Patfrigate IP solutions at a glance

Spectrum of Intellectual Property rights blog takes this opportunity to convey our readers that we are the official blog courtesy of  Patfrigate IP solutions. Patfrigate offers an entire gamut of strategic IP services to enable global clients formulate an effective IP culture and IP management protocols. A wide range of solutions like Patent & Trademark services, IP audits and asset management, IP licensing consultations, IP strategies for start-ups and SME’s are the highlights of Patfrigate IP solutions.Our consultations give high priority to your concerned IP and develop extensive and reliable framework for cost effective IP management.

For more information and request for quotes, you may email us at contact@patfrigate.com or access us : here

IPO publishes discussion paper on Intellectual Property rights

Indian Patent office currently published another discussion paper on Intellectual Property rights reviewing the organizational structure of  Controller General of Patents, Designs, Trademarks and Geographical Indications. The discussion paper highlights operational issues, statistics of patents and trademarks, designs applications filed, organizational structure of various International patent offices including USPTO, Japan, UK patent office, German Patent office, Australia Patent and Trademark office and Malaysian Intellectual Property office.  Readers can find  a set of questions on Issues of consideration which includes establishment of independent Trademark and GI registry, legal changes required for reorganization of office of CGPTDM, ideal model , measures for improvement in the examination applications, etc. you may access the paper here.

 

(Image by Eduardo Santos)

WIPO approaches Audiovisual Performance protection

A recent move of WIPO has been towards protecting Performers Rights in audiovisual performances. The diplomatic conference on the “Performers Rights in Audiovisual Performances” will be convoked in Geneva in the year 2012 .The International treaty will be finalized then. This is congratulatory news for the artists and performers across the globe. The international copyright fraternity will be glad to hear such a beneficial decision which will enable artists and performers to have a legitimate control on the showcase of their audiovisual performances internationally.

 There has been a constant debate on the protection of Performers rights in the digital media, although some countries have laws incorporated which give due consideration to performers rights. The finalization of this treaty will pave the way for performers and artists to prevent unauthorized showcase of their performances internationally in the audiovisual media. There are certain conventions which impart significant  importance to performers, broadcasters and sound recordists like the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations(1961) and WIPO Performance and Phonograms Treaty (1996). At last, we welcome this essential decision and certainly it will add more strength to the global community of artists.

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This is a "Sweet Patent"!

Well, I have covered many IP topics, Patents and Trademarks. But this one for sure is the “Sweetest Patent” to be issued. The applicant for this patent is “Sweetfields Inc.”, a family owned business, located in Southern California and deals with Crystallized edible flowers or Candied edible flowers. It is reported that USPTO will issue Sweetfields Inc. , a patent for the invention resulting in edible or non edible , non-perishable , flower derived food items which will possess improved durability, aesthetics, scent and flavor.

The patent is expected to be issued on Oct 4, 2011. You may access the patent application here.While the art of crystallizing flowers isn't novel and has been practiced by many others in the business for ages but it is reported that Sweetfields's invention will aim at improving the overall shelf life of the edible crystallized flowers and the method devised will introduce scalable process for mass production of such candied flowers.

The grant of this particular patent will definitely boost Sweetfields market growth and will bring more business to the company in the near future. All in all , it's a sweet patent, isn't! 

( Image by Rafal P.)

Are digitised book repositories infringing on Copyrights

This is a Digital age. We expect everything to be within our reach with the blink of an eye. Why books should be left behind. The new age digital books and the digital book hosting web portals have made it easier and quite accessible to reach the rarest available books with a click. But in the process, there is a possibility that the Author's moral rights and copyrights are put at stake. In a recent case, a group of International Authors have sued five US universities for copyright violations and unauthorized dissemination of digital books. The plaintiffs include the Author's Guild, Australian Society of Authors, UNEQ and other individual authors. The lawsuits have been filed against universities of Michigan, California, Wisconsin, Indiana and Cornell respectively. The plaintiffs argued that these universities obtained unauthorized scans of 7 million Copyright protected books from Google and assembled the information  in a digital repository called Hathi Trust, which holds about 9,596,083 total volumes of digitized books.

The plaintiff's complaint is made against digitization, archiving and copying which makes it a massive infringement of copyrights. On the other hand, this lawsuit could bring a severe blow to Hathi Trust's Orphan Works Project . The Orphan Works Project aims at making full- text versions of out-of-print copyrighted works available in the repository when their rights holders cannot be found or contacted. Currently around 148 potential orphan works on the HathiTrust are out-of-print titles published between 1923 and 1963.

The issue is a serious one and raises different thoughts. While proponents consider such digital book repositories as a useful resource for the students worldwide but on the contrary, it is highly unacceptable for the authors to put an orphan tag to their respective works. The situation is perplex and the pros and cons appear to be in equal proportions.Until then, we have to wait and see the outcomes in this case.

( Image by Zsuzsanna Kilian)

New Poll of the week

Following are the results for the last Poll of the week , namely : " Do you think Mobile App Patent wars are delaying further Innovations". About 40 percent of the readers voted for Yes. The rest 40 percent voted for No and the remaining 20 percent voters hold Neutral Opinion.

New Poll: " Do you think the Compulsory License granting in Pharmaceutical patents will pave way for the new Low cost generics in the developing world ". The new poll of the week could be accessed here or by scrolling down the blog page. Click your opinion.

(Image by Dominik Gwarek)

Patent granted to IamResponding.com

USPTO has granted a new patent for an innovative technology by IamResponding.com. The technology in focus aims at reducing emergency response times by knowing instantly , who is responding to the emergency event. IamResponding.com's web based system is currently accessed by fire departments, EMS agencies, and other emergency responding organizations across North America. USPTO granted patent no. 8,009,810 for the invention titled “ Emergency responder reply system and related methods”. 

 

The patent claims :
“A method for providing a notification service that is independent of any outbound notification service that originates a dispatch for services, the method comprising: receiving a telephonic response from a responder to the dispatch for services regardless of how the responder becomes aware of the dispatch for services , and obtaining an indication of whether the responder is responding to the dispatch for services, identifying the responder from which the telephonic response has been received , and providing for display , the identity of the responder and the indication ”.

In general, the technology in focus is a web based system used by emergency responders to report their chiefs, team leaders and fellow colleagues. In turn, responding members dial a pre-assigned number on any phone, and their name, information and response status which appear on any internet-enabled device. Hence, the respondent’s name and other relevant details can be easily accessed via the internet .Such a technology is a boon for emergency conditions where immediate aid is required . The technology appreciably reduces the response time taken by the emergency responders and thus ensures quick and appropriate emergency responses.

We hope in the near future such innovative and web based technologies prosper and tap new domains of applicability.

(Image by Ante Vekic)