database also permits a user to change perspective's name and
> icon. The content manager also permits a user to delete a perspective.
> Unlike categories, the user may delete a perspective without deleting
> the items assigned to the perspective.
> A group is a collection of users that share a common interest or
> responsibility. A group has common privileges in the Web Site. For an
> example corporate Intranet application, all graphical designers at the
> company may be designated as a single group. This group of graphic
> designers may be designated as style administrators. Any end-user may
> create a group. The person who creates the group is considered a group
> owner, and the group owner designates one or more group
> administrators. As the creator of the group, the group owner has the
> authority to modify or delete the group. The group administrator also
> has the authority to modify or delete the group.
> Self-Service Web Site Creation & Maintenance
> Initially, the user logs onto the system with a user login dialog box.
> The dialog box queries the user for the user name and the user
> password. After successful logon, the Web Site Database system
> displays an initial welcome screen in a predetermined root folder. An
> example logon welcome screen is displayed in FIG. 10.
> The Web Site Database permits the sharing of information among users
> in the Web Site. In one embodiment, to share information among users,
> each Web Site user with a user name and password has an associated
> personal folder. FIG. 11 illustrates one embodiment for displaying
> personal folders for the Web Site database system. As shown in FIG.
> 11, an alphabetical directory is provided at the top of the screen to
> permit a user to jump to folders with the corresponding letter. Also,
> as shown in FIG. 11, a personal folder is created for each registered
> user of the Web Site Database system. Users may work within these
> personal folders. Specifically, the user may add items, organize items
> by creating other folders, and control access to their personal
> folders. This provides an ideal environment for sharing information
> among registered users at a Web Site. No floppy disks or electronic
> mail is needed, and everyone always has access to the latest versions
> of the content.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database includes an interface for
> adding new items (e.g., the files, text and URLs) to the Web Site. In
> addition, this interface permits the user, with the proper privileges,
> to edit or to delete existing items within the Web Site itself. When
> contributors logon to the Web Site and navigate to a folder where the
> user has the appropriate privileges to edit, the user may simply click
> the edit button and start editing and adding content.
> 1. Adding Items
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database includes item management
> tools to manage items. The item management tools are displayed in edit
> mode. The user may move the cursor control device of the computer over
> a tool to display its tool tip. An "add sub item" management tool,
> when invoked, displays the item wizard to add a sub item to the
> selected item. An "add an item below this item" tool displays the item
> wizard to add a new item after the selected item. An "edit item" tool
> displays the item manager to allow the user to change the required or
> optional item settings. A "delete item" tool removes the item from the
> folder, and an "expire item" tool causes the selected item to expire.
> When expired, the item is no longer visible to the user. A "move item"
> tool displays the move item page. This tool permits the user to move
> the item to another location in the same folder or to move the item to
> another folder completely. The "move item up" tool automatically moves
> the selected item above the previous item. The "move item left"
> permits the user to move quickpick items to the left.
> The "check out item" tool applies only to items enabled for check out.
> When an item is checked out, no other contributor may edit the item.
> If another contributor attempts to edit the item, a message is
> displayed that the item is checked out by "username", and the edit
> tool is not available. A "checked-in item" tool permits a contributor
> to return the updated item to the folder after editing it. This tool
> applies only to items that have been checked out and that were enabled
> for checked out. The "multiple files item" function indicates that the
> item has multiple referenced files associated with it. The "multiple
> files missing file item" function indicates that the item is missing
> one or more referenced files. The user may click to display a multiple
> item page so that the user may download the missing files. An "approve
> item" tool displays on the news administrator's, site administrator's
> or folder owner's home page for a user's request for approval of an
> item. The approve item icon is displayed only for items that are added
> by contributors who have the "create with approval privilege." A task
> help function displays task based help that includes how to topics,
> table of contents, index, and full text search capabilities. A context
> help function displays context sensitive help for the current page.
> FIG. 12 illustrates one screen for an item Wizard to "Add an Item."
> The first step of the Wizard includes specifying an item type and
> display options. The user may select an item type from an item type
> list as shown in FIG. 12. For this example, the item type selected is
> a file. In one embodiment, the Web Site Database includes item display
> options to permit a user to select where the item will be located on a
> rendered Web page. FIG. 12 displays, on the item wizard, an example
> Web page showing where items may appear. The vertical bar in the left
> frame is the navigation bar. The entire area in the right frame refers
> to the content area. The strip in the right frame is the title banner.
> As shown in FIG. 12, the web page includes areas for Quickpicks,
> Announcements, News and Regular items. In general, the quickpick
> display provides access to high visibility items. Quickpicks are the
> most prominent items on a folder page. For this embodiment, Quickpicks
> are displayed at the center and top of each folder page. Also, as
> shown in FIG. 12, Announcements are displayed directly below any
> Quickpicks to receive immediate attention by the web page viewer. The
> Announcement text is centered and stacked vertically on the home or
> folder page by title. An announcement item is used to introduce
> information to the general public. For example, one may announce the
> appointment of the member of the board or the date of an important
> corporate event. A News item is used to categorize time sensitive
> items. In one embodiment, the News items are displayed as text links
> by title under the news banner on each folder page. Public users may
> add News items to the root folder as long as the site administrator
> has checked the "enabled public users to contribute news" feature. A
> regular item, displayed below the News items, receives no special
> display treatment. The title of each regular item is displayed along
> with all other regular items, below all the special banners. In one
> embodiment, regular items are displayed under a category banner
> grouped by category (in alphabetical order).
> FIG. 13 illustrates a screen for a second step in the item Wizard in
> accordance with one embodiment. For this step, the user, through the
> item Wizard, specifies the filename (with path), title, category, a
> description, if preferred, and an expiration period. A browse button
> is provided to assist the user in locating a directory and file. The
> user selects the category through the category list. For the example
> of FIG. 13, the user selects the category "specification." Also, for
> this example, the user provides a description of the item (i.e., this
> is a specification on adding content management capabilities to
> WebDB."). The expiration period is set by selecting from options in
> the list. For this example, the user designates the item as
> "permanent."
> FIG. 14 illustrates a screen for a third step in the item Wizard in
> accordance with one embodiment of the Web Site Database system. This
> step permits a user to submit optional settings and values.
> Specifically, the user may select from a list of predefined
> perspectives (e.g., internal, external, word, PowerPoint, HTML, zip,
> etc.). From this step of the item Wizard, the user may associate an
> image with the item. Furthermore, the user may add keywords for
> searching, and author information, as well as designate display
> options and enable item check out.
> FIG. 15 illustrates an example Web Site screen display after adding
> the item. Specifically, as shown in FIG. 15, the item "WebDB content
> management proposal" was added to the "specification" category with
> the perspective "internal." Also, the description provided from the
> Wizard (e.g., this is a specification on adding content management
> capabilities to WebDB) is displayed beneath the link for selecting the
> item.
> An item type defines the display and functional characteristics of
> items that a contributor adds to a Web Site. The user may create their
> own custom item types that enable them to customize the existing item
> types to make them map more specifically to the items in their Web
> Site. In one embodiment, only Site administrators may create custom
> item types. The following example illustrates the creation of a custom
> item type that enables users to add notes about a text item and to
> specify a string to pass to the search engine. In the navigation bar,
> the user clicks the administration icon to display the administration
> page. In the content manager section, the user clicks the "custom item
> type" to display the custom item type manager. In part, the Web Site
> Database system displays a create custom item type panel.
> FIG. 16 illustrates one embodiment for a create custom item type
> panel. Using the create custom item type panel, a user types, in the
> name field, the type. For this example, from the base item type list,
> the user selects "file." In one embodiment, when the user first
> creates a custom item type, it is exactly the same as the base item
> type. The user then edits the custom item type to customize it to meet
> the specific requirements. The user then clicks "create." Similarly,
> in the custom item type manager, the user may create more custom item
> types as well as find and edit existing custom item types.
> FIG. 17 illustrates one embodiment for specifying attributes in a
> custom item type. As shown in FIG. 17, the user may use custom item
> type attributes to enable contributors to add more information about
> an item or specify values to pass to a PL/SQL or HTTP procedure. A
> user is permitted to specify, under the features and values section, a
> name, default value, display control, pass procedure control and a
> control as to whether the attribute is required.
> FIG. 18 illustrates a screen for the user to specify the type of
> procedure and the text of the link display to execute the procedure.
> In the features and values section, the user specifies a procedure
> type. In the link text field, the user may specify that the text be
> displayed as a hypertext link next to the item title. When a user
> clicks the text, a call it is made to the procedure using the value
> specified in the "p" field when the item was added. The user may
> specify the procedure call in the procedure call field, as well as
> specify several conditions for execution of the procedure call.
> 2. Creating and Editing Folders:
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database includes a folder dashboard.
> FIG. 19 illustrates one embodiment for a folder dashboard. In general,
> the dashboard is designed to provide quick and easy access to the main
> folder features. The folder dashboard appears below the folder title
> banner while the user is in edit mode. The add item icon 500 displays
> the item wizard to add an item to the folder. The add folder icon 510
> displays the folder manager to create or edit folders. The folder
> properties 520 displays the folder manager from which the user may
> define or edit the folder properties. A navigation bar icon 530, when
> invoked, displays the folders navigation bar display properties. The
> style editor icon 540, when invoked, causes the Web Site Database to
> display the style editor. From the style editor, the user may edit the
> style for the folder or create a new style for the folder. The
> administration icon 550, when invoked, displays the main
> administration page from which the user may access the various
> administration tools. Finally, the view folder icon, when invoked,
> reverts to Web Site Database from edit mode to view mode.
> The following example illustrates creation of a folder that contains
> content management information about a product offered by a company.
> In one embodiment, when the user logs onto the Web Site, the home page
> displays a list of folders owned by that user. After logon, the user
> scrolls down the home page and under the "Owned Folders" banner,
> clicks his/her name to display his/her personal folder. In the banner
> at the top of the page, the user clicks the "edit" icon to enter the
> edit mode. In response, the Web Site database system displays the
> folder dashboard. In the folder dashboard, the user clicks the "add
> folder" icon to display the folder manager. In part, the Web Site
> database system displays a create folder panel. To create a folder,
> the user navigates to a folder that is the parent folder of the new
> folder being created. For purposes of this illustration, a folder is
> contained in the main page the Web Site. The main page of the Web Site
> itself is a folder, entitled the root folder. Site administrators own
> the root folder.
> FIG. 20 illustrates one embodiment for a create folder panel. For this
> example, in the name field, the user types "WebDBContentMgmt." In the
> title field, the user types a title for the folder, such as "Content
> Management Reqs." Thereafter, the user clicks the "create" button
> located on the create folder panel.
> From the toolbar, the user clicks the "done" icon. In response, the
> Web Site Database system creates a link between the root folder (i.e.,
> main web page) and the Content Management Reqs folder. The user may
> view the Content Management Reqs folder as shown in FIG. 21.
> In another embodiment, the user may create folders through the
> administration page. For this example, the user desires to create, in
> a "Products" folder, another folder that contains confidential
> information about products offered by the company. To accomplish this
> task, the user, from the navigation bar, clicks the administration
> icon to display the administration page. In the content manager
> section, the user clicks "folder" to display the folder manager tree.
> The folder manager tree lists all of the folders that the user has
> access privileges. The user then expands the "personal folders", and
> expands the first letter of the user name. The user then expands
> his/her personal folder. In the toolbar to the right of products, the
> user clicks an icon to display the folder manager. In the create
> folder panel, the user types, in the name field, "ConfidentialName."
> In the title field, the user types "Confidential." Then, the user
> clicks the create button to create the folder. At the top of the
> navigation bar, the user clicks the site logo to display the home
> page. The user may then scroll down the home page, and under the
> "Owned Folders" banner, click "Confidential" to display the
> confidential folder.
> FIG. 22 illustrates one embodiment for specifying folder attributes in
> the folder manager. In the folder attributes section, the user
> specifies a title for the folder, as well as provides a general
> description of the folder (e.g., this folder is for WebDB product
> management documents, requirements, issues, etc.). The folder
> attributes section also includes a check box to allow the user to
> specify display of the folder to public users. A display section
> permits the user to specify which holders to display within the parent
> folder, as well as select the display order for the sub folders.
> FIG. 23 illustrates a screen for the folder manager for specifying
> navigation bar features. This screen permits the user to choose
> elements for the folders navigation bar. Default results in the same
> elements for the navigation bar as the root folder. The folder
> inherits the navigation bar from the parent folder's elements. The
> customized selection permits the user to customize the navigation bar
> for this folder.
> FIG. 24 illustrates a screen display to customize the navigation bar
> for a folder. Using this screen, the user selects from the available
> elements for display to customize the navigation bar. The user may
> also selects available folder links for the navigation bar by moving
> them to the displayed folder links box.
> 3. Creating and Editing Categories:
> Before contributors began to add items to the Web Site, the site
> administrator collaborates with folder owners to determine which
> categories, and optionally perspectives, to create for the Web Site.
> Categories should be created to correspond to the different types of
> content on the Web Site. In one embodiment, the site administrator
> must first create a category before contributors can assigned an item
> to it. Once categories are created, the categories are visible to
> folder owners and contributors when adding or editing items.
> FIG. 25 illustrates a category dashboard to provide quick and easy
> access to the category features of the Web Site Database System. As
> shown in FIG. 25, the category dashboard includes buttons for "add
> item" 600, "add category" 610, "category properties" 620,
> "administration" 630 and an icon, labeled 640, to "view folder."
> As discussed above, all items added to the Web Site Database system
> are assigned to a category. In one embodiment, site administrators
> create categories. To create a category, the site administrator clicks
> the administration icon in the navigation bar, and the Web Site
> Database system displays the administration page. In the content
> manager section, the user clicks "category" to display the category
> manager. In part, the Web Site Database system displays a create
> category panel. FIG. 26 illustrates an example create category panel.
> In the "name" field, the user types the name of the category.
> Thereafter, the user clicks "create." Similarly, the category manager
> permits the user (i.e., site administrator) to create more categories,
> as well as find and edit existing categories.
