Centre for Internet and Society

To embed a tweet or not?

praskrishna — 2016-09-23T01:08:13Z

Experts say it would amount to copyright infringement if the fair use clause is exploited.

The article by Vidhi Choudhary was published by Livemint on September 23, 2016. Vidhushi Marda was quoted.

On 20 September, a user on Twitter put out details of her intriguing conversation with the driver of a leading cab hailing service that she had used. Simply put, their conversation led to the revelation of a possible scam with a direct competitor of the said cab service.

The subject of the detailed chat easily had the makings of an investigative story and, therefore, a digital news website in India reproduced the string of tweets put out by the user in the form of a story on its platform.

This was done without her consent and hence the user asked the digital platform to take that story down.

In the light of this episode, let’s take a look at the laws governing such a situation. The question is, does the use of the tweet by the digital news website amount to copyright infringement or not? Or, whether Twitter is liable or not?

As it turns out, Twitter has a safety net within the terms of service that a user must agree to before they sign up onto the platform. A company spokesperson confirmed that Twitter was not liable if a user’s Tweet is used by someone else. “On the issue of consent, one (individual/organization) needs to take consent from the other user before using his\her tweets,” the spokesperson said.

Media lawyer Apar Gupta agreed and said that Twitter’s terms of service clearly state a clause in favour of the platform which means it is not legally liable in the above mentioned situation. “They have a worldwide, irrevocable license to publish content on their platform, which is also provided for third party affiliates,” said Gupta.

The next question is whether a user’s tweet published by someone else amounts to copyright infringement.

“The law that’s applicable in such a situation is the Copyright Act. For the purpose of reportage you can path your use within the fair dealing section (52) of the Copyright Act. Secondly, if the content used was a work of literary nature and creative, it would be up for copyright protection, just a mere Twitter rant or factual statements might not be that plausible,” said Anubha Sinha, program officer, at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Both Gupta and Sinha agreed that the ownership of the tweet rests with the user and only the user. “It would amount to copyright infringement if the fair use clause is exploited,” said Gupta.

To be sure, globally, too, media has been grappling with the issue. In a September 2013 article published on leading media platform, Poynter stated, “The legal rights to re-use content really only extend to Twitter, its official partners and anyone pulling tweet data through the Twitter API. So if you embed a tweet using the official Twitter-provided embed code, you should be fine. However, if you just copy and paste the text of a bunch of tweets, or download a Twitter photo and upload it to your own CMS, you may be on shakier ground. The “fair use” exceptions to copyright may still protect you depending on the circumstances, but you might have to prove it.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/livemint-september-23-2016-vidhi-choudhary-to-embed-a-tweet-or-not

Time Out Bengaluru - Software Patenting

pranesh — 2013-01-16T06:39:27Z

An article by Akhila Seetharaman published as a precursor to the national public meeting on software patents held on 4th in Bangalore.

Original article on Time Out Bengaluru website

In August this year, the US Patents and Trademarks Office granted Microsoft ownership of “page up” and “page down”. So in theory, no other company can scroll without permission and acknowledgement to Microsoft in monetary terms.

A number of seemingly ubiquitous software ideas have been patented: the use of tabs to shift from one hyperlink to another on a web page, the “Add to Shopping Cart” function that appears on every online store, automated online loan requests, and even reducing image size to make a webpage load faster.

“Most companies register defensive patents to protect themselves, not offensive ones,” said Sunil Abraham of Centre for Internet and Society. “Not many actively pursue patent infringement, but it is still very scary for a small-time entrepreneur.”

At a time when the Indian Patent Office is in the process of putting together a new Manual of Patent Practice and Procedure, the Centre for Internet and Society is holding a one-day consultation on the issue of software patenting in the city. Participants include the Delhi Science Forum, RedHat, IT for Change, Open Space, as well as the Alternative Law Forum.

From mobile phone technology to pacemakers in healthcare, everybody is dependent on software. “Each software patent is a 17-year monopoly on an idea,” said Anivar Aravind of the Free Software User Group Bangalore.

“If formulaic Hindi films were protected by patent laws, we would be able to make only one film,” joked Abraham. The system of software patenting wipes out smaller businesses and innovation, he said. “Software, like poetry and literary works, is already protected by copyright. After all, Bill Gates made his fortunes from copyright and not patents. But many software companies are trying to get additional protection.”

Copyright and patents are both part of intellectual property rights, but copyright restricts the expression of an idea while patents restrict the idea itself, according to Abraham. Under a patenting regime, even before a kid writes one line of code he has to read many patents.”

Kiran Patil of Turtle Linux Lab agreed. “If every little thing is patented, there’s nothing a developer can do.” He cited Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement and the GNU (a recursive acronym for GNU’s Not Unix) Project, who likened patents to explosive devices: “Software patents are the software project’s equivalent of land mines: each design-decision carries a risk of stepping on a patent, which can destroy your project.”

Worst of all, the world sees those with patents as the innovators, said Patil, which, according to him, is a big misconception.

While corporate giants like Microsoft and IBM fix exchange deals through cross-licensing, smaller companies get left out of the loop entirely. Despite not having many patents of their own, several Indian software companies support software patenting because they have huge contracts with the large software companies in the United States and Europe who do.

The Indian Patent Act of 1970 did not allow for software patents until 2002 when an amendment, which ironically excluded “computer programmes per se” from the scope of patenting, was introduced.

The amendment implied that while computer programmes themselves were not eligible for patents, programmes used in combination with hardware were. The Act was further amended through an ordinance in 2005 to narrow the scope of software excluded, but the ordinance was rejected by the Indian

Parliament and the Act effectively reverted to what it was after the 2002 amendment. “The law has left it somewhat ambiguous,” said Abraham. “Nobody is sure what can or cannot be patented. Many people are using the clause “computer programmes per se” to get pure software patents.”

This occurs either due to incompetence among patent officers or by accident, he said. “While many of the patent officers have expertise in the area of industrial inventions or medical inventions, very few know enough about software patents at the moment.”

