Centre for Internet and Society

Privacy IT Act

praskrishna — 2011-08-21T13:43:02Z

pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/privacy-it-act.pdf

Privacy and IT Act (ODT)

praskrishna — 2011-08-21T13:52:15Z

open office

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/privacy-it-act.odt

Privacy Act and IT

praskrishna — 2011-08-21T16:19:51Z

word file

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/publications/privacy-it-act.docx

A Guide to the Proposed India-European Union FTA

glover — 2011-08-22T13:22:50Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/CIS%20Open%20Data%20Case%20Studies%20Proposal.pdf

Indian Newspapers' Digital Transition

zeenab — 2016-12-09T07:12:53Z

This report examines the digital transition underway at three leading newspapers in India, the Dainik Jagran in Hindi, English-language Hindustan Times, and Malayala Manorama in Malayalam. Our focus is on how they are changing their newsroom organisation and journalistic work to expand their digital presence and adapt to a changing media environment. The report comes out of a collaboration between the CIS and the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, and was supported by the latter. The research was undertaken by Zeenab Aneez, with contributions from Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Vibodh Parthasarathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Download: PDF.

Cross-posted from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (December 08, 2016).

Executive Summary

This report examines the digital transition underway at three leading newspapers in India, the Dainik Jagran in Hindi, English-language Hindustan Times, and Malayala Manorama in Malayalam. Our focus is on how they are changing their newsroom organisation and journalistic work to expand their digital presence and adapt to a changing media environment.

The background for the report is the rapid and continued growth in digital media use in India. Especially since 2010, internet use has grown at an explosive pace, driven by the spread of mobile web access, also outside large urban areas and the more affluent and highly educated English-language minority that have historically represented a large part of India’s internet users. Some analysts estimate more than 30% of Indians had some form of internet access by the end of 2015 (IAMAI-IMRB, 2015). With this growth has come a perceptible shift of audience attention and advertising investment away from legacy media like print and television and towards digital media. This shift has been accompanied by the launch of a number of new digital media start-ups in India and, especially, the growing role of large international technology companies investing in the Indian market.

These developments present Indian newspapers with new challenges and opportunities. Print circulation and advertising is still growing in India, but more slowly than in the past, and especially the English-language market seems saturated and ripe for the shift towards digital media that has happened elsewhere. From 2014 to 2015, the Indian advertising market grew by 13%. Print grew 8%, but English-language newspaper advertising only half of that. Digital advertising, in contrast, grew by 38%, and is projected to continue to grow for years to come as digital media become more central to India’s overall media environment (KPMG-FICCI, 2016).

If they want to secure their long-term future and continued editorial and commercial success, Indian newspapers have to adapt to these changes. The three case studies in this report represent three different examples of how major newspapers are navigating this transition.

Based on over 30 interviews conducted with senior management, editors, and rank-and-file reporters from three major newspapers, as well as other senior journalists and researchers who have wider experience in the Indian news industry, plus secondary sources including industry reports and academic research, we show the following.

All three newspapers are proactively investing in digital media technology and expertise, and adapting their editorial priorities, parts of their daily workflow, distribution strategies, and business model to the rise of digital media. Tools like Chartbeat are now commonplace; search engine optimisation, social media optimisation, and audience analytics are part of everyday work; and some are experimenting with new formats (Hindustan Times was a launch partner for Facebook Instant Articles; Manorama Online has produced both Virtual Reality and 360 videos, an Apple watch app, and is on Amazon Echo).
Given that the print newspaper industry is still growing in India, especially in Indian-language markets, these newspapers are innovating from a position of relative strength in comparison to their North American and European counterparts. However, this is done with the awareness that that print is becoming a relatively less important part of the Indian media environment, and digital media more important. Short-term, reach and profits come from print, but longer term, all have to build a strong digital presence to succeed editorially and commercially.
All three newspapers aim to do this by building on the assets they have as legacy media organisations, and trying to leverage their brand reputation, audience reach, and editorial resources to maintain an edge over digital news start-ups and international news providers. Their legacy, however, offers not only assets, but also liabilities. As successful incumbents, all of them struggle with the inertia that comes from established organisational structures and professional cultures. To change their organisation and culture, and thus more effectively combine new technologies and skills with existing core competences, each newspaper is not only investing in digital media and personnel, but also trying to change at least parts of the existing newspaper to adapt to an increasingly digital media environment.
They do this in different ways. At Dainik Jagran and Malayala Manorama, the focus has been on building up separate digital operations at Jagran.com and Manorama Online, apart from the printed newspaper itself. At the Hindustan Times, in contrast, the aim has been to integrate print and digital in a joint operation working across platforms and channels. Dainik Jagran and Malayala Manoroma have thus focused mostly on building up new digital assets, whereas the Hindustan Times has been transforming existing assets to work across platforms. At Dainik Jagran and Malayala Manorama, much of the push for change has come from management, whereas there has been a stronger editorial involvement at the Hindustan Times, and a greater attempt to engage rank-and-file reporters through training sessions and other initiative designed to demonstrate not only the commercial importance, but also the editorial potential, of digital media.
All three newspapers have found that expanding their digital operations requires investment of money in new technologies and in staff with new skills. But it is also clear that this is not enough. Investment in technology has to be accompanied by a change in organisation and culture to effectively leverage existing assets in a digital media environment. In their attempts to do this, the most significant barriers have been a perceived cultural hierarchy, deeply ingrained especially in the newsroom, that print journalism is somehow inherently superior to digital journalism, and a lack of effective synergy between editorial leaders and managers, often combined with a lack of technical know-how. Money can buy new tools and bring in new expertise, but it cannot on its own change culture, ensure synergy, or align the organisation with new priorities. This requires leadership and broad-based change. Long-term, senior editors, management, and rank-and-file reporters will have to work and change together to secure Indian newspapers’ role in an increasingly digital media environment.

Digital media thus present Indian newspapers with challenges and opportunities similar to those newspapers have faced elsewhere. Only they face these from a position of greater strength, because of the continued growth in their print business, and with the benefit of having seen how things have developed in more technologically developed markets. We hope this report will help them navigate the digital transition ahead.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/indian-newspapers-digital-transition

Can data ever know who we really are?

sumandro — 2019-12-06T05:02:53Z

This is an excerpt from an essay by Zara Rahman, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Please read the full essay on Deep Dives: Can data ever know who we really are?

Zara Rahman: The Engine Room, Website, and Twitter

If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.
– Audre Lorde

The proliferation of digital data and the technologies that allow us to gather that data can be used in another way too — to allow us to define for ourselves who we are, and what we are.

Amidst a growing political climate of fear, mistrust and competition for resources, activists and advocates working in areas that are stigmatised within their societies often need data to ‘prove’ that what they are working on matters. One way of doing this is by gathering data through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourced data isn’t ‘representative’, as statisticians say, but gathering data through unofficial means can be a valuable asset for advocates. For example, data collating the experiences of women who have reported incidents of sexual violence to the police in India, can then be used to advocate for better police responses, and to inform women of their rights. Deservedly or not, quantifiable data takes precedence over personal histories and lived experience in getting the much-desired currency of attention.

And used right, quantifiable data — whether it’s crowdsourced or not — can also be a powerful tool for advocates. Now, we can use quantifiable data to prove beyond a question of a doubt that disabled people, queer people, people from lower castes, face intersecting discrimination, prejudice, and systemic injustices in their lives. It’s an unnecessary repetition in a way, because anybody from those communities could have told reams upon reams of stories about discrimination — all without any need for counting.

