Tag: Kevin Madigan

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Innovation Inventors Uncategorized

New CPIP Report: The Global Patent Pendency Problem

dictionary entry for the word "innovate"Why are some of the biggest fights about patent policy almost pointless in some places? Because in many countries, including some of the world’s most important emerging economies, it takes so long to get patents that the rights have little meaning.

The Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property (CPIP) released a report today entitled The Long Wait for Innovation: The Global Patent Pendency Problem. For the first time, this report documents a growing global problem of patent backlogs, which has long been the subject of anecdotal complaints.

In many countries, processing times are eating up much of the 20 year lifespan of patents. Patent offices are failing to keep up with the growth of the innovation economy and the resulting growth in patent applications. It’s a basic governance problem that threatens to undermine the global patent system.

Some of the report’s more surprising findings:

  • It now takes over 14 years on average to get a patent for mobile technology in Brazil. That goes back to days of flip-phones and the infancy of 3G!
  • In Thailand, it takes more than 16 years on average to get a life sciences patent. In fact, Thailand regularly issues patents with mere months or weeks of life left before expiration.

The news isn’t all bad. Japan has become much faster at examining patents in recent years. The U.S. still does a pretty good job — but it’s not the fastest. Interestingly, new leaders in global innovation are emerging, as Korea and China both now examine patents more promptly than the US.

Here are some further details from the new report.

Figure 1 below shows the average granted application age for selected countries 2008-2015 (in years).

patent-pendency-figure-1: Korea 2.8; China 2.9; USA 3.5; Australia 3.6; Egypt 3.8; Japan 5.3; EPO 5.5; India 6.3; Argentina 6.4; Thailand 10.0; Brazil 10.1

Also, our study finds that with regard to specific industries:

  • The issue of lengthy pendency times for patent applications is not confined to cutting edge industries.
  • Lengthy pendency is an issue for both the high tech and life sciences industries.
  • In many industries, some countries’ average wait times render patents largely futile.

Figure 2: Average age of granted life sciences patents 2011-2015 (in years).

patent-pendency-figure-2: China a little above 3; Korea a little farther above 3; USA and Australia around 4; Japan and Argentina closely under 6; Egypt just under 6; EPO slightly beyond 6; India about 7; Brazil just under 12; Thailand around 13

Figure 3: Average age of granted mobile technology patents 2011-2015 (in years).

patent-pendency-figure-3: Australia at 3; USA and Korea about 4; Egypt and China slightly beyond 4; Japan about 4.5; EPO a bit beyond 6; India about 7; Argentina about 8; Thailand just under 12; Brazil around 13.5

The Long Wait for Innovation: The Global Patent Pendency Problem

To read the report, please click here.

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Copyright Infringement Internet Uncategorized

Advertiser Pledge Sets Example of Accountability in the Fight Against Piracy

Cross-posted from the Mister Copyright blog.

cameraIt should come as no surprise that popular websites make money by hosting advertisements. Anyone surfing the web has undoubtedly been bombarded with ads when visiting certain sites, and for websites that offer free services or user experiences, advertisements are often the only way to generate revenue. Unfortunately, websites that promote and distribute pirated material also attract advertisers to help fund their illicit enterprises, and despite a recent push for awareness and response to these sites, legitimate advertisers, search engines, and domain name registrars continue to enable them to profit from flagrant copyright infringement.

A 2014 study by the Digital Citizens Alliance found that ad-sponsored content theft is a big and growing business. Even after a year that saw the shutdown of some of the most notorious file-sharing websites, an examination of 589 illicit websites found aggregate annual advertising revenues of $209 million. Premium brand advertising also rose from 89 observed brands in 2013 to 132 to in 2014.

The transition from downloading to streaming as the preferred method of consuming entertainment has led to content thieves taking advantage of higher advertising rates, as the cost of advertising during a video stream is far greater than a traditional display ad. Additionally, the Digital Citizens Alliance stresses that websites are easily able to ditch a domain name targeted by authorities and set up shop under a new one, contributing to the never-ending whack-a-mole nature of online piracy:

The content theft industry’s low barriers to entry and the ability of operators to switch domains quickly make it easy for new sites to fill the void left by those that do get shut down, and to evade enforcement.

