Digital Discourse / Archives for Keith Kupferschmid

Intellectual Property Roundup

July 31, 2013 By

Textbook Publishers Revamp Ebooks to Fight Used Market (4-traders)
A booming market for used college textbooks has saved students much money, but forced publishers to turn to a new, digital model of online versions of their texts.

Congress Betrays 3M to Google Over Patent Fees With Cuts (Bloomberg)
Google and 3M are among the top patent-holding companies that agreed two years ago to pay higher fees if Congress let the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office use the funds to address a work backlog and improve application scrutiny, but the companies are crying foul now that Congress has instead held back as much as $148 million in fees due to automatic federal spending cuts.

Viacom Demands New Judge in YouTube Copyright Fight (The Hollywood Reporter)
Viacom filed papers at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and made the case why its long-running dispute against YouTube deserves another chance, despite having been dismissed twice on summary judgment.

AP, Meltwater Settle Copyright Dispute (USA Today)
The Associated Press says it has settled a copyright-infringement lawsuit against digital news distributor Meltwater and that the two companies will begin developing products together.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.2

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Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Policy - Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Roundup

July 24, 2013 By

Ruling: Amazon Can’t Own ‘.Amazon’ (The Wall Street Journal)
ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee recommended against Amazon taking control of the ‘.Amazon’ domain, perhaps in part because of objections from Latin American countries served by the Amazon River.

Why Startups Are Sporting Increasingly Quirky Names (The Wall Street Journal)
With about 252 million domain names currently registered across the Internet, short, recognizable dot-com Web addresses have long been taken, prompting startup companies to come up with misspelled, made-up, and mashed-up names.

Google, Amazon.com Win Appeal to Toss Internet Patents (Bloomberg)
Google and Amazon won a U.S. appeals court ruling in a case of a former university researcher who claimed his patents covered some of the Internet’s most basic interactive functions.

Charts: How Spotify is Killing Music Piracy (paidContent)
Online music service Spotify published a report that shows that piracy in the Netherlands has gone down just as Spotify has become more popular in the country.

Is Flipboard a Partner or a Competitor For Publishers and Content Creators? Yes (paidContent)
With the launch of a web version, Flipboard highlights how far it has evolved from its early days as a standalone app, and how it is both a partner and a potential competitor for content companies.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Policy - Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Roundup

July 17, 2013 By

White House, Tech Giants Aim to Keep Online Ads Off Rogue Sites (CNET) The White House and eight major tech companies unveiled best practices for online ad networks aimed at cutting off revenue to websites selling counterfeit goods or engaging in copyright piracy. Read the White House release here.

Has Patent, Will Sue – An Alert to Corporate America (The New York Times) Inside the mind of a patent troll – IPNav, owned by Erich Spangenberg, is a Dallas-based company that helps “turn idle patents into cash cows,” with its typical client an inventor or corporation demanding a license fee from an infringer.

Goodreads Hit With Copyright Suit Over Fan Photo (paidContent) Photo agency BWP Media has filed a copyright lawsuit against Amazon’s Goodreads site over a celebrity image posted by one of the site’s members.

Executives are Biggest Risk for Copyright Infringement (Fort Mill Times) A recent study found that nearly half the executives surveyed for the study are potentially exposing their organizations to the risk of copyright infringement violations.

RIAA Wants Infamous File-Sharer to Campaign Against Piracy (Wired) The RIAA offered music file-sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset a reduction of her $222,000 fine if she agreed to make a public statement against piracy.

Broadcasters Lose Final Appeal to Take Down Aereo (Ars Technica)
A coalition of broadcasters, in its suit against Aereo, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to take their case “en banc,” but the court declined.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Policy - Intellectual Property

SIIA Supports PATENT Jobs Act, Says USPTO Should be Exempt from Sequestration

July 11, 2013 By

The USPTO should be exempt from about $150 million in budget cuts from sequestration, because it pays for itself with its own user fees, and does not contribute to the budget deficit. SIIA supports a new bill to that end, called H.R. 2582, “Patents and Trademarks Encourage New Technology (PATENT) Jobs Act,” which was introduced by Rep Honda (D-CA), and co-sponsored by two fellow Californians — Reps. Lofgren and Eshoo (D-Calif.) on June 28.

Much of the debate over PTO funding hinges on whether patent payments are “voluntary” under the Budget Control Act, which was triggered this past March. The act exempts voluntary fees paid to the government from sequestration, and it would seem that the PTO would fall under this exemption. However, it was decided that user fees paid to the PTO are not “voluntary” because only the federal government can issue them.  This line of reasoning is at odds with past treatment of PTO funds by Congress and the Administration.

When Congress passed and the President signed the America Invents Act (AIA) 21 months ago, it was explicitly recognized that fees collected by the USPTO are different from regular discretionary government spending.  The act ensured that excess fees collected by the USPTO are used to fund programs to improve patent quality and pendency, and to ensure the continued provision of critical, time-sensitive services.

The budget cuts resulting from sequestration will put those efforts in jeopardy, delay the opening of new satellite offices throughout the country and exacerbate the current backlog of patent applications.  If the USPTO is unable to reduce its backlog, it will diminish businesses’ ability to expedite new innovations into the marketplace.  Sequester budget cuts may also hinder the USPTO’s efforts to improve patent quality, which could make it harder to tackle the growing problem of patent trolls.

SIIA is on record voicing its concerns about the effect of sequestration on the USPTO, and is very supportive of H.R. 2582. We urge Congress to immediately consider and pass H.R. 2582.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Roundup

July 10, 2013 By

France Eliminates Threat to Cut Off Internet Pirates (Reuters)
The French government has published an official decree to erase the controversial provision in a copyright piracy law that allowed the courts to cut off Internet access of repeat offenders.