Regardless, to play within this increasingly digitised system, we need to repeat what we’ve been saying in a new, digitally-legible way. And to do that, we need to collect data from people who have often only ever been de-humanised as data subjects.

Artist and educator Mimi Onuoha writes about the challenges that arise while collecting such data, from acknowledging the humans behind that collection to understanding that missing data points might tell just as much of a story as the data that has been collected. She outlines how digital data means that we have to (intentionally or not) make certain choices about what we value. And the collection of this data means making human choices solid, and often (though not always) making these choices illegible to others.

We speak of black boxes when it comes to the mystery choices that algorithms make, but the same could be said of the many human decisions that are made in categorising data too, whether that be choosing to limit the gender drop-down field to just ‘male/female’ as with Fitbits, or a variety of apps incorrectly assuming that all people who menstruate also want to know about their ‘fertile window’. In large systems with many humans and machines at work, we have no way of interrogating why a category was merged or not, of understanding why certain anomalies were ignored rather than incorporated, or of questioning why certain assumptions were made.

The only thing we can do is to acknowledge these limitations, and try to use those very systems to our advantage, building our own alternatives or workarounds, collecting our own data, and using the data that is out there to tell the stories that matter to us.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/zara-rahman-can-data-ever-know-who-we-really-are

Exploring Big Data for Development: An Electricity Sector Case Study from India

sumandro — 2019-03-16T04:33:15Z

This working paper by Ritam Sengupta, Dr. Richard Heeks, Sumandro Chattapadhyay, and Dr. Christopher Foster draws from the field study undertaken by Ritam Sengupta, and is published by the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester. The field study was commissioned by the CIS, with support from the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield.

Download the working paper: PDF

Abstract

This paper presents exploratory research into “data-intensive development” that seeks to inductively identify issues and conceptual frameworks of relevance to big data in developing countries. It presents a case study of big data innovations in “Stelcorp”; a state electricity corporation in India. In an attempt to address losses in electricity distribution, Stelcorp has introduced new digital meters throughout the distribution network to capture big data, and organisation-wide information systems that store and process and disseminate big data.

Emergent issues are identified across three domains: implementation, value and outcome. Implementation of big data has worked relatively well but technical and human challenges remain. The advent of big data has enabled some – albeit constrained – value addition in all areas of organisational operation: customer billing, fault and loss detection, performance measurement, and planning. Yet US$ tens of millions of investment in big data has brought no aggregate improvement in distribution losses or revenue collection. This can be explained by the wider outcome, with big data faltering in the face of external politics; in this case the electoral politics of electrification. Alongside this reproduction of power, the paper also reflects on the way in which big data has enabled shifts in the locus of power: from public to private sector; from labour to management; and from lower to higher levels of management.

A number of conceptual frameworks emerge as having analytical power in studying big data and global development. The information value chain model helps track both implementation and value-creation of big data projects. The design-reality gap model can be used to analyse the nature and extent of barriers facing big data projects in developing countries. And models of power – resource dependency, epistemic models, and wider frameworks – are all shown as helping understand the politics of big data.

Cross-posted from University of Manchester.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/exploring-big-data-for-development-an-electricity-sector-case-study-from-india

Data Lives of Humanities Text

sneha-pp — 2020-12-23T13:07:43Z

The ‘computational turn’ in the humanities has brought with it several questions and challenges for traditional ways of engaging with the ‘text’ as an object of enquiry. The prevalence of data-driven scholarship in the humanities offers several challenges to traditional forms of work and practice, with regard to theory, tools, and methods. In the context of the digital, ‘text’ acquires new forms and meanings, especially with practices such as distant reading. Drawing upon excerpts from an earlier study on digital humanities in India, this essay discusses how data in the humanities is not a new phenomenon; concerns about the ‘datafication’ of humanities, now seen prominently in digital humanities and related fields is actually reflective of a longer conflict about the inherited separation between humanities and technology. It looks at how ‘data’ in the humanities has become a new object of enquiry as a result of several changes in the media landscape in the past few decades. These include large-scale digitalization and availability of corpora of materials (digitized and born-digital) in an array of formats and across varied platforms, thus leading to also a steady prevalence of the use of computational methods in working with and studying cultural artifacts today. This essay also explores how reading ‘text as data’ helps understand the role of data in the making of humanities texts and redefines traditional ideas of textuality, reading, and the reader.

This essay by Puthiya Purayil Sneha was published in Lives of Data: Essays on Computational Cultures from India (2020) edited by Sandeep Mertia, with a Foreword by Ravi Sundaram as part of the Series on Theory on Demand by Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam.

Read the open access book here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/data-lives-of-humanities-text

Report on Open Standards for GISW 2008

pranesh — 2011-08-23T02:57:53Z

A report on Open Standards prepared by Sunil Abraham, for the Global Information Society Watch 2008. As on their site, GISWatch focuses on monitoring progress made towards implementing the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) action agenda and other international and national commitments related to information and communications. It also provides analytical overviews of institutions involved in implementation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/publications-automated/cis/sunil/Open-Standards-GISW-2008.pdf

Silicon Plateau Vol-1

sumandro — 2019-03-13T00:56:36Z

This book marks the beginning of an interdisciplinary artistic project, Silicon Plateau, the scope of which is to observe how the arts, technology and society intersect in the city of Bangalore. Silicon Plateau is a collaboration between T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects and the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India. Volume 1 has been developed in collaboration with or-bits.com.

For us this series has a two-fold core. One the one side, there is the city of Bangalore, the trigger for various reflections about the way in which technology (old or emerging, as a service or as infrastructure) informs the socio-cultural and political environment; a city that is fascinating to us not just because we are located here but also for its characteristic fast-paced development shaped by the IT-boom and related industries. On the other side, there are the arts and creative thinking, for us the languages, lenses and methods to be used for interpreting technological developments and discussing their role and impact in the present time.

Our hope is that of building a series based on tangible accounts revolving around the unresolved complexities inherent to the intermingling of the arts, technology and society, and in the context of local histories and occurrences rather than of global narratives and mass media constructs. Stories that for our audience, we hope, will be those of the encounters—fortuitous, anticipated or even inconvenient—that a wide variety of contributors will have had with this fascinating city.

— Marialaura Ghidini and Tara Kelton

High-resolution PDF: Download (31.8 MB)

Low-resolution PDF: Download (4.7 MB)

T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects: Website

or-bits.com: Website

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/silicon-plateau-vol-1

Open Government Data Study

pranesh — 2015-09-03T08:08:22Z

CIS produced a report on the state of open government data in India, looking at policy, infrastructure, and particular case studies, as well as emerging concerns, future strategies and recommendations. The report is authored by Glover Wright, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham, and Nishant Shah. We are grateful to the Transparency and Accountability Initiative for providing generous funding for this report.

Cross-posted from the Transparency and Accountability Initiative website.

Open Government Data Study: India

India provides one of the most fascinating examples of the use of open government data in a developing country context. It has one of the best right to information laws in the world and the government’s approach to open data builds on this legacy of making open data relevant to Indian citizens. An estimated 456 million Indians live on less than $1.25 a day and a key issue for India, and other developing countries, is how open data can be accessible to them.