> In one embodiment, to create a new category, the user "clicks" on the
> administration 630 icon. The administration 630 icon displays the main
> administration page from which the user may access the various
> administration tools. On the administration page, the user clicks the
> category or the category link to display the category manager. In the
> create category name field, the user types a unique category and name.
> Then, the user clicks "create", and the newly created category is
> added to the find category list.
> When a categories name is changed, all items previously associated
> with that category are automatically associated to the new name. To
> change the categories name, the user clicks the administration icon
> 630 or selects the administration link on the administration page. The
> user clicks the category link icon, or chooses the category link under
> content manager, to display the content category manager page.
> Deleting a category deletes all items belonging to the category on the
> Web Site. A user may also associate an image with a category. Rather
> than displaying the category list or category links on the navigation
> bar, a user may choose to display an image that is associated to a
> category.
> 4. Creating and Editing Perspectives:
> As discussed above, each item added to the Web Site Database system
> may optionally be assigned to one or more perspectives. In one
> embodiment, site administrators create perspectives. To create a
> perspective (4002), the user clicks the administration icon in the
> navigation bar. In response, the Web Site Database system displays the
> administration page. In the content manager section, the user clicks
> the perspective to display the perspective manager. In part, the Web
> Site Database system displays a create perspective panel. FIG. 27
> illustrates one embodiment for a create perspectives panel. In the
> name field, the user types in a name for the perspective. The user
> then clicks the create hutton. From the perspective manager, the user
> may create more perspectives, as well as find and edit existing
> perspectives.
> In one embodiment, the Web Site Database includes a perspective
> dashboard. The perspective dashboard is designed to provide quick and
> easy access to the perspective functions. FIG. 28 illustrates one
> embodiment for the perspective dashboard. An add item 710 icon
> displays the item wizard to add an item to this perspective. The add
> perspective icon 720 displays the perspective manager to create or
> edit perspectives. The perspective properties icon 730 displays the
> perspective manager from which the user may define or edit the
> perspective properties. The administration icon 740 displays the main
> administration page from which the user may create the various
> administration tools. The view icon, 750, switches from edit mode to
> view mode.
> 5. Creating and Editing Styles:
> As discussed above, the style of a Web Site determines how the Web
> Site looks. Folder owners may use an existing style to apply to their
> folders. In addition, site administrators may grant folder owners
> privileges to create their own styles. To design the style of the Web
> Site, the user clicks the administration icon in the navigation bar to
> display the administration page. In the Web Site Managers section, the
> user clicks "style" to display the style manager. In part, the Web
> Site Database system displays a create style panel.
> FIG. 29 illustrates one embodiment for a create style panel. In the
> name field, the user types an identification for a style. In the
> "Based on Style"section, the user may choose the "Main Site style.
> Using a base style provides the user with a starting point. The new
> style is created with the same settings as the Main Site Style. Then,
> the user may edit the new style settings to their own preferences. To
> accomplish this, the user clicks "Access: Private." By doing this, the
> style is only available to the user. After designing the style, the
> user may make this style available for other folder owners to use. To
> create the new style, the user proceeds by clicking the button
> "create" shown in the create style panel of FIG. 29. From the style
> manager, the user may create more styles, as well as find and edit
> existing styles.
> To find a style, the user utilizes the "Find Style" panel of the style
> manager. FIG. 30 illustrates one embodiment for the find style panel
> of the style manager. For the example of FIG. 30, the user searches
> for the "tutorial style" as shown in the name list. From the panel,
> the user clicks "edit" to display the style editor.
> FIG. 31 illustrates one embodiment for the style editor. From the
> style editor, the user may click the area of the site on the site
> style diagram for which the user desires to change a style setting
> (e.g., navigation bar, banner or content area). In the site style
> diagram, the user clicks the "navigation bar", to display the style
> manager "Main Page for the Navigation Bar."
> FIG. 32 illustrates an example style manager for the navigation bar.
> The user may check "resizable navigation bar" to enable users to
> resize the navigation bar by dragging the frame border. By clicking
> the finish icon, the user saves his/her changes and returns to the
> style editor.
> In the site style diagram, the user may click "banner" to display the
> style manager "main page for the banner." FIG. 33 illustrates one
> embodiment for the site style diagram for a banner. For this example,
> the user may click the "text" tab to display the text page. From the
> "font" list, the user may choose a font other than the current
> setting. The user may also change the font size from the font size
> list, and may change the font style from the font style list. As
> highlighted in FIG. 33, the user may check the main banner text and
> sub banner text, followed by clicking the finish icon, to change the
> main banner text and sub banner text to the settings specified in the
> lists. The user then returns to the style editor.
> The user may click the color tab to display the color page. FIG. 34
> illustrates one embodiment for the color page. The user may choose a
> color from the color palette. The user, from the Title Link, may
> change the Title Link color. The user may also change the background
> color.
> The user may apply a style to a folder. To apply a style to a folder,
> the user begins by clicking the site logo at the top of the navigation
> bar to display the home page. The user then scrolls down the home
> page, and under the "Owned Folders" banner, clicks a folder (e.g.,
> "products") to display the products folder. In the banner of the top
> of the page, the user clicks the "edit" icon to enter into edit mode.
> In response, the Web Site Database system displays the folder
> dashboard (FIG. 19). In the folder dashboard, the user clicks the
> "style editor" icon to display the style editor of the products folder
> where, depending upon the user's privileges, the user may: choose an
> existing style; edit the current style; and create a new style.
> FIG. 35 illustrates one embodiment for the style editor. For this
> example, the user may select a style from the "Select Style" list. The
> user may then click "finish" to save the changes and return to the
> products folder. The products folder now uses the style specified
> (e.g., the text in the banners at the top of page is the font
> specified, title links in the content area are the color specified,
> and the content area itself is the color specified, etc.).
> 6. Creating and Editing Groups
> In one embodiment, to create a group in the Web Site database system,
> a group panel is used. FIG. 36 illustrates one embodiment for a create
> group panel. The create group panel is accessible from the access
> manager. As shown in FIG. 36, this page is divided into the create
> group panel and the find group panel. An administrator may create a
> group by typing the name in the field provided and by selecting the
> create button. The find group panel is used to locate existing groups
> such as for editing the groups.
> FIG. 37 illustrates one embodiment to modify groups. Specifically,
> this screen permits an administrator to add users to a group, view
> group members, delete members, or specify a member as a group
> administrator. To add a member to a group, the administrator types the
> user name in the name field, and selects the "add to access list"
> button. As shown in FIG. 37, a check box to designate group
> administrators is provided.
> Granting Privileges In the Web Site Database
> When end-users first display a Web Site, they may only view items in
> public folders. For greater access to the Web Site, users must log
> onto the Web Site using their database usemame and password. Once
> users log onto the Web Site, the tasks they perform on a folder
> depends upon the privileges they have been granted for that folder. In
> one embodiment, if the end-user has an own privilege, then the
> end-user may perform all folder tasks, including granting folder
> privileges to other users. If the end-user has a view privilege, the
> end-user may view any item in the folder. A style privilege permits an
> end-user to make changes to the folder style. A manage item privilege
> permits an end-user to add, edit, or delete items in the folder. Also,
> a "create with approval" privilege permits an end-user to add new
> items to the folder. Items that are added using the "create with
> approval" privilege must be approved by the folder owner before
> displayed publicly.
> To limit access to items in a folder owned by a folder owner, the
> folder owner grants the appropriate access privileges. For example, if
> the information in a folder is of a confidential nature, the folder
> owner may want only a few users to view the contents. For example, in
> one application, a company may want to use a confidential folder, a
> sub folder of the products folder, to make confidential product
> information available to its employees. However, the company does not
> want the company's customers to view this information. Under this
> scenario, company employees have the privilege to view the
> confidential folder, whereas the customers do not have the privilege
> to view the confidential folder.
> A folder owner may desire to grant the same privileges to multiple
> users. For example, the folder owner may want to allow all the members
> of a department in a corporation to add items to the department's
> folder. Under this scenario, rather than individually granting each
> user the "create with approval privileges", the folder owner may
> create a group of users and may grant, in a single operation, the
> privileges to all members of this group.
> A folder owner or an individual with manage items privileges on a
> folder, may add, edit, move and delete items in that folder. When an
> item is added to a folder by a folder owner or an individual with
> manage items privileges, then that item is immediately visible in the
> folder. An individual with "create with approval" privileges may only
> add items to the folder. Under this scenario, the item does not become
> visible to other users until the folder owner approves the item. This
> feature enables the folder owner to maintain control of the folder's
> content.
> FIG. 38 illustrates one embodiment for granting user privileges. In
> general, this screen provides the ability to authorize users to view,
> create, and manage items in a corresponding folder. Specifically, from
> the user dialog box, a user name is associated with the folder to
> provide access to that folder. As shown below in FIG. 38, a user
> access list permits setting privileges associated with that folder
> (i.e., own, view, style, manage items, and create with approval).
> FIG. 39 illustrates one embodiment for setting group privileges to a
> folder. As shown in FIG. 39, the administrator, in the group box, may
> select from a predefined group to add access to the folder.
> Furthermore, through the group access list, the site administrator may
> specify individual access privileges (i.e., own, view, style, manage
> items, and create with approval).
> Although the present invention has been described in terms of specific
> exemplary embodiments, it will be appreciated that various
> modifications and alterations might be made by those skilled in the
> art without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention.
>
> * * * * *
> _________________________________________________________________
>
>
>References
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>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6195657
> 21.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6223177
> 22.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6233600
> 23.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6243700
> 24.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6308188
> 25.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6317722
> 26.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6366910
> 27.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6438580
> 28.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6463460
> 29.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6466918
> 30.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6516329
> 31.
>http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=1&s1='20010042132'.PGNR.&OS=DN/20010042132&RS=DN/20010042132
> 32.
>http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=06745238&homeurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpatft.uspto.gov%2Fnetacgi%2Fnph-Parser%3FSect1%3DPTO1%2526Sect2%3DHITOFF%2526d%3DPALL%2526p%3D1%2526u%3D%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm%2526r%3D1%2526f%3DG%2526l%3D50%2526s1%3D6,745,238.WKU.%2526OS%3DPN%2F6,745,238%2526RS%3DPN%2F6,745,238%3B&PageNum=&Rtype=&SectionNum=&idkey=E633356C1614
> 33.
>http://ebiz1.uspto.gov/vision-service/ShoppingCart_P/ShowShoppingCart?backUrl1=http%3A//164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1%3DPTO1%26Sect2%3DHITOFF%26d%3DPALL%26p%3D1%26u%3D%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm%26r%3D1%26f%3DG%26l%3D50%26s1%3D6,745,238.WKU.%26OS%3DPN%2F6,745,238&backLabel1=Back%20to%20Document%3A%206,745,238
> 34.
>http://ebiz1.uspto.gov/vision-service/ShoppingCart_P/AddToShoppingCart?docNumber=6,745,238&backUrl1=http%3A//164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1%3DPTO1%26Sect2%3DHITOFF%26d%3DPALL%26p%3D1%26u%3D%2Fnetahtml%2Fsrchnum.htm%26r%3D1%26f%3DG%26l%3D50%26s1%3D6,745,238.WKU.%26OS%3DPN%2F6,745,238&backLabel1=Back%20to%20Document%3A%206,745,238
> 35.
>http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,745,238.WKU.&OS=PN/6,745,238&RS=PN/6,745,238;#top
> 36. http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html
> 37. http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html
> 38. http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-adv.htm
> 39. http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
> 40. http://www.uspto.gov/patft/help/help.htm
>
># distributed via : no commercial use without permission
># is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
># collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
># more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
># archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net
--
Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective]
Sarai-CSDS
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
www.sarai.net
From mayur at nls.ac.in Thu Aug 5 02:23:19 2004
From: mayur at nls.ac.in (mayur at nls.ac.in)
Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 20:53:19 -0000 (Local time zone must be set--see zic
manual page)
Subject: [Commons-Law] (no subject)
Message-ID: <4616.219.65.133.16.1091652799.squirrel@219.65.133.16>
Dear All,
these are my rather haphazard notes on the presentation I had made at the
conference in Bangalore.
Regards
Mayur
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From sunil at mahiti.org Sun Aug 8 01:09:07 2004
From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham)
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 19:39:07 +0000
Subject: [Commons-Law] Open Letter Against British Copyright Indoctrination
in Schools
Message-ID: <1091907546.788.199.camel@box>
By Jel
Fri Aug 6th, 2004 at 10:44:19 AM EST
Freedom
The British Department for Education and Skills (DfES) recently launched
a "Music Manifesto" campaign, with the ostensible intention of educating
the next generation of British musicians. Unfortunately, they also
teamed up with the music industry (EMI, and various artists) to make
this popular. EMI has apparently negotiated their end well, so that
children in our schools will now be indoctrinated about the illegality
of downloading music.
The ignorance and audacity of this got to me a little, so I wrote an
open letter to the DfES about it. Unfortunately, it's pedantic, as I
suppose you have to be when writing to goverment representatives. But I
hope you find it useful, and perhaps feel inspired to do something
similar, if or when the same thing has happened in your area.
Dear Sir/Madam,
In response to the following article regarding DfES plans to include
discussions of music copying in the proposed "Music Manifesto" lessons,
I would like to formally request further information.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/05/uk_school_copyright_lessons/
I am concerned about just what will be taught in relation to the
legality of music downloading.
Copyright as a whole vs. individual licenses
While it is certainly illegal to download particular music, it is
absolutely not illegal to download all music, nor even all music by
professional musicians. Many musicians, in fact, are in favor of their
music being distributed widely, for various reasons. These reasons range
from ethics and morality, to simple economics, and to the obviously
larger audience for their art.
The particular musicians who choose to limit their music's distribution
are doing so through a particular form of Copyright license -- it is not
copyright itself that prevents such copying. In fact, Copyright is often
used to explicitly allow copying and distribution. Since this license is
simply a default license used by many record companies, it is in fact
questionable whether many of the artists who use it have even considered
the arguments for or against.
