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Intellectual Property News
Users May Be Unaware Of Threats From Filesharing Programs
The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has released a report that concludes that the distributors of five popular filesharing programs repeatedly deployed features that they knew or should have known could cause users to share files inadvertently. The report, Filesharing Programs and “Technological Features to Induce Users to Share,” identifies five features in recent versions of five popular filesharing programs that could cause users to inadvertently distribute to others downloaded files or their own proprietary or sensitive files.
“Computer programs that can cause unintended filesharing contribute to copyright infringement, and they threaten the security of personal, corporate, and governmental data,” noted Jon Dudas, under secretary of commerce for intellectual property—the Bush Administration’s point person on copyright policy.
The report shows that distributors of filesharing programs deployed features that could cause inadvertent sharing even after repeated warnings that these features could facilitate identity theft and breaches of personal and national security. For example, in 2003, two Congressional hearings were prompted by research indicating inadvertent sharing could be caused by search-wizard and share-folder features. After the hearings, many distributors adopted a Code of Conduct that prohibited use of these features. Nevertheless, in 2004 and 2005, many of these same distributors kept deploying more aggressive versions of search-wizard or share-folder features. Many distributors also deployed other features, like partial-uninstall and coerced-sharing features, that also had a known or obvious potential to cause inadvertent sharing. Read more at uspto.gov.
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A patent grant right excludes others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention in the US.
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Definition:
A rule of claim interpretation under which a product or process, although not a literal infringement, is still an infringement if it performs substantially the same way as the patented invention.
Antitrust
Definition:
The worst antitrust offenses are price fixing and bid rigging. Price fixing occurs when two or more sellers agree that they will increase prices a certain amount, or that they won't sell below a certain price. Bid rigging most commonly occurs when two or more firms agree not to bid against each other to supply products or services to local, state or federal government agencies, or when they agree on the level of their individual bids.
Invention
Definition:
The human creation of a new technical idea and the physical means to accomplish or embody the idea.
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