This paper reviews the progress being made towards open government data in India. Using case studies, it examines some of the pressing challenges facing the adoption of OGD in India. These include infrastructural problems, privacy concerns and the power imbalances that improved transparency can unwittingly create. It also examines government attitudes towards open data and related policies and reviews the relationships between open government data, the media and civil society.

The authors argue that the Indian Government’s responsibility should not stop short at just providing information, but also extend to making it available and accessible in a way that facilitates analysis and enhances offline usability – and ultimately makes it accessible to the poorest.

The paper concludes by suggesting technical and policy strategies to develop, promote, implement and maintain a robust open government data policy in India.

Download the report [PDF, 1.03 MB]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-government-data-study

Know your Users, Match their Needs!

rebecca — 2012-02-27T15:06:14Z

As Free Access to Law initiatives in the Global South enter into a new stage of maturity, they must be certain not to lose sight of their users’ needs. The following post gives a summary of the “Good Practices Handbook”, a research output of the collaborative project Free Access to Law — Is it Here to Stay? undertaken by LexUM (Canada) and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society.

Almost ten years have passed since the Montreal Declaration on Free Access to Law (FAL) was signed by eight legal information institutes and other FAL initiatives. Today, the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM) is growing with over 30 initiatives having signed onto the Declaration and providing free, online access to legal information. While the movement continues to gain momentum, the big question no longer remains why we need free access to law, but instead how FAL initiatives can continue to do so sustainably in the long-term. The principles of access and justice underpinning the FALM have been well-argued and few would dispute the notion that citizens ought to have access to the laws under which they are governed. As the Montreal Declaration states: "Public legal information from all countries and international institutions is part of the common heritage of humanity…Maximizing access to his information promotes justice and the rule of law" (2002).

Regardless of legal system or political context, the importance of securing free online access to the law has been recognized from a variety of perspectives. Whether FAL is considered a critical democratic function or simply an essential efficiency within any legal system, it is difficult to contest that the internet has increased the accessibility of and ease with which legal information is being published and shared online. Setting the ideological and practical foundations of the movement aside, effectively demonstrating the impact of FAL initiatives and to secure their sustainability in the long-term remains the next big challenge for the FALM. Today, there is a growing necessity for grounded and realistic indicators that can validate some of the long-held assumptions around the impacts and outcomes of FAL initiatives. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, there is also a need for a more nuanced understanding of the factors that influence the sustainability of FAL initiatives— particularly in resource-scarce and often nebulous legal systems of the Global South.

This blog post provides some insight into the questions above through a brief summary of the results of the study Free Access to Law—Is it Here to Stay? This global comparative study was carried out by LexUM (Canada) and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society. The project set out to begin providing answers to some of these critical questions around the impacts and sustainability of the FALM. It was initially hypothesized in the study that the sustainability of a FAL initiative rests upon a particular string of contingent factors. To begin, a particular condition would incentivize the creation of the FAL initiative — more often than not meeting the unmet needs of those requiring access to legal information. Next, if the FAL initiative is able to provide the service within a favourable context, it was suspected that it would produce favourable outcomes for both users and society at large. In turn, if the FAL initiative was able to provide benefits to users, it was theorized that these benefits would then stimulate reinvestment into the FAL initiative — forming a positive and sustainable feedback loop.

As the Good Practices Handbook highlights, the research hypothesis provided an accurate reading of what the sustainability chain of a FAL initiative might look like in practice. If unable to keep up with the evolving information requirements of their users, this study suggests that FAL initiatives run the risk of FAL becoming outdated and even outperformed by either government-based or private sector initiatives. This is why FAL initiatives must continue to be innovative and find new ways to meet users’ needs. Approaches take my include keeping their collections up to date, fine-tuning their services or even reinventing themselves through the provision of value-added services. Gathered from the experiences of the eleven countries across Africa and Asia examined in this study, the following is a brief summary of the nine “Good Practices” that emerging FAL initiatives can consider:

The FAL initiative should establish clear objectives: Before doing anything, the FAL initiative should decide what exactly it’s setting out to do…critical components such as content selection, targeted audience, expected reach, search functionalities and other website features help determine priorities and evaluate capacity to achieve these objectives.
How to be small and do big things: Most of the FAL initiatives studied as part of this project were formed of small teams (often less than five individuals). Initially, this may appear to pose a risk for sustainability. However, we saw a number of ways in which small teams have proven to be innovative, flexible, and able to thrive in environments of scarcity. However, as much as small teams can be seen as a source of innovation, they may also pose a risk in the medium to long-term.
FAL initiatives require expertise in both IT and legal information: Legal information management experts understand how the law is applied, how different texts and parts of texts speak to one another, and how these documents are used. IT experts can imagine a variety of ways to address these needs. If both forms of expertise is not available within the team of a FAL initiative, institutional partnerships provide promising sites for collaborative support. For example, the FALM constitutes a rich source of expertise and has proven to be a site of collaboration between established and emerging FAL initiatives. Further, universities have proven to be a significant source of human and financial resources for several FAL initiatives.
FAL initiatives should look to where they are headed (but not too far ahead): Because the purpose of a FAL initiative is to provide free online access to the law, it must secure access to this data for regular publication. How will legal information be received and organized by the initiative? In what format will it be published in? Early on, FAL initiatives need to develop both internal and external workflow processes to ensure that the initiative is able to provide regular access to updated information. Furthermore, an important finding of the study suggests that context plays a much larger role in a project’s sustainability. Consideration should be given to a country’s ICT infrastructure, the transparency of a government and their access to information regimes, and the nature of the legal information market when designing the workflows of an FAL initiative.
FAL initiatives should work with the ICT infrastructure in place: The quality and consistency of internet access varies across countries in the Global South. FAL initiatives should remain aware of how stakeholders and users are accessing the internet and develop their service accordingly. Considering the often intermittent nature of internet connectivity in the Global South, providing users with offline access to databases is a practical alternative.
FAL initiatives should use Free and Open Source Software: FAL initiatives should maximise their use of FLOSS. All FAL initiatives use FLOSS to some extent and without these flexible and cost-effective alternatives, it would be safe to infer that the FALM would have grown as quickly as it has.
FAL initiatives should be sensitive to culture: FAL initiatives rely on stakeholders and communities of users. Staying mindful of the professional and organizational cultures within a country may provide the initiative with a source of community support which may become a sustainability strategy. Further, integrated or parallel social networking platforms can play an essential role in community-building around the FAL initiatives and can also serve as another source of content in resource-scarce environments.
Find your users, match their needs: Project goals and appropriate strategies should be based on an in-depth understanding of the needs of those using the FAL initiative. As the sustainability chain suggests, when FAL initiatives produce positive outputs and outcomes, stakeholders will reinvest in the initiative to ensure its sustainability. If a user’s needs are effectively met by an FAL initiative, this group can provide either the resources or impetus for its continued success. Identifying who your users are and staying aware of their needs is a good way to secure reinvestment into the project.
FAL initiatives should diversify funding sources: This may be easier said than done — reinvestment can be the most challenging aspect of sustaining a FAL initiative. Early on, initiatives that receive donor-based funding benefit substantially upon investment. However, these initiatives are put at significant risk once initial seed funding has been depleted. Similarly, FAL initiatives that partnerships with other during their start up phase face similar fates as securing long-term service delivery can become a challenge. Possible funding sources included throughout the study include, among others: government, international development agencies or NGOs, the judiciary, law societies and the sale of value-added services.