-- Akhila Seetharaman

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/time-out-software-patenting

Thomas Abraham's Rebuttal on Parallel Importation

pranesh — 2011-08-04T04:47:12Z

We engaged in an e-mail conversation with Thomas Abraham, the managing director of Hachette India, on the issue of parallel importation of books into India. We thought it would be in the public interest to publish a substantive part of that conversation. In this post he points at great length how our arguments are faulty. While we still believe that he doesn't succeed, we hope this will clarify matters a bit.

Nature of disagreement

There is essentially fundamental disagreement on principle and definition-and I guess there will always be if you knock actual knowledge and see things as abstract philosophical (and legal) points. Why I think detailed knowledge is necessary is precisely illustrated at the logic (or lack thereof actually) employed by the Ministry. And then there is to me the fundamental problem of disregarding the author's wishes (for no greater good).

Second hand books and libraries

The comparison is not the same. Both (second-hand and libraries) have had a first sale where the copyright holder has got his/her basic right-the designated royalty. (I have explained earlier how export royalties and remainder royalties are much lower and results in losses to the author.) So here we come back to the basic philosophy-who has greater right on deciding on creative works? The creator or the government? A just answer would be the creator provided commercial dissemination fulfilled society's needs-which in India's case would be availability and right pricing keeping in mind socio-economic needs. Both are happening through local publishing and pricing of imports. But parallel imports would take away that right an author has of deriving a rightful income as per existing norms in all mature markets (including India so far). We are heading towards being a mature market and this has come about only because we are in the self-perpetuating framework of publishing, writing, and cultural development.

So the argument is that second hand books and libraries foster reading without depriving the author of rightful royalty or ruining the market.

Parallel importation does both. There is every reason to know that this will happen-that's exactly the substantiation we are offering. And the advocates of parallel importation have none to offer-pricing (where is it high, and by how much should it come down?), what is not freely available and at special prices? So for what reason do we want the existing law-also made by lawmakers-to change the stated remit of exhaustion from national to international.

No book publisher objects to libraries or even second hand books. But they are objecting to parallel importation. So leave it to them to decide. It is a tad patronizing to tell us what will help us, without having a shred of actual knowledge.

Helping libraries and disabled

This is completely false. No library needs to import from Amazon. And if it is a public library then they are wasting taxpayer money. Almost any book in the world they will still get at a special price through Indian publishers or distributors. There are societies for the disabled to whom publishers give rights at almost no cost. The UK has a law that a copy must be made available at near cost for disabled. By all means have such a law here. Why try and use parallel importation as an excuse for this?

Flexibility in the law

To your point: "Even if prices don't fall, it is good to have the flexibility for libraries to import four copies of a book that students need and isn't being made available in India. That flexibility is crucial, for availability, and just on principle, and not just for the sake of prices". By all means pass the law that gives the libraries the right to import 5 copies of any book they want. Publishers won't gripe at that. Libraries would still get it cheaper here than Amazon but that's the libraries' call.

Law should promote fairness and equity, not perpetuate a particular business model

No disagreement here. But the contention is that it will result in exactly the opposite. Sure, so let the lawmakers demonstrate they have done due diligence and outline evidence for their assumptions and how it will promote fairness and equity. What is unfair right now and what is not equitable? And how this law will address that. Why do other markets have it, and why should we not? On no count is there any detailing-just three false assumptions-availability, pricing and current editions.

Equally one can't have the law being made the proverbial ass because the lawmakers won't do their homework.

Export and remainder royalties are lower

I explained export vs domestic royalties in my first rebuttal. Not just remainders. Remainders are near zero royalties. Export surplus even pre-remainders are low royalty-against the author's wishes. And parallel importation will result in further loss of royalties from loss of sales of the hitherto legitimate edition.

Why anti-dumping laws will not be practical

Firstly there will be 40,000-plus titles to track, and the damage would have been done by the time you invoke the law. And assuming we want to invoke anti-dumping law, what parameters will be fixed? what discount are you going to fix? What quantity? I'll explain why this will never work. There are no real averages to draw lines and say this much and no more for either discount or price or quantity. To understand why we need to understand cost to price structures. Indian publishing (both publishing and imports) is low margin. Our books are priced to market; that means from cost our mark up is 2.5 times for imports and about 3-4 on average for local publishing-to enable the prices you see. Abroad it is 8-10 times from cost. To enable low pricing in India, we already have overseas terms that exceed 70% discounts, going into 'net pricing' for the ones that we pick to push big. Once the market is opened up, you will have two things-(a) targeted remainders as against the minor trickle now and (b) surplus clearance or even targeted sale to undercut the existing lawful edition. And I repeat the point that these remainders and 'targeted exports' can still end up undercutting the local edition. Not significantly enough to cause a change in pricing pattern (no benefit to consumer), but enough to undermine existing industry structures.

And yes, parallel importation (the current trickle) does see enforcement the logical way (by which I mean that the intensity of the problem merits the level of redressal). So far (believe me, each of us keeps tabs) we have 'unaware imports' and 'deliberate imports'. It is an irritant but is gradually reducing as the market matures. And the unaware ones are easily remedied by a simple letter asking for infringing stock to be withdrawn. In fact 8 out of 10 cases this simple letter works. For the deliberate ones, as I said earlier, it's just one or two where the impact is not worth the cost. Our margins do not allow us to hire expensive lawyers. But the moment it touches key brands or high revenue, legal action is taken.

Market expansion

Again the inherent assumption that this is some 'fat cat' lobbying protest. For once the lawmakers need to apply themselves-why is everybody from Penguin & Hachette (biggest) to Zubaan and Yatra (amongst smallest) all opposing it? Similarly from Crossword (large chain) to 'The Bookshop' in Jor Bagh (small independent), nobody wants this. Why? Surely that must speak for something? The only ones it will benefit are the remainder stalls you see (of which there must be about 25-30 all over the country). But over time every bookshop will be forced to keep this kind of stocking eroding current shelf space (they will have no choice). This is not market expansion.

