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ICSTI: news items
- To: epc@iucr.org
- Subject: ICSTI: news items
- From: Pete Strickland <ps@iucr.org>
- Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:27:24 +0000
- Organization: IUCr
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: Intellectual property directive taken off EU Parliament's agenda In short: In order to buy the Irish Presidency more time to secure a majority within a divided Council, the European Parliament has decided to withdraw the intellectual property directive from its 9 February plenary agenda. The controversial intellectual property rights (IPR) enforcement directive has been withdrawn from the Parliament's 9 February plenary agenda because of fears that the Council might reject it, EU sources told EurActiv. The proposed directive, which was initially designed to prevent piracy and counterfeiting in the EU, had attracted much criticism from consumer organisations, telecoms operators and Internet service providers. They claimed the directive would force them into endless legal proceedings with rights-holders, generally coming from the music and film industry, who are eager to limit downloads from the Internet. With European competitiveness on top of its agenda, the Irish Presidency is anxious to strike a deal on the IPR directive before its term ends on 1 July 2004. But the Council is reportedly divided over some key aspects of the directive such as its scope and the criminal sanctions that are to be imposed to infringers of IP rights. In order to make sure a majority of Member States will support the directive within the Council of Ministers, the presidency has pressed for the Parliament to postpone its adoption and will seek a mandate from the Council (COREPER) to start negotiating with Parliament. It hopes an agreement can be found quickly so to that the competitiveness Council can vote on it on 11 March, two weeks ahead of the Spring summit. Links: Time-saving overview: LinksDossier: IPR - Intellectual Property Rights (fully updated with the current proposal, background, main issues and positions from industry, NGO's and think tanks) http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/cgint.exe/1436140-396714&1015=9&1014=ld_iprights ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: Is google invunerable?? According to Reston, VA-based research firm comScore, Google has a large lead over its rivals in U.S. audience share, accounting for 77 percent of all searches in August 2003 (including searches conducted at AOL and Yahoo!, which used the Google search engine). But in the search industry, innovation is a wild card. In 1999, you could have said that AltaVista had pretty much finished off the search market, notes Whit Andrews, a research director at technology advisory firm Gartner. In 1997, it was Inktomi. In 1995, it was Yahoo!. You never know in the search business when there's somebody down the street who is going to make you look like yesterday's news. Google is vulnerable partly because it has few of the infrastructural advantages, like AT&T's once exclusive ownership of most of the telephone network or Microsoft's control of PC operating systems, that typically help to perpetuate dominance. (Indeed, press reports in January indicated that Yahoo! might soon drop its relationship with Google and turn to its own search technology.) And the company's claim to fame, the ability of its search algorithms to find the most relevant results, based on their popularity may be growing stale. When Google first launched, they had some new tricks that nobody else had thought about before, says Doug Cutting, an independent software consultant who wrote some of the core technology behind search engine Excite and has designed search tools for Apple Macintosh computers. But plenty of other search engines now offer intriguing alternatives to Google's techniques, Cutting believes. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject:OUP (USA) Layoffs Oxford University Press USA has laid off 35 employees as part of a reorganization. According to Publishers Weekly, the target was largely the print reference department, which the publisher is said to have "consolidated in favor of its expansive online efforts." Publisher Laura Brown stated that OUP is "making significant investments in our higher education and professional publishing and our on-line activities, areas where we see exciting growth opportunities." As part of the reorganization, Casper Grathwohl was named publisher, reference division,while Karen Day assumes the title of associate publisher, reference. Ms.Day previously held the publisher's position. