Intellectual property rights and SEO: Today's relevance

What to Learn from IPR and Patent concerns if you are an Online Marketer?

Apple and Samsung are in cold war since long. Both are high tech industries offering mind-blowing and thought provoking gadgets such as smartphones, laptops, tablets and many more. These companies are strong competitor and leaves no stone unturned. Recently, everyone must have heard about Apple Vs. Samsung case. Samsung was observed to have dishonored and violated Apple’s trade dress in manufacturing smartphones that look clone to the iPhone.  Moreover, Samsung has also violated many of Apple’s software patent layering fundamental attributes of iPhone user interface. Apple is the first company on the planet earth who has introduced a touch screen mobile phone that features zoom in and out ability just by pinching fingers.Apple also keeps patents on few aspects of the screen scrolling behavior such as the specific way of scrolling display bounces when it is pushed too far.

Who win the battle?
Obviously Apple won the case and unfortunately, Samsung lost. Jury made the decision that Apple will be awarded with $1.5bn by Samsung for infringing Apple technologies, software and designs.Android OS (Operating System) has no doubt, made a tremendous entry in smartphone industry and has captured mammoth growing share of cell phone market. Google Android earnings are minimum and among android phone manufacturing companiesonly Samsung is enjoying huge revenues. Winning a billion dollar case from rival in smartphone game is no doubt, a gigantic win for the founders.  And the reality that the trades dress breaches upset Samsung’s production and distribution chain marks it a chief solid blow.

The jury foreman was 67 years old chief technology general of Multicast Labs naming Velvin Hogan. He got worldwide fame by designing web video technology and has deep understanding about US patent rules. Hogan after careful calculation reached to this dollar amount using his own calculations based on the fact that how much Samsung hurt Apple in profits from the sales of invading Samsung gadgets and adding the royalty total to attain a final fair number. Decision of the issue was taken after careful consideration of public and media and was inherently unbiased.He also made it clear that this decision was not made to hurt any party.

Understanding of IPR
This case has made it clear that the increasing popularity of internet and infinite amount of online workers and users IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) can be taken away effortlessly from the owner. Whatever might be the idea, innovation or product you present itcan be viewed and imitated within no time. Efforts should be made to keep all the trademarks, patents, copyrights and other intellectual property rights of your software, technologies and products intact and enjoy the sole proprietorship of your innovations and ideas. Moreover, it enables you to safeguard the originality and relish monopoly.

Understanding Intellectual Property Rights, Trademarks and Violation of Copyrights is a must for all Online Marketing Consultants - SEO, SEM, PPC, Social

Verizon Vs. Cybersquatters : Intellectual Property Case

Domain name booking and cyber-squatting is a creating a new legal problem as the web has crossed any country's limit.

Keeping the legal control over the un-lawful activities over the web, most of the countries are modifying the IT laws including India, US and the European union.

Here is a recent IPR (intellectual Property Rights) case of domain name booking by cybersquatters against the popular telecom service Verizon and the trademarks registered by the company.

Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is taking it to cybersquatters, and the telecom said it has been awarded $33.2 million from a company trying to intentionally confuse Web users.

The ruling, which the telecom said is the largest-ever cybersquatting judgment, said OnlineNIC "unlawfully registered at least 663 domain names that were either identical or confusingly similar to Verizon's trademarks." The telecom was awarded $50,000 per domain name, which included the likes of iphonefromverizon.com and treoverizon.com.

OnlineNIC is a San Francisco-based domain registrar, and no representatives showed up to court. The company also faces similar lawsuits from Microsoft and Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)

Source : InformationWeek

I would suggest to check the brand names and trademarks before you register a domain and avoid committing such activities.

Blu - Ray site Hacked!!

Competition and use of black hat techniques by someone (nothing proved yet so no blame game) but the fact is Blu-Ray website was hacked and it was re-directing to HD DVD site.

Tech2 news suggests:
The war between Blu-Ray and HD DVD has been carrying on in full swing this entire year. There have been a lot of charges traded and numbers proclaimed, about who is winning the format war. Carrying the war to the next level, an HD DVD enthusiast hacked the Blu-Ray website and re-directed it to the HD DVD website.

Media Penetration : Audio Video Print Online

Mass media in India is that part of the Indian media which aims to reach a wide audience. Besides the news media, which includes print, radio and television, the internet is playing an increasing role, along with the growth of the Indian blogging community.

Media penetration as of 2003
	All India	Urban
Print	25%	46%
Terrestrial television	53%	80%
Cable and satellite television	20%	46%
Radio	22%	25%
Cinema	7%	11%
Internet	1%	3%

Source Wikipedia

According to the news at Alootechie.com,
ETV Network has launched ETVNetmart.com where advertisers can bid and buy commercial airtime on its channels. In order to take part in the bidding process, media planners, advertisers or agencies will have to first register themselves on the site.

ETV Network operates 12 channels — ETV Telugu, ETV 2, ETV Bangla, ETV Marathi, ETV Kannada, ETV Oriya, ETV Gujarati, ETV Urdu, ETV MP / Chhattisgarh, ETV UP / Uttarakhand, ETV Bihar / Jharkhand, and ETV Rajasthan.

Monster.com Hacking Incident

Are you aware of the new interest hackers are having?