Pricing drop

The other thing being ignored is that it's not just short term spoiler pricing. When one thinks in purely theoretical terms and says "open up, prices will drop", one is also not factoring in that the composition of what is stocked will changed. It's no longer status quo at reduced prices. That's the key to a mature market, that what the market needs is available-from bestsellers to literary works to philosophical works-balancing commercial and cultural needs and at prices the market can afford. So sure we can sit back and say we don't care if the history and philosophy shelves are eroded, if local publishing shrinks, let market forces prevail and let there be just foreign mass market novels and old editions (which will flow in by the thousand). But I'd like to hear the government say that.

Not just about copyrighted books but about all copyrighted materials

Yes, and we're not commenting about the others (other materials, i.e.) because we do not know enough. But we cannot have one size fits all if there are legitimate grounds to think about otherwise. Why is there a redressal of authors' needs in the music and film industry and a total disregard of books? Why were there panels created to discuss and thresh the whole thing through for films, and no detailed consultation at all for the books industry?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/parallel-importation-rebuttal

This Twitter Account Puts a Face to the Unsung Volunteer Editors Behind Wikipedia

subha — 2014-07-03T06:17:56Z

The life of a Wikipedia editor is an interesting one. Globally, about 100,000 editors edit the collaborative online encyclopedia's 30 million articles in 287 languages, including over 4.5 million in the English Wikipedia.

Click to read the post published on Global Voices here.

They dedicate a tremendous amount of their time to contribute and edit articles, but for no pay (editors work as volunteers) and for little public recognition – their work is credited via their usernames tucked away in the entry's edit history.

Now, one initiative is trying to shine the spotlight on these hard-working “Wikipedians.” WeAreWikipedia is an unofficial project that brings on a different editor each week to curate information regarding their favorite Wikipedia pages and tweet them using the handle @WeAreWikipedia. So far, 19 people representing 17 different language Wikipedias have curated the account.

WeAreWikipedia explains on its blog that it was inspired by a weekly rotation curation handle @WeAreBangalore created by social media strategists from the Indian city of Bangalore in October 2013 to create a space for Bangaloreans to tell their stories, give their opinions or simple connect with other active social media users in the area.

Admin: Most of u r not aware that, one of our previous curators @psubhashish was inspired by us and started global #RoCur @WeAreWikipedia :)
— Bangalore/Rajeev (@WeAreBangalore) June 17, 2014

@WeAreBangalore in turn took its cue from the highly successful @sweden, which turns over the Twitter handle to a different Swede every week as a sort of citizen ambassador program.

The WeAreWikipedia curators also tell personal stories and explain the technicalities of publishing and editing Wikipedia to any readers who ask.

Wherever I go, local Wikipedians are so welcoming and so open to collaboration. I have made friends all around the globe.
— WeAreWikipedia (@WeAreWikipedia) junio 17, 2014

Curators often focus tweets on their Wikipedia language community and country. Two women editors from India, Noopur Raval and Netha Hussain, dedicated many of their publications to facts about women’s rights, issues and development in India while curating the handle during Women’s History Month in March. They also drew attention to an edit-a-thon held in Bangalore that brought 90 women to write about 77 articles related to women in India.

Mariona Aragay, an editor for the Catalan Wikipedia, made a related call for more women editors while she was at the helm of @WeAreWikipedia:

As a wikipedian, it concernes me the low ratio of #woman editors: if you’re a wiki-girl, let us know your experience! #gendergap @wikiwomen

— WeAreWikipedia (@WeAreWikipedia) June 4, 2014

Curators also highlight community events, such as Odisha Dibasa 2014, a gathering at the end of March 2014 of the Odia-language Wikipedia community in the capital of the Indian state of Odisha, where the language is predominantly spoken.

Diptiman Panigrahi, an Odia editor who curated @WeAreWikipedia during the event, talked about his week in a blog post for The Centre for Internet and Society in India:

It was a wonderful experience curating WeAreWikipedia without even much time. Meeting the entire Wikimedia global community was even more fun when I was telling happenings of my own community. I hope to take part in more of such collaborative global issues like this.

You can follow WeAreWikipedia on Twitter, Facebook and on their blog.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-online-june-18-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-twitter-account-puts-a-face-to-unsung-volunteer-editors-behind-wikipedia

This Multilingual Edit-a-thon wants to Improve Indian Content on Wikipedia

subha — 2016-01-28T07:23:09Z

Ever wondered how many articles the Kannada Wikipedia or the Hindi Wikipedia have relating to India, its social history, literary and cultural heritage and the journey of over 1600 languages?

The article was published in DNA on January 26, 2016.

India has over 235 Geographical Indications (GI) spread over the length and breadth of the 29 states and 7 union territories. GI identifies goods or products as originating in a region or locality and indicates the unique characteristic or particular qualities it has as a result of being made in that area. Out of India's 235 GI, as identified by the Geographical Indications Registry of the Government of India, there exist only about 70 English Wikipedia entries. The state of many Indian language Wikipedias is even worse where a vast majority of the identified GIs and other important topics related to art, craft, cuisine, culture, attire and tradition are missing from Wikipedia. Even Karnataka, which has the maximum number of GIs at 30, has only a handful of articles and a few images on Wikipedia.

This Republic Day, 75 Wikipedia editors who are volunteers and represent 18 Indic languages are coming together online to show their patriotism in a unique way. It is not by hoisting the tri-colour and talking about India's glorious past, but by enhancing Wikipedia content related to the GIs of India in their own languages. Those who are multilingual are even going to create Wikipedia articles in two or three different languages. The multilingual edit-a-thon started on January 25 and will go on until January 31. The event is focused on improving existing Wikipedia content related to GIs of India, translating them into Indic languages and also creating new articles. Being an online event, it has also opened up the door to many contributors outside India. A few participants from Nepal and Bangladesh have signed up for the event.

So little of the great journey of our products with unique quality is available in the public domain. The saddest part is that there is literally a bottom level existence for content related to Indian GIs on Wikipedia, the world's largest online encyclopedia, which is often the first link a web search throws up. This sort of lack of access to knowledge related to India is not new. Even outside of Wikipedia, there is very less that exists about the many stories worth telling from our country. However, crying over the low access to knowledge would never solve the real problem.

