Cyber Law & Internet Governance

Institute for legal questions of Open Source Software (ifrOSS) 

Till Jaeger, Axel Metzger, "Open Source Software und deutsches Urheberrecht" in: GRUR Int. 1999 Heft 10, S. 839-848 

Siepmann, Jürgen, Lizenz- und haftungsrechtliche Fragen bei der kommerziellen Nutzung Freier Software,

Stefan Krempl, Good Bye Internet, welcome Disney.net. Der Cyberlaw-Professor Lawrence Lessig stimmt den Abgesang auf das "originäre" Netz an (Telepolis, 13.02.2000) 
 
 

ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Number (ICANN) 

Die Wahl der Membership-At-Large-Direktoren 
Statistik der Wahlbeteiligten 
http://www.icannchnnel.de/stats2000.htm
 

ICANN Channel
http://www.icannchannel.org

icann-europe, Diskussionsliste des FITUG
http://www.fitug.de/icann-europe/

European 'ICANN At Large membership' website [last updated: Ende 1999]
http://www.icann-ineurope.org/

Berkman Center ICANN-Related Content Archive

ICANN Watch

DomainNameBuyersGuide (including Registrar Rankings)

Bertelsmann Stiftung: Democratic Internet. Welt Weite Wahlen
http://www.democratic-internet.de/

Jon Postel
http://www.postel.org
 

ICANN-News & Articles

.info, .biz, .pro, .name, .museum, .aero und .coop sind nach
dem Willen von ICANN die neuen Top Level Domains (gTLDs). 
Pressestimmen dazu kompiliert von Christian Koellerer <ck-list@gmx.net>:

FAZ (in English)
http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?doc={143C4AF5-BBF4-11D4-B99E-009027BA226C}

La Repubblica (in Italian)
http://www.repubblica.it/online/tecnologie_internet/icann/domini/domini.html

Le Temps (Swiss, in French)
http://www.letemps.ch/template/tempsFort.asp?page=3&contenuPage=&article=54767

El Mundo (in Spanish)
http://www.elmundo.es/navegante/diario/noticia.html?vs_noticia=/2000/11/17/974458840.xml

Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German)
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/dyn/index.php3?rs=thema&rss=actual&id=4360

New York Times [Reg. required]
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/17/technology/17DOMA.html
(= http://www.iht.com/articles/1797.html)

Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35598-2000Nov16.html

TheStandard.com
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,20272,00.html

ZDNet News
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2655497,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2655245,00.html

CNet News
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-3730464.html

MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/491013.asp?0nm=-12P

Wired News
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,40270,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,40242,00.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40176,00.html
 
 

Scheidende Praesidentin fuer begrenzte Macht der ICANN. Dyson will bindende Grundsaetze festlegen, die die Zukunft des Netzes sichern [Samstag, 21.10.2000]
http://de.internet.com/marketing/news/artikel/2000/10/21/1007979/

ICANN: US-Direktor Auerbach will Absetzung des CEO. Kritiker versuchen langen Marsch durch die Institutionen [Dienstag, 17.10.2000]
http://de.internet.com/marketing/news/artikel/2000/10/17/1007843/

Iliya Nickelt-Czycykowski, Wer reg(ul)iert das Internet? ICANN zwischen Technik und Politik, Urania-Vortrag vom 17.9.2000
http://aipsoe.aip.de/~iliya/www/icann/Inickelt-Icann-170900.html

Iliya Nickelt-Czycykowski, ICANN-Vorwahlen: In Europa ist die Demokratie noch in Ordnung, vov-newsletter, 12 Sep 2000
http://aipsoe.aip.de/~iliya/www/icann/INickelt-ICANN-EndeVorwahlen2000.txt

Iliya Nickelt-Czycykowski, Die "Internet-Wahlen", auf interkom.org, 4.08.2000
http://www.interkom.org/redsys/texte/20000804123614_0000.html
http://aipsoe.aip.de/~iliya/www/icann/INickelt-ICANN-Vorwahlen2000.txt

