Centre for Internet & Society

Intellectual Property Rights — Open Access for Researchers

Intellectual Property Rights — Open Access for Researchers

In the year 2013, Nehaa Chaudhari had worked on a module on Intellectual Property Rights for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)'s Open Access Curriculum (Curriculum for Researchers) as part of a project for the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia. UNESCO published the module this year. Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga were among the Module preparation team. Nehaa Chaudhari was the writer for Units 1, 2 and 3: Understanding Intellectual Property Rights, Copyright and Alternative to a Strict Copyright Regime.

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Announcing the dates, theme and tentative tracks for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015

We are pleased to announce that the Global Congress will be held from 15th-17 December 2015. The theme of the 2015 Global Congress is Three Decades of Openness; Two Decades of TRIPS. The four tentative tracks include Openness, User Rights, Access to Medicines, and Intellectual Property and Development.

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TRAI-ing Times: The Story So Far

24th December, 2014 marked a pivotal moment in the Indian experience with network neutrality. On this date, one of India’s largest telecom players, Bharti Airtel, announced the introduction of a new ‘VoIP’ usage policy for its mobile users.

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Digital Activism in Asia Reader: Announcement

The CIS-RAW programme organized an editorial workshop on March 6-7, 2015, as part of its project on a Digital Activism in Asia Reader. The project is a collaborative effort of the Centre for Internet and Society and the Centre for Digital Cultures, Leuphana University, Germany, which aims to bring together local knowledge, debates and conversations around Digital Activism in Asia.

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DIDP Request #8: ICANN Organogram

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking details of its oragnisational structure and headcount of all staff. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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DIDP Request #7: Globalisation Advisory Groups

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking information regarding the creation and dissolution of the President's Globalisation Advisory Groups. The GAGs were created to advise the ICANN Board on its globalisation efforts, and to address questions on Affirmation of Commitments (AOC), policy structures, legal structure, root server system, the IANA multistakeholder accountability, and Internet governance. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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What Does Facebook's Transparency Report Tell Us About the Indian Government's Record on Free Expression & Privacy?

Given India's online population, the number of user data requests made by the Indian government aren't very high, but the number of content restriction requests are not only high on an absolute number, but even on a per-user basis.

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Compilation of Mobile Phone Patent Litigation Cases in India

This working paper is an attempt to chronicle information about big-ticket lawsuits pertaining to mobile technology patents filed in India. All information presented in this paper has been gathered from publicly available sources. Interns Nayana Dasgupta, Sampada Nayak and Suchisubhra Sarkar (in alphabetical order) provided invaluable research assistance. This paper was first published as a blog post on the CIS website on March 15, 2015. It was periodically updated till October 31, 2017 to reflect new developments in the different lawsuits at the Delhi High Court and the cases with the Competition Commission of India.

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DIDP Request #6: Revenues from gTLD auctions

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking information regarding revenues received from gTLD auctions. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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DIDP Request #5: The Ombudsman and ICANN's Misleading Response to Our Request

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking details of the complaints received and resolved, parties involved and the nature of complaints under the Ombudsman process. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below. ICANN's response is misleading in its insistence on confidentiality of all Ombudsman complaints and resolutions.

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DIDP Request #4: ICANN and the NETmundial Principles

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking details of ICANN's implementation of the NETmundial Principles that it has endorsed widely and publicly. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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DIDP Request #3: Cyber-attacks on ICANN

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking details of cyber-attacks on ICANN, and ICANN's internal and external responses to the same. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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DIDP Request #2: Granular Revenue/Income Statements from ICANN

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking current and historical details of ICANN's income/revenue from its various sources. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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DIDP Request #1: ICANN's Expenditures on "Travel & Meetings"

CIS sent ICANN a request under its Documentary Information Disclosure Policy, seeking details of expenditure by ICANN at its Meetings. CIS' request and ICANN's response are detailed below.

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Figures of Learning: The Pornographer

As part of its Making Methods for Digital Humanities project, CIS-RAW organized two consultations on new figures of learning in the digital context. For a proposed journal issue on the theme of 'bodies of knowledge' which draws upon these conversations, participants were invited to write short sketches on these figures of learning. This abstract by Namita Malhotra examines the figure of the pornographer, as a mixed media figure entrenched in various networks of knowledge production, circulation and consumption.

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The Centre for Internet and Society joins Worldwide Campaign to Discover Depth of GCHQ's Illegal Spying

The Centre for Internet and Society has joined an international campaign to allow anyone in the world to request whether Britain’s intelligence agency GCHQ has illegally spied on them.

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Hindi Wiki Community Baithak in Delhi

Hindi Wikimedians met in New Delhi during February 14 and 15. This was the first meeting of the Hindi community. Subhashish Panigrahi attended the meetup.

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Telugu Wikipedia Winter Camp at Andhra Loyola College

Telugu Wikipedia Winter Camp at Andhra Loyola College

Students of physics, statistics and Telugu departments of Andhra Loyola College spent 5 days of their Christmas vacation of 2014 to edit and enrich Telugu Wikipedia and Wikisource. They worked on their respective subject areas and came up with more than 100 new articles on Telugu Wikipedia and about 300 pages of Veeresalingam's works were typed on Telugu Wikisource.

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Right to Information (RTI) Requests to BSNL and MTNL Regarding Security Equipment

As part of research, on July 2, 2013, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) had sent Right to Information (RTI) requests to two of the largest internet service providers (ISPs) in India: Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) requesting answers to some questions.

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Reply to RTI Applications filed with respect to Foreign Contractors and Vendors of IT and Telecommunication Enterprises

An RTI application was filed by the Sh. Matthew Thomas on August 06, 2014 enquiring about the details of the foreign contractors and vendors of certain Information Technology and Telecommunication enterprises. Mr. Mathews in his application asked some specific questions.

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