This edit-a-thon is just a digital experiment but can be a great way of doing digital activism for the preservation of languages and taking the uniqueness of India to millions of people in their own languages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/this-multilingual-edit-a-thon-wants-to-improve-indian-content-on-wikipedia

This little innovation is bringing a revolution in the Odia language

subha — 2016-02-27T07:33:06Z

Depicting human language within computing environments has always been a challenge: a given language's script and alphabet needs to be mapped to a coding system that a computer can process digitally. This is done by way of an encoding system that basically maps each character to a unique numeric code.

The article was published by DNA on February 3, 2016.

This was a standard approach for dealing with languages in the computing context. However, over time, many such encoding systems mushroomed. In 2012, Odisha-based non-profit Srujanika, with help from colleagues, created two text encoding converters that could convert two different legacy non-Unicode based script encoding systems to the universally accepted Unicode. I personally tested and found a lot of typos. It seemed to me that one would take more time to convert and proofread than just typing the text.

Unicode is a computing industry standard that provides a unique number for every character of the alphabet irrespective of the platform, program or script. Before the onset of Unicode there existed several other standards—such as American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) and Indian Script Code for Information Interchange (ISCII)—that defined the manner in which letters of a particular language were depicted on a computer. The text encoding converters generally are used to convert them from one encoding systems to another.

However, as proprietary and legacy encoding systems were so popular among the desktop publishing (DTP) operators, most Indian language media houses remained tied to their existing encoding systems even after Unicode was introduced. This led to editors, journalists, writers and many native language users having to reliable and intuitive way to input in their own language. For example, Unicode Odia resulted in a huge gap of Odia-language content online with users that depended on earlier, disjointed standards.

The converters I explained before could solve this problem partially as they could convert only two encoding systems with about 80% linguistic accuracy. While seeking help to enhance and scale up these existing converters, three Wikimedian-developers came forward to work on the available converters and create more foolproof ones. We worked together for hours spanning over a few months to make the converters better. When I asked my writer and journalist friends to test it, the result literally thrilled me as they all had started writing in Odia on Facebook the very next day.

More blogs started coming in Odia and more social media interaction in Odia. Interestingly, popular newspaper Sarbasadharana.com and an online portal Odisha.com used it. Many even started contributing to blogs and online portals. It became much easier for Wikimedians to use existing resources from portals, newspapers and magazines to enrich Wikipedia. Some of the available soft copies of public domain books acquired and books that were relicensed to CC licenses could easily be used on Wikisource.

Though it is difficult to measure the exact percentage of growth for online Odia-language content on the Internet, a significant change is seen today as compared to the state of the Odia language on the internet six months ago. Almost all the federal entities that were stuck with two non-Unicode encoding systems finally moved to Unicode, with official portal odia.odisha.gov.in including adoption of Unicode in their core policy. As a gesture of support to the development, the federal department has included Odia Wikipedia on the top of their resources page.

Recently, Jnanaranjan Sahu, one of core contributors to the project combined all the converters into a standalone on-wiki converter that is available both on Wikipedia and Wikisource. Many of the larger Odia language community have contributed in finding errors which were fixed. Jyanaranjan has made available a free online responsive converter that not just works from a computer but also seamlessly work from any smartphone. The converter has indeed helped to widely use Odia on the Internet. The bigger dream of an Odia version of Google is closer to becoming real.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/dna-february-3-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-little-innovation-is-bringing-revolution-in-odia-language

Thematic Edit-a-thon at Yashawantrao Chavan Institute of Science, Satara

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-07-11T09:35:13Z

A Marathi Wikipedia edit-a-thon was held at Yashawantrao Chavan Institute of Science, Satara. The aim of the workshop was to edit and improve articles on Marathi Wikipedia under the theme "Environment and Local Biodiveristy". Participants were given an orientation on how to contribute to Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. The Yashawantrao Chavan Institute of Science is housed under the Rayat Shikshan Sanstha, a century-old organization with the largest network of schools and colleges across Maharashtra. The management and local environmental group, Drongo, took the initiative to organize this thematic workshop in Satara, an area rich in terms of biodiversity in the Western Ghats. Noted ecologist and scientist Prof. Madhavrao Gadgil addressed the workshop as a resource person along with Prof. V.Y. Deshpande of the Institute. A total of 23 members from various like-minded organizations participated in the workshop.

Image by सुबोध कुलकर्णी/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/thematic-edit-a-thon-at-yashawantrao-chavan-institute-of-science-satara

Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-06-07T08:59:43Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development in Pune recently.

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was conducted in conjunction with VIgyan Ashram, a social work organization on 9 May, 2017. This was held at the J.P. Naik Centre for Education and Development. Vigyan Ashram conducts courses on Introduction to Basic Technology (IBT) or Multi Skill Foundation Course in various schools for integrating socially useful productive work with school curriculum. The goal of Wikipedia edit-a-thon was to attempt to integrate these objectives with Wikipedia Education Program and develop long term strategies. It also aims to build resources in the field of appropriate rural technologies on Marathi Wikipedia and equip its participants with the skills necessary to contribute to Wikipedia.

A total of 23 IBT coordinators from 18 schools(of 9 districts) participated in the workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/thematic-edit-a-thon-at-j-p-naik-centre-for-education-development-pune

The World Blind Union document

praskrishna — 2012-03-30T07:25:27Z

WBU Version of the Working Document

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/wbu-document.pdf

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Injunctions

Lawrence Liang — 2012-06-15T13:56:16Z

The same ‘Ashok Kumar,' now restrained from infringing the copyright of the film, ‘3,' helped its signature song, ‘ Kolaveri,' go viral by downloading and copying it without any restraints, writes Lawrence Liang in this Op-ed published in the Hindu on May 23, 2012.

The internet has been abuzz with news of all major Internet Service Providers (ISP) in India blocking popular websites like Piratebay, Vimeo, Dailymotion and Pastebin pursuant to a Madras High Court order issued in response to a petition by the makers of the Tamil movie, 3. For those who don't know, this is the film which features the song, “Kolaveri,” whose viral journey around the world was celebrated by virtually everyone, including the film-makers.

There are a number of unanswered questions about the validity of this, including whether the Department of Telecom was entitled to ask for sites to be blocked on the basis of the order and how the ISPs chose these particular websites since the order itself does not mention any particular website. This is not to mention the larger question of how the last 10 years have seen the dubious rise of John Doe orders as a pre-emptive measure against copyright infringement.