Iliya Nickelt-Czycykowski, Berichte aus der ICANN-Tagung in Yokohama, 03 Aug 2000
http://aipsoe.aip.de/~iliya/www/icann/INickelt-ICANN-yokohama2.txt

Christian Ahlert, Die Zukunft der Demokratie. Das Internet wählt seine Regierung, Telepolis, 25.11.1999 
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/5526/1.html

Christian Ahlert, ICANN wird die Zukunft des Internet gestalten, Ein Gespräch mit dem Rechtsprofessor und Mitbegründer der ICANN Watch David Post, Telepolis, 26.07.1999 
http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/inhalt/te/5110/1.html

WDR gegen wdr, Ernst Corinth, Telepolis 28.05.2000 

ICANN Workshop Leipzig, 30.-31. März.2000 

Studie des Center for Democracy & Technology and Common Cause zu den ICANN Wahlen 

Holger Bleich, Der lange Arm der Abmahner. Deutsche Wettbewerbshüter greifen Schweizer Domain-Inhaber an (c't 7/2000, S. 35: Online-Recht)

Interview with Vinton G. Cerf on ICANN by John S. Quarterman, Dec. 1999, Matrix News

Global Business Dialogue on Electronic Commerce (GBDe), strongly supports full, faithful and prompt implementation of ... the recent WIPO recommendations to ICANN regarding domain names (September 13, 1999)

Lawrence Lessig, Governance and the DNS Process (on the formation of ICANN), CPSR Keynote, 10/10/98

Jeanette Hofmann, Und wer regiert das Internet? - Regimewechsel im Cyberspace, erscheint in: Jahrbuch Telekommunikation und Gesellschaft 2000 

Jeanette Hofmann, Wer im Netz regiert. ICANN Die neue Organisation im Fadenkreuz der Interessen, in: Freitag 09,  25. Februar 2000 

Florian Rötzer, Palästina hat jetzt eine eigene Top-level Domain. ICANN bewilligt erste neue Länderdomain seit ihrer Gründung und betont, dass diese Entscheidung keine politischen Implikationen habe (Telepolis, 23.03.2000) 

Armin Medosch, Umgangssprache im Alltagsweb. Microsoft und Realnames versprechen vereinfachte Webnavigation, doch die Vereinheitlichung des korporativen Namensraums im Web birgt auch Gefahren (Telepolis, 15.03.2000) 

Florian Rötzer, ICANN plant erste weltweite allgemeine Wahlen für Internetnutzer. Nach heftiger Kritik wurde der Wahltermin auf dem Treffen in Kairo verschoben und eine direkte Wahl favorisiert, noch aber wissen zu wenige Bescheid über die Aufgaben der ICANN (Telepolis, 11.03.2000)

Florian Rötzer, Telepolis.sucks. Das Consumer Project on Technology hat die ICANN aufgefordert, neue Top-Level Domains zur Förderung der Kritik und der Meinungsfreiheit einzuführen (Telepolis, 04.03.2000) 

David G. Post, The Great Internet Giveaway?, Webposted on 02 March 2000 

Florian Rötzer, EU-Kommission fordert die Top Level Domain .eu (Telepolis 02.02.2000)

Bertelsmann Stiftung fördert europäische Beteiligung an ICANN-Wahlen (Press Release, Gütersloh, 17. Februar 2000)

Christiane Schulzki-Haddouti, Erste ICANN-Entscheidung im Streit um Domain-Namen. Die Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy findet Anwendung (Telepolis, 17.01.2000) 

John Horvath, What's in a Name? Is it now time to replace the domain name system (Telepolis, 05.12.1999) 

Christian Ahlert, Die Zukunft der Demokratie. Das Internet wählt seine Regierung (Telepolis, 25.11.1999)

the roving_reporter no. 1, on ICANN, from TBTF (Ted Byfield) for 1999-11-21 

Ronda Hauben, Welche instutionelle Form wird benötigt, um ICANN zu ersetzen? ICANN wurde anhand eines falschen Modells strukturiert [English version] (Telepolis, 27.08.1999) 

