Patent/Copyright World Tour 2005

In keeping with the international theme of this issue, here is a brief tour of some of the news related to intellectual property issues from around the world.

Software Patents in Europe

When last we left the European Parliament (my column of August 2004), it was poised to vote on a resolution relating to the patenting of software in the European Union. It appears that that vote was only the beginning of a long and labyrinthine path. Although the history is rather involved, the result was that in February the EP rejected the patent legislation containing language approving “computer-implemented inventions” and sent it back to the committee for reworking.

In March, the European Union Council bypassed the EP and implemented the computer-implemented inventions directive. That’s still not the last word, however. There is some controversy about the Council’s adoption procedure. In addition, at this writing, the EP has one more chance to block the directive, although procedural matters appear to make this outcome unlikely.

This battle may not be over before this column appears in print, so once again, I’ll exhort European INFORMS members to make their views on this matter known to their MEPs.

Reverse Engineering in France

In March, a French court ruled illegal the publication by security researcher Guillame Tena of a vulnerability in Tegam International’s Viguard anti-virus software. The verdict was that Tena’s actions were illegal because he used a pirated copy of the software to carry out his reverse engineering. The 5,000-euro fine was suspended on condition that Tena not publish information on software security vulnerabilities. Some security researchers fear the ruling could have the effect of banning the publication of exploits altogether.

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing in France

Peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services are used to distribute copies of MP3 music files, videos, software, and other files. Some of these services provide access to copyrighted material, sometimes in violation of the copyrights. Organizations in the music and movie industries have brought high-profile lawsuits against the services in an attempt to shut them down, and even against individuals who download these files.

A French court ruled recently in favor of an individual who had been sued by several movie companies and distributors for downloading nearly 500 movies via P2P. The ruling cited the fact that the individual had made only personal use of the files and had not redistributed them for a fee. France charges a tax on blank media meant to compensate copyright holders for such personal use.

Trademarks in France

“Cybersquatting” means purchasing an Internet domain name that infringes on a trademark held by someone else, such as a corporation or celebrity. For example, someone might buy the domain informs.com or informs.net and attempt to hold it for “ransom” by asking INFORMS for payment in exchange for rights to the domain.

Not all domain-name trademark disputes involve cybersquatters, though. Recently, a French judge ordered designer Milka Budumir to give up the domain milka.fr to Kraft Foods, purveyor of Milka milk chocolate and long-time owner of the trademark.

Software Patents in New Zealand

Meanwhile, New Zealand Herald columnist Adam Gifford reports that Microsoft has filed (among numerous other applications) a patent application claiming that “they invented and own the process whereby a word-processing document stored in a single XML file may be manipulated by applications that understand XML.”

Gifford quotes New Zealand Open Source Society president Peter Harrison: “It means if you write a document in Word and save it in an XML format, you have to have Microsoft’s permission to read it or change it.”

Copyright in Australia

Recent changes in copyright law have shifted the balance of rights between creators and consumers of creative works dramatically in favor of “creators” (often publishers who purchase rights to the works rather than authors). The Creative Commons (CC) movement (http://creativecommons.org) was begun by Lawrence Lessig and others to counter the erosion of consumers’ rights to fair use of copyrighted works.

The CC promotes a class of licenses that grant the user some rights to copy, display and distribute the work while reserving important rights such as attribution, commercial use, control over derivative works and inheritance of license terms for redistribution. The CC motto is, “Some rights reserved.”

The Creative Commons licenses promote a reasonable balance between creators’ rights and fair use. Of course, the adoption of these terms is up to the creator. Creators who want the full protection of current copyright laws need not adopt them. But the Australian Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (similar to the U.S. Screen Actors’ Guild) recently decided to not let its members participate in a film project by MOD Films, which was to be released under a CC license permitting noncommercial use and certain kinds of derived works.