IPR Resources

LITERATURE BRIEF

Scientometrical indicators of national science & technology policy based on patent statistics data. Rozhkov Sergej and Ivancheva Ludmila. World Patent Information 1998, 20(3/4), 161-6.

Of late, government bodies related to science and technology have shown increased interests in the results of bibliometric research work. As a result, many papers about the role and place of scientific publications have appeared in post-socialistic Bulgaria. It has also been the topic of major research work. The present paper discusses the possibility of the use of patent data in the framing of S & T policy. Patent documents have three essential characteristics making them an excellent source of information for S & T policy making. The characteristics are: (i).the patent document is the true reflection of the R & D output of a country; (ii) it reveals the new trends in technology; and (iii) it provides considerable information about the applicant's approach to the R & D activity and the marketing. Patent documents are, however, not the unique elements for the evaluation of the state of technology, but they can play an important role along with other S & T indicators in this respect.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 353-24

Europe in the pole position of global patent information. Schemiemann Manfred. World Patent Information 1998, 20(3/4), 167-9.

Patent databases are paramount source of technical information for researchers and engineers. But Europe's innovative enterprises do not seem to be sufficiently aware of this. The European Commission is legally obliged to remove obstacles for free access to information in the public domain. Both the US and Japanese governments have made available patent information on the Internet free of charge. To date Europe is still lacking such access options. A new initiative by the European Patent Organization accompanied by the European Commission's IPR Helpdesk Project is starting to remedy the situation. The dimensions of the planned measure will put Europe in the pole position of global patent information, while leaving sufficient room for added value offers by commercial providers.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 351-2.

Technology entry, exit and survival: an empirical analysis of patent data. Malerba Franco and Orsenigo Luigi. Research Policy 1999, 28(6), 643-60.

Provides new empirical evidence on the patterns of technological entry and exit across sectors and over time. The analysis is based on the patents of forty-nine technological classes emanated from USA, Japan, Germany, UK, France and Italy during 1978 _ 1991. It is observed that innovative turbulence is relevant and a composite phenomenon in which real innovative entrants find that most of the entrants are occasional innovators, while persistent innovators are few in number but large in terms of patent output. The differences in the patterns of technological entry and exit at the sectoral level has been analyzed and the role of the national system on innovation in affecting innovative entry and exit examined.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 354.

R & D dynamics of creating patents in the Japanese industry. Kondo Masayuki. Research Policy1999, 28(6), 587-600.

Analyses the dynamic mechanism of R & D in producing patents by the Japanese industry from the early 1970s to the mid-1980s. The study shows that the R&D investment generated patent applications with a time lag of one year and a half . An analysis by industry sector clarifies that the cost to generate a patent application is high and the time required is long in chemical products industry including the pharmaceutical sector. A trend analysis reveals that the R & D expenditure required to generate a patent application appears to have decreased over the time covered by the study.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 354-5.

Bibliometric analysis of patents: Implication of R & D and industry. M M S Karki. In Nagpaul PS et al, eds. Emerging Trends in Scientometrics. New Delhi: Allied Pub., 1999, 111-25.

Reviews the literature on the bibliometrics of patents and outlines the technology indicators derived from patent and citation analysis for monitoring technological developments.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 354-5.

NEWS

Copyright myths. Symposium on Copyright and Electronic Media, New Delhi, 31 January 1998. New Delhi: Ranganathan Research Circle. [Some Questions and Answers].

"The work I want to use does not have a copyright notice on it, so it is not copyrighted and I am free to use it".

Most published works contain a copyright notice. A work not having a copyright notice does not mean that it is not copyrighted.

"I do not need a licence because I am using only a small amount of the copyrighted work".

It is true that de minimis copying (copying a small portion) in not copyright infringement. Unfortunately, it is difficult to decide where de minimis copying ends and copyright infringement begins. Copying a small portion of a copyrighted work is infringement if the portion copied is qualitatively substantial. Copying any part of a copyrighted work is risky. Hence, it is better to get prior permission or licence from the copyright holder for the purpose of copying.

"Since I am planning to give credit to all authors whose works I copy, I do not need to get the licence"

By giving credit to the author of an work, you are surely not plagiarizing. However, attribution is not a defence to copyright infringement.

"My multimedia work will be a wonderful showcase for the copyright owner's work, so I am sure the owner will not object to my use of the work."

It is better not to assume that a copyright owner will be happy to allow you to use his work. Even if the owner is willing to let you use his work, he may charge you a fee. Content owners view multimedia as a new market for licensing their material.

" I do not need a licence because I am going to alter the work I copy"

Generally one cannot escape the liability for copyright infringement by altering or modifying the work. If you copy or modify protected elements of a copyrighted work, you will be infringing the copyright owner's modification right as well as the copying right.

"If I find something on the Internet, it is okay to copy it and use it without getting permission".

You are free to copy public domain material available on the Net. However, copyrighted material available on the Net should not be copied without prior permission of the copyright owner.

"Anyone who puts material on the Web server wants people to use that material, so I can do anything I want with the material that I get from the Web server"

Individuals and organizations put material on a Web server to make it accessible by others. However, they do not give up their copyrights by putting material on a Web server. Also the person who posts the material may not own it.

"It is okay to copy material from a home page or Web site without getting permission."

Much of the material that appears on a Web site or a home page is protected by copyright. If you want to copy something from a Web site or a home page, better get the prior permission.