As such, I would hope to have your assurances that our children will not
be taught that their rights regarding music are always limited as a
matter of fact, when in fact they are specifically limited by particular
persons and organisations, in individual cases. In fact, they should
probably be educated regarding their power as consumers to selectively
purchase music which is not limited in such a way.
Outdated distribution methods, economics, and ethics
In addition to issues regarding license specifics, there is a huge
difference between legality and ethical behavior. While some -- again,
not all -- music is currently released under a license which prevents
legal distribution, this is an unusual trend which existed only for a
few recent centuries of humanity's long history. In the past, music was
created, shared, and developed freely. In the future, as can be seen by
de facto practices already occurring, music will hopefully again be
distributed freely, since new technology renders the old model of
distribution fundamentally flawed and unethical.
To explain: putting the legal mess aside for a moment to discuss ethics,
it is no longer a valid argument to simply state that music should not
be copied freely. It is, in fact, most efficient to distribute music
freely -- it does not cost anything but the user's own electricity use
to copy music. By limiting this ability, certain individuals and
organisations are holding back the transmission of information; holding
back social communication and evolution. They are creating what is known
in economics as false scarcity.
Obviously, in an economy which is balanced upon supply and demand, it is
entirely unethical to make goods scarce and only available via one
outlet, when they are, in fact, easily provided by anyone with a copy to
give. This situation is fundamentally wrong, and the basic common-sense
knowledge that it is false is is precisely why illegal copying takes
place. People will simply not follow laws which no longer make sense.
By all means, we should discourage illegal copying. But we should
absolutely not confuse the issues at hand by teaching our children that
it is unethical to copy music. For, despite currently popular
propaganda, this is quite simply untrue.
What is wrong is our method of distributing music, and the mechanisms by
which musicians are paid for such music. If we teach children in a
simplistic manner to "never copy music", we would be lying to them:
damaging our childrens' ethical compasses, and damaging our own society
as a whole. Whereas, if we teach them the issues relating to human
rights and ethics, artists, economics, corporate greed, etc., we stand a
good chance of raising a generation with the knowledge and background to
actually solve these problems for us all.
Conclusion
I certainly hope our children will be educated regarding copyright
law. But I would hope that such an education will be unbiased --
uninfluenced by the those organisations who may have (and have in fact
proven themselves to have) vested interests in promoting certain myths
regarding copyright law and ethics.
I expect that a well-conceived education in this area will cover the
various serious debates regarding the ethics and economics of various
copyright licenses and distribution methods, especially in regard to new
technologies and data management technologies, and -- most importantly,
human rights of the past, present and future. Obviously, if the "Music
Manifesto" is really about creating the next generations of musicians,
as it is claimed, they should not be short-changed in their education
regarding the copyright and ethical choices underlying their future
work.
If such issues are too complex for the target audience, then the subject
can, quite simply, not be taught to such a young audience. Personally, I
think this is the case. Such complex issues are for open debate and
opinion papers at university or college level -- not for indoctrination
in our primary or secondary schools.
Request for clarification
Obviously, I write to you out of serious concern that our schools may
become places of indoctrination for corporate wishful thinking. Such a
major policy shift within our education system would be a very sad day
for Britain's schools, and something many citizens would find major
contention with. I sincerely hope that you can assure me, in the
following manner, that this is not the case.
If the proposals have gone far enough, I would like to see the proposed
schemes of work and lesson plans for this class, so that I and other
members of the public can be sure it is to be as unbiased as possible.
Should no such solid plans be currently available, I hope you can
instead provide a detailed explanation of who will be consulted
regarding the format of these lessons -- presumably those unbiased
academics who have much experience in copyright law, ethics in regards
to communication, the appropriate teaching of debatable moral and
ethical issues to children, etc.
Certainly, I would not expect such issues to be tackled ad-hoc by
teachers with no knowledge of copyright and ethics but a short course or
whatever insights they have consider themselves to have gained while
purchasing CDs in the highstreet.
If no information on either lesson details or proposed development of
such lessons is currently available, I would then request a formal
statement of when it will be available, and who is in charge of making
it available.
I look forward to your response, and I thank you for your time.
--
Lee Braiden.
Thanks,
ಸುನೀಲ್
--
Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931
Currently on sabbatical with APDIP/UNDP
Manager - International Open Source Network
Wisma UN, Block C Komplex Pejabat Damansara.
Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur.
P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087
sunil at apdip.net http://www.iosn.net http://www.apdip.net
From jeebesh at sarai.net Sat Aug 7 17:49:39 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Sat, 07 Aug 2004 17:49:39 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] The Public Domain
Public Domain/James Boyle
Message-ID: <4114C8DB.7080507@sarai.net>
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/indexpd.htm
LAW AND CONTEMPORARY PROBLEMS
Volume 66
Winter/Spring 2003
Numbers 1 & 2
The Public Domain
/James Boyle/
Special Editor
Foreword: The Opposite of Property?
/James Boyle/ 1
The Second Enclosure Movement and the Construction of the Public
Domain
/James Boyle/ 33
Nine-Tenths of the Law: The English Copyright Debates and the
Rhetoric of the Public Domain
/Mark Rose/ 75
Romans, Roads, and Romantic Creators: Traditions of Public Property
in the Information Age
/Carol M. Rose/ 89
Ideas, Artifacts, and Facilities: Information as a Common-Pool
Resource
/Charlotte Hess
Elinor Ostrom/ 111
Mapping the Digital Public Domain: Threats and Opportunities
/Pamela Samuelson/ 147
Through the Looking Glass: Alice and the Constitutional Foundations
of the Public Domain
/Yochai Benkler/ 173
Reconciling What the First Amendment Forbids with what the Copyright
Clause Permits: A Summary Explanation and Review
/William W. Van Alstyne/ 225
Two Relationships to a Cultural Public Domain
/Negativland/ 239
"Fairest of them All" and Other Fairy Tales of Fair Use
/David Nimmer/ 263
Bayh-Dole Reform and the Progress of Biomedicine
/Arti K. Rai
Rebecca S. Eisenberg/ 289
A Contractually Reconstructed Research Commons for Scientific Data
in a Highly Protectionist Intellectual Property Environment
/J. H. Reichman
Paul F. Uhlir/ 315
Reimagining the Public Domain
/David Lange/ 463
From jeebesh at sarai.net Sun Aug 8 14:28:38 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 14:28:38 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Censor Board bans documentary
Message-ID: <4115EB3E.70105@sarai.net>
From:
As you know, the Censor Board of India recently banned Rakesh Sharma's
internationally-acclaimed documentary - Final Solution. An online
petition has been created by Anand Patwardhan to protest against the
ban. The petition asks Central Government to intervene and revoke the
ban immediately. As you may already know, under clause 6 and 9 of the
Cinematograph Act, the Central Government is empowered to overturn any
decision/ recommendation by the Censor Board.
People who have already signed the petition include Shabana Azmi,
Nandita Das, Vijay Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Javed Akhtar, Aparna Sen,
Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Farhan Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Vishal
Bhardwaj, Arundhati Nag, Sanjana Kapoor, MS Sathyu, Lekh Tandon,
Yogendra Yadav and Teesta Setalvad among others.
Please extend your support by signing the petition online by clicking
the following link:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FilmBan/petition.html
Please forward the petition details to people in your mailing list
asking them to sign and circulate the petition widely.
Final Solution ( India; 2004; Digital Video format - miniDV; 209/148
minutes).
Final Solution is a study of the politics of hate. Set in Gujarat
during the period Feb/March 2002 - July 2003, the film graphically
documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through a
study of the 2002 genocide of Moslems in Gujarat. The film documents
the Assembly elections held in Gujarat in late 2002 and records in
detail the exploitation of the Godhra incident (in which 58 Hindus
were burnt alive) by the right-wing propaganda machinery for electoral
gains. It studies the situation after the storm and its impact on
Hindus and Moslems - ghettoisation in cities and villages, segregation
in schools, the call for economic boycott of Moslems and continuing
acts of violence more than a year after the carnage.
Final Solution is anti-hate/ violence as "those who forget history are
condemned to relive it".
Awards :
Wolfgang Staudte award and Special Jury Award (Netpac), Berlin
International film festival.
Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary, HongKong International
film festival.
Silver Dhow ( Best Doc category), Zanzibar International film festival
Special Jury Mention, Munich Dokfest.
Special Award instituted and given by NRIs for a Secular and Harmonious
India (NRI-SAHI), NY-NJ, USA.
Festivals : Berlinale ( International premiere; Feb 2004), HongKong,
Fribourg, 3 continents filmfest (South Africa), Hot Docs (Canada),
Vancouver, Zanzibar, Durban, Commonwealth film festival (UK), One
world filmfest (Prague), Voces Contra el Silencio (Mexico), Istanbul
1001fest, Singapore, Flanders (Belgium), World Social Forum (Mumbai;
Indian premiere), Vikalp (Mumbai filmfest organised by Campaign
against Censorship), Films for Freedom, Bangalore and several other
filmfests
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
From jeebesh at sarai.net Sun Aug 8 15:59:14 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Sun, 08 Aug 2004 15:59:14 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Democide data
Message-ID: <4116007A.8090806@sarai.net>
"Collecting data on democide was an horrendous task. I soon was
overwhelmed by the unbelievable repetitiveness of regime after regime,
ruler after ruler, murdering people under their control or rule by
shooting, burial alive, burning, hanging, knifing, starvation, flaying,
beating, torture, and so on and on. Year after year. Not hundreds, not
thousands, not tens of thousands of these people, but millions and
millions. Almost 170,000,000 of them, and this is only what appears a
reasonable middle estimate. The awful toll may even reach above
300,000,000, the equivalent in dead of a nuclear war stretched out over
decades." - R.J. Rummel
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
From sudhir at circuit.sarai.net Mon Aug 9 17:21:16 2004
From: sudhir at circuit.sarai.net (sudhir at circuit.sarai.net)
Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 13:51:16 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Commons-Law] Raj Anand Moot Problem 2004
Message-ID: <3458.202.142.105.137.1092052276.squirrel@202.142.105.137>
Dear all
What follows is the patent law moot problem set for the 7th Raj Anand Moot
Court Competition - I've left the annexures out of this email but will be
happy to mail these across to anyone who's interested.
Best
Sudhir
7TH RAJ ANAND MOOT COURT COMPETITION
-------
NEW DELHI
---------------------------------
Sweet Doggy Inc., (SDI) is a company incorporated under the laws of
Delaware in the United State of America. SDI has invented a transgenic
product called WAGGY which when administered to dogs keeps them happy.
The happiness of dogs is measured, at least in some part, by an increased
wag to their tails. SDI obtains a patent for a veterinary formulation in
the USA, the European Community, Japan and certain other key countries
determined on the basis of population of dogs. SDI has a pending product
patent application in India.
The veterinary product has been tested on 1000 dogs in 30 cities in
Europe, USA and Japan. Bio-equivalence studies have been conducted in
certain other countries where such studies are required by the local laws.
The data collected is compiled and consists of three categories, namely:
type 'A'which shows happy dogs;
type 'B' which shows no undue increase in dog appetite as a result of the
increased exercise;
type 'C' showing healthy increase in dog population. The data is approved
by the Veterinary Board of India which then grants the SDI permission to
market the product. An Indian company by the name of Smile Dog Smile
Limited (SDS) at its board meeting takes a decision to compete head on
with SDI although board members are cautious about intellectual property
rights and do not wish to violate the same.
The Chief Legal Officer of SDS has a meeting with the research, production
and marketing teams explaining the strategy of the company. Within three
months SDS produces and markets a formulation by the name of SMILOE. SDI
files a suit in India and alleges:-
its formulation has been copied by SDS in as much as it has copyrights
in the transgenic molecule and of the genetic information that is
comprised therein notwithstanding the fact that a patent has not been
granted to SDI in India. SDS claims that if there are no patents there
can be no protection in a gene sequence particularly since there was no
contractual or other privity between SDI and SDS;
SDS has even copied their advertisement campaign (Annexure 'A' v.
Annexure 'B') and this is more than a theme although protection can be
granted to simply a theme. SDS claims that ideas are not protected and
it is fair use for some one to take interesting ideas and use them in
advertising campaigns;
the trademark WAGGY has been copied at key places in the defendantâs
advertisement (Annexure âBâ). This point is defended by SDS who claims
that WAGGY is descriptive and not protectable and in any case they have
used the term in a descriptive manner;
that the data of clinical trials has been copied and this amounts to a
violation of trade secrets as also copyrights in the said data. According
to SDS such data is not protected in India and can be freely copied; in
any event it has not copied the data but the veterinary board has only
used information from SDIâs data and applied the same to SDS.
Annexures
Annexure A
Annexure B
From jeebesh at sarai.net Mon Aug 9 19:40:36 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Mon, 09 Aug 2004 19:40:36 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Bibliographical resource
Message-ID: <411785DC.1080309@sarai.net>
An amazing bibliographical resource on violence, democide etc. It has
been set up by a student in a design school (Piet Zwart Institute) in
Rotterdam.
http://imaginarymuseum.org/MHV/PZImhv/PZImhvFS.html
(for low bandwidth users, please be patient, it will load slowly)
From ravis at sarai.net Tue Aug 10 13:08:34 2004
From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:08:34 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] The emerging media scenario: regulation,
monopoly and conflict
Message-ID: <6.1.1.1.2.20040810125959.02665910@mail.sarai.net>
Dear All,
enclosed below are the new TRAI recommendations on unified licensing. The
model is an innocent one - not limited by technology or delivery, but it
paves way for a US kind of Time-Warner-AOL combine model. To invest in
these kind of infrastructures you have to be that size. And this has been
the Reliance plan all along.Its the kind of "let the market decide" model,
which is the TRAI mantra (the universal service obligations of the private
operators are now on their way out)
That is the imaginary anyway.
Its another thing if that can work. In the kind of unequal society we live
in, with high fragmentation of media delivery, there is sure to be
conflict. Some will be franchised by the big combines, others will fight
for territory. And many, many law suits........