Etoy.com vs. Etoys.com (s.a. Toywar, and Reinhold Grether, "Wie die Etoy-Kampagne gefuehrt wurde. Ein Agentenbericht" (Telepolis, 09.02.2000)) 

EFF: "Cybersquatting and Internet Address & Domain Name Disputes" Archive 

The first prominent domain name conflict: MTV vs. Adam Curry 
MTV v. Adam Curry case from 867 F.Supp. 202., United States District Court, S.D. New York, Oct. 28, 1994 
Open letter by Adam Curry on the "'Lectric Law Library"-List, 10. Mai 1994

The Handle System® is a distributed computer system which stores names, or handles, of digital items and which can quickly resolve those names into the information necessary to locate and access the items. It was designed by the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), and is currently in use in a number of prototype projects, including efforts with the Library of Congress, the Defense Technical Information Center, the International DOI Foundation, and the National Music Publishers' Association. It was submitted to the IETF in July 99, updated February 2000. 

RealNames, founding member of the Common Name Resolution Protocol working group of the IETF, provides specifications, mailing lists, and other resources for the development of Internet Keyword applications and evolution of the standard

Paul Garrin's Namespace

Software Patents

Think-Ahead.org: Vorschlag von Robert Gehring zu einem alternativen Gebrauch von SW-Patenten

FITUG: Mehr Rechtssicherheit bei Softwarepatenten (München, 1999-12-08) 
Der Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft (FITUG) setzt sich für mehr Rechtssicherheit bei Softwarepatenten ein. Durch die gegenwärtige Rechtslage bei Softwarepatenten werden Bestand und weitere Entwicklung des Erfolgsmodells freie Software gefährdet, ohne daß dies nötig wäre. Innovations- und Beschäftigungspotentiale bleiben ungenutzt; die Programmierer freier Software werden unkalkulierbaren, ungerechtfertigten, unübersehbar großen und unvermeidbaren Prozeßrisiken ausgesetzt. 
div. Erstunterzeichner 

Open-Source-Gemeinde in Aufruhr. ZVEI fordert Patente auf Software-Erfindungen MÜNCHEN (CW), COMPUTERWOCHE Nr. 31 vom 06. August 1999 
Die Fronten im Streit um die Patentierung von Software in der EU verhärten sich. Der Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie e.V. (ZVEI) hat jetzt in einem Schreiben an die Kommission das Ende der Diskriminierung von Software gegenüber anderern Erfindungen gefordert. Für den deutschen Linux-Verband Live würden Patente auf Software hingegen den hiesigen Mittelstand schädigen. 

Streit um Software-Patente hält an. Widerspruch vom Linux-Verband und Vertretern freier Software, Dienstag, 3. August 1999, 03:09 Uhr, Yahoo Deutschland Schlagzeilen
Gewinner vor allem große Konzerne  Nach Ansicht von Live wäre eine Patentierung ein Schaden für den Standort Deutschland und ein «erstaunliches Plädoyer» gegen die Interessen der mittelständischen deutschen Softwarefirmen. «Die Einführung der Patentierbarkeit von Software-Programmen in Deutschland und Europa würde die Vorherrschaft der amerikanischen Software-Industrie zementieren», erklärte Live-Vorstandsmitglied Daniel Riek. Von einer rechtlichen Diskriminierung von Softwareprodukten könne in Deutschland nicht gesprochen werden, erklärte Riek. Das Urheberrecht biete ausreichend Schutz für Softwarefirmen. Die Forderung nach Software-Patentierung entspringe eher dem Wunsch nach Ausschaltung von Wettbewerb, erklärte Live. Für die Entwicklung freier Software wie beispielsweise für das Betriebssystem Linux wäre es eine schwere Behinderung.  Von der gegenwärtigen Rechtsunsicherheit bei den Software-Patenten profitieren nach Einschätzung der Computerzeitschrift «c't» vor allem große Firmen, besonders aus den USA und Japan. Kleine Entwickler ohne eigene Rechts- oder Patentabteilungen hätten dagegen das Nachsehen. Laut Patentgesetz seien Computerprogramme als solche keine patentierbaren Erfindungen. In der Praxis werde diese Bestimmung aber seit Jahren ausgehebelt, berichtet «c't», das diesem Thema mehrere Artikel in seiner aktuellen Ausgabe gewidmet hat. 

