| New TLJ Stories |
Supreme
Court Grants Cert in NYT v. Tasini. The U.S. Supreme Court
granted certiorari in New York Times v. Tasini, a case regarding the
application of copyright law to the republication of the articles of
free lance writers in electronic databases.
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| New Documents |
FCC:
Report
to Congress re status of 746-764 MHz and 776-794 MHz auctions, 11/6
(PDF, FCC).
BXA:
notice
of request for comments on EARs for HPCs and encryption products,
11/6 (HTML, BXA).
USPTO:
rule
changes re 18 month publication of patent applications, 11/6 (PDF,
FedReg).
USCA: opinion in
E-Data v. Compuserve re Freeny patent, 11/3 (MS Word, FedCir).
JW:
complaint
in Regland.com v. ICANN, 11/3 (HTML, Regland).
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| New and Updated Sections |
Calendar
(updated daily).
News
from Around the Web (updated daily).
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| Quote of the Day |
"Creating a successful market economy in ex-communist countries
is a daunting challenge. But it can be done. Just look at Estonia.
Ten years ago, it was part of the Soviet Union. Now, it has a
thriving Internet economy and is on the doorstep of the European
Union. Or take Slovenia, where a bigger share of the population have
access to the web than in France or Germany. ... A few thousand
protesters may demonstrate against the WTO, but 18 million people
have joined the WTO this year. Whatever our critics say about us,
whatever our flaws, these accessions underline that governments
believe that freer trade and the rule of law are good for their
citizens."
Mike Moore, Director General of the WTO, Nov. 6 speech
in Vienna.
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| News Briefs |
11/6. The Supreme Court
granted certiorari
in New
York Times v. Tasini, a case regarding whether
publication in electronic databases of works written by free lance
writers for periodicals constitutes copyright infringement.
The plaintiffs are free lance authors who whose articles were
previously published in periodicals. They claim copyright
infringement by defendants,
who are publishers and owners of electronic databases in which the
articles are also made available. The U.S. District Court (SDNY)
issued its Opinion
in 1997 holding that defendants are protected by the privilege
afforded the publishers of "collective works" under §201(c)
of the Copyright Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals
(2ndCir)
issued its Opinion
reversing the District Court on Sept. 24, 1999. The Supreme Court's
Order granting certiorari contained no comment. See, Order List
[PDF], Nov. 6, at page 2. See also, TLJ story.
11/6. The FCC's Wireless Telecom. Bureau issued a
Report
[PDF] to Congress on the status of competitive bidding for spectrum
between 746-764 MHz and 776-794 MHz. This spectrum offers potential
to deploy new methods of providing high speed Internet access, and
is suitable for new fixed wireless in underserved areas, as well as
next generation high speed mobile services. The FCC has bifurcated
the process into two separate auctions, one for licenses in a 30
megahertz spectrum block (747-762 MHz and 777-792 MHz) and another
for licenses in the Guard Bands, which consist of 6 megahertz of
spectrum (746-747 MHz, 776-777 MHz, 762-764 MHz, and 792-794 MHz).
See also, Nov.
2 release. The former, Auction No. 31, has been postponed until
March 6, 2001. The auction of Guard Band licenses, Auction No. 33,
closed on September 21, 2000. For background, see WTB summary of
Auction 31.
11/6. The BXA
published in the Federal Register a notice
of request for public comments regarding whether it should change
foreign policy based export controls in the Export Administration
Regulations (EARs). These regulations cover, among other things, high
performance computers (HPCs), encryption products, and
other software products. The deadline for comments is Nov. 30, 2000.
See, Federal Register, Nov. 6, 2000, Vol. 65, No. 215, pages 66514 -
66515.
11/6. The FCC requested
nominations to its Technological Advisory Council. The deadline is
Nov. 22, 2000. See, release.
11/6. The USPTO published two
minor technical corrections to its final rules regarding 18 month
publication of patent applications. See, rule
changes [PDF], at Federal Register, Nov. 6, Vol. 65, No. 215,
page 66502.
11/6. The USITC published an
article on e-commerce in the steel industry in the October
edition [1.3 MB in PDF] of its International Trade and
Technology Review, at pages 7-18. The study found that "Steelmakers
and steel buyers around the world have recently aligned themselves
with various Internet-based marketplaces ... to improve efficiencies
and decrease costs. Electronic commerce ... has led to many
strategic alliances and joint ventures among industry participants
as well as between steel-related and high-technology companies.
However, the amount of steel sold to date through E-commerce has
necessarily been limited because the technology to conduct
transactions online is still evolving."
11/6. The Rural Utilities Service
(RUS) announced deadlines for applying for grants and loans under
its Distance
Learning and Telemedicine Program. For FY 2001, $25 Million
in grants and $300 Million in loans will be made available for
distance learning and telemedicine projects serving rural America.
Grant applications must be postmarked no later than March 2, 2001.
Loan applications may be submitted at anytime up to Sept. 30, 2001,
and will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis. See, RUS
notice [PDF], Federal Register, Nov. 6, Vol. 65, No. 215, page
66503.
11/3. The U.S. Court of Appeals
(FedCir)
issued its opinion
[MS Word] in E-Data
v. Compuserve vacating and remanding the judgment of the
U.S. District Court (SDNY)
of non-infringement of U.S. Patent No. 4,528,643, also known as the
Freeny patent. The Freeny patent is directed to a system for
reproducing information in material objects at point of sale
locations. The defendants are computer software and publishing
companies and a retail bookstore. E-Data alleges that the software
and publishing companies infringed the Freeny patent by selling
software or documents over the Internet, and that the bookstore
infringed the Freeny patent by selling books that include a CD-ROM
containing encrypted computer applications, access to which is not
possible until the consumer retrieves a password.
11/3. The ICANN
released a statement
regarding RegLand.com's
filing of a complaint
in state
court in Texas against ICANN: "Regland's claims are
utterly baseless and ICANN regards the lawsuit as frivolous. ICANN
believes that it is entirely appropriate to alert the public that no
TLDs have been selected and that no company -- including Regland --
is yet authorized to be selling domain names in new TLDs. These
statements are entirely true and are designed to caution consumers
who may be mislead into believing that they have actually registered
a name in a TLD that does not yet exist." On Sept. 29 ICANN
released a statement
which included the following: "The Names Council feels it is
premature for companies to offer pre-registration services for
domain names in speculative new TLDs. To date, no new TLDs have been
selected and there is no guarantee that any particular organization
will be authorized to take registrations for any particular TLD."
Regland's three count complaint, which was filed by the law firm of Jackson Walker, alleges
defamation, business disparagement and tortious interference. See, Regland
release.
11/3. The ICANN
issued a statement
regarding the development of a standard specifying the requirements
for internationalized access to domain names. This standard
will extend the operation of the Internet's Domain Name System to
character sets other than ASCII such as Arabic, Chinese, Japanese,
Korean, Portuguese, the Scandanavian languages, and Spanish.
Editor's Note: This column includes all News Briefs added to
Tech Law Journal since the last Daily E-Mail Alert. The dates
indicate when the event occurred, not the date of posting to Tech
Law Journal. |
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