In addition to these good practices, this study has emphasized the role the that the FALM has played in helping redefine online legal information as a public good. Each of the case studies demonstrates in a unique way the value openness plays in a legal information ecosystem, and how a robust digital legal information commons can be of benefit to users. Traditionally, the legal information market has been dominated by a select number of commercial players. In response, the FALM has created an important transnational space within which conversations around the provision of and access to legal information as a political right rather than a commodity to be bought and sold can take place. Encouragingly, governments in the Global South are catching and FAL initiatives from the South have proven to be immense sources of innovation in their own right. In Indonesia, for example, FAL initiatives have laid the groundwork for emerging government initiatives that are now prioritizing the provision of free, online access to legal and other government information. Today, I believe that we are witnessing an important paradigm shift as governments are beginning to recognize that “access” to legal information is a right to be held by the public.

Despite such headway, it is needless to say that FAL initiatives in the Global South continue to face immense sustainability challenges. However, it is hoped that this study can provide some practical insights for emerging initiatives and partnerships. However, as more FAL initiatives begin entering into the next stage of maturity and growth, it is more important than ever that they are able to adapt to adverse environmental changes and form long-lasting partnerships with information sources within government. Most importantly, FAL initiatives must remain dynamic and responsive to users’ needs. To do so, they must be able to tailor and expand their services, offerings and user-base. To secure their sustainability and relevance in the long term, they must also be continuously strengthening their ties and maintain open communication flows with users. If FAL initiatives are able to successfully make the transition from being supply side initiatives to becoming demand driven services, the FALM will be well-positioned for another decade of sustainable growth.

Download the collection below:

Good Practices Handbook (426 kb)
Environmental Scan Report (860 kb)
Local Researcher's Methodology Guide (1225 kb)

The full collection of case studies and the Good Practices Handbook was originally published on the Project Website. The Centre for Internet and Society oversaw the following case studies: India, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Philippines.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/know-your-users

Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report

Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal — 2012-09-26T08:16:55Z

The Centre for Internet & Society is pleased to announce the publication of a report on the accessibility of government websites in India. The report is published in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. Nirmita Narasimhan, Mukesh Sharma and Dinesh Kaushal are the authors.

Executive Summary

Website inaccessibility is the largest and most common barrier to implementing effective e-governance. In a country like India, where a very large percentage of the population is disabled, elderly, illiterate, rural, having limited bandwidth, speaks only a vernacular language or uses alternative platforms like mobile phones, having accessible websites becomes all the more important to ensure that government information and services which are available online are accessible and usable by these groups.

This report summarises the key findings of a test conducted to measure the accessibility of 7800 websites of the Government of India and its affiliated agencies against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, which is the universally accepted standard for web accessibility. It uses a combination of automated and manual testing to derive key findings. While the automated tool identified errors such as images without textual descriptions and HTML and CSS errors, manual testing was used wherever human decision was required, for instance, to judge whether a description of a link or image was indeed accurate, or to check for accessibility of forms.

Executive Summary

Highlights

Introduction

What is Accessibility?

Methodology

Findings and Interpretation

Known, Likely and Potential Problems
HTML and CSS Validation
Alternate Text for Non-text Objects

Recommendations

Appendix 1: Examples of Errors

Appendix 2: About the National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility

Appendix 3: List of Testers and Authors

Given below is the link to download the full report:

Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report (PDF)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-of-government-websites-in-india

Pervasive Technologies: Patent Pools

nehaa — 2013-07-03T06:57:59Z

In this research paper, Nehaa Chaudhari gives an analysis of patent pools. She discusses the working of a patent pool, study patent pool in other areas of technology, and patenting in telecom and related technology.

Click to download the full research paper here (PDF, 475 Kb)

Introduction

The network landscape over the past few years has been characterized by several battles of supremacy between two or more rival technologies. [1] These battles have included, inter alia, the constant efforts at besting rivals in the arena of patenting innovations in technology, often as a result characterised by the imposition of high royalties on rivals, for the use of one’s patents. However, having realised that such efforts at besting the other could prove detrimental for all parties concerned in the long run, and stall technological advancements which would in turn translate into lower business revenue, mechanisms were devised to ensure a relatively equitable utilization of patents in the market place. One such mechanism that has been developed is that of patent pools.

Patent pools have been developed around most areas of high end technology and research and development. Over the course of this paper, the author has confined herself to a study on patent pools in the area of telecommunications, and the issues to be addressed therein. Specifically, the author will be dealing with patent pools around 3G, 4G, LTE, TD-SCDMA and TD-LTE technologies. Within this framework, the author seeks to examine what are patent pools, whether and what kind of patent pools exist, their associated costs, their licensing arrangements and the structure of the payment of royalty, and the feasibility of these patent pools.

Understanding Patent Pools

Patent pools are agreements among patent owners through which patent owners combine their patents, waiving their exclusive rights to the patent to enable others, or themselves, to obtain rights to license the pooled patents.[2] Therefore, such pools may be focussed either on cross licensing, that is companies mutually making their patents available to each other, or on out licensing, that is, a group of companies making a collection of patents available to companies that do not or might not have patents of their own to contribute to the pool.[3] Typically, modern patent pools combine patents of various companies and are around inventions that are required to implement an established industry standard, are licensed as a whole (on an all or nothing basis) and not as individual licenses for patents owned by various companies within that pool, and are available to any non member for licensing.[4] Such licensing is done under a standard agreement and royalty rates, on a non discriminatory basis. The exception to this rule is that if certain members have contributed patents to the pool, they may receive more favourable terms, in recognition of their cross licensing relationship to the pool.[5] When viewed from a law and economics perspective, patent pools are seen to be an efficient institutional solution to various problems that arise when companies have complementary intellectual property rights, and these rights are essential to new technologies being used and employed. [6] However, this perspective also warns about the antitrust risks that may arise when competitors or potential competitors are involved in the coordination of their intellectual property. For instance, such pools may be used to allocate markets or otherwise chill competition. [7]

The Working of a Patent Pool

Generally, a patent pool may be administered in one of two ways- it may either have an administrative entity, or may also just be a system of cross licensing between two firms.[8] In case of the former, the licensing agency may be one of the patent holders, [9] or may be an independent licensing company (e.g. MPEG).[10]

The ownership of patents within the pool is retained by the owners, who then license them to the operator/administrator on a non exclusive basis, with sub licensing rights. This means that the owners are free to continue to license their patents on an individual basis, and the administrator also has the right to further license the patents to any party who is interested in licensing from the patent pool.[11] The responsibility of managing licensing and licenses is vested in the operator/administrator of the patent pool. Licensees are required to report sales and pay royalties to the pool administrator, who in turn would enforce the conditions of the license.[12] The distribution of royalties between the members of the pool is on the basis of a formula which may, or may not be transparent to non member licensees, with the pool operator retaining a management fee.[13] Typically, pool licenses are also structured in a manner so as to render difficult early termination by the licensee. The nature of the contract, once signed by a licensee, is typically binding in nature. Therefore, this would mean that the administrator of the patent pool could sue the licensee for non performance of the contract.[14] However, unless a pool operator is a member of the pool itself, it cannot sue for the infringement of patents. [15] Therefore, in the event that a patented technology were to be utilised without having taken a license, one or more of the individual patent owners would be required to take legal action. The involvement of the pool operator would be limited to being a part of any settlement discussions, if they were to occur, since one of the options for the alleged infringer could be to obtain a license for the patent pool.[16]

Drawing Parallels with Other Patent Pools

In this section of the paper, the author seeks to study patent pools in other areas of technology in order to better understand the structure and pricing of patent pools.

