Bloomberg News reports that Ford won an International Trade Commission ruling barring the import of grilles, headlights, bumpers, side-view mirrors and taillights for the F-150 truck from Taiwan on grounds they infringed seven design patents link here. The design patents are reported to run for 14 years. The finding is subject to presidential review. Ford characterized the parts as "counterfeits" which harm not just Ford, but the entire industry.

Most consumers think the price of replacement parts is outrageous and ask how a grill that fits the vehicle constitutes a new, significant, addition to knowledge or that revealing it somehow conveys an important benefit on the public warranting the granting of a monopoly for 14 years.

Robert Friedel's new book "The Culture of Improvement" is reviewed in the Wall Street Journal today by Adam Keiper.

The contributions of famous entrepreneurs, including James Watt and Robert Fulton, are surveyed. Are Watt's legal strategems part of the story? What about patents as innovation blocking mechanisms?

The reviewer quotes a passage stating that patents can divert attention away from the cumulative history of creativity.

Technology "proceeds by fits and starts;" R&D, best practices, and, yes, patents are part of the story. A visit to Amazon could be in order.

The lawsuit was briefly mentioned on this website here.

Fortunately, a federal judge has done the right thing and upheld free speech rights.

In her suit, filed in March in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, Burnett claimed that after she refused to grant Fox and Family Guy mastermind Seth McFarlane consent to use the theme music from The Carol Burnett Show, they "knowingly and deliberately" rewrote the episode to disparage Burnett's famous cleaning-lady character.

...

In his ruling signed Friday and made public Monday, U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson saw little if any harm done to Burnett. While he "fully appreciates how distasteful and offensive the segment is to Ms. Burnett," Pregerson noted that parody is protected by the freedom of speech rights guaranteed under the First Amendment.

Burnett's original complaint can be read here.

We'll get to slavery at the end of this post. I want to highlight some of the good guys for a change. The Open Knowledge Foundation - well the name pretty much describes it. It came to my attention through Rufus Pollock, who is a Ph.D student at Cambridge (England) doing research on cumulative innovation. Rufus has been active in Europe with several important organizations: the FFII, the major grass-roots organization lobbying against software patents in the EU - we've dodged the bullet on that one so far, as well as being involved with the UK Creative Commons.

So what does this have to do with slavery? You may recall that while not as pernicious as slavery, the mind-control aspect of intellectual property has many of the same problems as slavery - a form of property that has always been opposed by economists. One of the most interesting posts on the Open Knowledge Foundation website is the post about data on the slave trade: which is itself enslaved in chains of intellectual property.

From Computer World (6/3/07) link here:

In a resounding victory for Microsoft Corp., bills seeking to mandate the use of open document formats by government agencies have been defeated in five states, and only a much-watered-down version of such legislation was signed into law in a sixth state.

The proposed bills would have required state agencies to use freely available and interoperable file formats, such as the Open Document Format (ODF) for Office Applications, instead of Microsoft Corp.'s proprietary Office formats. The legislation was heavily backed by supporters of ODF such as IBM, which uses the file format in its Notes 8 software, and Sun Microsystems Inc., which sells the ODF-compliant StarOffice desktop application suite.

The Consumerist blog link here has had it in for the RIAA for several years. This spring, it ran a competition on which is the worst company in America link here. Against 19 other companies, it won the laurels, in a one-on-one elimination match in which readers voted (small turnout, but not trivial-I have no idea whether it was a set-up). The blog site continues to run critical posts, in the latest of which it lists the members of Congress who have received substantial contributions and suggests that if any one of them is your representative, you write and complain. Have a look at the list link here. It has also been joined by another blog, Gizmodo, which is promoting a boycott of RIAA members products link here.

Publishers are creating speakers' bureaus to publicize authors and their books. It gives them a lucrative second platform.

The rise of the superstore, which created a marketplace where none existed, helped spur the demand for authors' lectures, as did the network effect of the internet.

The Free Trade Agreement the US negotiated with Korea is generating more argument among bloggers who follow Korea. The strongest statement attacking the agreement (link here) reads in part: "In one glaring example, the governments agree to shut down internet sites that permit unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or transmission of copyrighted works-- without reference to exceptions for art, education and critique. If the agreement is ratified, both US and Korean governments will begin shutting down an undisclosed number of peer-to-peer (P2P) and online storage (‘webhard') services. Korea will also be required to crack down on book copying on university campuses...."

"The Korea-US FTA could set a dangerous precedent. If ratified, the US is expected to push other countries to accept the similar conditions in their respective FTAs. Much of the ‘piracy' that the US wants to see cracked down on is of materials copyrighted by large US-based corporations, not individual creators. Since distribution of movies, news, internet software and images is a core area of the US economy, the US government has long been aggressively pushing for stricter copyright and patent regimes in international arenas, including through GATT and WIPO. The Korea-US FTA, represents a new step in this process."

A contrary view is at The Marmots Hole link here

(via slashdot) The Slingbox is a device that can shift a television broadcast from one location to another. Major League Baseball is declaring this illegal. According to Sling Gary Shapiro, head of the Consumer Electronic Assocation, representing a large number of small (and innovative) manufacturers disagrees:

The Consumer Electronics Association agrees with Blake, and seems to be siding with Sling Media and consumers on the issue. "This is a classic instance of copyright owners trying to suppress innovation purely because it empowers consumers," says CEA President Gary Shapiro." There is no infringement or piracy here--consumers are simply watching content they lawfully purchase..."

This might be a good place to put in a plug for Gary and the CEA who are fighting hard to see that modern technology reaches the consumer and is not blocked by the copyfight.

Hal Varian takes up the problem of orphan copyrighted material and pushes the idea of registration link here. He criticizes the Copyright Office proposal to require diligent search as costly, while acknowledging it would be an improvement over what exists. He would supplement it with registration, supporting the proposal of Larry Lessig to make registration compulsory within fourteen years or lose the law's protection. Varian discusses relative costs and some other fine points, but ends with the sour note that even the Copyright Office proposal is languishing in Congress. Perhaps his highlighting the problem will move consideration along.