For those unfamiliar with John Doe orders, they are ex parte injunctions ordered against unknown persons.

Just to put this in context, ex parte injunctions are not the easiest things to obtain since they are based on the denial of another person's right to be heard. So even for cases of violence against women, getting an ex parte restraining order is not easy. In contrast, in the last decade we have seen the ease with which one can obtain these orders for copyright infringement cases.

High Court order

A number of legal innovations in the realm of injunctions have been developed to tackle the problem of anonymity in this domain. The three specific tools that have been used include

Ex parte injunctions (injunctions that are granted even without hearing the other party).

John Doe Orders (issued against anonymous offenders; e.g. Mirabhai Films got a John Doe Order against all cable operators before the release of “Monsoon Wedding”).

Anton Piller Orders (Search and seizure orders) including breaking down doors of shops which are closed.

But for the moment I want to focus on the fascinating High Court order itself and its incarnation of an unknown Indian person, Ashok Kumar, as well as the spectral fear of the copy.

The order names 20 respondents. Of these, the first 15 include all the major ISPs (BSNL, MTNL, Airtel, Tata, Reliance, etc) and respondents Nos.16 to 20 are Ashok Kumar, unknown person.

I am not sure why there are four Ashok Kumars when one would have done the trick. Is it a bug in the matrix? Are Nos.17 to 20 merely the pirated versions of respondent no.16? Could it be a viral infection from within the film and its well known song, which also has a habit of repeating itself (“Why this kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri kolaveri di?”).

The order basically says that M/s Fifteen Majors ISPs and Mr. Ashok Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Ashok Kumar and Ashok Kumar should not infringe the copyright of the film “3.”

It is ordered that

the respondents/defendants herein, and other unknown persons by themselves, their partners/proprietor, heirs, representatives, successors in business, assigns, distributors, agents or anyone claiming through them be and are hereby restrained by order of interim injunction until further orders of this court from, in any manner infringing the applicants copyright in the cinematographic films/motion picture “3” by copying, recording, reproducing or allowing camcording or communication or allowing others to communicate to making available or distributing or duplicating or releasing or showing or uploading or downloading or exhibiting or playing in or in any manner communication in any manner without a proper license form the applicant or in any manner that would violate/infringe the applicants copyright in the said cinematograph film “3” through different mediums including CD, DVD, Blu-Ray disc, VCD, Cable TV, Direct to home services, internet services, multimedia messaging services, pen drives, hard drives, tapes, conditional access systems or in any other like manner whatsoever

So in addition to the unknown Ashok Kumar, we have the addition of other unknown persons (Kishore, Rajesh, Anup evam Indrajit?), their heirs, agents, representatives, etc of these unknown persons. This is followed by a list of prohibited acts (copying, uploading, downloading) through a set of prohibited objects (hard drives, pen drives, DVDs, etc).

This straightforward assault on the everyday passion that people invest in cinema and music is intriguing if not all that surprising in the history of copyright infringement.

Microsoft case

Companies have regularly benefited from the passionate investment of viewers, spectators and users in their goods before taking out their copyright sledge hammer to control the indisciplined passions of the same users and viewers. Consider for instance the fact that Microsoft did not enforce their copyright over illegal copies of their Operating System or products such as Microsoft Office for years (despite being one of the “best” software companies in the world). They only started enforcing their copyright when there was enough of a mass market that had been created and a lock-in secured for their goods. Learning a software includes a huge investment of time and effort on the part of users and, unlike toothpaste, cannot be changed overnight.

In the same way “kolaveri” became what it is because of M/s Ashok Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Ashok Kumar, Ashok Kumar and Ashok Kumar copying, communicating, uploading, downloading, modifying and distributing over the internet, through CDs, hard drives and pen drives, the song and all its hundred variations. This wasn't just a catchy song going viral but an attitude going global. Fan clubs in South India have been marked by the excess investment that they make in stars and in films, an excess that moves between the monetary economy of box office hits and profits on the one hand and the libidinal economy of love, passion and enthusiasm on the other.

For owners of copyright, an ideal world would be one where you could control one through the control of the other. So one benefits from all the passion of fans and enthusiasts even as one hopes that this will convert into mass hysteria at the box office. But there is that little thing about having one's cake and eating it too.

The copy which promised abundance but then threatens to eat into the film-makers profits seems to parallel the larger movement of the word copy, whose etymological roots in copia (“plenty”) moves in English from an original sense of “abundance” to the more recent sense of derivativeness. It passes, thereby, from a sense of plenty to a sense of scarcity.

Apart from the questionable logic of the film-makers turning fans and enthusiasts against their own film, what we probably need to do for the future is to think of how the investment of “excessive energy” allows us to make claims of ownership and limit the hackneyed argument of a film being the private property of the film-maker. This is a domain which necessarily takes us away from the usual focus either on the language of rights or even the language of openness and what we need is a Political language of Passion and Enthusiasm which can supplement the existing languages of denial and access. The excessive response of the film-makers in securing this order and in the blocking of the websites is plainly disrespectful of the excess that they thrived on just a few months ago.

The absolute ignorance and arrogance of the film-makers in trying to secure a ban on these websites shows their blindness to the way that the internet works. Imagine a Facebook without faces, a YouTube without uploaders, and Twitter without tweeters. It is said that Kafka came across a reference to a cinema for the blind in Prague, and he was intrigued by it and came to believe that all cinemas should be called The Cinema of the Blind, because their flickering images blind people to reality. What we have with the Ashok Kumar order is perhaps the inauguration of the cinema of visionless film-makers because their flickering profits blind them to reality.

(Lawrence Liang is a lawyer and researcher based at Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore. He can be contacted at lawrence@altlawforum.org)

Click to read the original in the Hindu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/work-of-art-in-age-of-mechanical-injunctions

The US 301 Report – A Myopic View of IP Rights

nehaa — 2015-06-24T15:35:29Z

Varun Baliga and Nehaa Chaudhari discuss the 2015 US 301 Report, focussing on its narrow and convenient understanding of IP rights. A farrago of contradictions, it supports a rightsholder-centric view but not when the right, Geographical Indicator, is not to their liking. Similarly, the emphasis on the rights themselves gives short shrift to critical exceptions and limitations that also enhance and incentivize innovation, the ostensible purpose of IP.

