ECM 1407 Intellectual Property

Question 1

What is copyright?

Answer 1

It is an intellectual property that gives the owner of the copyright the right to control how their creative work may be used.

It applies to a work, rather than the concept behind it, differentiating itself from patents

Copyright is automatic: you don’t have to apply or pay a fee.

Question 2

Copyrighted works may be used without permission for the following reasons.

Answer 2

• Non-commercial research and private study
• Criticism, review and reporting current events
• Teaching
• Helping disabled people
• Parody, caricature and pastiche

Question 3

Circumventing copyright in the information age:

Answer 3

• It is easy to copy
• The copy is perfect
• Distribution is also made easy, through mediums such as P2P networks

Question 4

What are the four freedoms of open-source according to Richard Stallman?

Answer 4

0 The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose

1 The freedom to study how the program works, and change it

2 The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others

3 The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others.

Question 5

What benefit does open source development provide to the globalised world? (With what example?)

Answer 5

The use of open source software in developing nations helps decrease the ever-present development gap

EXAMPLE: Lagos - one of the larger slums in Africa

Makoko - an informal section of Lagos
Code For Africa

○ Uses open source technology to determine the population of Makoko, as well as drones to map the region’s area

Question 6

What are some examples of licenses

Answer 6

GPL (GNU General Public License)
MIT

Question 7

What is a Trademark

Answer 7

An intellectual property that enables one to identify good or services from a specific source

Question 8

Requirements for a trademark

Answer 8

A trademark cannot be
- Offensive
- Descriptive
- Misleading
- Three dimensional
- Non-distinctive
- Used

Question 9

What is cybersquatting?

Answer 9

The action of using an internet domain name with intent to profit from trademark belonging to someone else.

Facebook and twitter combat cybersquatting (the former allowing users to reclaim names while the latter forbidding cybersquatting altogether.)

Question 10

How does free software differ from open-source software?

Answer 10

Free software is the concept of programs being left to the public. Open-source software is software where the source code is available to the public.

Question 11

What does a patent do?

Answer 11

It gives someone the right to prevent others from making, using or selling an invention without permission.

The inventor discloses the invention and has the monopoly on the use of it for 20 years.

Question 12

Requirements for a patent:

Answer 12

*be new
*involve an inventive step
*be capable of industrial application

Question 13

Patent examples:

Answer 13

• 1-click
• Uber surge pricing algorithm

Question 14

What is a troll in regards to patents?

Answer 14

Software patents can come under the hand of trolls easily as they’re expansive and vague. They’ll claim these patents, work out the money the opposing party is willing to spend, and then promptly sell them

Question 15

What is a trade secret?

Answer 15

A trade secret provides competitive advantage to its owner because the information is secret and has been subject to reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy

Question 16

The 3 different kinds of Non Disclosure Agreement and what they mean:

Answer 16

Unilateral - only one party agrees to keep the other party’s confidential information private

Bilateral - both parties agree to keep the other’s confidential information private.

Multilateral - involve three or more parties where at least one of them will disclose information to the other parties. The party or parties will also require the other parties to protect that information from further disclosure.

Question 17

Trade secret examples:

Answer 17

• Coca-Cola
• Google search algorithm
• Listerine
• WD-40

Question 18

Copyright CASE STUDY: Apple sue Microsoft for copyright infringement

Give a TL;DR of the situation

Answer 18

• Lawsuit filed a couple months following the release of Windows 2.0
• Lawsuit filed on the grounds that Windows infringed Apple’s interface in over 150 ways.
• Windows used Apple’s GUI without a license according to Apple
• Microsoft and Bill Gates received Mac OS prior to its release in 1984: They were to create software like word processors and spreadsheet creators for the Mac
• Gates essentially begged Apple to license the software to outside manufacturers so that the Macintosh would become the standard in personal computing.
• Gates himself later stated that Microsoft’s software profit margins were much higher on MacOS than for those on IBM’s licensed MSDOS platform.
• For a number of reasons, Gates’s proposal was rejected by Jean-Louis Gassée, who had been given control of the Macintosh and Lisa projects after Steve Jobs was ousted from them.
• Unfortunately for Apple, on July 25, 1989, Judge William Schwarzer ruled that 179 of the 189 contested visual displays that Apple claimed infringed in its copyrights were covered by the existing license, and the rest weren’t eligible for copyright anyhow because of the merger doctrine (which holds that ideas cannot be copyrighted).
• Supreme Court denied Apple’s petition for writ of certiorari.
• In light of Apple’s contemporary dominance in the computing and electronics markets, it may be difficult to appreciate the impact of this loss on Apple’s position in the industry. It was during the mid- to late 90’s that Windows rose to prominence, and Apple’s Macintosh was unable to keep up, such that by 1996, it looked to be in very real danger of failure.

Question 19

Trademark case studies:

Answer 19

• In 1978, Apple Corps, the Beatles-founded holding company and owner of their record label, Apple Records, filed a lawsuit against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The suit was settled in 1981 with an undisclosed amount being paid to Apple Corps.
• Back in 2014, billionaire businessman and easyJet founder, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou announced he would take legal action against Netflix over its comedy series Easy, claiming its use of the name breaches his company’s European trademarks.
  ○ 2023, EasyJet suing English pop band Easylife

Question 20

Patent Case Study: Google Loses Again In AdWords Patent Infringement Case

Answer 20

• A judge has determined patent-holding company Vringo is entitled to additional royalties from Google in a patent infringement case involving Google AdWords.
• Case brought by Vringo subsidiary I/P Engine in 2011 that claimed filtering technology used in Google AdWords violated two of its patents. A jury found in favor of I/P Engine, awarding it $30,496,155 and running royalty payments of 3.5 percent.
• The 90’s era patents originate from Lycos. Vringo bought the two patents — 6,314,420 entitled “Collaborative/adaptive search engine” and 6,775,664 entitled “Information filter system and method for integrated content-based and collaborative/adaptive feedback queries”– and 6 others in June 2011. It filed suit against Google and its customers AOL, Gannett, IAC and Target in September of that year.
  Matt Kallman, a Google spokesperson told The Washington Post that the “decision further highlights the mischief trolls can make with the patent system.” Google is appealing the ruling.