`It is okay to use copyrighted material in my Web site so long as no one has to pay for a visit to my Web site"

Unless your use of the copyrighted work is for `fair use', you need a licence to copy and use the work in your Web site even if you would not be charging people to view your Web site.

"It is okay to make other people's copyrighted material available on my Web server so long as I do not charge people anything to get the material'.

Copying and distributing copyrighted material without permission can be copyright infringement even if you do not charge for the copied material. Making material available to others to copy can be contributory infringement.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 375-6.

[For any other query on copyright issues, readers are advised to refer to the book
Copyright - interpreting the law for libraries by Graham P Cornish, Library Officer, British Library.
The book is published by Library Association, London in 1990.- Editor.]

CSIR plans to have electronic database on Indian herbs. Down to Earth 1999, 8(6), 13.

Dr R A Mashelkar, Director General, CSIR said that every year around 30,000 to 40,000 patent applications are filed in the US. As a result, it is very difficult to confirm whether the patented herbal product already exists in the market. Hence, it is important to create awareness about such plants through an electronic database. CSIR is also planning to translate ancient Indian literature on herbs into English to create awareness amongst people all over the world.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 360

Growth in IT patenting. Outlook on Science Policy 1999, 21(6), 68..

According to the report The New Innovator: Global Patenting Trends in Five Sectors, patenting in areas related to information technology (IT) has registered a dramatic growth since 1960s. The IT sectors exhibiting strong growth include software, hardware and semiconductor manufacturing. Between 1982 and 1996, the number of patents in IT grew by over three times the overall growth (89%) in patenting. In 1996, it accounted for 15% of US patents, compared to just 7% in 1982. By 1996 Japanese companies were producing more patents than the European companies. The Table below highlights this growth in East Asian firms. In 1989, the list of top patentees in the US system contains five Japanese, two American and three European firms, but in 1998 there are seven Japanese, two American, one Korean and no European firms.

All the east Asian companies are heavily involved in IT and they have left Europe behind. However, European firms do exhibit strengths in other areas. For example, in patenting activity, half of the top ten pharmaceutical firms are European and the other half are American. Again half of the top ten chemical companies are European, four are American and only one Japanese.

— Reproduced with modification from Journal of Intellectual Property Rights 1999, 4(6), 364-5

Trademark suit involving Yahoo! Inc. Industrial Property Law Reporter 1999, 24(2).

A trademark suit involving Yahoo! Inc and Akash Arora of Netlink Internet Solutions was settled in favour of Yahoo!Inc. The defendants (Akash Arora and others) started using the domain name YahooIndia.com similar to Yahoo.com for providing identical Internet services as that of Yahoo.com. The plaintiff (Yahoo) filed a suit against the defendant for passing off and pleaded ad interim injunction against the defendant. The plaintiff's domain name Yahoo.com is a internationally known domain name with Network Solutions Inc. The registration of Yahoo! and its variants as a trademark is already obtained in several countries or is pending in others including India. Considering the popularity of the domain name Yahoo and the word India not being sufficient to distinguish it from Yahoo , the court granted temporary injunction against the defendants and further prohibited the defendant from using or copying plaintiff's computer programmes.

— Reproduced with modification from Intellectual Property Rights 2000, 6(8), 13.

NAL's Web-based Patent Information System. CSIR News 2000, 50(18), 284.

During the last four decades, the National Aeronautical Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore, has undertaken many a complex R & D projects, often with the potential of innovative patentable spin-offs. To provide a boost to this activity, Technical Secretariat and Computer Support and Services Division of NAL have jointly developed a fully automated, highly user-friendly Web-based Patent Information System (WBPIS).

There are many Web sites to provide patent information. As a result a user has to undertake the tedious process of browsing though all the Web sites one by one to locate the required information. WBPIS effectively reduces the user's overall time and effort in tracking the patents. In this system, a large number of pre-defined sites are searched with the keywords supplied by the scientists and the information retrieved is stored in a local database.

The searching is done periodically and the patent database is updated after every search. On user's demand the local database is searched for the information without going to Internet and the retrieved information is supplied to the user. In case the information retrieved is found inadequate for the user, a link is provided through which the user can reach the original Web page and get the complete details of the patent. Certain user levels are maintained to provide full security to the system. The database is maintained and updated only by administrator level users. Other users can only view the information. [Text modified]

— Wista Intellectual Property 2000, 2(6)

Intellectual property legislature text

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has released a compilation of over 700 intellectual property legislature texts on a single CD. It contains 399 legal texts in English and 324 texts in French, including all WIPO-administered treatises in both the languages. The CD costing 300 Swiss Francs is available at WIPO Electronic Bookshop (http://www.wipo.int/ebbokshop).

— Reproduced with modification from Intellectual Property Rights 2000, 6(12), 11.

Handbook on writing patent specifications

The handbook compiled by the Patent Cell of the Central Food Technological Research Institute was released by Dr R A Mashelkar, Director General, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, on 21 October 2000.While releasing the book, Dr. Mashelkar said that the book would help create more awareness about the patenting process among the scientists of the Institue.

The book provides step by step guidelines as to the process of patenting and will help scientists and technologists in preparing specifications for filing a patent. [Text modofied].

— CSIR News 2000, 50(24), 354 .

-------
Information Today & Tomorrow, Vol. 20, No. 1, March 2001, p.24-p.27
http://itt.nissat.tripod.com/itt0101/iprres.htm