New IP law titles: from EU copyright to ISP liability

For some odd reasons, it seems that many good IP titles are being released at a time of the year when - at least in the Northern hemisphere - the attention for anything that relates to IP is increasingly and acutely replaced by a slightly stronger interest for holidays, sunshine, and the outdoors.

This has been also the fate of the following excellent titles:

The much-awaited second edition of Concise European Copyright Law, edited by Thomas Dreier and Bernt Hugenholtz (Kluwer:2016)

Despite the pretty appearance and title that might induce you into thinking that this is just concise overview of EU copyright law, be reassured that it's not [and not just because the tome exceeds 700 pages]. 

I first encountered this book (at that time in its first edition) as a student. It was hiding on a library shelf, pressed in between much heavier [in every sense] and thicker copyright books. The fame of the editors prompted me to open and read it: the contributors' ability to analyse relevant EU copyright directives in an essential yet thorough fashion left me very much impressed, and made me realise once again how those who truly master a certain discipline are able to say everything in a way that makes you think that the relevant concepts are actually easy to grasp. The truth is instead that it is not concepts per se which are easy, but it is rather their own explanation which possesses the clarity that can follow a complete understanding.

The second edition has retained this distinctive quality, which makes it a pleasure to read and consult. 

Bonus feature: In my own opinion, the commentary to the InfoSoc Directive (by Stefan Bechtold) is probably one of the most comprehensive and interesting ones currently available.


The Liability of Internet Intermediaries by Jaani Riordan (OUP:2016)

As the author observes in his preface, this is the first book dedicated to the doctrines and remedies which regulate the legal liability of internet intermediaries (or ISPs). 

Developed out Riordan's doctoral dissertation at Oxford, this book will appeal to academics and practitioners alike.

Also thanks to its rational and clear structure, the author has succeeded in a fairly challenging task (that few so far have completed successfully), ie explaining the law of ISP liability by showing also a thorough understanding of the functioning and ongoing development of underlying technologies.

Following an inquiry into relevant legal principles, the book also offers specific insights into topical areas of the law, including - amongst others - data protection, copyright, and defamation.

A particularly interesting section is the one devoted to Member States' case law in the area of website blocking. This is a must-read chapter that - if nothing else - shows how fragmented the relevant and seemingly harmonised ISP liability framework [and relevant remedies against ISPs] remains within the EU.  

Book Review: Socio--legal Aspects of the 3-D Printing Revolution

The cost to businesses will reach $100B by 2018! 3-D printed guns! Quick, panic! Despite 3-D being printing a fascinating area for legal analysis, we've not seen much scholarly analysis of the subject. This is slowly changing, as this new book by Angela Daly demonstrates.  Socio-legal Aspects of the 3-D Printing Revolution is a concise, engaging overview of the dominant intellectual property, privacy and social aspects relating to the legal and regulatory infrastructure of additive manufacturing, a.k.a. 3-D printing, industry.

Daily sets out her arguments in the social and economic changes brought about by 3-D printing. A key argument is that 3-D printing is ushering in a new era of "the end of scarcity."  Scarcity is the principle that we have unlimited wants, but limited resources. Daly largely argues for that the internet has dramatically reduced the costs (limits) of information and digital goods.  She also argues that recycling in 3-D printing means resources can be reused infinitely. However, scarcity is a key tenant of economics. The end of scarcity would be the economic equivalent of a perpetual motion machine. Resources on the internet (information and digital goods) might appear to be infinite initially, but there is always a cost associated (e.g. time, electricity) - hence scarcity.  Recycling involves wastage and is therefore finite. However, Daly's point is largely that the limitations of costs and resources have been dramatically reduced by new technologies.

Norman Rockwell Vol.97, No.4
ISSN 0161-7370

A common thread in regulation of innovative technologies is how to balance incentivising innovation and protecting society, while leaving room for new innovations and civil liberties. Daly highlights the risk of over-enforcement of IP, in particular through the use of DMCA takedown notices. She notes digital rights management (DRM) and technical protection measures (TPM) could restrict interoperability, leading to consumer lock-in and restricting consumer choice and market competition. She argues that over-enforcement (this is generally true for all IP and law) could lead to corporations developing dominant market positions.

