Economic Espionage as Reality or Rhetoric: Equating Trade Secrecy with National Security

In the last few years, the Economic Espionage Act (EEA), a 1996 statute that criminalizes trade secrecy misappropriation, was amended twice, once to increase the penalties and once to expand the definition of trade secrets and the types of behaviors that are illegal. Recent developments also reveal a pattern of expansion in investigation, indictments, and convictions under the EEA as well as the devotion of large resources by the FBI and other agencies to warn private industry against the global threats of trade secret theft. At the international level, the United States government has been advocating enhanced levels of trade secrecy protection in new regional trade agreements This article asks about the effects these developments on innovation. The article examines the rhetoric the government is using to promote its trade secrecy agenda, uncovering that the argument for greater protection appears to derive at least some of its power from xenophobia, and most importantly, from a conflation of private economic interests with national security concerns, interjecting a new dimension to the moral component of innovation policy debates. Analyzing recent empirical research about innovation policy, we ask about the effects of these recent trends on university research and on private market innovation, including entrepreneurship, information flows and job mobility. We argue that, paradoxically, the effort to protect valuable information and retain the United States’ leadership position could disrupt information flows, interfere with collaborative efforts, and ultimately undermine the inventive capacity of American innovators. The article offers suggestions for reconciling legitimate concerns about national security with the balance intellectual property law traditionally seeks to strike between incentivizing innovation and ensuring the vibrancy of the creative environment. We conclude that a legal regime aimed at protecting incumbency is not one that can also optimally foster innovation

Impact analysis of wireless and mobile technology on business management strategies

This research examines whether congruence exists between wireless and mobile technology with impact analysis on a firm’s business management development and future strategies.  The research adopted the Motorola Inc. as a case and the qualitative approach as the research method.  It emerged from analysis that consumers, business management strategies and future strategic directions are embedded in wireless and mobile technology. Despite having high tech wireless and mobile technology, it is not always been possible to appear as the market leader within industry, where future consumer behaviour and business management strategies will differ from the one those exist today.  This study proposes a new framework for diversifying intellectual capacity to develop consultancy based growth opportunity at Motorola.  This also suggests intense mobile and wireless technological impacts on relationships with customers, enterprise agility and business management strategies in the internet based market structure. Keywords: wireless and mobile technology, process automation, cloud infrastructure, convergence, business management strateg

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT AND CANADIAN PRIVACY: ALTERNATIVES FOR DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION IN CANADA

Canada has signed, but not ratified, either the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty (WCT) or the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). This thesis examines the current state of privacy and personal data protection law if Digital Rights Management system technologies were legally implemented today in Canada, in compliance with these treaties. This study emphasises in two jurisdictions: Federal and Ontario. It will be demonstrated that functionalities present in Digital Rights Management, like fingerprinting, watermarking and authentication technologies, violate privacy and personal data protection law. The idea to issue a number of alternatives for implementation of Digital Rights Management in the legal and technological fields that could enhance privacy and personal data protection. This thesis concludes that there are alternatives for implementation of Digital Rights Management in Canada that, do not require a direct implementation of the WCT and the WPPT

Metaphor : Library

Includes bibliographical references.This literature review identifies and examines metaphorical concepts that have been associated with the word 'library' historically in an attempt to identify the possible role and function of libraries and librarians in the twenty-first century. Drawing on contemporary theories of metaphor, the various ways in which libraries have been represented metaphorically within literature are considered as external perspectives of the institution and profession. These images are compared and contrasted to those library metaphors evident in the professional literature - that is, internal perspectives of the library. Examples of other professions adopting the concept 'library' as a metaphor, most notably within the online environment, are also discussed in order to hone in on those concepts perceived to be represented by the label 'library' by those choosing to employ the term. The cross-cu!tural applicability of library metaphors is also considered, drawing on examples from African librarianship, and a cluster of metaphorical concepts likely to inform future library development are identified

An innovative custom cyber security solution for protecting enterprises and corporates’ assets

Anti-virus software has been the main defense against malicious application and will remain so in the future. However the strength of an anti-virus product will depend on having an updated virus signature and the heuristic engine to detect future and unknown virus. The time gap between an exploit appearing on the internet and the user receiving an update for their anti-virus signature database on their machine is very crucial. Having a diverse multi-Engine anti-virus scanner in the infrastructure with the capability for custom signature definition as part of a defence in-depth strategy will help to close that gap. This paper presents a technique of deploying more than one anti-virus solution at different layers and using custom anti-virus signature which is deployed in a custom proxy solution as part of a defence in-depth strategy