----- Ravi
_______________________________
Supplementary Note to Draft Recommendations on Unified Licensing Regime
Broadcasting Services Issues
TRAI submitted its draft recommendations on Unified Licensing on 6th
August, 2004. Some stakeholders have raised queries about inclusion of
Broadcasting Services under Unified Licensing Regime. The following
explains the position:-
1. Unified License implies that a customer can get all
types of telecom services, from a Unified License operator, technology
permitting. The operator can use wireline or wireless media. These
services would include telephony, Internet, broadband, cable TV, DTH, TV &
radio broadcasting.
2. NTP, 1999 mentioned that convergence of both markets
and technologies is a reality that is forcing realignment of the
industry. It also mentioned that, at one level, telephone and
broadcasting industries are entering each others markets, while at
another level, technology is blurring the difference between different
conduit system such as wire line and wireless. NTP, 1999 further states
that this convergence now allows operators to use their facilities to
deliver some services reserved for other operators necessitating a re-look
into the existing policy framework.
3. NTP, 1999 had also specified Cable Service providers
as one of the categories of Access providers for telecom services.
4. As per Clause No.2(1) (ea) & k of TRAI (Amendment) Act,
2000 Central Government may notify other service to be telecom service
including broadcasting Services. Accordingly, Department of Telecom vide
its Notification dated 9th January, 2004 had notified Broadcasting Services
and Cable Services to be telecom services.
5. In TRAIs recommendations on Broadband Services, DTH has
been recommended as one of the alternative platform to offer broadband
services.
6. Keeping above aspects in mind, Authority in its draft
recommendations had included Broadcasting Services under Unified Licensing
category because this category of license includes all types of telecom
services.
7. In the above context two issues arise, namely,
a) What would be the status of stand alone broadcaster?
b) Who shall be the licensor for Broadcasting Service?
These issues are clarified as follows:-
i) A stand alone Broadcasting Services license could be
issued. The prevailing process of issuing of such a license by I&B
Ministry (including allocation of spectrum in consultation with WPC) would
continue.
ii) If a unified licensee wants to offer Broadcasting Service using
wireless spectrum, he will have to apply to I&B Ministry as mentioned in
para- ( i) above.
iii) The content in any case, would be regulated by I&B Ministry.
8. Some of the stakeholders had also requested for some
more time to submit their comments on draft recommendations on Unified
Licensing Regime. Keeping this in view and also in view of this
Supplementary Note for Broadcasting Services the last date of submitting
comments on draft Unified Licensing recommendations along with this
Supplementary Note on Broadcast Services is extended up to 31.8.2004.
These clarifications are also put on TRAIs website at
www.trai.gov.in
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From shwetashree at hotmail.com Tue Aug 10 14:17:38 2004
From: shwetashree at hotmail.com (Shwetasree Majumder)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 08:47:38 +0000
Subject: [Commons-Law] Raj Anand Moot Problem 2004
Message-ID:
Dear All,
Further to Sudhir's mail, anyone interested in any information/
clarifications etc. as to the moot may please feel free to contact me.
Also this is a general invitation going out to everyone - please be there
for the event.
The final programme and schedule will soon be up on ipmoot.org - anyhow i
can tell you this for the time being that the events on the 28th commence at
9 a.m and on 29th at 10 am.
We have a fairly interesting lineup of judges this year and its all looking
quite promising.
Will be really glad if some of you can make it!
Shwetasree
>From: sudhir at circuit.sarai.net
>To: commons-law at sarai.net
>Subject: [Commons-Law] Raj Anand Moot Problem 2004
>Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2004 13:51:16 +0200 (CEST)
>
>Dear all
>
>What follows is the patent law moot problem set for the 7th Raj Anand Moot
>Court Competition - I've left the annexures out of this email but will be
>happy to mail these across to anyone who's interested.
>
>Best
>Sudhir
>
> 7TH RAJ ANAND MOOT COURT COMPETITION
>-------
>NEW DELHI
>---------------------------------
>
>Sweet Doggy Inc., (SDI) is a company incorporated under the laws of
>Delaware in the United State of America. SDI has invented a transgenic
>product called WAGGY which when administered to dogs keeps them happy.
>The happiness of dogs is measured, at least in some part, by an increased
>wag to their tails. SDI obtains a patent for a veterinary formulation in
>the USA, the European Community, Japan and certain other key countries
>determined on the basis of population of dogs. SDI has a pending product
>patent application in India.
>
>The veterinary product has been tested on 1000 dogs in 30 cities in
>Europe, USA and Japan. Bio-equivalence studies have been conducted in
>certain other countries where such studies are required by the local laws.
> The data collected is compiled and consists of three categories, namely:
>type 'A'which shows happy dogs;
>type 'B' which shows no undue increase in dog appetite as a result of the
>increased exercise;
>type 'C' showing healthy increase in dog population. The data is approved
>by the Veterinary Board of India which then grants the SDI permission to
>market the product. An Indian company by the name of Smile Dog Smile
>Limited (SDS) at its board meeting takes a decision to compete head on
>with SDI although board members are cautious about intellectual property
>rights and do not wish to violate the same.
>
>The Chief Legal Officer of SDS has a meeting with the research, production
>and marketing teams explaining the strategy of the company. Within three
>months SDS produces and markets a formulation by the name of SMILOE. SDI
>files a suit in India and alleges:-
>
> its formulation has been copied by SDS in as much as it has copyrights
>in the transgenic molecule and of the genetic information that is
>comprised therein notwithstanding the fact that a patent has not been
>granted to SDI in India. SDS claims that if there are no patents there
>can be no protection in a gene sequence particularly since there was no
>contractual or other privity between SDI and SDS;
>
>
> SDS has even copied their advertisement campaign (Annexure 'A' v.
>Annexure 'B') and this is more than a theme although protection can be
>granted to simply a theme. SDS claims that ideas are not protected and
>it is fair use for some one to take interesting ideas and use them in
>advertising campaigns;
>
>
> the trademark WAGGY has been copied at key places in the defendant’s
>advertisement (Annexure ‘B’). This point is defended by SDS who claims
>that WAGGY is descriptive and not protectable and in any case they have
>used the term in a descriptive manner;
>
>
> that the data of clinical trials has been copied and this amounts to a
>violation of trade secrets as also copyrights in the said data. According
>to SDS such data is not protected in India and can be freely copied; in
>any event it has not copied the data but the veterinary board has only
>used information from SDI’s data and applied the same to SDS.
>
>
>
>Annexures
>Annexure A
>Annexure B
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>commons-law mailing list
>commons-law at sarai.net
>https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
_________________________________________________________________
Studies, career, romance. Whatever your concerns.
http://www.astroyogi.com/newMSN/ We have the answers.
From monica at sarai.net Tue Aug 10 17:13:05 2004
From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula)
Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 17:13:05 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Call for contributions to Sarai Reader 05
Message-ID:
CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO SARAI READER O5
BARE ACTS: TRESPASSERS AND ENFORCERS IN PRECARIOUS TIMES
The 'Bare Act' is an expression used to specify
the content of law, bereft of any interpretative
gloss. In a legal library in India and many parts
of the English-speaking world, a Bare Act is a
document that simply codifies a law without
annotation or commentary. The 'Bare Act' is
legality pared down to its textual essence. It
expresses only what the law does, and what it can
do.
The enactment of law, however, is less a matter
of reading the letter of the law, and more a
matter of augmenting or eroding the textual
foundation through the acts of interpretation,
negotiation, disputation and witnessing. The law
and practices within and outside stand in
relation to a meta legal domain that can be said
to embrace acts and actions in all their depth,
intensity and substantive generality. This too is
a stage set for the performance of 'bare acts',
of what we might call 'naked deeds' - actions
shorn of everything other than what is contained
in a verb.
The 'Bare Act' that encrypts the letter of the
law, the wire frame structure that demands the
fleshing out of interpretation, and the 'bare
act' that expresses and contains the stripped
down kernel of an act, of something that is done,
are both expressions that face each other in a
relationship of tense reflection and intimate
alterity. Bare Acts generate bare acts, and vice
versa.
"Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts: Trespassers and
Enforcers in Precarious Times" proposes to be a
considered examination of this troubled mirror
image.
We are interested in looking not only at what
happens in law courts but also at customs,
conventions, formal and quasi formal 'ways of
doing things' that are pertinent to communities
howsoever they may be formed. Thus the
conventions and codes evolved by the
practitioners of a juridically 'illicit' trade or
calling or way of life, such as that of software
pirates, or 'illegal' migrants, or squatters on
government land, fall within the ambit of our
concerns. We want to speak of the relationships
of conflict, co existence and accommodations
between different kinds of codes that make claims
to our ideas of what is right, or just, or
functional, or even merely appropriate.
To see 'actions' arrayed across a spectrum in
this manner is also to see a range of ways in
which laws, codes and a variety of formal and
informal arbitration mechanisms act on us.
Sometimes this may take the form of executive
force and fiat, but crucially it may also rely on
the powers of persuasion that characterize a host
of quasi formal interactions between state and
non-state actors, and between non-state actors
and individuals. Typically, this for instance is
the way in which non-legal entities like
informally constituted councils, political
formations outside the state, customary bodies
and traditional councils act to enforce their
will or influence those within (and occasionally
outside) their ambit.
The landscape of actions and deeds covers a far
more subtle, slippery, nuanced and ambiguous
ground (than the codes that seek to index, define
or govern them). Actions have gradients, they
ascend and descend on to each other much as peaks
emerge from and plunge into troughs in a three
dimensional graph. The political, ethical and
semantic facets of acts shade off, and slope into
each other, now revealing, now concealing
hitherto unknown aspects of themselves and their
consequences, often in unexpected ways. Laws are
attempts to understand, interpret and govern
action, but their enunciative capacity is bundled
up with executive authority; they are words that
decree what must be done. But just as the way in
which a map is drawn can have consequences on the
ecology of a terrain, the phrases spoken as law
too can transform and erode as well as irrigate
the ground of action.
Laws are a creature of habit, of pattern, rhythm
and repetition. The exceptional singularity of an
action, which is precisely what law seeks to tame
to the rhythm of the predictable, leaves us with
a strange situation where the "bareness of an
act" is precisely what is sought to be clothed by
a 'bare act'. This gives rise to many tensions
and aporias, which we invite contributors to
reflect upon and report, from their locations in
the real world, whatever be their locus standi.
You may be a human rights lawyer, or an
intellectual property attorney, a philosopher, an
artist, an activist, a combatant or peace maker
in a conflict situation, a person who lives and
works with ideas and words, a person who saves
lives or takes them, a person who has custody of
others, or who may be in the custody of an
institution; in addition, you may be someone who
either is, or identifies with, or sympathizes
with, a hacker, a pirate, a re-distributor of
intellectual assets, an illegal emigrant, a
non-heterosexual person, a compulsive traveller,
a squatter, a sex worker, a terrorist of the
imagination, you may be free or in confinement,
you may be healthy or unwell - whosoever you may
be and whatever you are, you have to act, and
deal with the actions of others, and all that you
do, or do not do, is framed by a structure of
bare acts of the law. Yet, you shape the world
with the things you do to be yourself, to act in
concert with others, to defend yourself and to
pursue what you see as liberty and happiness, or
simply, to survive.
We would also like to invite investigations into
the production of 'legal subjects' through
judgements (communiqués to the citizen/denizen)
and petitions (appeals from the citizen/denizen)
as well as through mechanisms like recording and
registration mechanisms such as census records,
land records, municipal records, forestry
regulations, registers of citizens and aliens and
other instruments that define and enumerate the
person addressed by the legal-formal apparatuses
that govern day to day life. What is the
language, the rhetoric, the tone of these acts of
address? How are they scripted, rehearsed and
staged? All these are things for us to explore
when we look at the law, whether in the
courtroom, in a village council meeting, or in
the performance of a 'courtroom drama' in a film.
Crucially, here we want to explore the figures of
authorised and unauthorised interlocutors, expert
and wayward witnesses and the myriad characters
that constitute the theatre of the courtroom.
This Reader invites you to reflect on actions,
yours as well as those of others, to act with
your words, thoughts and images to contribute to
our understanding of the world, as we know it
today. We are committed to an elaboration of
positions that often find themselves identified
with the interloper, trespasser and the
proscribed, not because we have any special
affinity for the illicit, but because we feel
that the growing constriction of the domain of
the do-able by the letter of the law (which we
all face in societies where the state and para
state institutions lay increasing claims to our
fealty) leads to a situation where those
committed to a modicum of social liberty, to
expanding the territory of what may be creatively
imagined and acted upon, have to invest in
knowing and understanding an ethic of trespasses.
Interdictions need interrogation, and this Reader
is a call for such interrogations.
A 'bare act', as we said at the outset, can also
be taken to mean action divested of everything
other than its essence as a deed. Encountering
the naked deed, action in and of itself, on its
own terms, means facing up to difficult and
occasionally challenging ethical questions. What
constitutes violence? What is generosity, or
hospitality? Why does altruism have to be hedged
in by qualifications and constraints?
It also means asking - what it is to become
someone through action? What is it to act, or
play a part, in the theatre of social life? What
is the border that separates action from
expression? What connects the act to gesture and
to performance, as much as it does to deed?
Moreover, what accounts can we give to the 'act'
of witnessing, or bearing witness to a course of
action, or to an event? Law or codes of action of
any kind seem untenable without the notion of the
witness. The presence of the witness is crucial
to any notion of credence, the foundations on
which arguments, petitions and judgements have to
base their thrust and parry. We would like this
collection to provoke reflections on the nature
of the evidentiary and narrative protocols that
frame acts of 'speaking' or 'speaking out' in the
face of, or in the aftermath of, or in the
memorialization of, acts and events that leave a
mark on our times so as to instigate a more
complex unravelling of the relationship between
persons, actions, narratives and codes of
behaviour,
To carry this argument further, we want to point
out that in languages such as Arabic, Persian,
Hebrew and Urdu, the roots for words as disparate
sounding as 'martyr' and 'witness'
(shaheed/martyr and shahid/witness) devolve to a
common source. This suggests to us a febrile
tension between the reality of a precipitate,
even violent action, its consequence (the
shaheed) and a recording presence (the shahid).