The presence of recognizable brand advertisements on websites involved in illegal activity does damage far beyond lining the pockets of those distributing the unauthorized works. When users visit a website in search of music, a television show, or movie, and they see the creative work (or links to the work) displayed alongside professional, recognizable advertisements, the advertisements lend legitimacy to the website. This can be especially dangerous for younger or less-informed users who have no idea that downloading or streaming the creative works through one of these websites is copyright infringement that will ultimately harm creators and artists.

The confusion these ad placements create is similar to the misperceptions furthered by search engines and domain name registrars that have made little effort to preclude pirate websites from taking advantage of their services. Despite promises to remove them from their search results, Google continues to display links to pirate websites alongside legitimate links in its results, often displaying the illicit links at the very top of the search results.

Filmmaker and artists’ rights activist Ellen Seidler recently exposed Google’s unwillingness to remove links to websites that distribute unauthorized creative works when she ran a simple Google search for her film And Then Came Lola. As she relates, not only was the film’s official website nowhere to be found among the first page of results, the list was made up of many websites offering pirated versions of the film. Sadly, most people searching for Ellen’s movie would not be able to immediately distinguish between legitimate and illicit links and would likely be steered towards a pirate website.

Domain name registrars have also added to the confusion surrounding the legitimacy of certain infamous pirate sites by allowing them to play domain name musical chairs and evade prosecution. The Pirate Bay—one of the most notorious file-sharing websites—has operated using domain names from 14 different countries, jumping from domain to domain name to stay online in the face of prosecution. Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid warns against providing sanctuary to sites like The Pirate Bay, revealing that the website recently returned to its original .org domain run by the U.S.-based Public Interest Registry (PIR):

It is shocking that a domain name registry in the United States – one that is dedicated to “the public interest” – is allowing a blatantly illegal site to have a home on the .org domain. This is especially disturbing given that the operators of The Pirate Bay have been found guilty of criminal copyright infringement, The Pirate Bay domain names have been seized or suspended around the globe, and even its co-founder, Peter Sunde, has walked away from it.

Despite these alarming trends in the facilitation of pirate websites, there have been some recent initiatives to deter companies from doing business with illicit websites. One notable initiative is the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG). A joint effort by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), TAG was formed “to create transparency in the business relationships and transactions that undergird the digital ad industry, while continuing to enable innovation.” In 2015, TAG announced the launch of the Brand Integrity Program Against Piracy—an effort to help advertisers and advertising agencies keep their ads off websites that promote or distribute counterfeit goods or pirated content.

TAG’s mission has resonated with both advertisers and ISPs, demonstrated by a recent announcement that dozens of leading ad agencies, as well as Google and GoDaddy, have taken TAG’s Anti-Piracy Pledge. The Pledge includes a vow to curb the placement of digital advertising on websites associated with the unauthorized distribution of materials and lists the following actions that companies can take to ensure compliance:

(i) directly employing the services of validated Digital Advertising Assurance Providers;

(ii) directly employing advertising placement services that carry the TAG logo “Certified Against Piracy”; and/or

(iii) placing online advertisements through Advertising Agencies that do business exclusively with advertising placement services that carry the TAG logo “Certified Against Piracy

TAG created Digital Advertising Assurance Providers (DAAPs) as part of its Brand Integrity Program to help advertisers identify and weed out websites that do not meet their brand standards. The DAAPs are validated technology companies that the advertisers can employ to gauge the level of risk they are comfortable with and then eliminate websites and other properties that do not meet the advertisers’ standards for risk of infringement.

It’s difficult to measure how harmful advertising on illicit websites is to creators and copyright owners, but it’s not a stretch to presume that without ad revenue, many pirate sites would lose their incentive to operate. In her call to action to marketers, Hannibal executive producer Martha De Laurentiis lays out the destructive effect piracy has on the creative community:

It forces companies to either shrink their production budgets or commit to fewer, less risky projects. And ultimately, it harms audiences by limiting the types of stories that creatives can tell.