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: Delphion adds European corporate links Through an extension of its partnership with CHI Research, Inc., Delphion has added European corporate hierarchy data to its existing US data, creating the only resource where this important information can be leveraged across patent collections. Without corporate hierarchy data, assignee searching and analysis can be problematic because separate patent applications often use different forms of the company name, requiring users to identify all variations in order to get complete information. In addition, patent documents identify the assignee that owned the patent when it was granted, but companies merge, get acquired, spin off and change names. Patents can also be sold or transferred from one company to another. Delphion leverages corporate hierarchy data to standardize corporate names and incorporate merger and acquisition activity, making it possible for users to find all patents from a corporate entity, even when names are misspelled. As part of Thomson, Delphion is an Internet-based service for researching and analyzing patents and related intellectual property information on a worldwide basis. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: Databases and open access, a complaint.... >From Peter Subers blog: Nat Goodman, Among Databases, Open Access Is Growing Rare, Genome Technology Jan 28 2004. (free registration required) Excerpt: "[R]estricted access makes it harder for other databases to incorporate your data and produce an even better result. For example, my group develops public databases focused on specific diseases. We collect data from multiple, mostly public sources, and present the information in ways that are more useful for scientists working on our diseases. To preserve open access to our databases, we cannot incorporate data from...restricted sources, even if they allow downloads. Too bad. It means we have to spend time and money duplicating work already done. Delay, delay, delay." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: US Congress Committee votes for new IPR Bill >From News.com via Peter Suber's blog. "By a 16-7 vote, the House Judiciary committee approved an intellectual property bill that had been opposed by Amazon.com, AT&T, Comcast, Google, Yahoo and some Internet service provider associations. The proposal, backed by big database companies such as Reed Elsevier and Thomson, would extend to databases the same kind of protection that copyrighted works such as music, literature and movies currently enjoy....The bill...is controversial because, critics say, it would sidestep a U.S. Supreme Court decision that said facts could not be copyrighted. Wednesday's vote follows a 10-3 vote last October in a subcommittee." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Subject: Thomson's annual profit soars 47% Electronic publisher Thomson Corp. yesterday reported a 47-per-cent rise in 2003 profit helped by one-time gains, including a benefit arising from a favourable tax settlement. Thomson posted profit attributable to common shares of $879-million (U.S.) or $1.34 a share for the year ended Dec. 31 compared with a year-earlier profit of $586-million or 91 cents. Revenue rose 2 per cent to $7.6-billion. The "solid financial results" were achieved despite challenging market conditions, Richard Harrington, president and chief executive officer of Thomson told a conference call. "Free cash flow for 2003 was again very strong at $983-million, up slightly from a year ago." Mr. Harrington said he expects revenue growth this year will improve from a 2- per-cent increase in 2003, but will fall short of its long-term target of 7 to 9 per cent. "We are looking for continued improvement in the general economic environment, particularly the U.S. financial services industry," Mr. Harrington said. Over the past five years, the Toronto-based electronic information provider that services the financial, legal, health care and education sectors posted a 7.5-per-cent compounded growth rate despite tough market conditions in 2002 and 2003. "We would expect over the next business cycle, as the economy begins to improve, that we would be able to achieve that same 7- to 9-per-cent growth rate," Mr. Harrington said later in an interview. Thomson, which supplies products ranging from Westlaw legal databases to textbooks, sees growth from its financial division in 2004 after two challenging years, and from "tactical acquisitions." In 2003, Thomson made 27 acquisitions for a cost of $210-million. Fourth-quarter profit rose to $396-million or 60 cents a share from $281- million or 43 cents the previous year. Revenue rose 3 per cent to $2.18-billion. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -- Best wishes Peter Strickland Managing Editor IUCr Journals ---------------------------------------------------------------------- IUCr Editorial Office, 5 Abbey Square, Chester CH1 2HU, England Phone: 44 1244 342878 Fax: 44 1244 314888 Email: ps@iucr.org Ftp: ftp.iucr.org WWW: http://journals.iucr.org/ NEWSFLASH: Complete text of all IUCr journals back to 1948 now online! Visit Crystallography Journals Online for more details _______________________________________________ Epc mailing list Epc@iucr.org http://scripts.iucr.org/mailman/listinfo/epc
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