The ‘3C DVD’ Patent Pool
Established in 1998, the 3C DVD Patent Pool was the brainchild of Philips, Sony and Pioneer, and L.G. was subsequently inducted as a member. Philips acts as a licensing administrator for patents held by all the companies, which are over two hundred in number. These patents include those for the manufacture of the DVD players, and for the manufacture of the DVD disks themselves. [17] The player license per unit royalty was set as 3.5% of the net selling price of each player sold. This was subject to a minimum fee of $7 per unit, which after January 1, 2000 became $5 per unit. The disc license royalty was set as $0.05 per disc sold.[18]

The ‘DVD- 6C’ Patent Pool
Established in June 1999, the members of this pool at the time of its inception were Hitachi, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, Time Warner, Toshiba, and JVC. This pool was also for the DVD-ROM and the DVD- Video formats, with Toshiba acting as the administrator. [19] The royalties were set at $.075 per DVD Disc and 4% of the net sales price of DVD players and DVD decoders, with a minimum royalty of $4.00 per player or decoder, which saw a substantial reduction in 2003.[20] Subsequently, there were various changes that were made to this group, including the inclusion of newer standards, the joining and subsequent departure of IBM and other organizations as a member etc. Hitachi and Panasonic also act as regional agents in certain regions of the world.

The MPEG LA pool
The MPEG-2 is a standard for describing the coding of data inter alia, on DVD discs. For MPEG-2, a patent pool has been established, where the administrator is an independent, external organization known as the MPEG Licensing Authority, that set itself the aim to develop a patent pool for this standard. [21] The MPEG LA invited parties that thought they owned patents essential to this standard to join the program, which took off in 1997. At present, the pool has over a hundred patents and thousands of licensees.[22]

Patenting in Telecom and Related Technology

In this section of the paper, the author examines the working of patenting and patent pools in the telecommunications sector and in areas of related technology.

Early Developments and the Emergence of GSM
Patent pools are slowly developing into a key component of the telecommunications and the technological industry. The technology industry has been said to be an ecosystem, wherein there is a complex correlation between those who develop the technology and those who implement it in the creation and development of products.[23] In the telecommunications industry for instance, each handset manufacturer has declared only a small percentage of the various types of intellectual property assets that are necessary to implement a 3G compatible cellular phone. Therefore, the working in such a context is that various companies develop different technologies, and the same is shared by various manufacturers that seek to make use of this technology.[24]

The revival of patenting in the sector of telecommunications, post a period of decline in the decades of the 19540s to the 1980s, is attributed to the advent of the GSM standard for mobile communications in Europe.[25] In 1988, the main European operators invited equipment suppliers and developed a procedure wherein manufacturers would have to give up their intellectual property rights and to provide free world wide licenses for essential patents.[26] After opposition from the manufacturers, the approach was modified to one wherein the operators required the suppliers to sign a declaration agreeing to serve all of the GSM community on fair, reasonable and non discriminatory conditions.[27] In the early 1990s, Motorola by refusing to grant non discriminatory licenses for its substantial portfolio of essential patents and only agreeing to enter into cross license agreements further intensified the debate over IPRs in telecommunications. The company only lifted these restrictions after various countries across the world expressed a preference for this standard. The experience in this standard has demonstrated that it would not be accurate to expect that all parties holding essential patents would be willing to license them to all interested parties.[28] Companies were only willing to relax their licensing conditions once revenue generating opportunities increased.

The 3G3P and the UMTS
In July 2000 the 3G Patent Platform Partnership (3G3P) and its 18 partners notified various agreements to the end of establishing a worldwide patent platform. The purpose behind this was disclosed to be that of providing a voluntary and cost effective mechanism to evaluate, verify and license patents that were essential for third generation (3G) mobile communication systems.[29] It was also claimed that the said agreements would have pro competitive effects and that the purpose behind this Platform was the facilitation of access to technology and consequent entry into the markets.[30] On the intellectual property front, the purpose was to reduce cost uncertainties and the delays that were accompaniments of licensing numerous essential patents for complex technologies.

While it has often been considered to be a patent pool, this arrangement has been said to be only similar to a patent pool.[31] The 3G3P itself has argued that since it was a mere facilitator of transactions between patent holders and licensees, and that membership was open to both licensors and licensees as opposed to only licensors as in the case of patent pools, it would be fallacious to classify the Platform as a patent pool. Further, it has also been argued that licensing by members is not restricted to the Platform and that there was no bundling or real pooling of the patents per se and those licensees have the opportunity to pick and choose between patents with the licensing being carried out on a bilateral basis. Additionally, unlike in a patent pool, there is no single license between the patent holders as a collective and the licensee, and the parties have a choice between the Standard License of the Platform, and a negotiable individual license.[32] A Standard License provides for Standard Royalty Rate, a Maximum Cumulative Royalty Rate and a Cumulative Royalty Rate.[33] Bilateral transactions on the other hand, are negotiated between the parties where the consideration is to be determined on fair and equitable terms.[34] This Platform also provides for a price cap, which, instead of being absolute and set at a pre-determined royalty rate, is a default five percent maximum (not minimum) cumulative royalty rate for potential licensees per product category.[35] The royalty rate for each individual patent will differ for each of the licensees and this depends on the patent portfolio under each product category that the licensee has chosen.[36]

The concerns and challenges of the GSM experience were well perceived during the determination of the course of action for UMTS. European actors were especially wary of Qualcomm and expected the firm to demand high license fees, with some even fearing them to be in excess of 10%.[37] Subsequently, various attempts at developing licensing schemes failed, until 2004 and the establishment of the W-CDMA Patent Licensing Programme for UMTS FDD patents.[38] At the outset, seven licensors offered their patents as a bundle to prospective licensors, a number which decreased over time.[39]

The Development of LTE Patent Pools
The next stage in the process of innovation in the realm of telecommunications was the development of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) Standard, which while being essential to 4G technology has also seen application in the realm of 3G. Consequently, patent pools or similar structures have been developed in these areas. LTE patents are being viewed as among the most valuable intellectual property resource in the mobile telecommunications industry, with most operators around the world building LTE networks.[40]

As per in a study conducted in 2011, 23% of the patents about this technology were owned by L.G. Electronics, with Qualcomm coming in second with 21%. Motorola Mobility, InterDigital, Nokia and Samsung each owned 9%, China’s ZTE owned about 6%[41] and Nortel owned 4%, which were later sold to a consortium of Apple, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, Research in Motion (RIM) and Sony, after Nortel filed for bankruptcy in 2009.[42] Ericsson also independently owns 2% of the patent pool and RIM owns 1%.[43] However, another analysis[44] of IP databases conducted by ZTE in 2011 revealed differing results. As per this analysis, InterDigital was the leader, with its Patent Holdings arm controlling 13% and the Technology arm controlling 11% of LTE essential patents. Qualcomm controlled 13%, Nokia and Samsung 9% each, Ericsson controlled 8%, as did Huawei, ZTE controlled 7%, L.G. controlled 6% and NTT DoCoMo brought up the rear with 5%. The remaining 11% was held by various other firms.[45] It is to be realized that these studies have often come under criticism from different companies, with each of them eager to portray themselves as the market leader.[46] Setting aside criticism driven by corporate egos, the principle of it, that is, the difficulty in assessing and valuing patents cannot be disputed. Valuing patents is far from merely counting the number of patents owned by a company. The complications are especially evident when it comes to determining which of these patents are essential and which of them aren’t. Additionally, the worth of these patents varies depending on the existence or the absence of certain conditions, including transfer restrictions, cross licensing arrangements, ownership and market conditions.[47]