The US Trade Representative ["USTR"] is the office in charge of the United States Special 301 Report ["301 Report"] - an annual report on the state of intellectual property rights in countries around the world. The Executive Summary of the 2015 Report states that it is conducted "pursuant to Section 182 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended by the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 and the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (19 U.S.C. § 2242)". [1] The relevant excerpt of the provision states:

" The Trade Representative shall, by not later than the date by which countries are identified under subsection (a) of this section, transmit to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate, a report on actions taken under this section during the 12 months preceding such report, and the reasons for such actions, including a description of progress made in achieving improved intellectual property protection and market access for persons relying on intellectual property rights ."

The 2015 301 Report, much like its predecessors, prioritizes the existence of institutional mechanisms for the protection of intellectual property rights over the purported end goals of those rights, as argued by Shamnad Basheer.[2] The purported link between intellectual property and innovation, a key element of the CIS comment on the National IPR Policy , is not studied by the Report but simply assumed as a truism. In the usual criticism of India's laws, the Report notes that "IPR protection and enforcement challenges continue, and there are serious questions regarding the future of the innovative climate in India", operating on the assumption that IPR is the sole driving force of innovation. Instead, the Report is guided by the 'business climate' in a country as facilitated by its IP laws. To borrow from the EFF's incisive critique of this annual exercise, the 301 Report pressurizes India to criminalize the act of camcording in a cinema hall despite domestic copyright law that prohibits it subject to statutory exceptions.[3] Further, the Report finds India's compliance with the Berne Convention to be insufficient since 'business climate' favours as comprehensive an intellectual property regime as possible directed at the expansion of rights and the narrowing of exceptions critical to education and openness of knowledge.

International law on intellectual property is interpreted instrumentally by the drafters of the report. What this means is that IP is being viewed solely through the prism of national interest. A particularly egregious implication is being witnessed in the shift of preferred fora to discuss IP from bodies like the WIPO to trade-oriented platforms, a theme that is discussed later on in this piece. Further, Italy's notice and takedown regime is praised in the 2015 Report notwithstanding its procedure of obtaining an order of removal not from the courts but the Communications Regulatory Authority, against the Manila Principles of Intermediary Liability, an important albeit non-binding piece of state practice.[4]

Furthermore, the emphasis on the interests of rightsholders themselves coupled with enforcement seldom happens in a comparative context, in the Report. This means that the Report privileges the interests of rightsholders to the exclusion of any interest that the exceptions to copyright, for fair use and education for instance, may hold. The 2015 Report, for instance, notes positive developments in IP law as exclusively including the strengthening of the regulatory framework weighted in favour of rights. It fails to note the ratification of the Accessible Books Consortium or the Report of the UN Special Rapporteur Farida Shaheed on copyright policy,[5] implicitly signalling that the US does not consider these developments favourable. This is problematic at two level.

First, competing interests of free speech, open access to knowledge, education, public health are either downplayed or outright ignored. For example, the Report entirely ignores the work of WIPO on exceptions and limitations, and the Marrakesh Treat among the multilateral and plurilateral initiatives of note. Switzerland, for instance, is censured for the 2010 Swiss Federal Court decision that erred on the side of privacy by prohibiting Logistep from tracking IP addresses of entities accused of file-sharing.[6] Even in the emphasis on rightsholders, the 301 Report reeks of hypocrisy and doublespeak. Gabriel J. Michael notes that the 301 Report criticized the European Union for having too much protection of IP through geographical indicators (GI). So, IP protection appears to be an unreserved good as long as it's the right kind of IP as determined by the United States.

" For example, by any reasonably objective standard, the European Union offers very high levels of IP protection. Yet as recently as 2006, Special 301 listed the European Union on its watch list, citing "concerns" about the EU's geographical indication (GI) regime. Given that GIs are a form of intellectual property, USTR essentially placed the EU on its watch list for offering too much IP-or, if you prefer, the wrong kind of IP. Interestingly, this is a tacit admission by the U.S. that at least some kinds of IP can act as trade barriers ."[7]

Second, the 301 Report operates on the assumption that intellectual property is a right in rem. It does not even attempt to engage with the notion of IP as a public right. This is a direct implication of the methodology of the Report that privileges the simple existence of IP frameworks and enforcement mechanisms over a more substantive examination of the causal nexus between IP and its purported raison d'etre. Therefore, the interpretive approach of the 301 Report towards intellectual property law construes it not as a means to ends but as an end in itself.

What Does This Mean?

Finally, there are two implications of this approach to IP rights. The first is on the Report's words on India this year. Credit is given to India for establishing the High Level Working Group on Intellectual Property ["IPR Working Group"]. The purpose of the Working Group is said to be to "enable India to achieve its important domestic policy goals of increasing investment and stimulating innovation through, not at the expense of, IPR protection and enforcement". The façade of public interest behind which the 301 Report attempted to operate is finally off, one might say. IP exists, it seems, to facilitate not broader goals of public interest but investment and innovation within the myopic interests of 'rightsholders'. Paradoxically, however, the Report does call for more consultation on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy - a noteworthy development, although inconsistent with the tenor of the rest of the Report. Second, the 301 Report as a reflection of American foreign policy goals is now being understood through the lens of ongoing trade negotiations. This steady shift in the preferable forum for IP negotiations from inclusive and democratic platforms, such as WIPO, towards restrictive and secretive ones, such as the WTO, is driven by regressive notions of IP as reflected in the 301 Report. Signalling a move towards a state-centric approach heralded by the United States, critical non-state actors from civil society find it increasingly difficult to exercise agency in these negotiations. While WIPO provides space for non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations to represent their positions and aid states with research, trade negotiations shunt civil society. The cloak and daggers approach of the United States Government towards the Trans-Pacific Partnership Treaty,[8] brought to some light with recent votes in the US Congress, negotiations contrasted with the democratic and open nature of the negotiations surrounding the Marrakech treaty underscores the important difference in approach.[9]

As a result, the civil society finds itself unable to counterbalance the power hierarchies entrenched in international relations as it has done, for example, with the attempted imposition of TRIPS-plus standards through bilateral and multilateral agreements. A state-centric approach makes it easier for larger economies to coerce smaller and dependent countries to draft laws with little regard for limitations and flexibilities that are key for innovation and standard of life in large swathes of Global South - peoples who cannot afford the costs of IP protected-innovation. Further, issues of IP and trade are not pertinent solely to states but are increasingly driven by and relevant to a raft of non-state actors. Any policy that does not actively seek to include these stakeholders in the decision making process is destined to fail. Therefore, on both principled and consequentialist grounds, the Special 301 Report deserves very little attention from the international community.