In other words, given the fact that acts do speak
for themselves (and sometimes make the claim to
speak for others), we consider it necessary to
take stock and reflect on what might be
considered the heritage of the 'propaganda of the
deed' - a doctrine that underpins violent
terrorism, as well as non-violent civil
disobedience and militant passive resistance, to
see how such modes of acting stretch and
challenge consensual notions of the relationships
between means and ends.
As we have said in calls for contributions to
previous readers, on themes and subjects quite
different from the ones that we have sketched
here, these are open questions with no
satisfactory and coherent answers. But Sarai
Reader 05, like its predecessors, would like to
take them on, so as to map new territories of
thought about the things we all do and the things
that are done to us.
Today, there are different images of naked
legality that we have grown accustomed to. We
know that the law is often the last resort that
the poor and the marginalized can turn to in some
societies to appeal for redress and comfort from
having to face obvious and naked oppression. Thus
the slum dweller facing demolition sees in a high
court stay order, a breathing space in which to
try and muster some means of continued survival
in the city as a householder. A person on death
row can have little hope but to argue for an
acquittal or a pardon. There are also occasions
when international criminal courts may be seen to
be effective instruments of redress for victims
of genocide and war crimes. These are but the
bare facts of a case for the law, and for a
conscientious practice of the legal calling as a
continuing good in human societies.
However, we have also seen pictures of naked
human beings in judicial custody in the Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq. This too is naked
legality. We have seen migrants waiting to be
deported. We have seen the banal playing out of
the script of domination and violence, on
streets, in educational institutions, in homes.
We have seen attempts at the foreclosure of
cultural and intellectual commons. We have seen
attempts at surveillance and control, and we have
witnessed, resistances to each of these - quiet
subversions, cunning negotiations and outright
rejections as well as attempts to scale the walls
erected by the threat of interdictions, sanctions
and prohibitions.
Sarai Reader 05 seeks to register these matters
in their puzzling ambivalence, with intelligence,
acuity and close attention to the pulse of our
times.
A Preliminary List of Themes (these are not
chapter or section headings, but point to areas
of interest) could include:
The Pure Act, the Impure Gesture and Bare
Presences: A Sceptical Guide to Acting in Today's
World
Barely Human/Naked Power: Critiques of Contemporary Injustices
Punishments in Search of Crimes: Histories and Practices of Illegality
Authorised and Unauthorised Interlocutors
The Human Right to Copy and Paste: Culture,
Law, Conflict and Intellectual Property
The Letter of the Law: Glossing Gender, Class,
Race and Caste in the Courtroom
In Camera: Courts, Prison and the Justice System in Cinema
Rough Justice and Gentle Persuasion: Non-legal Forms of Arbitration
To Be Done and To Be Seen to be Done: Legal
Action and its Media Representations
Despatches and Communiqués: Reflecting on Media
Representations of Direct Action
Private Matters in the Public Domain: The Law and Sexuality
The Encounter: Terror In and Out of Uniform
Caught in an Emergency: The Ethical Dilemmas of
Humanitarian Intervention in War Zones and
Conflict Situations
The War Against Error: The Normalization of Surveillance and Identification
Bearing Witness
Citizens, Denizens, Aliens, Others: Taxonomies for Our Times
Altitude Sickness: The Activist on Higher Moral Ground
What is (not) to be Done: Understanding the
Limitations of Action and Activism
The Right to be Wrong: In Praise of Political,
Ethical and Legal Uncertainties
What it Takes to Be... Accounts of Becoming and Choosing to Remain Marginal
At A Loss for Words: Talking about Things Perhaps Best Left Unsaid
Utterance as Action: How Speech Acts Change the World Sometimes
The Word as Violence: Interpretative Acts in the Field of Life and Death
Politics beyond the Law
"Sarai Reader 05: The Bare Act" seeks to engage
with this situation by inviting a series of
reflections. We are looking for incisive
analysis, as well as passionate writing, for
scholarly and theoretical rigour as well as for
critical and imaginative depth. We invite essays,
reportage, diaries and memoirs, entries from
weblogs, edited compilations of online
discussions, photo essays, image-text collages
and interpretations of found visual material.
Finally, we would like to see texts that draw
attention to the curious and unfolding
relationships between acts, actions (especially
what is called 'direct action'), activism and the
domain of media practice: namely between acts and
representations, and on representations as acts.
What are the trade offs involved in transmission
of an 'action', how does the possibility of
transmission help script and action before it is
staged - these are urgent questions, especially
at a time when the relationship between deed and
representation tends to blur in the form of what
we can call a 'media event'. This is not to
evaluate such instances negatively or positively,
only to register the fact that they occur, and to
call for an attempt at an informed understanding
of their contents and ramifications. We invite
activists, media activists and media
practitioners to revisit and reflect on the
instances of the encounters between deeds and
mediatization in their own practices, and on the
relationship between media and action in a
general sense. In doing so, we are revisiting and
continuing a discussion on some of the questions
that have already been raised in "Sarai Reader
04: Crisis/Media".
The Sarai Reader 05, like the previous Sarai
Readers, will be international in scope and
content, while retaining a special emphasis on
reflection about and from areas that normally lie
outside the domain of mainstream discourses. We
are particularly interested in contributions from
South Asia, South and Central America, East
Europe, the Arabic Speaking Countries, Central
and West Africa, South Africa, South East Asia,
China, Tibet and Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Iran,
Iraq, Turkey and Australia.
The Editorial Collective
*Guidelines for Submissions*
Word Limit: 1000 - 6000 words
1. All submission, unless specifically solicited, must be in English only.
2. Submissions must be sent by email in as text,
or as rtf, or as word document or star
office/open office attachments. Articles may be
accompanied by black and white photographs/other
visual material submitted in the .tif format.
3. We urge all writers, to follow the Chicago
Manual of Style, (CMS) in terms of footnotes,
annotations and references. For more details
about the CMS and an updated list of Frequently
Asked Questions, see
-http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq/cmosfaq.html
For a Quick Reference Guide to the Chicago Manual
of Style, especially relevant for citation style,
see -
http://www.library.wwu.edu/ref/Refhome/chicago.html
4. All contributions should be accompanied by a
three/four line text introducing the author, with
email address and a relevant url.
5. All submissions will be read by the editorial
collective before the final selection is made.
The editorial collective reserves the right not
to publish any material sent to it for
publication on stylistic or editorial grounds.
6. Copyright for all accepted contributions will
remain with the authors, but Sarai reserves
indefinitely the right to place any of the
material accepted for publication on the public
domain in print or electronic forms, and on the
internet.
7. Accepted submissions will not be paid for, but
authors are guaranteed a wide international
readership. The Reader will be published in
print, distributed in India and internationally,
and will also be uploaded in a pdf form on to the
Sarai website. All contributors whose work has
been accepted for publication will receive two
copies of the Reader.
--
Monica Narula [Raqs Media Collective]
Sarai-CSDS
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
www.raqsmediacollective.net
www.sarai.net
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From dev.gangjee at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk Wed Aug 11 15:12:28 2004
From: dev.gangjee at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk (Dev Gangjee)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 10:42:28 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Commons-Law] OSS as a succesful example of collective inventions
Message-ID: <20040811094228.E09A62A0CE@webmail223.herald.ox.ac.uk>
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From prashantiyengar at hotpop.com Wed Aug 11 12:41:29 2004
From: prashantiyengar at hotpop.com (Prashant S Iyengar)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2004 12:41:29 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] my paper
Message-ID: <200408111241.29392.prashantiyengar@hotpop.com>
Dear all,
I'm attaching my paper as an MS Word Document. If it's unreadable by some of
you, I could try and have it converted to a PDF.
Regards,
PRashant
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From prashantiyengar at hotpop.com Fri Aug 13 12:44:48 2004
From: prashantiyengar at hotpop.com (Prashant S Iyengar)
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 12:44:48 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Is Google Too Sleazy for the Street?
Message-ID: <200408131244.48767.prashantiyengar@hotpop.com>
Dear All,
This is a piece I picked up from a different group. Interesting problem posed
on the right to privacy V your uninhibited freedom to post.
The author here seems to have been stalked online by users of Usenet who were
able to track him through the archives Google maintains.
Gist of the article IMHO is summed up in its last lines "In nearly all
endeavors, freedom has to abide by a rule of law or be tempered by the rights
of others. In Google's vision for a Barbarian World, one person's
freedom to distress or disrupt another is balanced
against the other's freedom to respond in kind. Way to
go, Google! Way to turn back the clock on civilization
fourteen hundred years!"
Regards,
Prashant
--------- Article follows -----------
from http://www.fireflysun.com/book/Google.php
Is Google Too Sleazy for the Street?
Google's Paradox: Using Cutting Edge Technology to
Turn Back Civilization Fourteen Hundred Years
"After months of wasted efforts to persuade Google to
assume responsibility for the Usenet posts it allows
into its Google Groups archives, Google finally
offered to review a list of posts and remove those
they deem criminal. But just when it seemed Google had
a conscience, Google wrote me to defend its decision
to preserve the malicious posting of the physical
addresses of unpopular individuals in Google Groups:
"Thank you for your reply. When we reviewed the
messages you mentioned, we found no personal financial
information such as credit card numbers or bank
account information. The two messages which contain
map links pointed in one case to an address that is
publicly available elsewhere and in the other case,
pointed to a city, but no specific street address.
Again, we urge you to contact your local police if you
feel you or anyone else is in physical danger. We're
sorry we can't be of further assistance in this
matter." [END COMMUNICATION]
In a post I consider an illicit breach of financial
privacy, one belligerent in
sci.psychology.psychotherapy writes:
"I have learned that [NAME OMITTED] has no assets of
importance. However his wife [NAME OMITTED] does and
she has allowed Jesness to use her property and it has
been posted that she has also let him use that of the
State of Minnesota. It is likely that her assets could
be involved. She has fanned the flames of the Fyre."
This post followed a threat by this "Fyre" to look
into this one person's financial information. Why
would Google err in the direction of preserving the
freedom to harm over another person's right to
minimum standards of public safety, privacy, and
peace? I posed the question to Google, and I am still
waiting for a reply.
[SEE WEB PAGE FOR IMAGE]
Even if this information were publicly accessible, why
would Google approve posts that call on anyone (and
besides all the known stalkers, who knows who else is
lurking on Usenet?) to harass and stalk? These are not
dangers one could always estimate or anticipate.
You simply have to live with the unknown quantities in
your life all so Google can make a buck. Google is
materially benefiting from putting people at risk.
It's absurd. But then, you know that. I know
that. Even Google knows that.
Google also defends a post featuring a map of another
person's neighborhood. While it is non-specific, an
onlooker interested in finding the person could
identify the apartment complex in which the person
lives! A sensible inquiry with the apartment manager,
or a diligent canvassing of the property could narrow
the search down to an apartment. Again, the post has
absolutely no relevance for the forum. It's not even
embedded in a larger generally on-topic post. So
why defend this? Google?
Given the choice, why would Google protect the freedom
of malicious posters over the safety and privacy of
the victims? Given the choice, why would Google help
to foment hostility rather than protect the peace and
quality of the forum? Why does Google feel it needs
legal justification for removing from its own archive
posts which are not only malicious but that are
completely off-topic (i.e. that have no relevance
whatsoever for the topic for which the forum was
created)? I am beginning to think Google may not fully
understand its role in maintaining and promoting
criminal harassment.
I believe that unlike some of the other victims of
sci.psychology.psychotherapy, I provide a reasonable
yardstick with which to measure the true criminal
malice of those participating in the stalking ring.
Granted, none of the other victims ever deserved
to have been threatened, libeled, or stalked inside
and outside the network of "news groups." But by
fighting for their freedom to post to Usenet by
engaging their bullies in a 7-year flame war, they
muddled the picture for anyone not willing to spend
hours unraveling years of knotted threads. By
contrast, in the few short weeks in which I posted to
sci.psychology.psychotherapy, I never 'flamed'
against anyone. I was much too concerned about
managing a professional demeanor as a credible author
and social psychologist. I went 'on the record' with a
couple bulletin-board style posts to counter what
appeared to be one person's morbid curiosity,
motivated
misunderstanding, and baseless speculation about me.
By the time I realized the individual was more
interested in manufacturing than uncovering the truth,
it was too late. My answers to what I had presumed
were questions fanned the flame of his hostility (how
dare I set the record straight?), and he began to
feign access to a private font of knowledge about my
work, my past, and my identity. So, having known the
"news group" for what it was, I withdrew from it
entirely in favor of other "news groups" related to my
interests (e.g. alt.psychology.jung;
sci.psychology.personality). Proving himself a
stalker, the individual tracked my posts down through
a search on my name, and he followed me into these
groups, where he sought to libel and threaten and
disrupt my affairs by intimidating those willing to
engage me in dialogue. I then decided to allow him to
chase me from the "news groups" altogether. And yet
over the months in which I was absent from the "news
groups" (and well before which I crafted my web
report) the stalker continued to libel me. He visited
my web site almost daily and, in classic agitator
style, would include excerpts of what he read on my
web site, hoping to rally others in SPP who had
been indifferent toward me or reluctant to address me
by raising their hackles. Eventually, he assembled a
group of co-agitators bound by a socially facilitated
hatred who refer to themselves as the 'brotherhood of
the blood.' Would any of these stalkers, with the
exception of one very disturbed provocateur, have
received me the way they did if were not for the slow
and steady exploitation of this social dynamic? After
being bullied and browbeaten by others in the group,
one individual who originally had kind words for me
quickly changed her tune. While I continued to avoid
posting to the groups, she changed her tune from "he's
a nice guy" to "he has a right to post regardless of
how crappy his posts are," and again to "he is a
kook and needs to be stalked." The cyberstalking ring
was forged by social (deindividuation and groupthink)
and technological (IP spoofing and remailing) sources
of anonymity.
Using excerpts from my web site (i.e. "Wyatt Ehrenfels
says...") on a regular basis to rub my successes in
the face of fellow SPP patrons, the original agitator
succeeded in creating a cardboard likeness of me in
SPP others were willing to regard as synonymous with a
genuine presence. It may have taken him a few months,
but he managed to bring me back to SPP without so much
as a single post from me. If that's not harassment,
it's most assuredly a kidnapping.