The aforesaid discussion reveals the complexity and the fragmentation of the LTE environment, which further underscored the need to have patent pools in this field. Although the need for a patent pool was realized in 2009-2010, given that the WCDMA patent pool had been met with very limited success,[48] industry watchers were reluctant to be optimistic. This was in part fuelled by the understanding of the attitude of dominant players, wherein they continued to believe that they could derive more monetary, cross licensing and litigation defence value if they did not pool their patents.[49]

The development of LTE patent pools can be traced back to 2009, and the response of Via Licensing¸ Sisvel and MPEG LA to a Request for Information on forming such a patent pool by the Next Generation Mobile Network Alliance (NGMN).[50] Sisvel’s proposal, which it subsequently made at a public conference in 2010 sought to demonstrate that patent pools could prevent excessive costs from royalty stacking.[51] Among various other examples, Roberto Dini, the founder of Sisvel suggested that if patents were to be licensed individually, for instance, 85 patents for MPEG video at 50 cents apiece would cost $42.50. As opposed to this, the patent pool charged $2.50.[52] In 2011, the NGMN reiterated its recommendation to all stakeholders in the mobile industry that were interested in developing patent pools to hasten their development process to avoid further delays in LTE licensing.[53] The NGMN also went on to state that it would be ideal if all the parties were to agree on a single patent pool that promoted reasonable royalties, offered certainty on the availability of the licenses for patents and created a framework for evaluation of their essentiality, where the value of the patents essential to the pool would be established by the industry.[54] These recommendations were not without their fair share of criticism, both, from industry watchers[55] and from vendors.[56] Notwithstanding these reservations, both, Sisvel[57] and Via Licensing have gone on to issue calls for patents for the purposes of creating patent pools in the LTE marketplace.

The Sisvel LTE Patent Pool materialized in late 2012, wherein licenses were offered under a portfolio of patents essential to LTE.[58] The pool includes patents owned by Cassidian, the China Academy of Telecommunication Technology, the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, France Telecom, TDF, and KPN, in addition to some patents that had been originally filed by Nokia but were acquired by Sisvel in 2011.[59] The pool is also open to other organizations that have patents essential to LTE. At present, the current portfolio of these patents is available under standard terms and conditions. The running royalty rate is 0.99 Euros per device.[60]

Having promised a launch within a few months in June, 2012[61] Via Licensing has also developed its own LTE Patent Pool, with the initial companies in this pool being AT&T, Clearwire Corporation, DTVG Licensing, HP, KDDI Corporation, MTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and ZTE.[62] Like Sisvel’s Patent Pool, this pool is also open to other organizations that believe they possess essential LTE patents, and they are encouraged to submit the same for evaluation.[63] The patent pool floated by Via leans heavily towards service providers, but some of the big players in the industry including Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei Technologies and Samsung Electronics are conspicuous by their absence.[64] This absence is felt even in Sisvel’s patent pool, with the reasoning being proposed[65] that these key patent holders may prefer private licensing and subsequent litigation over pooled resources in patent pools.[66] Understandably, the launch of the LTE Patent Pools has been met with approval by the NGMN[67] but given the nascent stages in which both of these pools find themselves, it would be premature to comment (without first observing for a few months) the likelihood of their success or failure and how they would play out against each other.

The TD-SCDMA and the TD-LTE
Reportedly, China has spent several billion dollars on the import of analog and GSM technology,[68] and the country’s mobile communications industry continues to be dominated by foreign players.[69] Therefore, in continuation of a purportedly growing trend[70] in the area of telecommunications as well, domestically developed systems are being preferred and developed over standardized technologies that enjoy strong patent protection outside China.[71] Besides the avoidance of paying royalties to foreigners, the idea is also to use China’s strong market presence and have more participants in China’s home grown technology.[72]

Time Divisional- Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA), developed by the China Academy of Telecommunications Technology (CATT), in collaboration with Datang and Siemens[73] is a Chinese indigenously developed 3G technology standard developed by China to reduce its dependence on western standards.[74] Interestingly however, it has been reported that the Chinese hold core patent technology only about 7% whereas most of the rest of it is taken by other foreign organizations.[75] In 2000, an industry consortium, the TD-SCDMA forum was established. The participants were China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Huawei, Motorola, Nortel, and Siemens, with the objective of developing and supporting this technology. Government support was received in 2002, following which the TD-SCDMA Industry Alliance was founded by well known market players including Datang, SOUTEC, Holley, Huawei, LENOVO, ZTE, CEC and China Putian. There has also been the creation of various joint ventures with international giants such as Alcatel, Ericsson, Nokia, (erstwhile) Nortel, Philips, Samsung and Siemens have also been created.[76]

Information about the existence of patent pools in this technology has been hard to come by. One of the few to write about patent pools in his 2008 paper,[77] Dazheng Wang proposes patent pools as a solution to the problem of commercialization of TD-SCDMA. He suggests that the framework of this patent pool should be on the industry principles of fair, reasonable and non discriminatory licensing terms for essential patents, with the end result being one of increased innovation and competition and an overall increase in market presence. Interestingly, a few articles[78] on blog posts on the internet speak about the existence of patent pools and their apparent misuse[79] as well.

It is submitted that these inconsistencies regarding the division of patents between various patent holders, where the percentage of patents held by each company have been pegged differently,[80] and about the existence of a patent pool or not raise pressing concerns about the payment of royalties and how licensing works in such a situation. On a very basic level, in order to be able to pay royalties and enter into licensing agreements, the existence of an identified, non disputed patent holder would be the sine qua non, which seems to be missing in the case of patents for TD-SCDMA. This problem is only further compounded by the lack of clarity on the very existence of patent pools. Had there been specified patent pools, the issues of determination of essential patents and the setting of royalties and licensing fees would have been standardized, a situation that cannot be invoked, without dispute, in the present Chinese context.

It is further submitted that despite China being the world’s largest market for mobile communications, and its progress from a mere importer to a developer of some parts of technology,[81] the Chinese experiment with TD-SCDMA seems to have met with limited success, in comparison to what was envisaged. For instance, while an agency had forecast that the number of TD-SCDMA subscribers in 2010 would be 34 million, by April, 2010 there were only 8 million or (even lower) subscribers.[82] One of the reasons for preferring other standards, for instance, the W-CDMA is the number of handsets compatible with the same and the consequent variety that is available to the consumer. To illustrate, one could look at the figures from June, 2010. At this point of time China Unicom had 94 models for W-CDMA from twenty four manufacturers including nine foreign ones, whereas China Mobile had only twenty eight models that were compatible with TD-SCDMA.[83] Interestingly, if one were to measure popularity in terms of sheer numbers, TD-SCDMA would emerge the winner over W-CDMA by a couple of million subscribers, but if the growth rate were to be considered, W-CDMA would come out on top. While TD-SCDMA grew only by 24%, W-CDMA has grown at 32% monthly since the start of its service is October, 2009.[84]

China’s experiments with creating its home grown telecommunication standards have not stopped with the development of the TD-SCDMA, with the country being on track in the development of the TD-LTE. Reports suggest that although the systems are in ‘trial’ mode officially, the 4G spectrum situation remains uncertain.[85] It is submitted that although this is in the nascent stages as compared to the TD-SCDMA, the concerns expressed earlier about TD-SCDMA and the suggestions made therein for the technology to realise its full potential would be equally applicable in this scenario as well.

