Two members of Congress have introduced legislation to help innovators combat patent trolls. The bill, dubbed the SHIELD Act (Saving High-Tech Innovators from Egregious Legal Disputes Act) or HR 6245, co-authored by Congressmen Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, would allow tech companies to recover litigation costs for nuisance lawsuits where the plaintiff made…
From July 16th to 25th, the world’s copyright decision-makers met, as they do twice each year, at the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) in Geneva. Are you sleeping yet? It sounds dull – and these meetings can be – but they may prove to be the key to ensuring that the worldwide copyright system’s legal…
CCIA was pleased to learn senators added provisions to better protect digital goods ahead of the U.S. Senate Finance committee markup a bill today to permanently normalize trade relations (“PNTR”) with the Russian Federation and Moldova. CCIA issed a news release asking for better trade protections online after the Russian parliament’s vote to blacklist websites and allow them to be…
Last week the European Parliament (EP) rejected ACTA in its plenary session in Strasbourg. What might seemed very unlikely only a few months ago, in the final vote a total of 478 MEPs were against the agreement, with 39 voting in favor and 165 representatives abstaining from a vote. There is a broad agreement that this result…
The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is currently in the 13th round of negotiations. The text has yet to be released publicly, although there have been some leaks. However, an important piece of news was made public by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on Tuesday, July 3, 2012. The USTR Press Office website announced: “For the first time in any…
[Author’s Note: This post was adapted from the author’s post on the DisCo (Disruptive Competition) blog — If you haven’t checked out http://project-disco.org, please do!] The PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) was introduced in the Senate on May 12, 2011. It is remarkable that that was now more than a year ago, and to think about how…
As Europe debates the balance of intellectual property rights in the wake of ACTA, Ireland is taking comments through the end of this month on a paper it published on copyright and innovation. Despite the various pressures to increase copyright enforcement online without due regard for negative side-effects, it is very encouraging to see that…
According to FBO.gov (short for FedBizOpps.gov, which in turn naturally stands for Federal Business Opportunities), the U.S. Copyright Office has issued a request for information about digitizing pre-1978 works. The RFI explains that the Copyright Office “has initiated a project to digitize and make available online the historical records of copyrights dating from 1870 to 1977” and…
Washington – Months after Internet users rose against copyright enforcement legislation that would have changed the Internet, more companies are voluntarily offering more assistance to reduce infringement. RapidShare presented its copyright enforcement measures during a panel discussion at the National Press Club Wednesday. CCIA’s Matt Schruers told those gathered that lost amid the debate over the…
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