Reconstructing the Software License

This article analyzes the legitimacy of the software license as a institution of governance for computer programs. The question of the open source license is used as a starting point. Having conducted a broader inquiry into the several possible bases for the legitimacy of software licensing in general, the article argues that none of the grounds on which software licensing in general rests are sound. With respect to open source software in particular, the article concludes that achieving a legitimate institutional form for the goals that open source proponents have set for themselves may require looking beyond licensing as such

What the Publisher Can Teach the Patient: Intellectual Property and Privacy in an Era of Trusted Privication

Individuals have long had the desire but little ability to control the dissemination of personal information about their health. Law has been a weak instrument for such control, given the articulate and powerful interests that insist upon maintaining and enhancing access and use of others' personal information, with sensitive medical data proving only a sporadic exception. Technology has so far only made exploitation of personal information easier. The evolving federal framework for the protection of electronic medical records is, at the moment, one in which individuals are third-party beneficiaries of what are likely to be flexibly-interpreted, ponderously-enforced fair information practices created in the shadow of a Congressionally-mandated networking of sensitive medical data. This networking promises to greatly lower the costs of accessing and using medical data for any number of purposes--including ones not central to health care, such as direct marketing. It is ushering in what some call the "Era of Promiscuous Publication." The danger this era portends is that what is gained in efficiency of health care provision may be lost in erosion of privacy. Privacy advocates could learn a new approach to this problem from an unlikely teacher: publishers of intellectual property--specifically the American music industry. The music industry until recently feared ruin from the unauthorized swapping and rebroadcasting of high-quality audio reproductions among its customers, a phenomenon enabled by increasingly cheap networks, cheap data storage, and cheap processors again, the Era of Promiscuous Publication. Despite access to a sympathetic Congress and extensive enforcement resources, the music industry has found recourse to law largely unavailing against this tide of technological progress. The industry is now embarking on a different strategy--changing the technology itself. At the core of the technological response lies the idea of "trusted systems": computer databases of the rights and privileges of specific entities vis-a-vis information, linked to hardware and software that recognize and enforce those rights. If fully deployed, trusted systems could trump the Era of Promiscuous Publication with what I call an "Era of Trusted Privication": one in which a well-enforced technical rights architecture would enable the distribution of information to a large audience--publication--while simultaneously, and according to rules generated by the controller of the information, not releasing it freely into general circulation--privication. In my view there is a profound relationship between those who wish to protect intellectual property and those who wish to protect privacy. Their common desire to control the distribution of information, and the music industry's potential success at regaining control through the implementation of trusted systems, offer several lessons to privacy advocates seeking to protect the privacy interests increasingly threatened by the advent of the Era of Promiscuous Publication. The paper explores these lessons first by mapping out the problem presented to the music industry by the advent of fast, cheap, and perfect copies, along with the music industry's legal and technological strategies for regaining control. Second, it describes the similar problem faced by privacy advocates in the arena of medical privacy, the legal solutions that have been and might be attempted, and a hypothetical technological solution that demonstrates the enforcement power of the trusted system. Finally, it looks beyond the enforcement potential of the technological solution to demonstrate how thinking in terms of privication architectures might help negotiate the allocation of rights to medical data to account for the interests of individual "producers" of personal data in ways that need not disparage the legitimate interests of the sophisticated institutional players who wish to consume that data

Intellectual Property Management in Health and Agricultural Innovation: Executive Guide

Prepared by and for policy-makers, leaders of public sector research establishments, technology transfer professionals, licensing executives, and scientists, this online resource offers up-to-date information and strategies for utilizing the power of both intellectual property and the public domain. Emphasis is placed on advancing innovation in health and agriculture, though many of the principles outlined here are broadly applicable across technology fields. Eschewing ideological debates and general proclamations, the authors always keep their eye on the practical side of IP management. The site is based on a comprehensive Handbook and Executive Guide that provide substantive discussions and analysis of the opportunities awaiting anyone in the field who wants to put intellectual property to work. This multi-volume work contains 153 chapters on a full range of IP topics and over 50 case studies, composed by over 200 authors from North, South, East, and West. If you are a policymaker, a senior administrator, a technology transfer manager, or a scientist, we invite you to use the companion site guide available at http://www.iphandbook.org/index.html The site guide distills the key points of each IP topic covered by the Handbook into simple language and places it in the context of evolving best practices specific to your professional role within the overall picture of IP management