Whenever the individual wanted to post something that
strayed into criminal harassment, he posted
x-no-archive in Usenet (poster A), purportedly to keep
his malicious scheming underground, knowing full well
however that one of his accomplices (poster B) would
make that x-no-archive post accessible to the Google
archive (and visible to the public) by simply replying
to the original post. In this strategic partnership,
both parties have their own reasons for claiming
exemption from liability. Poster A, albeit unctuously,
made a "good faith effort" to avoid public defamation.
(No one in their right mind would confuse Usenet for
anything other than a private affair among society's
antisocial and unemployable class). Poster B, albeit
unctuously, claims not to have authored the original
post, even though he is aware of the effects of
replying to the original post and even though many of
the replies to the original post suspiciously contain
no text. Similarly, Google claims it is not
responsible for Usenet posts. In this way, the
criminal partnership between poster A and B is
mirrored at the institutional level between Usenet and
Google. But according to a new California law, both
parties are liable, as is Google. The malicious
defamation is performed with the purpose of Google in
mind, and if Google persists on making choices
pernicious to the safety of its users, it should be
served notice. Under the new California law, Yahoo was
recently served notice by an attorney who complained
Yahoo turned a blind eye to a campaign designed to
smear the reputation of the attorney on its message
boards. One hour after news of the lawsuit was brought
to my attention by two SPP victims, and three hours
after I copied Google on a letter to the Privacy
Rights Clearinghouse, Google requested from me a list
of the messages I deemed offensive. But, as I
mentioned earlier, by all indications Google will not
go far enough. Google has a responsibility to remove
the offensive posts, which are not only defamatory in
their manufacturing of absurd lies and tales, but
which are hate-mongering in their effort to solicit
similar defamation from others in SPP and recruit
stalkers from other "news groups" including
alt.usenet.kooks, a forum devoted to the defamation
of those who do not stop posting after their messages
have been deemed "kooky" by one or more Usenet
stalwarts. Bear in mind here that Google has chosen an
inappropriate user network for its "Google Groups."
Usenet has been around since 1981, years before the
Internet, and it features within its caste system a
venerable class of patrons, hacker-types who fashion
themselves public enemies and who have been forging
alliances within one another for a number of
years before the birth of the Internet. These
techno-nerds do feel as though they exercise a prior
claim on any "news group." When Usenet was
mainstreamed by various ISPs, technical neophytes and
upstanding
members of the citizenry naively wandered into these
groups oblivious to the fact they are expected to
defer to the group for the right to post anything
critical of an institution or another member's moral
compass, oblivious to the fact they might encounter a
form of gangbanging that is not indigenous to message
boards hosted by MSN, Yahoo, AOL, or Topica. And when
they got into trouble, they may have consoled
themselves with the thought that some authority,
perhaps the ISP hosting the news groups (e.g. Google),
could intervene at a moment's notice to monitor or
mediate any egregious activity. Not so. But in all
fairness to the innocents, they could be forgiven for
taking an uncautious view on what are tastefully-named
"news groups" hosted by mainstream services (e.g.
Google). There were no disclaimers! No warnings! No
clues for earth-dwellers that they might be wandering
into a sewer.
And in Google's case, access to the groups is
prominently displayed, "Groups" being one of only five
tabs on Google's home page. People who might otherwise
not even know to look for the "news groups" may click
on the Groups tab thinking, "I wonder what I could
find here," feeding the stalking ring with fresh
victims and audiences. By contrast, America Online
must frustrate the handful of users looking for access
to Usenet by burying its user-unfriendly link to the
"news groups" at the bottom of one of its many menus.
Civic-midned AOL even provides a warning to those
thinking of subscribing to one of the groups. The text
eludes me now, but it is something in the spirit of
"hey, do you really want to go through with this?"
In light of all this, Google has a civic duty to
delete ill-tempered posts by its public enemies and
mold behavior in Usenet into a form more palatable to
the community and more constructive with respect to
on-topic dialogue. Google even has the opportunity to,
for as long as necessary, disable access to
sci.psychology.psychotherapy for the purpose of
viewing or posting. Put the message board on
probation.
What does Google have to lose besides one right margin
worth of paid advertisements? Google could stand to
clean up its image by insisting on minimum standards
of public decency and, let's not forget relevance.
Over 90 percent of the SPP archive has nothing
whatsoever to do with psychotherapy except perhaps to
testify to a pathological inability among mentally
disturbed individuals to modulate their own emotions.
In nearly all endeavors, freedom has to abide by a
rule of law or be tempered by the rights of others. In
Google's vision for a Barbarian World, one person's
freedom to distress or disrupt another is balanced
against the other's freedom to respond in kind. Way to
go, Google! Way to turn back the clock on civilization
fourteen hundred years!
From rohangeorge at gmail.com Wed Aug 18 10:38:49 2004
From: rohangeorge at gmail.com (Rohan George)
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 10:38:49 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
Message-ID:
Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG3_sub.asp?ccode=ENG3&newscode=67350
Mysore Silk to get intellectual property protection
Bangalore, Aug 17 (UNI) Intellectual property protection in the form
of a Geographical Indication (GI) tag will soon be accorded to the
exquisite Mysore Silk sarees.
The GI mark, testifying to the uniqueness of the product in relation
to the area of its origin, would prevent the infringement of the
reputation of Mysore Silk by producers from other parts of the world,
Patents, Designs and Trademarks Controller-General S N Maity told
reporters here today.
''The GI mark will serve as an identifier of the area of origin of the
product -- in this case Mysore -- and let customers know that its
unique quality is attributable to a particular territory'', he said.
Intellectual property protection would also be given in the form of GI
marks to Kolhapur Chappals and Kancheepuram Silks within the next few
weeks, he said.
So far, only eight Indian commodities have been stamped with the GI
tag -- Darjeeling Tea, Pochampalli Sarees, Salem Fabric, Goa Fenny,
Solapur Fabric, Pavitra Modaram (Ring) from Payyanur in Kerala,
Chanderi Silks and Aranmulai Kannadi (Mirror) from Kerala.
From sudhir at circuit.sarai.net Thu Aug 19 17:04:09 2004
From: sudhir at circuit.sarai.net (sudhir at circuit.sarai.net)
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 17:04:09 +0530 (IST)
Subject: [Commons-Law] Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <2223.202.142.94.114.1092915249.squirrel@202.142.94.114>
And there's more to be patented, copyrighted, TMarked and GI registered -
if possible all of these simultaneously! All in the 'national interest' of
course!
Sudhir
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/820103.cms
MPs wake up to McDosa threat
MAHENDRA VED
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2004 05:42:47 AM ]
NEW DELHI: As India fights on to patent basmati and other exclusive farm
products, Parliament has posed a query to the government on processed
food: How about copyrighting dosa, vada, upma, dhokla and golgappa on the
lines of the "pizza"?
This must be done "in right earnest", says the Standing Committee on
Agriculture headed by SPs Ram Gopal Yadav, to avoid patenting of "our
food items" by "unscrupulous multinational corporations".
In many patent-related disputes, locational identification for instance,
basmati India has been cited as a ground.
While considering the demands for grants for 2004-05 of the food
processing ministry, the committee has not exactly listed the delicacies
that have become part of the international "curry culture".
But it wants the ministries concerned to coordinate among themselves for
global patenting of processed foods.
Attempts were made in the US to patent the famed basmati rice some years
ago. Earlier, a pharma MNC had tried to patent turmeric and neem.
> Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
>
> http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG3_sub.asp?ccode=ENG3&newscode=67350
>
> Mysore Silk to get intellectual property protection
> Bangalore, Aug 17 (UNI) Intellectual property protection in the form
> of a Geographical Indication (GI) tag will soon be accorded to the
> exquisite Mysore Silk sarees.
>
> The GI mark, testifying to the uniqueness of the product in relation
> to the area of its origin, would prevent the infringement of the
> reputation of Mysore Silk by producers from other parts of the world,
> Patents, Designs and Trademarks Controller-General S N Maity told
> reporters here today.
>
> ''The GI mark will serve as an identifier of the area of origin of the
> product -- in this case Mysore -- and let customers know that its
> unique quality is attributable to a particular territory'', he said.
>
> Intellectual property protection would also be given in the form of GI
> marks to Kolhapur Chappals and Kancheepuram Silks within the next few
> weeks, he said.
>
> So far, only eight Indian commodities have been stamped with the GI
> tag -- Darjeeling Tea, Pochampalli Sarees, Salem Fabric, Goa Fenny,
> Solapur Fabric, Pavitra Modaram (Ring) from Payyanur in Kerala,
> Chanderi Silks and Aranmulai Kannadi (Mirror) from Kerala.
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law at sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Thu Aug 19 18:15:29 2004
From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai)
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:15:29 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
In-Reply-To: <2223.202.142.94.114.1092915249.squirrel@202.142.94.114>
References:
<2223.202.142.94.114.1092915249.squirrel@202.142.94.114>
Message-ID: <20040819124529.GC2799@nandini.home>
sudhir at circuit.sarai.net said on Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 05:04:09PM +0530,:
> This must be done "in right earnest", says the Standing Committee
> on Agriculture headed by SPs Ram Gopal Yadav, to avoid
> patenting of "our food items" by "unscrupulous multinational
> corporations".
Da**it. Does not *patenting* mean that this thing passes back into
public domain after N years?
--
Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.port5.com
Buy Free Software -- It gives you freedom!
From skbalganesh at rediffmail.com Thu Aug 19 22:37:25 2004
From: skbalganesh at rediffmail.com (Shyamkrishna Balganesh)
Date: 19 Aug 2004 17:07:25 -0000
Subject: [Commons-Law] MGM v. Grokster - Ninth Circuit
Message-ID: <20040819170725.6349.qmail@webmail31.rediffmail.com>
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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just handed down its opinion in MGM v. Grokster, affirming the holding of the District Court finding that the defendants are not liable for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement. Great news indeed! The full text of the opinion is available at:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/E9CE41F2E90CC8D788256EF400822372/$file/0355894.pdf?openelement
- Shyam.
From dev.gangjee at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk Fri Aug 20 12:50:56 2004
From: dev.gangjee at st-catherines.oxford.ac.uk (Dev Gangjee)
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 08:20:56 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [Commons-Law] More on Geographical Indications
In-Reply-To: <20040820063007.1154D28E6AD@mail.sarai.net>
Message-ID: <20040820072056.34A632A0E9@webmail222.herald.ox.ac.uk>
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From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Fri Aug 20 19:12:58 2004
From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai)
Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2004 19:12:58 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] More on Geographical Indications
In-Reply-To: <20040820072056.34A632A0E9@webmail222.herald.ox.ac.uk>
References: <20040820063007.1154D28E6AD@mail.sarai.net>
<20040820072056.34A632A0E9@webmail222.herald.ox.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <20040820134258.GB2716@nandini.home>
Dev Gangjee said on Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 08:20:56AM +0100,:
> This is why GIs may be a good place to draw a line between
> free-flows and protection. All that ought to be protected by a GI
> is the valuable goodwill
Flash back history.
Did any body in the subcontinent benefit from Calico, Indigo, pepper,
Teak, Muslin, jute ... etc..?
I am just asking -- who will this benefit, if, after obtaining GI type
protections actual marketing and `exploitation' (Oh!! what an
appropriate word!!) is handed over on a platter to a new version of
the East India Company?
Remember, the EI Co of yore obtained its monopoly on the basis of what
was then called a `patent'.
--
Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.port5.com
With freedom comes responsibility.
Do not use unauthorised copies of copyrighted material.
From sgp333 at rediffmail.com Sun Aug 22 19:09:41 2004
From: sgp333 at rediffmail.com (guru prasanna)
Date: 22 Aug 2004 13:39:41 -0000
Subject: [Commons-Law] Workshop Report
Message-ID: <20040822133941.7708.qmail@webmail35.rediffmail.com>
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Dear All,
The Report of the Workshop held on July 23 and 24, compiled by Guru Prasanna and Ganesh Rao is sent as an attachment.
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From mrinalinikpillai at gmail.com Mon Aug 23 19:49:59 2004
From: mrinalinikpillai at gmail.com (Mrinalini Kochupillai)
Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 19:49:59 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Idea in Former Employee's Head Belongs to Alcatel
In-Reply-To: <20040820063006.E3D5E28E6A5@mail.sarai.net>
References: <20040820063006.E3D5E28E6A5@mail.sarai.net>
Message-ID:
Interesting ruling - "Idea in Former Employee's Head Belongs to Alcatel"
Erica Lehrer Goldman
Texas Lawyer
08-12-2002
Does a company own your thoughts? Maybe.
On July 26, Alcatel USA Inc., based in Plano, Texas, prevailed in a
suit against former employee Evan Brown, who claimed that he -- rather
than the company -- owned rights to a software idea that he asserts
had long existed in his head.
After 5 1/2 years in litigation, DSC Communications Corp., n/k/a
Alcatel USA Inc. v. Evan Brown has companies, employees and legal
pundits wondering who owns an idea if it hasn't been expressed in a
tangible form but an employee has signed an employment contract making
no exclusions under the "inventions" clause.
Alcatel's attorney Eric Pinker of Dallas' Lynn Tillotson & Pinker says
he's pleased but not surprised that the court upheld the agreement. It
affirms "very well-understood and very well-accepted legal doctrines,"
Pinker says, adding that "invention disclosure agreements are
enforceable in the state of Texas."
Brown, representing himself pro se, alleged in a response to the
company's motion for summary judgment that at the time the suit was
filed, his thoughts were not in a tangible form and "did not meet the
definition of either 'invention' or 'conceived' as defined in
Webster's dictionary."
"What we said was, 'This isn't complicated at all -- if he had written
a formula or program or some copyrighted piece and put it in a vault
somewhere, the court wouldn't have hesitated to compel him to produce
it under some sort of confidentiality order.' " The fact that he said
it's not in writing doesn't change the law, Pinker says, although it
does make the case a little unusual.
"Does the company own the ideas in this guy's head before he commits
them to paper?" asks intellectual property lawyer Veronica Smith
Lewis, who's not involved in the suit. "That's the issue at the heart
of the case that employers and employees will be most concerned with."