A fascinating chapter on scanning, cleverly entitled "Selfies in another dimension," looks at IP and reverse engineering in 3-D scanning. Citing existing scholarship that reverse engineering in traditional manufacturing industries encourages the spread of knowledge, Daly notes that 3-D scanning significantly reduces the costs, while increasing the possibilities, of reverse engineering. She also discusses a lack of harmonisation between jurisdictions on the approach to copyright protection of CAD files. In particular, the US tends to not grant copyright protection to utilitarian 3-D scans, while its status in the UK is less clear

Another thread to Daly's arguments are the parallels between the Internet and 3-D printing. Both are clearly disruptive technologies and raise intellectual property concerns. Yet this narrative is problematic. Daly notes that 3-D printing remains a question mark, "However, given the political economy of 3-D printing development as consumer-accessible technology, the involvement of the nation-states and large corporations as well as individuals in its use, it would seem that those who proclaimed 3-D printing as a liberatory technology bringing about the end of scarcity and end of control - as with the Internet - have done so prematurely." There is a logical inconsistency in comparing the intangibility of the Internet to the physicality of 3-D printing. From a practical perspective, the narrative that industry (particularly rights holders), has adopted with the Internet and consumer use of copyrighted digital goods, has proven incredibly counterproductive. Framing consumers as pirates and digital goods as vulnerable assets has not served the music and other industries well. Let's hope 3-D printing does not fall down a similar rabbit hole.

Low Poly Stanford Bunny, Creative Tools

I enjoyed the writing style and balanced approach to this book.  While I have objections to some of the arguments, Daly's writing is persuasive and considers a wide variety of perspectives and topics (including the printing of dangerous objects and Internet privacy.) This book is very appealing for legal professionals and students looking to understand 3-D printing and its interaction with socio-legal aspects.  The references are a veritable who's-who in 3-D printing and legal scholarship. All in all, an excellent book which covers a vast topic in a succinct and expert manner.

Socio-legal aspects of the 3-D printing revolution, by Angela Daly is published by Palgrave McMillan parentheses 2016) IBM and 978-1-137-51555-1. Cost: £35.99 for e-book, £45 for hard copy. Rupture factor: low, this concise book runs 122 pages.

The Holy Temple, Could it Be Real? The Falconi Effect

Just a few hours ago, on Shabbat I finished reading the most amazing and mesmerizing and thought provoking book, The Falconi Effect: A Modern Novel about the Days of the Messiah, by Catriel Sugarman. Some of you may remember Sugarman's very popular articles about life of the Kohanim/Priests during Third Holy Temple times, that used to appear in OU's Torah Tidbits. And you may have known about or bought/received his museum quality wood craft Judaica, which he designed, constructed and sold from his workshop on Shlomzion Hamalka Street, Jerusalem for many years. He is also famous for being the craftsman appointed to repair and reconstruct Rebbe Nachman's Chair.

Sugarman's greatest Judaica project was the Second Temple, for which he and his staff did thorough research to get every detail as exact as humanly possible from the sources available. I must admit that I've known him for close to half a century, and in his earlier days as a carpenter, before crafting Judaica, he built us closets.

Today Sugarman is considered one of the experts about the Holy Temple and how it functioned in Biblical Times. Not sufficing in that, he can picture how the Third Temple will function. And that is how I must introduce his brilliant book, The Falconi Effect.

The Falconi Effect takes place during the time of the Third Temple, not at all far in the future. We are not told the year, and we are not given any details about how exactly Har Habayit, The Temple Mount was liberated by the Jewish People and the Holy Temple suddenly appeared there. We just must accept the premise that a miracle happened. But for my generation and older, if someone had been in a coma or hiking in the mountains or desert for the first two weeks of June, 1967, they'd find the results of the Six Days War just as surprising if not moreso. 