De Laurentiis explains that these pirate sites bring in millions in advertising dollars a year, and because they don’t pay for distribution rights for the creative works they steal, profit margins are estimated at around 90%. Potential profits of this scale are irresistible to those behind the pirate sites, but with a little vigilance and responsibility these incentives could be eliminated.

The co-chairs of the International Creativity and Theft-Prevention Caucus, Senator Orrin Hatch, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Congressman Bob Goodlatte, and Congressman Adam Schiff, recently praised TAG for its promotion of the Anti-Piracy Pledge, and it seems like the movement for more responsibility in digital advertising is gaining traction. But domain name registrars and search engine services need to follow the example set by advertisers and establish accountability and awareness in their sectors. Only when these services refuse to aid websites that distribute stolen copyrighted works will real progress be made in the fight against digital piracy.

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Antitrust Copyright International Law Internet Uncategorized

Google Image Search and the Misappropriation of Copyrighted Images

Cross-posted from the Mister Copyright blog.

Last week, American visual communications and stock photography agency Getty Images filed a formal complaint in support of the European Union’s investigation into Google’s anti-competitive business practices. The Getty complaint accuses Google of using its image search function to appropriate or “scrape” third-party copyrighted works, thereby drawing users away from the original source of the creative works and preserving its search engine dominance.

Specifically, Getty’s complaint focuses on changes made to Google’s image search functionality in 2013 that led to the appealing image galleries we’re familiar with today. Before the change, users were presented with low-resolution thumbnail versions of images and would be rerouted to the original source website to view a larger, more defined version and to find out how they might legally license or get permission to use the work. But with the current Google Image presentation, users are instantly delivered a large, desirable image and have no need to access the legitimate source. As Getty says in its complaint, “[b]ecause image consumption is immediate, once an image is displayed in high-resolution, large format, there is little impetus to view the image on the original source site.”

According to a study by Define Media Group, in the first year after the changes to Google Image search, image search referrals to original source websites were reduced by up to 80%. The report also provides before and after screenshots of a Google Image search and points out that before 2013, when a thumbnail was clicked, the source site appeared in the background. Not only does the source site not appear in the new version, but an extra click is required to get to the site, adding to the overall disconnect with the original content. Despite Google’s claims to the contrary, the authors of the study conclude that the new image search service is designed to keep users on the Google website.

It’s difficult not to consider Google’s image UI [user interface] change a shameless content grab – one which blatantly hijacks material that has been legitimately licensed by publishers so that Google Image users remain on their site, and are de-incentivized from visiting others.

While Getty’s complaint against Google is based on anticompetitive concerns, it involves the underlying contention that Google Image search enables misappropriation of copyrighted images on a massive scale. Anyone who has run a Google Image search knows that with the click of a mouse, a user is presented with hundreds of images related to their query, and with another simple right click, that user can then copy and paste these images as they please. But Google Image search often returns an abundance of copyright protected images, enabling anyone to copy, display and disseminate images without considering the underlying copyright and existing licenses. And while using the service may be free, make no mistake that Google is monetizing it through advertisements and the mining of users’ personal data.

When users are able to access and copy these full-screen, high resolution images from Google Image search, not only do third-party image providers lose traffic to their website, but the photographers and creators behind the images lose potential income, attribution and exposure that would come with users accessing the original source. As General Counsel Yoko Miyashita explains, “Getty Images represents over 200,000 photojournalists, content creators and artists around the world who rely on us to protect their ability to be compensated for their work.” When Google Image search obviates the need for a user to access the original creative content, these artists and creators are being denied a fair marketplace for their images, and their ability and motivation to create future works is jeopardized.

Shortly after Google changed to the new image search, individual photo publishers and image creators took to a Google Forum to voice their concerns over the effects the service was having on their images and personal web pages. A recurring complaint was that the service made it more difficult to find out information about images and that users now had to go through more steps to reach the original source website. One commenter, identifying herself as a “small time photo publisher,” described Google’s new practice of hotlinking to high-resolution images as a “skim engine” rather than a “search engine.” She lamented that not only was Google giving people access to her content without visiting her site, but her bandwidth usage (i.e. expense) went up due to the hotlinking of her high resolution images.