Jean-Paul Smets'  freepatents.org

The League for Programming Freedom opposing software patents and user interface copyrights

swpat.ffii.org

WIPO's Draft Patent Law Treaty
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is seeking public comments (pdf form) on it 

Information des Deutschen Patentamtes zum Schutz von Computerprogrammen

Jean-Paul Smets-Solanes, "Software Useright: Solving Inconsistencies of Software Patents" (in html | in PostScript) 

Kiani & Springorum, Patent- und Rechtsanwälte 

Peter Schmitz, Schlechte Karten für deutsche Entwickler?, c't 16/99

Richard M. Stallman: 
Why Software Should Not Have Owners
Patent Reform Is Not Enough
Saving Europe from Software Patents
Europa muss vor Softwarepatenten bewahrt werden (Telepolis, 99/29/1)
 

THE CHALLENGE OF SOFTWARE-RELATED PATENTS, A Primer on Software-Related Patents and the Software Patent Institute, by David R. Syrowik and Roland J. Cole

Seth Shulman, Software Patents Tangle the Web (TechReview) 

REVIEW OF USPTO HEARINGS IN WASHINGTON ON SOFTWARE PATENTING, Feb 12, 1994, Gregory Aharonian, Internet Patent New Service 

REVIEW OF USPTO HEARINGS IN SAN JOSE ON SOFTWARE PATENTING, Jan 29, 1994, Gregory Aharonian, Internet Patent New Service 

TITLES TO 2700 SOFTWARE PATENTS ISSUED IN 1992 and 1993, Greg Aharonian Internet Patents News Service 
At the end of January, the Patent Office will be holding public hearings in San Jose and Washington on the "problem" of software patents. To help these hearings be more emprical, I have prepared a list of 2700 software patents issued in the past two years  (of which there are over 11,000 to date). 
     1) The most minor of software concepts can be patented. 
     2) Extremely broad software patents can be acquired. 
     3) Hardware and software patents are logically equivalent 
     4) Software patent litigation is not very active 
     5) 25% of all software patents could not survive reexamination 
     6) Software patent examiners are being asked the impossible 

Simson L. Garfinkel, Richard M. Stallman, Mitchell Kapor, Why Patents Are Bad for Software, in: Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 1991: 

Kolloquium Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz im Spannungsfeld neuer Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien 4. und 5. Juni 1998, Proceedings im Volltext, darunter: 
Softwareschutz zwischen Urheberrecht und Patentrecht, Günter Grättinger, Grättinger und Partner Patentanwälte 
und 
Rechtsschutz der Computerprogramme in Rußland und den EU-Ländern, Olga Kusmina, TU Ilmenau 
und 
Patente und Lizenzen, Helge B. Cohausz, Cosearch - Cohausz Hase Recherche GmbH 

Wolfgang Tauchert, Leiter der Patentabteilung 53 (Datenverarbeitung) des Deutschen Patentamts, Programm und Patent - Betrachtungen im Zusammenhang mit dem Technikbegriff, JurPC Web-Dok. 36/1997, Abs. 1 - 61 

SPI - Software Patent Institute and its Database of Software Technologies
A nonprofit corporation formed to provide courses and prior art about 
software technology to help improve the patent process 

IBM Patent Server

U.S. Patent Act (an der Cornell-Law-School) 

PATON - Patentinformationszentrum und Online-Dienste, TU Ilmenau 

Patentdatenbanken und -informationen, Linkliste von Janine Willms an der Uni Oldenburg 
 
 

Patente, die die Welt erschüttern, von Detlef Borchers, ZDNet Deutschland 8/99 
Das Geldverdienen mit möglichst weit gefaßten Software-Patenten ist nicht länger eine reine US-Disziplin. Auch in Europa zündet nun die Patentierungs-Idee - als Schutz der heimischen Software-Industrie. 
 

