Law and Innovation

Fresh and interesting infographic about IP Theft from i-Sight: Copy(right) Cats: How Intellectual Property Theft Affects Everyone, Including You from i-Sight

Fresh and interesting article from Reuters about  U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) collecting hundreds of millions of contact lists from personal email and instant messaging (IM) accounts around the world: 'The collection program intercepts email address books and "buddy lists" from instant messaging services as they move across global data links, the newspaper said in an article posted on its website, citing senior intelligence officials and documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. The Post said analyzing that data lets the NSA search for connections and map relationships among foreign intelligence targets. The data collection takes place outside the United States, but sweeps in the contacts of many Americans, the report said, citing two senior U.S. intelligence officials. A spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA, said the agency is focused on discovering and developing intelligence about foreig...

‘Inadvertent disclosures’ happened (Samsung’s counsel [1] ). Inadvertent (Adj.): failing to act carefully or considerately; inattentive (Collins Online Dictionary). A couple of days ago, F. Mueller IP expert (FOSS patent) published an interesting article about Samsung’s illegal disclosure of confidential information related to the secret Nokia-Apple patent license. In this case, the United States District Court (Northern District of California) seemed to be very ‘angry’ with Samsung and its outside counsel (Quinn Emanuel). From the start, the tone was set: ‘(…) Letting Samsung and its counsel investigate without any court supervision is unlikely to produce satisfactory results’ said Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal. What are the consequences of such a disclosure and what sanctions on Samsung’s actions might be taken by the Court? Unfortunately, it’s still hard to predict... The mere facts of this new  Apple Inc. (and Nokia) vs. Samsung Electronics Co . case...