Where the Wild Things Are Sequel Pulled From Kickstarter for Infringing Copyright (paidContent)
A sequel to Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are was pulled from Kickstarter after publisher HarperCollins issued a takedown notice. The incident suggests that book publishers are being more vigilant about monitoring new platforms for violations.

Intellectual Property Court Opens in Moscow (The Moscow Times)
The Intellectual Property Court, a specialized arbitration court, opened in Moscow after President Vladimir Putin approved the final list of judges. The court will deal with cases regarding patent rights, trademark violations and other intellectual property disputes.

Why Patent Litigation Was On the Upswing In 2012 (Information Today)
A recent study from PricewaterhouseCoopers reports that 2012 was a “banner year in patent litigation,” largely in part due to “patent trolls.”

Microsoft Settles Thousands of Software Piracy Cases (CNET)
Microsoft announced it settled 3,265 software piracy cases worldwide in the past year. Thirty-five of these cases were in the U.S., in 19 different states; and, 3,230 were international cases that took place in 42 different countries.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Anti-Piracy, Policy - Intellectual Property

Intellectual Property Roundup

July 3, 2013 By

New Zealand Web Service Allows Users to Block Location (The Wall Street Journal)
Customers of New Zealand telecommunications provider Slingshot can now block their location and gain access to foreign Web services such as Netflix, bringing into question how long copyright holders can continue to bar users in specific regions from accessing their content.

Court Rules No Class-Action Status in Google Book Case (Bloomberg Businessweek)
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stripped a group representing authors of its class-action status in a lawsuit brought against Google over claims that its plan to create the world’s largest digital library will violate copyrights.

Patent Exam Saves Cities From Suits, Group Says (Courthouse News Service)
The Electronic Frontier Foundation says it has curbed patent holder ArrivalStar from going after cities and transit agencies that use vehicle-tracking systems by having the patent’s legitimacy re-examined.

BitTorrent: We Don’t Deal in Pirated Content (CNET)
In an effort to clear its name association with pirated movies, music and games, BitTorrent’s vice-president of marketing penned a blog post saying that while BitTorrent built the open-source, peer-to-peer technology used for content sharing, it does not endorse piracy in any shape or form.

New York City Secures .NYC Top-Level Domain (PCMag)
New York City announced that ICANN approved its request for the .nyc top-level domain, making the city one of the first in the world to be granted one of these location-specific domains.

ICE, European Partners Seize 328 Internet Domains Selling Counterfeit Goods in Coordinated Operation (U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security)
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and several law enforcement agencies in Europe, coordinated by the European Police Office (Europol), announced the seizure of 328 domain names in two related operations. The seized domain names were associated with websites illegally selling counterfeit merchandise online to unsuspecting consumers.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property

SIIA Praises ICANN For Accepting GAC Advice to Adopt New Domain Name Safeguards

July 1, 2013 By

On Friday the ICANN Board’s New gTLD Program Committee announced that it had accepted the six basic safeguards recommended by ICANN’s government constituency group, called the Government Advisory Committee (“GAC”), relating to safeguards for new gTLDs (“GAC Advice”).  SIIA commends ICANN for creating an open and transparent process for evaluating the GAC’s Advice and its decision to ultimately accept the Advice.

The GAC Advice was first issued on April 11, 2013 in a communique following the last ICANN meeting, which took place in Beijing, China.  In the Annex of that communique the GAC set forth sixth safeguards that the GAC recommended be implemented by all new gTLDs.  Most of the enhanced safeguards that SIIA has been advocating for were included in the six in some form, with the most significant ones being safeguards 2, 5 and 6, which would require all registries to:

  • Contractually prohibit registrants from using domain names for “piracy, trademark or copyright infringement [or] counterfeiting,” among other abuses;
  • Provide a complaint mechanism for reports of inaccurate Whois data or “that the domain name registration is being used to facilitate or promote… piracy, trademark or copyright infringement, [or] counterfeiting”;
  • Impose “real and immediate consequences”  (though the only one listed is suspension of the domain name) where there is “demonstrated provision of false Whois information and violations of the requirement that the domain name should not be used in breach of applicable law.”

ICANN was not obligated to follow GAC Advice.  For the first time ever, ICANN solicited public comment on the GAC Advice.  ICANN received numerous comments from a wide variety of diverse organizations located around the world voicing their strong support of ICANN accepting the GAC Advice.  This support came from not only those representing the copyright community, but also the telecomm, financial services, online travel, and the trademark communities.

SIIA’s particular concern regards strings and applications that refer to, describe, or are likely to disproportionally impact rights owners in the software and information industries.  These industries have experienced a long history of vulnerability to fraud and abuse, including copyright and trademark infringement, cybersquatting, and other abuses.  Copyright and trademark infringement, fraud, deception, and similar abuses by some domain name registrants, registrars, resellers and other participants in the DNS ecosystem are an enormous and ongoing problem faced by SIIA member companies and their customers around the world in the software and information industries.  It is reasonable to foresee that introducing hundreds if not thousands of new gTLDs on the Internet will multiply the problem exponentially – unless appropriate safeguards are implemented.  ICANN’s decision to accept the GAC Advice and the six basic safeguards in particular is a significant step in the right direction that should significantly reduce the risk of abusive registrations in all gTLDs and that any responsible registry operator should be able to support and implement.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

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Filed Under: Policy, Policy - Intellectual Property Tagged With: , ,
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