Nowadays, when people of all ages, children, teens and adults, too, read Harry Potter with great enthusiasm, I don't see why anyone would have a problem getting into  The Falconi Effect, which is much more realistic and more magical. We are let into the logistics of how the Temple staff get ready for the three pilgrimage festivals when seemingly impossible numbers come to Jerusalem. Not only do they have to worry about hotel rooms, families hosting pilgrims, sufficient transportation from the airports, they have to make sure there's enough flax for the priests' new robes. When not only does the storage system malfunction, but all of the emergency alarms stay silent leaving them flaxless, the staff scours the world for suitable flax and then everything that can go wrong does so. They finally get some high quality flax, and then we find out who is causing the international anarchy, Falconi.  And then the Kohen Gadol, High Priest, literally changes the world. I don't want to get into details and plot-spoiling.

The main characters are jaded journalists, a leading anarchist, a self-made man who controls international media and Temple staff. And the plot and characters all work as they should. It is plausible; it is magic. I told Casey that I had no idea he could write so well, and he must write more books.

I highly recommend The Falconi Effect. This is the best of its genre. Buy it for yourself, your kids, your friends. Give it as a gift. Choose it for your book club. You can get a paper copy or as an ebook/Kindle.

Product Details

Paperback: 394 pages

Publisher: Ketoret (May 12, 2016)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0692531882

ISBN-13: 978-0692531884

Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,139,262 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

#1171 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Religious & Inspirational > Jewish

#8874 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature

#226155 in Books > Religion & Spirituality

Book Review: Trade Secret Protection

As is befitting a book on trade secrets, the cover of Trade Secret Protection, edited by Trevor Cook, is shrouded in mystery. Matte black with gold embossments, the book invites to you delve into the world of global protection of trade secrets.

The book covers 32 countries and their trade secrets protection. Each chapter is written by local experts and covers a similar format for the relevant civil and criminal law: substantive aspects, final remedies, procedural aspects, and general considerations. Chapters are generally around 7 pages (14 sides), so the coverage is more broad than deep.

Given the current focus on the Olympics, and because this Kat's years there as student make her partial, let's have a look at the chapter on Brazil. As in many jurisdictions, trade secret protection in Brazil sits across a few areas of law -- unfair competition, TRIPs, an "inviolability of privacy" clause and in a few other spots.  Trade secrets exist not as property rights, but as an, "immaterial right." When this right is assigned, the contract can be registered with the Brazilian Patent and Trademark Office (BPTO.) Author Elisabeth Kasznar Fekete describes the Brazilian system as being very different in terms of licensing, "While the US and other jurisdictions attribute a right of property to trade secrets, in Brazil undisclosed information does not generate a property right... the legal nature of know-how agreements is not considered, from the BPTO's perspective, to be a temporary license but a definitive assignment of rights." Very interesting.

As Cook notes in the introduction, "Trade secrets have only grudgingly started to form an accepted part of the world intellectual property order since TRIPs." I'm really pleased to see more work on trade secrets.  Certainly this book will appeal to the reader eager to access synopses of trade secret protection in key jurisdictions, and in particular non-English speaking ones where information may be less readily accessible. There isn't an index, which I would have liked to have seen as it would enable cross-country comparison. However, most readers will be looking for jurisdiction-specific information, and the book's standard chapter format and organisation by country will satisfy that need.

Trade Secret Protection: A Global Guide with consulting editor Trevor Cook, (2016) Globe Law & Business. ISBN-10: 1909416312 is available for £145.  Rupture factor: Medium, nearly 500 pages.

P.S. I suspect the Amazon.com entry has confused its Trevor Cooks.  Unless our Trevor Cook is also the author of Make Your Own Art, Cool Stuff to Do and Awesome Experiments.

Book Review: Innovation & IPRs in China & USA

The summer temperatures may send London into meltdown, but that doesn't mean that publications have stopped. Hot off the presses is, "Innovation and IPRS in China and USA: Myths, Realities and Opportunities," edited by Kung-Chung Liu and Uday S. Racherla.  The book is a collection of essays from IP experts around the world.  Part I of the book looks at doctrinal and empirical analysis, and Part II looks at China and USA separately.