[1] Full text of the provision available at https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/2242.

[2] http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/these-rancid-rankings/99/

[3] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/special-301-balance-not-found

[4] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/04/special-301-balance-not-found ; https://www.manilaprinciples.org/

[5] http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/28/57 .

[6] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/09/switzerland-gathering-ip-addresses-from-bittorrent-sites-illegal/

[7] https://topromotetheprogress.wordpress.com/2014/06/05/special-301-is-it-effective/ ;

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140612/17435227561/ustrs-special-301-list-naughty-countries-without-strong-enough-patent-copyright-laws-is-complete-joke.shtml

[8] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/05/tpp-elizabeth-warren-labor-118068.html#.VWvcMk-qqko ; http://www.ip-watch.org/2015/04/23/divide-and-conquer-the-new-us-strategy-to-disentangle-the-tpp-negotiations/

[9] http://www.ip-watch.org/2013/12/19/wipo-delegates-hear-concerns-of-ngos-on-exceptions-for-libraries/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/us-301-report-a-myopic-view-of-ip-rights

The STI Policy Proposes a Transformative Open Access Approach for India

sinha — 2021-04-28T17:22:43Z

Anubha Sinha explains what the draft national Science, Technology and Innovation policy means for open access to scientific literature for Indians. This article was first published in The Wire Science on January 21, 2021.

Indians may soon be able to read scientific papers for free.

Reading scientific papers is currently an expensive affair. Many scientific journals charge a couple of hundred dollars for a single article. Under a proposed ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ plan of India’s fifth (draft) Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy, the government will negotiate with journal publishers to enable access for everyone. The policy also suggests that research produced in Indian publicly funded institutions be made freely accessible to everyone, at the time of publication.

These proposals are a big shift in how we learn and do science, as a country. The previous edition of the policy (2013) did not even recognise affordability or availability of scientific literature as problems. While ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ could alleviate this issue partly, its success will depend largely on how negotiations with publishers materialise. The approach is uncommon: it has been tried in two countries, with limited success, as I discussed here, in an analysis of the idea’s feasibility.

While it is crucial for people to be able to access locked-in research, it is equally important to address the practices that prevent research from being openly accessible in the first place.

The STI policy prescribes a green open access (OA) approach to ensure that research output and data produced with public funds are immediately accessible to the people – as opposed to taxpayers funding the research and paying again to access the results. Under green OA, researchers will be obligated to place their publications and data in online repositories, without any restrictions on how the output may be used.

Individual research and funding agencies, such as the Departments of Science & Technology and of Biotechnology, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research and the Wellcome Trust adopted green OA a while ago. A national STI policy stands to provide an extra impetus to adopt and enforce it.

These promising shifts come at a time when the biggest research publishers have launched a copyright infringement lawsuit in India to block Sci-Hub and LibGen on the Indian web. Sci-Hub and LibGen host copyrighted and paywalled research articles and ebooks. Anyone can download this material for free from their servers. As such, these ‘shadow libraries’ serve a vital function for everyone, and the Delhi high court has already deemed this litigation to be one of public importance. The Indian scientific research community will be intervening as well. While the case will proceed at its own pace, it would definitely be in the public interest for the STI policy to implement green OA as a mandatory requirement.

It is also notable that the policymaking process was a collaborative effort by academics, scientists and policymakers. There were multiple thematic consultative rounds with stakeholders. It has been heartening to see the results of a democratic consultation reflected in our national open access approach.

However, as is the case with high-level policies, bringing meaningful implementation often requires more operational and committed work at all levels. It would be a shame to not capitalise on the direction and vision of OA as described in the policy.

Access this article on The Wire Science here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T08:12:50Z

Wikimedia India, the Centre for Internet and Society, and Acharya Narendra Dev College invite you to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India in New Delhi on November 12, 2013 with the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr. Shashi Tharoor as the Chief Guest.

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States, devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

In simple words, Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.

Some more facts about Internet licenses

Ever wondered what "Some Rights Reserved" means?

Copyright grants to creators a bundle of exclusive rights over their creative works, which generally include the right to reproduce, distribute, display, make adaptations, perform, sell and so on. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” is often used by owners to indicate that they reserve all of the rights granted to them under the law. When copyright expires, the work enters the public domain, and the rightsholder can no longer stop others from engaging in those activities under copyright, with the exception of moral rights reserved to creators in some jurisdictions. Creative Commons licenses offer creators a spectrum of choices between retaining all rights and relinquishing all rights (public domain), an approach we call "Some Rights Reserved."

Is Creative Commons against copyright?

Absolutely not. CC has responded to claims to the contrary. CC licenses are copyright licenses, and depend on the existence of copyright to work. CC licenses are legal tools that creators and other rightsholders can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Those who want to make their work available to the public for limited kinds of uses while preserving their copyright may want to consider using CC licenses. Others who want to reserve all of their rights under copyright law should not use CC licenses.

Relaunch

Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal, Acharya Narendra Dev College will be the Master of Ceremony and the Moderator for the sessions:

Time	Detail
16.00 16.30	Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Government of India: Initiatives of MHRD around Openly Licensed Content
16.30 16.45	Question and Answer Session
16.45 17.00	Sam Pitroda (TBC), Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations: Creative Commons and Open Government Data
17.00 17.05	Question and Answer Session
17.05 17.25	Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Pratham Books: Creative Commons and Pratham Books Case Study (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.25 17.40	Moksh Juneja, President, Executive Committee, Wikimedia India Chapter: Creative Commons and Wikipedia (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.40 18.00	Lawrence Liang, Co-founder of Alternative Law Forum: Creative Commons and Open Access to Scholarly Journals (Including Question and Answer Session)
18.00	Tea

VIDEO

Registration

Please register here to attend the event: http://ccindia.doattend.com/ Registration is free.
Please carry a soft or hard copy of the confirmation email to the venue.
Seating will be on first come first served basis.