Judge Curt B. Henderson of Collin County, Texas' 219th District Court
granted Alcatel summary judgment on its breach of contract and
declaratory judgment claims. Henderson concluded that the company's
contract with Brown was valid and enforceable. The court also held
that, pursuant to the contract, the company owned full legal right,
title and interest to what Henderson called Brown's "solution," which
he defined as the process and method developed by Brown for converting
machine-executable binary code into high-level source code;
reverse-engineering the intelligence from existing programs and
recoding it into high-level language; and converting certain machine
code into C language source. Henderson further noted that, pursuant to
the employment agreement, Brown was obligated to disclose the solution
to Alcatel and only to Alcatel. In addition, Brown was ordered to pay
Alcatel's legal fees, which exceed $330,000.
The suit began when DSC Communications Corp. (which later merged into
Alcatel USA) sued Brown in April 1997 for allegedly withholding an
idea for software. The company alleged that it owned Brown's idea
because of a signed employment agreement requiring him to disclose any
inventions he conceived of or developed while at the company. DSC
employed Brown for 10 years.
In an interview, Brown alleges he was led to believe by a personnel
director that ideas not in the area in which he worked wouldn't count.
Moreover, Brown asserts that he began developing the idea in 1975,
well before his employment with DSC began in 1987, and had achieved
about 80 percent of the solution. In March 1996, Brown claims, he
mentally solved the remaining 20 percent while vacationing.
In April 1996, Brown sought a release from DSC to pursue his idea.
Brown alleges that he asked several managers at DSC whether the
company would be interested in helping him develop the idea. According
to Brown, DSC and Brown began negotiating an agreement whereby DSC
would pay Brown a percentage of savings realized by the company if the
idea was successful and a percentage of income from third-party sales,
but the company later halted negotiations. Brown says when he refused
to reveal his idea, DSC fired him and sued him.
"What I had at the time I was fired and sued was an idea," Brown says
in an interview. "It was not along the line of their business or the
work I did for the company. This suit was solely an attempt by their
legal department to ... seize something to which they were not
entitled," he alleges.
Pinker flags such ownership issues as an important area of concern for
employers. "They have to have comfort that the people they hire, pay
and foster, once they develop an invention, are going to turn that
invention over," Pinker says. Technology companies are in the business
of inventing, and if people are doing it on their own behalf and take
it for themselves from the company, the company is not going to stay
in business long, he says.
Lewis, a partner in Vinson & Elkins' Dallas office, agrees: "The fact
that it [an idea] hasn't yet been committed to paper can't be
something that precludes a company that has paid you, arguably, to
develop this idea, to have an ownership interest in it. It would be
too convenient an out for an employee and too rigid a rule -- no one
could actually pay an employee to develop anything with any confidence
if that were the rule," she says.
SEEKING BRIGHT LINES
The company wants to say that every idea you have while you work for
it belongs to the company, and the employee wants to say that
everything I do on your time may belong to you, but once I leave and
go home at night, it belongs to me, says David L. Burgert, an IP
partner in Houston's Porter & Hedges. But courts are looking for
bright lines, he says. "To get caught up in the whole concept of
trying to figure out how an idea came to someone -- whether it was at
5:01 p.m. or 4:59 -- is something no court is going to be eager to
do."
Burgert sees the case as a cautionary tale for people asked to sign
agreements that come back and bite them 10 years later. Lewis and
Burgert believe that the signed agreement and the fact that Brown
asked for a release may have undermined his credibility.
A major asset for a high-tech company is its intellectual property,
and the only way a company acquires intellectual property is by hiring
smart people to come up with inventions, Burgert says. And the only
way a company can protect that asset is by using agreements like the
one Brown signed. But this case lies in a gray area, he notes, because
until the idea is reduced to practice, it's not an invention and you
can't patent it.
One argument companies could make to support their claims that such
ideas belong to them is that the idea is a trade secret entitled to
protection. But the problem with that argument is that if the employee
never disclosed to the company what the idea was and how to implement
the solution and if the company never knew what it was, how can it be
a trade secret since the company didn't know what it had to protect?
Burgert asks.
Richard A. Sayles of Dallas' Sayles, Lidji & Werbner represented Brown
in the case until June 2001. His motion to withdraw notes the
relationship was terminated voluntarily by Brown and counsel.
The uniqueness of Brown's case was that his idea never had been
reduced to writing, and Alcatel was claiming ownership of it, says
Sayles. "I thought it was really a very ... novel and groundbreaking
case. Otherwise I would never have gotten involved in the first
place."
Sayles believes Brown should have prevailed. "It sure did seem
different to me and almost everyone else who heard about it. Public
opinion was definitely on Brown's side," says Sayles.
But Burgert and Lewis, like Pinker, find the court's ruling consistent
with Texas law. Nonetheless, they lament the fact that more people
don't take the time to meet with a lawyer and have employment
agreements explained to them before they sign them.
"Nobody likes to pay a lawyer, but if you sit down with one for an
hour and really understand what you are signing, maybe you'd go back
and say, 'I'm not going to sign this ... without adding this
language,'" Burgert says.
Lewis believes Brown could have helped his case had he kept an idea
log, as inventors do in the patent arena. Establishing that Brown had
the idea years before coming to DSC would have contradicted the signed
agreement and gone a long way toward establishing Brown's credibility,
possibly helping defeat a summary judgment motion, Lewis notes.
Brown plans to appeal. According to his bio on his Web site --
www.unixguru.com/ -- "Despite his termination from DSC, huge legal
bills, and the forced sale of his home and other assets, the Texas
computer genius is sticking to his guns."
On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 12:00:06 +0530 (IST),
commons-law-request at sarai.net wrote:
> Send commons-law mailing list submissions to
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>
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> than "Re: Contents of commons-law digest..."
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
> (sudhir at circuit.sarai.net)
> 2. Re: Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag (Mahesh T. Pai)
> 3. MGM v. Grokster - Ninth Circuit (Shyamkrishna Balganesh)
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 17:04:09 +0530 (IST)
> From: sudhir at circuit.sarai.net
> Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication
> Tag
> To: "Rohan George"
> Cc: commons-law at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <2223.202.142.94.114.1092915249.squirrel at 202.142.94.114>
> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
> And there's more to be patented, copyrighted, TMarked and GI registered -
> if possible all of these simultaneously! All in the 'national interest' of
> course!
>
> Sudhir
>
> http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/820103.cms
> MPs wake up to McDosa threat
> MAHENDRA VED
>
> TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2004 05:42:47 AM ]
> NEW DELHI: As India fights on to patent basmati and other exclusive farm
> products, Parliament has posed a query to the government on processed
> food: How about copyrighting dosa, vada, upma, dhokla and golgappa on the
> lines of the "pizza"?
>
> This must be done "in right earnest", says the Standing Committee on
> Agriculture headed by SP�s Ram Gopal Yadav, to avoid patenting of "our
> food items" by "unscrupulous multinational corporations".
>
> In many patent-related disputes, locational identification � for instance,
> basmati � India has been cited as a ground.
>
> While considering the demands for grants for 2004-05 of the food
> processing ministry, the committee has not exactly listed the delicacies
> that have become part of the international "curry culture".
>
> But it wants the ministries concerned to coordinate among themselves for
> global patenting of processed foods.
>
> Attempts were made in the US to patent the famed basmati rice some years
> ago. Earlier, a pharma MNC had tried to patent turmeric and neem.
>
> > Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication Tag
> >
> > http://www.deepikaglobal.com/ENG3_sub.asp?ccode=ENG3&newscode=67350
> >
> > Mysore Silk to get intellectual property protection
> > Bangalore, Aug 17 (UNI) Intellectual property protection in the form
> > of a Geographical Indication (GI) tag will soon be accorded to the
> > exquisite Mysore Silk sarees.
> >
> > The GI mark, testifying to the uniqueness of the product in relation
> > to the area of its origin, would prevent the infringement of the
> > reputation of Mysore Silk by producers from other parts of the world,
> > Patents, Designs and Trademarks Controller-General S N Maity told
> > reporters here today.
> >
> > ''The GI mark will serve as an identifier of the area of origin of the
> > product -- in this case Mysore -- and let customers know that its
> > unique quality is attributable to a particular territory'', he said.
> >
> > Intellectual property protection would also be given in the form of GI
> > marks to Kolhapur Chappals and Kancheepuram Silks within the next few
> > weeks, he said.
> >
> > So far, only eight Indian commodities have been stamped with the GI
> > tag -- Darjeeling Tea, Pochampalli Sarees, Salem Fabric, Goa Fenny,
> > Solapur Fabric, Pavitra Modaram (Ring) from Payyanur in Kerala,
> > Chanderi Silks and Aranmulai Kannadi (Mirror) from Kerala.
> > _______________________________________________
> > commons-law mailing list
> > commons-law at sarai.net
> > https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2004 18:15:29 +0530
> From: "Mahesh T. Pai"
> Subject: Re: [Commons-Law] Mysore Silk to get Geographical Indication
> Tag
> To: commons-law at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <20040819124529.GC2799 at nandini.home>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> sudhir at circuit.sarai.net said on Thu, Aug 19, 2004 at 05:04:09PM +0530,:
>
> > This must be done "in right earnest", says the Standing Committee
> > on Agriculture headed by SP�s Ram Gopal Yadav, to avoid
> > patenting of "our food items" by "unscrupulous multinational
> > corporations".
>
> Da**it. Does not *patenting* mean that this thing passes back into
> public domain after N years?
>
> --
> Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.port5.com
> Buy Free Software -- It gives you freedom!
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: 19 Aug 2004 17:07:25 -0000
> From: "Shyamkrishna Balganesh"
> Subject: [Commons-Law] MGM v. Grokster - Ninth Circuit
> To: commons-law at sarai.net
> Message-ID: <20040819170725.6349.qmail at webmail31.rediffmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20040819/cfffafb4/attachment.html
> -------------- next part --------------
> �
> The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just handed down its opinion in MGM v. Grokster, affirming the holding of the District Court finding that the defendants are not liable for vicarious and contributory copyright infringement. Great news indeed! The full text of the opinion is available at:
>
> http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/ca9/newopinions.nsf/E9CE41F2E90CC8D788256EF400822372/$file/0355894.pdf?openelement
>
> - Shyam.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> commons-law mailing list
> commons-law at sarai.net
> https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
> End of commons-law Digest, Vol 13, Issue 13
> *******************************************
>
From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 24 13:55:48 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 13:55:48 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] On langauge
Message-ID: <412AFB8C.3050901@sarai.net>
Received this mail. What do you all say about it.? best jeebesh
from:
at the risk of being considered rude and imperialistic, your statement
in the CFP for Contested Commons/Trespassing Publics - A Conference on
Inequalities, Conflicts and Intellectual Property: "This conference
aspires to interrogate the philosophical persuasions, cultural dynamics,
political economy and legal grids that constitute the contemporary
consensus. " please stop using the word interrogate when you simply
mean question - interrogate is an americanism of the worst order, it is
aggressive and mystificatory at the same time, it applies the act of
terrorism onto the subject and becomes just another use of the language
of the military as it infects the real speech of the people. should
I offer a paper on the devolution of language as used by modern american
philosophy in its attempts to sound cool and french while trying to take
over the world? let us resume the old speech of politeness and plain
understanding - if we wish to question the politics then we need to be
able to speak to people in ways they can understand, not frighten them
off with this aggressive language Stephen Jones
From keith at thememorybank.co.uk Tue Aug 24 16:13:59 2004
From: keith at thememorybank.co.uk (Keith Hart)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 12:43:59 +0200
Subject: [Commons-Law] On langauge
In-Reply-To: <412AFB8C.3050901@sarai.net>
References: <412AFB8C.3050901@sarai.net>
Message-ID: <412B1BEF.1050106@thememorybank.co.uk>
Jeebesh,
Stephen Jones has a point, but I think it is too narrowly framed as
intellectuals signing up for the US military takeover. The replacement
of the old word 'question' with the new one 'interrogate' can be
explained as a fad of late academis. (I never use the term 'late
capitalism' since I believe capitalism is just now getting into its
stride on a world scale; but the universities are surely past their
sell-by date). This fad probably derives from Cultural Studies and more
geenrally from the deconstructionist era of the 80s when a number of
frenchisms entered the language; but it is by now much more widespread.
'Interrogate' sounds tough, like a combative Parisian philosopher or
what passes for one in the Modern Languages Association. I think it
connotes asking 'hard' questions, rather than just questions. It does
not really imply what goes on in police stations and prisons, but
equally not it is not asking politely either. I sympathise with Stephen
Jones' inference that the 'interrogator' doesn't care much about whether
he is understood as long as he defeats the 'interrogated' in some
obscure way. This is how French academics normally proceed normally, but
often with clarity, unlike their anglophone imitators.
A more banal explanation is that four syllables is more impressive than
two, a pure Latin word more so than a French one and certaainly more so
than anything found in Germanic English (the vox populi). There is a
status hierarchy in English and this was not invented by the US
military, even though they employ it vigorously to set themselves apart
from their own people. The same can be said of people who use a more
formal register of English to shore up their precarious grasp of ideas.
This too is rampant today, but hardly invented yesterday. [I can't
resist inserting A.E. Houseman's putdown of a third-rate scholar: He
uses footnotes in the way a drunkard uses a lamp-post -- not so much for
illumination, but to support his own unsteady equilibrium". Or something
like that. Being pretentious is an old affliction.]
What stuck me most about the complaint, however, was Stephen's final
appeal: "let us resume the old speech of politeness and plain
understanding". Again I have much sympathy with this attitude. Who has
not wondered if anything of substance can be said in the language
preferred by the Culture Studs and other proletarians of late academia?
I pine for the English of the classical liberal revolutions of the 17th
and 18th centuries, from Milton to Blake, Locke to Jefferson and Paine.
But I understand that this is a form of radical conservatism that flies
in the face of the anti-liberal tendency (from Nietzsche to Deleuze and
Negri) that could itsle f be describeed as irrational and even
imperialistic, especially when posted to an Indian list.
