Intellectual Property
revere | May 7, 2010As an academic researcher I don't write grant proposals for a living, although sometimes it feels like I do. I need grants to do my work, but I also need to get to work and I don't consider myself to be commuting for a living. Although sometimes it feels like I do. Having said that, low on my list of favorite things would be anything that required even more compliance paperwork for a grant proposal, but the National Science Foundation (NSF) is now about to spell out a new compliance paperwork requirement, and frankly I approve of it. In principle, at least, although I won't like doing it if…
revere | April 21, 2010Yesterday we posted on our strong support for open access publishing of tax payer supported research. We are taxpayer supported scientists (at least our NIH grants are) and we consider our work to be the property of the public, who paid for it. Whenever possible (which is most of the time) we do publish in freely accessible journals. Making data freely accessible is more controversial, but we also support this, perhaps with a reasonable grace period to allow scientists to have priority for data they expended effort to collect and with reasonable safeguards for confidentiality and privacy when…
revere | March 20, 2010We frequently use video clips on this site, many, but not all, from YouTube. To say YouTube has revolutionized web video content would be accurate, neither an understatement nor an exaggeration. The amount of material uploaded to YouTube is staggering. It is also the frequent target of specious take-down demands and is now the subject of a lawsuit by Viacom and other media giants alleging YouTube should check every upload for rights ownership. YouTube responds that such a requirement and threat of liability would put it, and most other service providers, out of business and points to explicit…
revere | February 25, 2010If I screamed every time I wanted to scream after reading something on the internet, I'd be so hoarse I wouldn't be able to scream about something I hadn't read on the internet. Like the Obama administration's loser mentality or the Republican Party as just plain losers with no mentality at all. So maybe I won't scream about what I read about on The Guardian today (hat tip Boingboing), but I'd like to scream. LIKE THIS. But why should you listen to me? I'm an Enemy of the State. I know this because the US-based International Intellectual Property Alliance has made it clear what kind of person…
revere | February 10, 2010I'm a scientist and my research is supported by NIH, i.e., by American taxpayers. More importantly, the science I do is for anyone to use. I claim no proprietary rights. That's what science is all about. We make our computer code publicly available, not just by request, but posted on the internet, and it is usable code: commented and documented. We ask the scientists in our program to do the same with the reagents they develop. Reagents are things like genetic probes or antibodies directed against specific targets mentioned in the articles they publish. There is an list of the reagents on the…
revere | January 10, 2010Via microdot at The Brain Police I learned of the latest intellectual(?) property/trademark claim. Popedom:
The Vatican has awarded itself a "unique copyright" on the Pope's name, image, coat of arms, and any other symbol or logo related to the Holy Father.
"The use of anything referring directly to the person or office of the Supreme Pontiff...and/or the use of the title 'Pontifical,' must receive previous and express authorization from the Holy See," reads a statement released by the Vatican on Saturday morning, the Catholic News Agency (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/…
revere | March 25, 2009"The Stupid. It Burns!" I don't know where this Simpson-esque phrase comes from, but The Stupid burns pretty bright in the brains of Republican Governors Mark Sanford and Bobby Jindal who are refusing stimulus money for unemployment compensation even though their states have some of the highest unemployment rates in the nation. That's stupid. Like refusing help with avian influenza even if you have more cases of the disease than anywhere in the world. The Stupid isn't just an American disease.
Take Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari. Please.
Source: plognark
Indonesian Health…
revere | February 24, 2009I'm not sure what to make of the report that scientists in Boston, California and the CDC in Atlanta have made monoclonal antibodies that protect mice against many different flu subtypes. Monoclonal antibodies are antibodies made by the descendants of a single immune cell (that is a single clone, hence monoclonal). Thus unlike natural antibodies, these are also monospecific, i.e., they are directed against one specific target. Our natural immune system "sees" a protein on the surface of the virus called hemagglutinin (HA), of which there are 16 broad subtypes and many, many variations within…
revere | December 3, 2008Many of us supported Barack Obama during the Presidential campaign, not because we agreed with all of his positions but we agreed with many of them that were crucial. We also saw no morally viable alternative. We hope to be able to continue our support, but it will always be offered in a constructive and not unconditional spirit. We appreciate the commitmentto transparency that has characterized the transition period and we have high hopes it will continue once the Obama administration takes office.
It is in this spirit we endorse and pass on these Principles for an Open Transition…
revere | November 22, 2008More delicious irony concerning the bottom feeders at the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the copyright thugs whose frivolous lawsuits extort money from innocent teens, grandmas and those in between. They are being hit with another counter claim ((the first was rejected) in Atlantic Recording v. Raleigh, a case being heard in St. Louis, MO. This time an amended class action claim in being filed under RICO, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
The allegations?
