| . | April 18
Cyber Law School proposed in Bangalore Just as Mr Pramod Mahajan is getting ready to get the IT Bill99 passed in the parliament, National Law School of India University is proposing to start teaching Cyber Laws in Bangalore.
April 15 Will Digital Signatures Change the way we use the web? Internt has so far been the paradise for anonymous interactions. This charecteristic of the medium is now set to change. With E-Business being the backbone of the system, it is no longer feasible to let anonymity all the way. See
this interesting article in ZDNET
April 13 Amazon at the Receiving end..Charged of infringement of Patent Rights In a reversal of roles, Amazon.com which made news by patenting basic business processes and took legal action on Barnes & Noble has now been accused by a company called Intouch Group Inc. of infringing patented methods for consumers to preview pre-recorded music samples over the Internet. San Francisco-based Intouch claims that Amazon and other Internet site operators - including Liquid Audio Inc., Listen.com Inc., Discover.music.com Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s Entertaindom LLC - have misappropriated its patented technology by offering music samples online despite being warned of the alleged infringement. In a suit filed in federal court in San Francisco March 31, Intouch claims that it is the owner of two patents, awarded in 1993 and 1999, protecting technology allowing in-store customers to listen to parts of songs at a kiosk, or to hear the music through a computer, before deciding whether to place an order. For More
Details Click Here Courtesy USA Today
April 12 US Patent Office to be more careful US Patent office has announced that it would be more careful in examining "Prior Art" before granting a web patents in future. This follows the criticisms raised by the industry against Amazon One click process patent and Priceline patent on reverse auction system. Click for
More Details from New Scientist
April 7 ICICI Withdraws In the much publicised domain name dispute with IL&FS, ICICI has given up fight by withdrawing its site www.investmartindia.com. Even though ICICI had won the first round in the court when a stay was refused against the use of the domain name, ICICI as an institution has perhaps decided not to be seen as fighting against other well known institutions in the country. It has also withdrawn its claim on www.jeevanbeema.com in favour of LIC. While this puts an end to one of the controversies that could have snownballed into an offline corporate war, it has left the issue of "How much rights does a trademark owner have on a domain name?" unresolved. Watch this space for more on domain name disputes.
April 5 Cyber Courts in India? Mr Pramod Mahajan, the minister of Information and Technology stated in a conference yesterday that he would like Cyber Courts to be set up in India to enable speedy trial. He has requested the Chief Justice of India to take suitable steps in this regard. No doubt this is a welcome step. But can the minister explain why the legislators are still holding up the passage of the Bill? Will the government be able to stand up to the presures of the lawyer's lobby which may oppose the move? Let,s hope for the best.
31st March 2000 E-Crimes on the rise..Are we concerned? In a recent study in USA, 70% of the respondents reported that hackers had attempted to break into their corporate networks. Many of them were thought to be disgruntled empoyees. The network security personnel are worried that E-Crime is growing faster than E-Commerce and are taking steps to beef up security of networks. What is the situation in India?..... Does any one care? If the unexplained delay in the passage of the IT Bill-99
and the silence of the software industry leaders is any indication, it
is nobody's concern. We have to perhaps wait for a high profile break-in
to Wipro/Infosys/Satyam networks before softare giants wake up to the reality
that non existence of Cyber Laws is an open invitation to cyber criminals.
March 30 Here is a good news for Internet Lovers! A federal judge in Los Angeles has held that "Deep Linking" is legal in a ruling on the tickets.com vs ticketmaster.com case. People who love internet and appreciate its basic nature of hyperlinking can heave a sigh of relief.
US patent Office set to improve Following the worldwide condemnation of the Amazon patent on affiliation process, US PTO has admitted that the system of awarding patents may need to be improved. In particular the examiners have been found wanting in assessing "Prior Art" status for a patent application. This may be overcome by refering to an expert committee in addition to the current procedure of search.
ICICI, Investsmart talks fail..court battle to resume The off-court settlement effort of ICICI and IL&FS on the domain name dispute seems to have failed. It may however be a welcome test case for the Indian courts to examine how far domain name rights and trademark rights are to be linked. It is interesting to note that Mr P.Chidambaram is appearing for IL&FS in this case. Keep watching these pages for more on this . March 29 Should E-xxxx be allowed as a trademark? An important discussion has erupted on whether generic words with the prefix of "e-" be allowed as a trade mark, follwing the application of Agfa for a trademark on e-photo. The point is should words such as e-ticket, e-commerce, e-advertising, e-business, e-writing and such other words should remain in the public domain for trademark purpose. March 28 Cyber Squatters may be jailed! The power of the registered trademark owners in imposing their rights on Cyber squatters could lead to the imprisonment of Cyber squatters as per the US Anti Cyber Squatting Consumer Protection Law which came into force in November 1999. March 26 Kerala Court Leads the Way Kerala Highcourt has admitted a PIL based on an e-mail sent through its website http://www.keralahighcourt.com/ by a gulf based Malayaalee association. Cyber society observers should welcome this development which provides primafacie recognition to electronic documents even before the formal passage of the IT Bill-99. This could well be the precedent that hastens the passage of the IT Bill. March 24 ICICI Claims "Jeevan Beema" as a domain name Controversy is brewing between ICICI and LIC on the former's registration of domain name in the name of jeevanbeema.com. LIC thinks that it is entitled to the domain name since it is associated with the name. The question again as in the case of other domain name disputes is "Is a Trademark owner entitled to a domain name in the names of all his registered product names and in all variations of spelling and perfixes and suffixes?". For example, before we think that LIC has a legitimate right on www.jeevanbeema.com we should also agree that if so, LIC will also be entitled to prevent others from using any confusingly similar names such as jivanbima.com, jeevanbeema.co.in, jeevanbeemaindia.com, etc etc. The combinations to which LIC will then be entitled are endless. Just for this impracticality, I consider that the tradenames should not be considered as automatically providing rights on the domain names. They should be considered as different entities. At the same time, to avoid innocent persons from being cheated, we should provide that ICICI (or similar such registrant of a domain name in the trade name not belonging to them) should provide a prominent disclaimer on the URL that "This site does not belong to Life Insurance Corporation of India"(or to similar effect). If such a web site operator uses the site to denigrate the trademark owner or his products, he may be held responsible for bad faith and if need be, prevented from continuing to use the site. This approach should also be codified into a law to avoid any confusion in this regard. In the absence of a clear guideline, courts may pronounce differring judgements that may create wrong precedences. March 14 Regulatory Investigaory Powers Bill introduced in UK Should regulatory agencies be empowered to investigate the activities of netizens? Is it a violation of Privacy rights?...is a discussion which goes on. UK has now introduced the RIP bill to empower regulatory authorities for investigation. Details here courtesy: the Register
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