Therefore, in light of this discussion it would not be fallacious to conclude that while the TD-SCDMA, and now more recently the TD-LTE standard might still be in its nascent stages, on a fundamental level it seems to have not fulfilled the objectives with which it was developed, especially given that a sizeable portion of its patents continue to be owned by foreign corporations. In addition to the challenges of attracting subscribers, it would also need to streamline its system of patents, royalties and licensing, if it wants to have a truly global or even national presence. To this end perhaps patent pools structured along the lines of those being developed or in place for other mobile communication technologies might provide a viable solution meriting consideration.

Concluding Observations

One of the fundamental concerns that plague most downstream organizations in the mobile communications sector is the prevalence of high licensing fees that need to be paid on essential patents, the cost of which often trickles down to the customers. A study on the licensing arrangements prevalent at the moment[86] reveals that as of the moment, the result of royalty rate caps is that they save money for downstream manufacturers, but this is at the expense of upstream licensors. The most significant savers are the ones downstream with no IP to trade, and vertically integrated companies while losing some revenue, are able to save significantly more in reduced expenses.[87]

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that efforts at limiting aggregate licensing fees have been at the forefront over the past couple of years. It is in this scenario that patent pools have developed, with operators such as Via Licensing and Sisvel even promoting themselves as being able to put together patent pools that would greatly limit licensing fees.[88] However, some owners of intellectual property continue to find bilateral licensing and cross licensing to be more profitable as opposed to patent pools.

One of the key concerns when it comes to fore when dealing with how patent pools are structured is about the distribution of income received from royalties within the members of the pool, which ties in with the bigger question of classifying patents as essential and non essential. More often than not, patent pools also have to grapple with the problem of members having conflicting interests. For instance, manufacturers have the incentive to cap aggregate royalties of certain essential patents that they would use in manufacturing, in order to reduce their licensing costs. However, these manufacturers could have also brought their own essential patents to the pool, perhaps of a new way of doing things, and would certainly be averse of having caps imposed on these royalties.

One of the key other considerations that patent pools need to take into account include the royalty rates affixed. In an interview some time ago, the founder of Sisvel, went on to state that while affixing these royalty rates, there could be no discrimination against licensees, since that would be a sure fire way of ensuring the collapse of the patent pool.[89] Additionally, patent pools also need to account for the difference in regulatory mechanism and their execution that exists across jurisdictions. For instance, customs officials in France pay a lot more attention to counterfeit goods than they would to patent infringing products, whereas those in Germany would have a keen eye on the latter.[90]

Various other concerns have also been identified with regard to patent pools over time. One of these is that they could potentially eliminate competition that comes from outside of patent pools.[91]

Additionally, patent pools are not all inclusive, since participation is entirely voluntary. Therefore, patent pools would not even be reasonably expected to cover all essential patents required to make a standardised product. This problem is rendered even more complex as a result of the presence of multiple patent pools around the same technology, as in the case of DVDs and more recently, LTE technology.

In sum, while portfolio cross licenses and patent pools can be helpful in resolving issues created by patent thickets by reducing transaction costs for licensees, while preserving to a definitive extent financial incentives for inventors to commercialize their existing inventions and undertake new research, the significant shortcomings of these pools also need to be taken into account before they can be heralded as the solution to problems presented by complex patent landscapes. While voluntary patent pools might have proved to be beneficial in some respects, the imposition of patent pools would be a fallacious approach to undertake.

[1]. Hui Yan, The 3G Standard Setting Strategy and Indigenous Innovation Policy in China: Is TD-SCDMA a Flagship?, DRUID Working Paper No 07-01, available at http://www2.druid.dk/conferences/viewpaper.php?id=1454&cf=9 (last accessed 07 12 2012)

[2]. Josh Lerner and Jean Tirole, Efficient Patent Pools, 4 Am. Econ. Rev. 691, 691 (2004)

[3]. Patent Pools- Some Not So Frequently Answered Questions, available at http://blog.patentology.com.au/2012/11/patent-pools-some-not-so-frequently.html (last accessed 10 December, 2012)

[4]. Id.

[5]. Id.

[6]. Philip B. Nelson, Patent Pools: An Economic Assessment of Current Law and Policy, Rutgers Law Journal, Volume 38:539, 559 (2007)

[7].

[8]. Roger B. Andewelt, Analysis of Patent Pools Under the Antitrust Laws, 53 ANTITRUST L.J. 611, 611 (1984).

[9]. Philips has been known to have been the licensing agency for patent pools where it was a member

[10]. Supra note 3

[11]. Supra note 3

[12]. Supra note 3

[13]. Supra note 3

[14]. Supra note 3

[15]. Supra note 3

[16]. Supra note 3

[17]. Rudi Bekkers et. al., Patent Pools and Non Assertion Agreements: Coordination Mechanisms for Multi Party IPR Holders in Standardization, available at http://www-i4.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Interest/EASST_Bekkers_Iversen_Blind.pdf 22 (last accessed 09 December, 2012)

[18]. Id.

[19]. Id.

[20]. Id.

[21]. Supra note 17 at 23.

[22]. Supra note 17 at 23.

[23]. Keith Mallinson, Fixing IP Prices with Royalty Rate Caps and Patent Pools, available at http://ipfinance.blogspot.in/2011/07/fixing-ip-prices-with-royalty-rate-caps.html (last accessed 10 December, 2012)

[24]. Id. See Appendix 1 for a graphical representation of declared intellectual property assets in 2009.

[25]. Supra note 17 at 25

[26]. Supra note 17 at 27

[27]. Supra note 17 at 27

[28]. Supra note 17 at 28

[29]. Dessy Choumelova, Competition Law Analysis of Patent Licensing Agreements- the Particular Case of 3G3P, available at http://ec.europa.eu/competition/publications/cpn/2003_1_41.pdf- 41 (last accessed 10 December, 2012)

[30]. Id.

[31]. Id.

[32]. Id.

[33]. Id at 42.

[34]. Id at 42.

[35]. Id at 42-43.

[36]. Id at 43.

[37]. Supra note 17 at 29.

[38]. Supra note 17 at 39.

[39]. Supra note 17 at 39.

[40]. Elizabeth Woyke, Identifying the Tech Leaders in LTE Wireless Patents, available at http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2011/09/21/identifying-the-tech-leaders-in-lte-wireless-patents/ (last accessed 08 December, 2012)

[41]. Id.

[42]. Id.

[43]. Id.

[44]. Caroline Gabriel, ZTE Claims 7% of LTE Essential Patents, available at http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2011/01/11/zte-claims-7-lte-essential-patents.htm (last accessed 09 December, 2012)

[45]. Id.

[46]. Id.

[47]. Supra note 40.

[48]. Keith Mallinson, Mallinson: Uncertain Futures in LTE Patent Pool Licensing, available at http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/mallinson-uncertain-outlook-patent-pool-licensing/2010-08-25 (last accessed 10 December, 2012)

[49]. Id.

