Tuesday, January 04, 2005

IP concerns on the West Coast

#1. Offshoring of patent work discussed in San Jose Mercury News.

An article by Karl Schoenberger discusses certain issues in offshoring of patent work.

-->But Gupta's Speedera is not alone among technology companies taking the cue on legal offshoring. Cisco Systems arranged with a U.S. law firm to have technical writing done by engineers in India for some of its patent applications. Microsoft had patent research done in India. General Electric has experimented with a legal team in India to draft contracts and other legal documents.

In Palo Alto, the Mumbai-based law firm Nishith Desai Associates recently raised the curtain on IP Pro, an offshoring service supplementing its core business of advising U.S. clients on India's legal system. IP Pro already has three or four ``big name'' clients who are ``trying us out,'' said the firm's Vijay Sambamurthy. Its staff of eight paralegals in India drafts U.S. patent claims, which are checked for quality by a domestic law firm.

``The potential is huge,'' Sambamurthy said. ``You can cut your costs by at least 40 percent.''<--

The article quotes Steven Lundberg of Schwegman and separately Leon Steinberg of Intellevate, but failed to disclose the connection between principals of Schwegman and the Intellevate company.

#2. Liberating intellectual property at Stanford

An article by Michelle Keller at the Stanford Daily discussed Science Commons, designed to ease the sharing of scientific research and datasets. The article has text --Yet patents and copyrights can also hinder innovation, making it difficult for other researchers to access articles and utilize data.--

The whole point about patents is to offer the right to exclude IN RETURN FOR public disclosure of the invention. Patents get information into the public domain. Keller conflates issues of patents with issues of copyright associated with journal articles.

Issues with copyright in journal articles are a different matter from patent rights. The recent NIH initiative to ensure public access to NIH-funded work has already stirred the pot. Although there is text --And the NIH should not undertake publishing operations in competition to the existing marketplace, Keller added--the NIH has a duty to the tax-paying public to allow the public access to the results of research funded by tax dollars.



0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home