Naturally this Kat was drawn to the empirical analysis.  A chapter by Racherla investigates the relationship between IPR and innovation.  Racherla performs a literature review of studies by the USPTO, the EU IPO and case studies of technological and business model innovations in the U.S. and USA. Asking, "Do IPRs Promote Innovation?," he answers, "it depends."

Racherla's Is and the IPRs Model

Racherla develops what he calls the, "Is and IPRs model."  He argues that innovations (Is) and IPRs can be divided along a main axis ranging from the Science and Technology (S&T) space to the Business and Commercialization (B&C) space. "Inventions" are concentrated in the S&T space where patents are the preferred method of protection, whereas business models, commercialisation strategies etc. inhabit the B&C space and prefer trade marks and copyright. He argues that in both of these spaces, the evidence that IP promotes innovation is weak; in S&T, "the percentage of conversion of patents into commercial products/services as a measure of the IPR promotability of innovation," and in B&C, "the impact of these trademarks and copyrights on breakthrough or disruptive innovations," both provide unconvincing arguments for a direct innovation-IPR link.  However, he argues that his Is-IPR model leads to two conclusions: 1) not all IPR promote innovation and, 2) "only IPRs protecting sustainable innovations – which possess economic, social, and/or environmental value – promote innovation." As is often the case in policy and innovation, it depends.

A second empirical paper asks, "Does Patent Strategy shape the Long-Run Supply of Public Knowledge?: Evidence from Human Generics," by Kenneth Huang and Fiona Murray.  The authors collect data on, "patent-paper pairs" which are when the same, "piece of knowledge is contributed to both public and private knowledge streams through its disclosure in both publication and patent." They argue that studying these pairs allow for assessment of patents, public and private knowledge, and policy. Focusing on human genetics, the article uses 1,300 of these patent-paper pairs to find, "patent strategies - patent scope, patent ownership, patent landscape complexities, and the commercial relevance of patented private knowledge - negatively impact the long-run production of public knowledge." It's quite a long chapter, running 40 pages.

The book covers an eclectic mix of topics. One very nice aspect of this book was its use of colour in images and artwork, which is fairly rare these days.  Liu, Kongzhong, and Uday S. Racherla. Innovation and IPRs in China and USA: Myths, Realities and Opportunities. 2016 is available for £82 e-book and £86 hardcover.  Rupture factor: low, 224 pages.

Picture a Siddur That is Also A Coffee Table Book

That's the Nehalel beShabbat siddur! Yes, it's a beauty!! I know that it came out a few years ago, and now there's one for weekdays, but since I had to choose which to review, I asked for the Shabbat one.

I generally give away the books I get to review, and I felt that the Shabbat one would be more suitable. But when they put out one for the Jewish Holidays and if they offer it to me, I'll probably keep it, since I do need a good Holiday one.

The Nehalel beShabbat siddur is gorgeous, easy to use and follow. The davening instructions are clear enough for someone not very experienced in Jewish Prayer. I also consider the English translation excellent.

And even though I was afraid that the exquisite photos would be too distracting, I did manage to doven from it on Shabbat. I took it to shul with me, and friends sitting nearby insisted on taking a look. It's that irresistible.

I guess you can call it a "labor of love" by Michael Haruni, his friends and staff. I went through all of the names listed and discovered that I even know some of them.

Conception and development of Nehalel, as well as its new English translation, are the work of Michael Haruni. Haruni’s academic research background in Philosophy led him to examine the nature of kavanah (the directing of thought) in prayer. He is the creator of the innovative Nevarech bencher, while his stage plays, especially The Stonemason and STa”M, have explored the relation between faith and identity. He lives in Jerusalem with his family.

Not only would the Nehalel beShabbat siddur be a wonderful gift to give someone else, but it would certainly be a wonderful gift to give yourself. Enjoy! For purchase information, click here.

Title: Nehalel beShabbat
Editor/Translator: Michael Haruni
Publisher: Nevarech, distributed by Urim & Ktav
Pub Date: January 31, 2013
ISBN: 978­9655556575, hardcover, 681 pages, $29.95