RICO
Fraud
Conspiracy
Trespass
Prima Facie Tort
violation of the Computer Fraud & Abuse Act…
revere | November 20, 2008There's a lot of stupidity in state legislatures, and the responsibility for that stupidity rests squarely with the people who voted for these morons. Take Tennessee. Please.
Combating music piracy at Tennessee's public university system is more important than hiring teachers and keeping down tuition costs.
Just-signed legislation requires the 222,000-student system to spend an estimated $9.5 million for file sharing "monitoring software," "monitoring hardware" and an additional "recurring cost of $1,575,000 for 21 staff positions and benefits (@75,000 each) to monitor network traffic" of its…
revere | October 8, 2008Early yesterday morning I received an email from my publisher that the journal for which I am co-editor in chief has been sold. Our journal is one of 180 published by BioMedCentral (BMC), the largest open access scientific publisher. The business model of BMC and other open access publishers is to charge the author, not the reader. BMC journals are online only (there are one or two exceptions) and hence have no page limitations. Charges are for a single article, whatever the length. Color photos, movies and supplementary files are all included in the charge (it is not a page charge,…
revere | October 5, 2008An article in The Straits Times from newswire Associated Press (AP) drew my attention to a festering disagreement between proponents of an innovative global sharing initiative for influenza information and the World Health Organization, the official UN Agency that has run the global influenza surveillance system for more than a half century. The new system, The Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data (GISAID), began midway through 2006 and has made rapid progress. It came into being to deal with dissatisfaction with the existing system wherein WHO allowed influenza gene sequence…
revere | September 19, 2008John Conyers (D., Michigan) is a liberal Democrat. As head of the Judiciary Committee he has always carried water for the IP crowd. He's at it again. And he isn't alone. When it comes to paying off campaign contributers this is a non-partisant issue:
These sort of copyright issues cut across the partisan divide, typically aligning members of Congress from both parties from areas of the country with strong content generation industries (TV, movies, music, print). In other words, members of Congress from California, New York, and Florida (Disney) or committee chairs who get a lot of money from…
revere | September 7, 2008The Bush administration and Republicans in general have acted and talked tough about copyright violations. It's not just Republicans, either. Some scumbag Democrats are in bed with the RIAA and MPAA and going at it as much as they can as long as the Johns are paying for their services. But it's another case of "Do as I say, not as I do," for the GOP. The McCain campaign has now been tagged at least three times for using copyrighted material in campaign ads and events without the permission of the artists. Jackson Browne is suing them for $1 million for the unauthorized use of "Running on…
revere | August 27, 2008I have been severely critical (many posts among those here) of the Indonesian government's irresponsible assertions of ownership of potentially pandemic pathogenic viruses isolated from their citizens. The question of Intellectual Property is a difficult one in many instances but when it comes to a public good involving a global scourge, some of the gray areas become more black and white. The world has been struggling with the issue regarding the global influenza surveillance system for two years now, precipitated by Indonesia's refusal to cooperate any longer, resulting in a significant gap…
revere | June 26, 2008Traveling and busy as hell, but wanted to share this. The ever expanding copyright laws is one of my pet peeves, but almost as irritating as the increasing length of copyright is the difficulty in knowing if something is still under copyright. The copyright date and name of the copyright holder in the frontmatter of a book is not a sufficient indication since it only tells you who used to have the copyright, not who does or does not have it now as a result of a renewal. For books published in the US between 11923 there is now a new tool to use:
For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963,…
revere | May 10, 2008We talk a fair amount about intellectual property issues here. When it comes to the free exchange of scientific information already paid for by taxpayers or the rapacious use of intellectual property laws by Big Pharma to price gouge the developed world and pillage the developing world the connections to public health are clear to us. Maybe some of you thought they were a stretch but now we have agreement from an unlikely source: the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Of course their take is 180 degrees in the opposite direction. For them it's infringement that's the public health and…
revere | April 15, 2008US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt, is in Indonesia to discuss matters of mutual interest with the Indonesian government. Topic number one was the Indonesian government's opt out of the international influenza surveillance system which has been in place for almost 60 years and provides vital information on what flu strains to include in the next year's seasonal flu shots. But the system is not limited to seasonal influenza and is an important part of the global surveillance of all influenza viruses that might be of human health concern, chiefly among the non-seasonal…
revere | April 8, 2008I'm writing this on an Apple Computer (a MacBook Pro). I've been using Apple products since 1981. I love (heart?) New York, too. Great city, full of energy. Few cities equal it in my opinion (Paris or Barcelona maybe). Now Apple Computer (the company) has filed a trademark challenge against GreeNYC, saying New York Mayor Bloomberg's environmental logo featuring a stylized apple looks too much like Apple's trademarked logo. In fact they look nothing like each other. You be the judge:
Source: MacObserver
GreeNYC is New York City's fledgling environmental effort. Apple Computer is a giant…