Invite to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India

Link to the meta page on Wiki: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Events/Creative_Commons_India_launch

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/relaunch-of-creative-commons-india

The Procedure of CCI in cases of Anti-Competitive Agreements and Abuse of Dominant Position: A Flow-Chart

Sarthak Sood — 2015-11-24T13:59:11Z

The Competition Act, 2002 defines and prohibits two things- Anti-Competitive Agreements, and Abuse of Dominant Position. The cases under the Competition Act are adjudicated upon by a special tribunal called the Competition Commission of India. As with any judicial or quasi-judicial authority, the Commission is bound by certain procedures to give effect to its duties. The following flow-chart, then, explains such procedures as followed by the CCI in adjudicating upon matters concerning anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominant position.

Nehaa Chaudhari provided feedback, inputs and edits to this post.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-procedure-of-cci-in-cases-of-anti-competitive-agreements-and-abuse-of-dominant-position-a-flow-chart

The perils of not protecting intellectual property for new ventures

praskrishna — 2015-03-20T13:55:55Z

Soothe Healthcare's big dilemma ahead of the launch of its affordable sanitary napkin was whether or not to patent the technology and design.

The article by Evelyn Fok and Shonali Advani was published in the Economic Times on March 20, 2015. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

"At this point, it's not worth the risk-reward," said Sahil Dharia, managing director of the two-year-old startup. "It's an acceptable loss." The startup world has two kinds of entrepreneurs: those who patent their ideas, and those who don't.

Dharia falls in the latter category, and with good reason. He would rather Soothe use its capital to build the brand, Paree, than to fight lawsuits over infringements. In the first group are a small number of hardware product startups following strong intellectual property traditions established abroad, both for legal protection and to be taken seriously by investors.

As a long-term business strategy, protecting a company's intellectual assets has its advantages. For instance, a patent would allow a startup to expand to new geographies quicker by entering into licensing agreements with other firms. But given that acquiring and protecting an intellectual property right is tedious and expensive, it is not an easy decision for startups.

"There is definitely a risk when these businesses accumulate market or technology, when they have huge revenues and are sitting on cash reserves. Competition will use every possible lever against them," said Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru-based research organization Centre for Internet and Society.

As a startup matures in terms of size and scale, the importance of intellectual property becomes evident, particularly when raising funds. "Having an IP portfolio is valuable if the company is being acquired by a larger company that can leverage and protect the IP," said Sandeep Singhal, co-founder and managing director of Nexus Venture Partners. Nexus has backed product startups such as solar firm d.light and enterprise solutions company Druva, which has registered patents abroad. "While valuation is not determined by IP, we look at a business plan that has proven differentiated IP than without," Singhal said.

"It is like a double-edged sword. Patenting is very expensive, but if somebody else is doing something similar and they patent it, you could be out of business," said Abhishek Latthe, founder of two-year-old Internet of Things company SenseGiz, which filed for two patents last year on product and algorithmic design. The company has sold 20,000 units of its first product, a bluetooth tracking tag, and is in talks to raise capital.

Patent litigation in India is still at a nascent stage, bogged by inefficient and inconsistent courts. "A lot of out-of-court settlements happen, and the compensation that courts are awarding for IPR infringements are still not very high - Rs15 lakh is one of the highest I've seen," said Abhishek Pandurangi, partner at Mumbai-based law firm Khurana & Khurana, which advises startups on IPR.

Taking the longer view, Indian startups -especially those focusing on the US market that is awash with non-practicing entities or so-called "patent trolls" - have taken steps to license their intellectual property, often in focus markets with strong IP regimes such as the United States, Singapore and Europe. Software startups, the bulk of India's startup ecosystem, are divided on the issue. Given the rapid innovation cycle that renders most new technology irrelevant in six months, any effort channeled into protecting intellectual property seems futile.

Besides, many budding startups cannot afford to file a patent. Taking into account attorney and agent costs, registering a patent could cost up to Rs 5 lakh in India and Rs 10 lakh in the United States. The effort can take up to 9 years, or, given that patent decisions highly depend on local policy, "go down the drain," as one IP researcher put it. According to the Indian Patents Act, 1970, mathematical methods, computer programmes and algorithms fall under the category of "Inventions not Patentable," meaning that software innovations cannot be patented in India.

For many entrepreneurs in India, intellectual property is not core to their company's value or business model. They prefer instead to focus on priorities that pay off in the short term - acquiring customers, developing products and raising funds. "There is no reason to patent sometimes," said Jayesh Badani, founder and chief executive of innovator marketplace Ideaken.

The Centre for Internet and Society found that of 93 mobile app developers in India who were surveyed for a study last year, only 20% had acquired patents to protect their products, and 26% were concerned about their work being infringed. Patent grants to Indian applicants grew 45% between 2002 and 2013, compared with 300% for foreign inventions, show data available from the Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trademarks.

Consider the case of Jaydeep Mandal, a 29-year-old inventor who won a national invention award while an engineering student in Calcutta, which paid for him to patent his technology. Today, he is a managing director at four-year-old Aakar Innovations, which spent a year-and-half developing a machine that produces compostable menstrual hygiene products. The company has filed patents in India, Bangladesh and Cambodia.

"I learnt the importance of IPR from day one so I'm concerned, but many entrepreneurs would not know how important it is. That's how many individual innovators lose out," Mandal said. Dharia of Soothe Healthcare has a different take on this. "If I had lots of money I would patent," he said. "But I believe in free markets - people will copy design and that is how the market raises its standards, and it forces me to innovate again."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/economic-times-evelyn-fok-shonali-advani-march-20-2015-the-perils-of-not-protecting-intellectual-property-for-new-ventures