A 'radical conservative', accord to Stephen Toulmin in 'Cosmopolis', is
disgusted with contemporary society and would reform it in the name of a
past value. In this case, presumably the 18th century Enlightenment. The
problem is that the neo-cons have stolen some of their best lines to
shore up the neo-liberal world economy; so it's hard to be a classical
liberal these days..
Keith Hart
From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 24 20:34:53 2004
From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 20:34:53 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Workshop Report
In-Reply-To: <20040822133941.7708.qmail@webmail35.rediffmail.com>
References: <20040822133941.7708.qmail@webmail35.rediffmail.com>
Message-ID: <412B5915.2040800@sarai.net>
dear Guru,
thanks for the posting. can you post it also as a plain text version
also. It gets archived properly and sending attachments are not liked by
many people.
thanks
jeebesh
guru prasanna wrote:
>
>Dear All,
>
>The Report of the Workshop held on July 23 and 24, compiled by Guru Prasanna and Ganesh Rao is sent as an attachment.
>
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>commons-law mailing list
>commons-law at sarai.net
>https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law
>
>
From sunil at mahiti.org Wed Aug 25 04:35:30 2004
From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham)
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 2004 23:05:30 +0000
Subject: [Commons-Law] The recombined manifesto
Message-ID: <1093388730.1151.279.camel@box>
Dear Friends,
We disown all efforts that propagate technology specifically ICT
in the name of social development across developing nations. We
consider such efforts as pretentious and having vested
interests. We are not an economy for the refurbished.
Woah. So should I stop working to put Linux on refurbished computers?
Vaibhav is a student from http://www.srishtiblr.org/. Suddenly I feel
very "status quo". Direct all flames directly at whatpot at rediffmail.com
;-)
Thanks,
Sunil
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: VAIbhaV
To: sunil at mahiti.org
Hi Sunil
This is Vaibhav from Srishti..hope you remember me vaguely! I guess
Gaurabh wrote to you about us currently working on our diploma projects.
This mail is regarding my project for which i need some help.
Briefly my project is about activating public spaces by creating open
platforms with/sans technology so that people can share, talk, discuss
opinions and personal experiences on social, political and civic
matters. As a prelude/intro to this project I have written a manifesto
that in a way establishes a group of like minded people (who would want
to be part of this project) and creates a backdrop for the work I'll be
doing. I would help me if you could send or forward this to people who
might be interested in subscribing, critiquing, or giving further
suggestions on this idea. You can also visit a yahoo group site that I
am constantly updating at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vaibhav_dip
Please do write back as I'll be happy to start a dialogue and extend the
spirit of this project.
regards,
Vaibhav
The recombined manifesto 12:58 PM 8/20/2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this world every individual has been coded, encrypted and protected.
He is so because he has been immunized. Immunized so that he is
complacent, acquiescent and private. He fears what rules him. This
manifesto and the acts arising from it intend to be malicious and
malignant to that very individual's codification.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are artists, craftsmen, designers, musicians, writers, engineers,
lawyers, philosophers and economists, and are essentially dreamers. Our
acts arise from the dream space and notions of a perfect world. We
believe its necessary to operate from such notions and spaces that are
non-rational, poetic, and irreducible because we believe in the
transitory state of both the world and its ideas.
We believe in the subjective individual over the objective and
complacent one. We believe ones personal feelings and opinions can have
profound influences on the community and also bring temporariness to
ideas and beliefs floating within the community by challenging and
debating over the consensus.
Whatever code we hack, be it myths, cultures, traditions, rituals,
beliefs or language - we hack the new out of the old. With the old we
produce new worlds or new things that are not always great things, or
even good things, but new things.
We believe division and distribution of information is a fundamental act
of extending knowledge and we situate such acts and their preservation
in open and unconditional frameworks.
We continuously hack our path thorough existing flows of information and
topography created by the institutions, the state and establishments to
embrace such spaces with our acts that produce alternative processes of
knowledge creation and exchange.
We reclaim the information space by providing autonomous free platforms
and networks for communication. We liberate information itself.
We reclaim the public space as a place of choice and expression through
fearless speech. We reconstruct the idea of the chowpal, the piazza and
the agora as a place for the people and by the people.
We disown all efforts that propagate technology specifically ICT in the
name of social development across developing nations. We consider such
efforts as pretentious and having vested interests. We are not an
economy for the refurbished.
We camouflage using contradiction. We visit both the sides, we walk
black and white through the grey. We constantly reconfigure ourselves
through contradiction and contradistinction.
To us originality is a far gone concept. There is no individual creator
today. We all are part of the remix machine called globalization, a meme
in itself. We are the remix culture. We copy, recombine and re-present
memetically.
***
Thanks,
ಸುನೀಲ್
- --
Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931
Currently on sabbatical with APDIP/UNDP
Manager - International Open Source Network
Wisma UN, Block C Komplex Pejabat Damansara.
Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur.
P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087
sunil at apdip.net http://www.iosn.net http://www.apdip.net
From rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com Sat Aug 28 09:06:36 2004
From: rajlakshmi_nesargi at yahoo.com (Rajlakshmi Nesargi)
Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 20:36:36 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Commons-Law] importance of data protection
Message-ID: <20040828033636.37975.qmail@web51607.mail.yahoo.com>
Dear all,
A food for thought.....data protection.
A Painfully Slow Process
News Story by Jaikumar Vijayan
AUGUST 27, 2004 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Jolly Technologies Inc., a San Carlos, Calif., maker of labeling products for the printing industry, is finding out the hard way just how tough it can sometimes be to enforce intellectual property (IP) protections in India.
In May, the company set up a small software development center in Mumbai. Among the approximately 20 people it hired in the western India city was a software engineer who in mid-July was caught uploading substantial chunks of Jolly source code to her Yahoo personal e-mail account.
The woman, who admitted the theft, was immediately fired, and a complaint was filed with the Mumbai police department soon afterward, said Brett Changus, Jolly's chief financial officer.
"Unfortunately, that's pretty much where things are, even now," Changus said last week. "The police there appear to be having a hard time comprehending what IP is and how important it is to us."
As a result, more than a month after the complaint was filed, no action has been taken against the woman, Changus said. In frustration, the company earlier this month decided to file a lawsuit against the Mumbai police department over its alleged failure to take action in the case.
"There are IP protection laws there, but so far, we have received zero protection," Changus says.
The Mumbai police could not be reached for comment.
The incident has prompted Jolly to reassess its India strategy, Changus said. "We obviously took whatever precautions we could. But if we can't protect our IP, there is no way we can do business there," he said. "People have to know that they just can't steal confidential information and get away with it."
India's IT trade organization, the New Delhi-based National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), is acutely aware that the country's flourishing IT industry could be damaged if data protection can't be enforced.
The organization recently launched an education campaign aimed at judicial and police authorities as well as the ministries of IT and law, association vice president Sunil Mehta said. The idea is to create a much broader awareness of the need for enacting legislation that can be more easily enforced.
Nasscom is also working with IT companies to build a database that vendors can use to more quickly and reliably verify an employee's professional education and other background information, Mehta said.
The global database will be compiled with input from Nasscom's members but won't be used as an instrument for blacklisting employees, he said.
Best
Raji
---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Win 1 of 4,000 free domain names from Yahoo! Enter now.
-------------- next part --------------
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From lawrence at altlawforum.org Sat Aug 28 10:35:44 2004
From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang)
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 10:35:44 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Patents amendment
Message-ID:
Patents Bill referred to ministers
Source: Business Standard. Image Source: AFP
New Delhi, Aug 26: Govt seeking amendments to fulfill obligations to WTO
regarding product patents by 2005.
The Union Cabinet today decided to refer the Patents Amendment Bill to a
group of ministers. The government is seeking amendments to the Patents Act
to fulfil India's obligations under the commitment to the World trade
Organisation (WTO) of having in place product patents by 2005.
Official sources said the Cabinet wanted to study the implications of some
of the contentious issues in the third Patents Amendment Bill before
approving it.
The group of ministers on patents includes Defence Minister Pranab
Mukherjee, Health Minister Anbumani Ramdoss, Human Resources Minister Arjun
Singh and Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath.
Some of the key issues the Bill is expected to address include the
definition of inventions, objection to pre-grant of patents, granting
patents for unknown molecules and data protection to pursue R&D in India.
Section 3 of the Patents Act defines inventions that are not patentable.
The amendment seeks to exclude the patentability of new forms of previously
patented compounds so that marginal changes, which merely serve to delay the
entry of generics, cannot be patented.
Advertisement
The amendments dealing with pre-patent objections seek to remove the right
of hearing and provide the facility only after the grant of a patent.
Pre-enforcement effectively means that the patents will not be granted
until the patents office is completely satisfied with the validity of the
case.
A section of the Indian pharmaceuticals industry believes that applications
will be under endless scrutiny and the only beneficiaries will be patent
lawyers who will try to pick holes at every stage, to stop granting of
patents.
On the contrary, under the post-enforcement regime, patents will be granted
after basic scrutiny and left to the industry to challenge. Sources in the
pharmaceuticals industry said this was more transparent and competition
would take care of frivolous or invalid patents.
Pharmaceuticals companies with a strong R&D base and clinical testing
capabilities are also fighting for allowing data protection.
From paivakil at yahoo.co.in Sat Aug 28 12:16:14 2004
From: paivakil at yahoo.co.in (Mahesh T. Pai)
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 2004 12:16:14 +0530
Subject: [Commons-Law] Patents amendment
In-Reply-To:
References:
Message-ID: <20040828064613.GA8263@nandini.home>
Lawrence Liang said on Sat, Aug 28, 2004 at 10:35:44AM +0530,:
> Patents Bill referred to ministers
Can anybody find it and post it somewhere? It is not there on the
parliament's site.
--
Mahesh T. Pai <<>> http://paivakil.port5.com
With freedom comes responsibility.
Do not use unauthorised copies of copyrighted material.
From whatpot at rediffmail.com Fri Aug 27 16:42:48 2004
From: whatpot at rediffmail.com (VAIbhaV)
Date: 27 Aug 2004 11:12:48 -0000
Subject: [Commons-Law] Response: The recombined manifesto
Message-ID: <20040827111248.21463.qmail@webmail18.rediffmail.com>
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Dear everyone,
This is the first time I'm on the list and I apologize to some of you for the late reply. I only checked mail today.
Sunil quoted:
Woah. So should I stop working to put Linux on refurbished computers?
No thats certainly not what i am trying to say and I do realize that the statement is very open ended for various interpretations. Infact Sunil, having refurbished computers running microsoft would be ill! Your act of "reconfiguring" the machine by installing linux makes perfect sense and duly complies with the manifesto ;-) ha! This is exactly what I am trying to say but I think I dont say it very well.
I had anticipated a response such as yours but went ahead by keeping that statement in. Here is part of another response that I received from Pallavi Raina and I think its also on these lines that I made that statement:
Technology in and of itself isn't a bad thing.
Technology in the hands of a global economic system
hell bent on destroying everything and everyone in its
path and turning us into a Third World full of serfs
certainly is, but technology isn't.
So i guess it's all about whose "hands" it is in or rather whose hands we are ready to submit our work to (the community or the "vested"). In many ways it is also about every individual working with ICT and social development being his/her own evaluator of his/her work and the implications that arise from it.
But i do agree that this manifesto is full of jargon and comments on territory I haven't fully explored (who has?) but should that stop me from searching and expressing?
If yes, then what would you call a "process of learning" or "discovery or "iteration"?
In response to Pallavi: Yes i would certainly want to read the book you have recommended but would also add that I will never know "enough"(i dont know about you though! :) ). It's only that i have to keep working at it. Thanks a lot for the mail it has helped me think further.
I apologize if this sounds extremely preachy but i dont intend to. Do let me know if i have done a good job on PR considering that this is my first post on any of the lists (in case I annoyed some people with the manifesto) :)
For now the only other :) thing i would like to say is that this working document is amendable and infact it would be great to see other versions or further "recombinations" of it (i.e if you find it worth the effort).
Thankyou all
Vaibhav Bhawsar
Student of Communication Design
Srishti, Bangalore
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The recombined manifesto 12:58 PM 8/20/2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this world every individual has been coded, encrypted and protected.
He is so because he has been immunized. Immunized so that he is
complacent, acquiescent and private. He fears what rules him. This
manifesto and the acts arising from it intend to be malicious and
malignant to that very individual's codification.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are artists, craftsmen, designers, musicians, writers, engineers,
lawyers, philosophers and economists, and are essentially dreamers. Our
acts arise from the dream space and notions of a perfect world. We
believe its necessary to operate from such notions and spaces that are
non-rational, poetic, and irreducible because we believe in the
transitory state of both the world and its ideas.
We believe in the subjective individual over the objective and
complacent one. We believe ones personal feelings and opinions can have
profound influences on the community and also bring temporariness to
ideas and beliefs floating within the community by challenging and
debating over the consensus.
Whatever code we hack, be it myths, cultures, traditions, rituals,
beliefs or language - we hack the new out of the old. With the old we
produce new worlds or new things that are not always great things, or
even good things, but new things.
We believe division and distribution of information is a fundamental act
of extending knowledge and we situate such acts and their preservation
in open and unconditional frameworks.
We continuously hack our path thorough existing flows of information and
topography created by the institutions, the state and establishments to
embrace such spaces with our acts that produce alternative processes of
knowledge creation and exchange.
We reclaim the information space by providing autonomous free platforms
and networks for communication. We liberate information itself.
We reclaim the public space as a place of choice and expression through
fearless speech. We reconstruct the idea of the chowpal, the piazza and
the agora as a place for the people and by the people.
We disown all efforts that propagate technology specifically ICT in the
name of social development across developing nations. We consider such
efforts as pretentious and having vested interests. We are not an
economy for the refurbished.
We camouflage using contradiction. We visit both the sides, we walk
black and white through the grey. We constantly reconfigure ourselves
through contradiction and contradistinction.
To us originality is a far gone concept. There is no individual creator
today. We all are part of the remix machine called globalization, a meme
in itself. We are the remix culture. We copy, recombine and re-present
memetically.
***