The Amazon 1-Click Story 
Richard Stallman, Please do not buy from Amazon, LinuxToday, Dec 13, 1999, 19:48 UTC (145 Talkbacks) 
Amazon has obtained a US patent (5,960,411) on an important and obvious idea for E-commerce: the idea that your command in a web browser to buy a certain item can carry along information about your identity. (This works by sending back a "cookie", a kind of ID code that your browser received previously from the same server.) Amazon has sued to block the use of this simple idea, showing that they truly intend to monopolize it. This is an attack against the World Wide Web and against E-commerce in general. 
     The idea in question is that a company can give you something which you can subsequently show them to identify yourself for credit. This is nothing new: a physical credit card does the same job, after all. But the US Patent Office issues patents on obvious and well-known ideas every day. Sometimes the result is a disaster. 
     Today Amazon is suing one large company. If this were just a dispute between two companies, it would not be an important public issue. But the patent gives Amazon the power over anyone who runs a web site in the US (and any other countries that give them similar patents)--power to control all use of this technique. Although only one company is being sued today, the issue affects the whole Internet. 
     Amazon is not alone at fault in what is happening. The US Patent  Office is to blame for having very low standards, and US courts are to blame for endorsing them. And US patent law is to blame for authorizing patents on computational techniques and patterns of communication--a policy that is harmful in general. 
(See lpf.ai.mit.edu for more information about this issue.) ... 

Tim O'Reilly on Amazon's 1-Click Patent, (Jan 2000) 

Tim O'Reilly's Conversation with Jeff Bezos, (March 2, 2000) 

An Open Letter from Jeff Bezos on the Subject of Patents (end of March, 2000)

Chet Dembeck, "E-Commerce Patent Wars Must End", E-Commerce Times (03/30/00) 
"Due to the magnitude of the complaints and questions raised, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) will commence overhauling its review process for awarding e-commerce patents. The office has been accused of stunting the growth of e-commerce by granting patents to only a few companies for technology and processes that are not truly unique. Amazon.com was granted a patent for its shopping tool that stores shipping and billing information for its repeat customers, and when BarnesandNoble.com implemented a similar technology, Amazon objected
due to its patent. Due to staff and time constraints, the PTO did not recognize that Amazon's technology was not new, states Richard Stallman, a developer of the Linux operating system [sic!]. After much debate, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has proposed in an open letter on the company's Web site that software and business-method patents last only three to five years, which is less than the 17 years they last now. Bezos also proposed that before patents are issued, outsiders should have the chance to comment, and that a software repository be organized to ensure technology is truly unique before patents are granted. The PTO immediately rejected the proposal for a shorter time period for e-commerce patents. However, it has agreed that more e-commerce community help is needed, along with a software repository." 
 

The GIF Story 
Unisys Corporation has patented the LZW (Lempel Ziv Welch) data compression/decompression technology over 10 years. LZW is the base for GIF, TIFF-LZW, PDF-LZW images and other graphical formats. Unisys has recently started demanding license fees from Intranet or Billboard Web site operators who use any LZW-based graphics: a one-time payment of $5,000.00 U.S. for each license agreement (limited to two servers at each licensed Web site). Or a single payment of $7,500 U.S. for a license for both Billboard and Intranet. 

Clarification on Web Site LZW Licenses by Unisys, posted September 2, 1999: 

Burn All GIFs Day: Friday, November 5, 1999 a project of the League for Programming Freedom. 

GIF-Bilder sollen aus dem Web verschwinden (Heise Newsticker, 01.11.99) 

Eine Alternative zu GIF: PNG (Portable Network Graphics) 
 

Is Collaborative Filtering Patented?, Thread on collab, Collaborative Filtering Mailing List, from Nov. 1997
 

Mac OS 9 Technology Ignites Infrigment Claims 
(10/25/99, 5:22 p.m. ET) TechWeb
Imatec on Monday updated an existing trademark infringement lawsuit filed against Apple to include its new Mac OS 9 operating system, which was released just days ago. Imatec said the ColorSync 3.0 technology in Mac OS 9 infringes on patents held by the digital imaging company. Imatec filed a $1.1 billion lawsuit against Apple in February 1998. The trialis expected to start in the next few months. 
 