Google Image supporters argue that creators and image providers should simply use hotlink protection to block Google from displaying their content, but Google’s search engine dominance is so absolute, this would further curtail traffic to the original source of the content. Others suggest image providers stamp their images with watermarks to protect from infringement, but Getty VP Jonathan Lockwood explains that doing so would result in punishment from Google.

They penalise people who try to protect their content. There is then a ‘mismatch penalty’ for the site: you have to show the same one to Google Images that you own. If you don’t, you disappear.

The internet has made sharing creative works and gaining exposure as an artist easier than anyone could have imagined before the digital age, but it has also brought challenges in the form of protecting and controlling creative content. These challenges are particularly burdensome for image creators and providers, whose creative works are subject to unauthorized use the moment they are put online. Over the last few years, Google Image search has contributed to this problem by transforming from a service that provided direction to creative works to a complete substitute for original, licensed content.

With fewer opportunities for image providers and creators to realize a return–whether it be in the form of payment, attribution, or exposure–from their works, creativity and investment in creators will be stifled. Artists and rightsholders deserve fair compensation and credit for their works, and technology needs to work with image providers rather than against them to ensure that great content continues to be created.

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Copyright Internet Legislation Uncategorized

Copyright Policy Should Be Based On Facts, Not Rhetoric

Here’s a brief excerpt of a post by Kevin Madigan & Devlin Hartline that was published on IPWatchdog.

After nearly twenty years with the DMCA, the Copyright Office has launched a new study to examine the impact and effectiveness of this system, and voices on both sides of the debate have filed comments expressing their views. For the most part, frustrated copyright owners report that the DMCA has not successfully stemmed the tide of online infringement, which is completely unsurprising to anyone who spends a few minutes online searching for copyrighted works. Unfortunately, some commentators are also pushing for changes that that would make things even more difficult for copyright owners.

To read the rest of this post, please visit IPWatchdog.

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Innovation Inventors Patent Law Uncategorized

Artur Fischer's Life Illustrates the Power of Invention

Whether taking a photograph, hanging a picture, or doing some work around the house, it’s easy to take for granted all the inventions that make our lives better on a daily basis. But the devices, tools and machines we use every day are all the products of creative genius, hard work and constant innovation. Look around you and you’ll see countless devices that were once the brainchild of a visionary who was able to put his or her idea into practice, secure a patent, and improve the world. One of these visionaries just passed away, and it’s important to recognize him and the patent system that facilitated his extraordinary life in creation.

Artur Fischer is considered one of the greatest inventors of all time, with over 1,100 registered patents. The New York Times recently ran an obituary detailing his life and highlighting many of the inventions that would become regarded as some of the most resourceful of the 20th century and would earn him comparisons to Thomas Edison.

The obituary notes that while Artur Fischer was a locksmith by training, he was a compulsive tinkerer and patented his first invention when he created a synchronized mechanism that triggered a camera flash when the shutter was released. Although Fischer may not have considered himself an inventor at the time, he was looking for a better way to photograph his infant daughter and decided to take matters into his own hands. It wasn’t long before a large camera company bought his device and Fischer was able to dedicate his life and career to coming up with hundreds of solutions to nagging technical problems.

Fischer’s path from mundane job to innovating genius is one that has been repeated by the world’s most respected thinkers and inventors (think Albert Einstein at the Swiss patent office), and one that would not be possible without a strong patent system and assurances in intellectual property rights. Had Fischer not been able to secure a patent in his synchronized flash photography trigger, and subsequently profit from the sale to a large company, he may have just returned to his job as a locksmith and not pursued a passion that led to so many beneficial creations.

Fischer kept tinkering and inventing well into his 80s, telling a German magazine in 2007, “I am interested in any problem to which I can provide a solution.” In 2014, the European Patent Office presented him with a lifetime achievement award recognizing a creative mind and imaginative spirit that only comes along once in a generation. Artur Fischer’s life is a testament that when a great innovator is supported by a patent system that respects and encourages his work, the sky is the limit.