May not be a political one but certainly something to think about.

According to SMH.com ;
Monster.com waited five days to tell users its system had been hacked, in a security breach that resulted in the theft of confidential information for more than a million users, a company executive told Reuters on Thursday.
By the time the US job-matching website shut down the illegal operation, run from two server computers at a Web-hosting company in Ukraine, the names and confidential contact information of some 1.3 million job seekers had been stolen,

--
Internet security is a concern for all now!!

New Domain Name Extensions Coming by 2008

How many domain extensions do you know about ?
Most Popular are the Top level domains or TLDs . They are .com /.net/org etc. In all there are more than 200 TLDs,including the two letter extensions like .in used for country specific websites . Here .in stands for India.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers. These include domain names (like .org, .museum and country codes like .UK), as well as the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols. Computers use these identifiers to reach each other over the Internet. Careful management of these resources is vital to the Internet's operation, so ICANN's global stakeholders meet regularly to develop policies that ensure the Internet's ongoing security and stability.

According to the latest News from Reuters.com,

"
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which manages the Internet's domain-name address system, said on Friday it was on track to allow an expanded number of domain names next year.

ICANN officials, wrapping up a week-long meeting in Puerto Rico, said their goal was to have in place by next year a permanent process to allow for new, generic top-level domain names, as well as to begin "internationalizing" domain names.

"With the progress we've made is San Juan, we're on track for the new applications and approvals policy to be ready for the start of 2008 and the introduction of new TLDs by mid-year," said Dr. Paul Twomey, president and chief executive of ICANN.

The California-based non-profit organization oversaw two previous extensions of Internet space: the addition of seven TLDS, including .info and .name in 2000, and the addition of another six starting in 2004.

It recently denied a petition to include .xxx as a TLD to be used for pornographic Web sites.

The group is also working to expand the number of characters that can be used to create Internet addresses, currently limited to the 26 Roman characters, 10 numerals and the hyphen. This would allow the use of Arabic, Chinese and a multitude of other characters to be used in domain names. "

Read the full Story at Reuters

Privacy policy redefined by Top 3 SE

After the latest buyouts by search giants ( Google, Yahoo, MSN) now comes the concerns about user data and privacy intrusions. Most of the users fear of losing there personal information to commercial benefits.

In view of those concerns the search engines are finally taking a step to tighten the privacy policies.

According to Washingtonpost.com,

Online search companies Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Microsoft are tightening their privacy policies in the face of mounting public, congressional and regulatory agency concern about the vast amounts of personal data they gather and store.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced it would make all data on search queries anonymous after 18 months. This week, Yahoo is to outline plans to make a user's search history anonymous within 13 months. On Friday, Ask.com said users could ask the firm not to retain their Web searches ...

Trademarks / Patents Violation in India

Trademarks in Healthcare:
SC restrains Dabur from using trade mark 'Glucose-D'
New Delhi, May. 21 (PTI): Leading ayurvedic products manufacturer Dabur India LTD has been restrained by the Supreme Court from using the trade mark "Glucose-D" for its popular health drink as it was packaged on the lines of Glucon-D owned by rival company M/s Heinz Italia.
Source :The Hindu


Trademarks in Education :
The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), India’s technical education regulator, has ordered the CFA Institute “to cease operations in India”. AICTE’s order is the latest chapter in an ongoing fight between the CFA Institute and the Hyderabad-based Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India (Icfai) over the use of the terms—CFA and chartered financial analyst.

On 18 May, AICTE issued a notification that said the CFA Institute and its programme were not approved by it.

Source :Live Mint

Patent Exploitation in Yoga:

As has happened in the past with several plant products like turmeric and neem used in traditional Indian medicines, yet another application has been filed in the US for patenting a form of indigenous knowledge from India. An NRI is aggressively claiming patent for a sequence of yoga asanas. And with the US Patent and Trademark Office issuing 150 yoga-related copyrights, 134 patents on yoga accessories, and 2,315 yoga trademarks, any one teaching these patented asanas might have to pay a royalty to the American patent holder.

Source: Times of India

Website Copyrights in India

Ever wondered how websites get their copyright?
How the © mark is legally allowed to put on your website?
How are you sure your website is copy right proof?
How to get a copyright for your site in India?

For all the questions arising please follow these steps:
1. Check your content\creative for which you want to take a copyright.
2. If you have original content, its of-course you have the rights and can claim as an Intellectual Property (IPR)
3. Checkout for a copyright office nearby.

India being a member of the Berne Convention of 1886 (as modified at Paris in 1971), the Universal Copyright Convention of 1951 and the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement of 1995.

New treaties were signed in 1996 under the auspices of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). These treaties are called the ‘WIPO Copyrights Treaty (WCT)’ and the ‘WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT)’

The Copyright Office is currently located at the following address:

B-2/W-3, Curzon Road Barracks
Kasturba Gandhi Marg
New Delhi - 110001

References:
http://copyright.gov.in/

Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)

Some URL's to help you understand the overview and importance of Intelletual Property Rights (IPR) on the WWW

• The World Wide Web Consortium Site http://www.w3.org/IPR/
• US Government Site www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/doc/ipnii/
• Intellectual property rights for authors, readers, researchers, and volunteers www.ieee.org/about/documentation/copyright/