Microsoft Can't Derail Linux, by Malcolm Maclachlan,  SAN JOSE, Calif. (TechWeb 08/11/99, 5:59 p.m. ET) 
Linux and open source have momentum and not even Microsoft can throw a monkey wrench into the free-software revolution, according to open source leaders at LinuxWorld Expo here on Tuesday evening. 
     One possible Microsoft strategy, said technology analyst Greg Weiss of D.H. Brown, would be to support as many versions of Linux as possible in order to try to get it to fragment, just like Unix. However, he said, Microsoft's main response will probably be to try to continue to sow doubt about Linux and open source in general. 
     Intellectual property, especially in the form of software patents, could be a far bigger stumbling block, said Donald Barnes, director of technical projects at Red Hat, the leading Linux OS vendor. Companies that start opening up their source code could find themselves targets of opportunistic lawsuits over anything that resembles a patented process in their code, he said. This is a particular problem in digital video, Barnes added, an area where there is a great deal of interest in the open source community. 
     John Hall, executive director of Linux International, said the next year will provide several crucial tests the open source intellectual-property model, or lack thereof. He added open source has a built-in protection against intellectual-property lawsuits. 
"The open source model protects us by creating a prior art, which is published," Hall said.  He also said the increasing speed of innovation provides another set of protections. For instance, he said, hardware makers have traditionally been notoriously protective of their intellectual property. However, now that hardware products cycles have gone from several years to six months or less, they are more concerned with selling as many PCs, chips, cards, or other hardware as they can over a short period. Opening up their specifications to software developers can help them do this, Hall said. 
 

Marimba Sues Novadigm Over Patents, (08/03/99, 9:59 a.m. ET) By Reuters
Marimba, a developer of Internet-based software for electronic business, said Monday it had filed a patent-infringement suit against rival Novadigm. Marimba said the suit alleges Novadigm has infringed a Marimba patentpatent titled "Method for the Distribution of Code and Data Updates." 

Novadigm CEO Pooh-Poohs Marimba Suit (08/03/99, 5:00 p.m. ET) By Reuters
NEW YORK -- The CEO of software maker Novadigm saidTuesday he was unconcerned about a lawsuit filed by rival Marimba alleging patent infringement.  CEO Albion Fitzgerald said in a telephone interview that Novadigm's technologies had been in use since 1994. ``Our technology for updating computing devices has been in the marketplace since 1994, long before Marimba filed its patent application in 1996,'' he said. 
 

Patent Dispute Threatens Web Standard, by Douglas Hayward, MAHWAH, N.J., August 27, 1997, TechWeb News
A patent dispute is threatening to delay adoption of a proposed industry standard that would let users save money by distributing information more efficiently over the Internet. Netscape Communications and push-technology specialist Marimba formally submitted the Distribution and Replication Protocol to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Tuesday, for consideration as an open industry standard. The protocol is backed by industry giants Novell and Sun Microsystems, and would improve the efficiency of Net-based content distribution. 
     "Marimba's sudden magnanimous decision to donate the technology to open standards should be seen as an exploitative action without regard to the obvious intellectual property issues involved," said Albion Fitzgerald, Novadigm's chairman and chief executive, in a statement. 
     "We own this technology and we're going to vigorously defend it, even as Marimba works aggressively to use and claim credit for it," Fitzgerald said. "This technology is not Marimba's to give away." 

Florian Rötzer, W3C bittet die Web-Community um Hilfe. Kampf gegen die Patentierung von P3P (Telepolis, 03.05.99) 

Florian Rötzer, Patentfluten. Zerstört die Sicherung des geistigen Eigentums das Internet? (Telepolis 23.02.99) 
 
 

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