[50]. Id.

[51]. Id.

[52]. Id.

[53]. NGMN Board Recommendation on LTE Patent Pool, available at http://4g-portal.com/ngmn-board-recommendation-on-lte-patent-pool (last accessed 10 December, 2012)

[54]. Id.

[55]. Caroline Gabriel, NGMN’s Calls for an LTE Patent Pool Will be Futile in the Current IPR Climate, available at http://www.4gtrends.com/articles/53511/ngmns-calls-for-an-lte-patent-pool-will-be-futile-/ (last accessed 11 December, 2012)

[56]. Michelle Donegan, Vendors Balk at LTE Patent Pool Proposal, available at http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=212362 (last accessed 11 December, 2012).

[57]. SISVEL: Patent Pool for 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE), available at http://www.thefreelibrary.com/SISVEL%3A+Patent+Pool+for+3G+Long+Term+Evolution+(LTE).-a0199544458 (last accessed 08 December, 2012)

[58]. LTE Patent Pool from Sisvel, available at http://4g-portal.com/lte-patent-pool-from-sisvel (last accessed 09 December, 2012)

[59]. Id.

[60]. Id.

[61]. Mike Dano, Via Promises LTE Patent Pool Launch Within Months, available at http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/licensing-promises-lte-patent-pool-launch-within-months/2012-06-15 (last accessed 07 December, 2012)

[62]. LTE Patent Pool Available Through Via’s Licensing Program, available at http://4g-portal.com/lte-patent-pool-available-through-vias-licensing-program (last accessed 10 December, 2012).

[63]. Id.

[64]. Stephen Lawson, Lte Patent Pool Brings Together Technologies From At&T, Zte, Hp And Others, available at http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9232043/LTE_patent_pool_brings_together_technologies_from_AT_amp_T_ZTE_HP_and_others (last accessed 09 December, 2012)

[65]. Peter White, Sisvel LTE Patent Pool Emerges After All- Majors Still Hold Back from Committing, available at http://www.rethink-wireless.com/2012/11/05/sisvel-lte-patent-pool-emerges-all-majors-hold-committing.htm (last accessed 09 December, 2012)

[66]. Shankar Pandiath, Sisvel Launches Patent Pool for 3G Long Term Evolution (LTE), available at http://next-generation-communications.tmcnet.com/topics/nextgen-voice/articles/314957-sisvel-launches-patent-pool-3g-long-term-evolution.htm (last accessed 09 December, 2012).

[67].NGMN Board Welcomes Launch of LTE Patent Pool, available at http://4g-portal.com/ngmn-board-welcomes-launch-of-lte-patent-pool (last accessed 09 December, 2012).

[68]. ELSPETH THOMSON AND JON SIGURDSON (EDS.), CHINA’S SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SECTOR AND THE FORCES OF GLOBALIZATION 17 (2008, World Scientific Publishing Company, Singapore).

[69]. Cong Cao, Challenges for Technological Development in China’s Industry, available at http://chinaperspectives.revues.org/924 (last accessed 11 December, 2012)

[70]. Peter Zura, China Launches TD-SCDMA Telecom Standard¸ available at http://271patent.blogspot.in/2006/01/china-launches-td-scdma-telecom.html (last accessed 10 December, 2012)

[71]. Id.

[72]. Id.

[73]. TD-SCDMA (time division synchronous code division multiple access), available at http://searchmobilecomputing.techtarget.com/definition/TD-SCDMA (last accessed 07 December, 2012).

[74]. SHAHD AKHTAR AND PATRICIA ARINTO (EDS.), DIGITAL REVIEW OF ASIA PACIFIC : 2009-2010 8 (2010, Sage Publications, New Delhi).

[75]. Supra note 1 at 2. See Appendix 2 for the breakup of patent holding. However, see details on Infra note 78 for a contradictory view, wherein China claims to own 30% of all TD-SCDMA patents.

[76]. Pierre Vialle, On the relevance of Indigenous Standard Setting Policy: the Case of TD-SCDMA in China, 2^nd International Conference on Economics, Trade and Development, (2012) 36 IPEDR 184-185 (IACSIT Press, Singapore).

[77]. Dazheng Wang, Patent Pool: A Solution to the Problem of TD-SCDMA’s Commercialization, http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/login.jsp?tp=&arnumber=5076744&url=http%3A%2F%2Fieeexplore.ieee.org%2Fiel5%2F5076660%2F5076661%2F05076744.pdf%3Farnumber%3D5076744 (last accessed 11 December, 2012).

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/patent-pools

Unlicensed Spectrum Policy Brief for Government of India

Satya N Gupta, Sunil Abraham and Yelena Gyulkhandanyan — 2012-09-11T16:23:45Z

Centre for Internet & Society and the Ford Foundation are delighted to bring you the Unlicensed Spectrum Policy brief for Government of India. The policy brief authored by Satya N Gupta, Sunil Abraham and Yelena Gyulkhandanyan contains an Executive Summary and eight chapters. The research aims to recommend unlicensed spectrum policy to the Government of India based on recent developments in wireless technology, community needs and international best practices.

Executive Summary

The aim of this policy brief is to recommend unlicensed spectrum policy to the Indian Government based on recent developments in wireless technology, community needs and international best practices. We seek to demonstrate the need for and importance of unlicensed spectrum as a medium for inexpensive connectivity in rural/remote areas and source of innovation by serving as a barrier-free and cost-effective platform for testing and implementing of new technologies.

The specific frequency bands that we request for unlicensing are: 433-434 MHz, 902-928 MHz, 1880-1900 MHz, 2483-2500 MHz, 5150-5350 MHz, and 5725-5775 MHz. These demands reflect the widespread market adoption in countries where these bands have already become unlicensed.

Interference concerns to licensed users, which are the predominant reason for the limited allocation of unlicensed spectrum, are greatly diminished. Interference-free spectrum use by multiple operators is enabled by the short-range, low-power nature of most of the technologies operating in these spectrum bands, as well as innovative techniques that facilitate spectrum sharing.

Technological advancements such as Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN), Ultra Wide Band (UWB), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Near -Field Communication (NFC) systems, and others have demonstrated that when an opportunity for cost-efficient and flexible spectrum usage is presented in the form of unlicensed spectrum, the market is likely to respond through innovation and expansion.

The value of unlicensed spectrum in bridging the digital divide has been demonstrated through community wireless networking projects as well as inexpensive ITES (IT enabled services) operating on unlicensed spectrum that have been created to spread connectivity to digitally-marginalized areas. As demonstrated by numerous case studies, such networks administer e-learning, e-commerce, telemedicine, e-agriculture, and many other initiatives that lead to equitable social and economic growth, making unlicensed spectrum a “public good”.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), European Union telecom regulatory bodies, as well as leading state telecom policy makers and regulators such as the FCC (U.S. Federal Communications Commission) and OFCOM (UK Office of Communications) have recognized that the optimal use of radio spectrum is dependent on flexible spectrum management policies and the multi-time sharing of this precious resource. Of late, the relevance of unlicensed spectrum is being recognized by policy makers in India as well. This is evident from the National Telecom Policy 2012, as well as recent remarks on the subject made by senior government officials.

Download the Unlicensed Spectrum Policy brief for Government of India below:

PDF Document [519 Kb]
Word File [124 Kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/unlicensed-spectrum-policy-brief-for-govt-of-india

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