Some might find this interesting ...

[Randall-12]

From: "U.S. Dept of State List Manager" <listmgr@...>
Date: September 4, 2007 9:07:18 PM EDT
Subject: Expert To Discuss Intellectual Property, Commercial Competition


Expert To Discuss Intellectual Property, Commercial Competition

(USINFO Webchat to be led by Federal Trade Commission legal authority)
(256)

Intellectual property (IP) rights and the laws protecting those  
rights are
increasingly important in an age of global markets and flows of
information. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) promotes policies to
strengthen the quality of IP in order to foster innovative and  
competitive
markets.

On September 10 at 9:00 a.m. EDT (13:00 GMT), please join Armando  
Irizarry,
FTC's counsel for intellectual property, for a discussion on IP  
rights and
competition law.

Irizarry works in the Office of Policy and Coordination of the FTC's  
Bureau
of Competition, where he is involved in shaping policies related to the
intersection of IP and competition laws and participates in  
investigations
related to potentially anticompetitive conduct involving IP issues.
Irizarry also has taught IP law courses in the law schools of Florida  
State
University and Michigan State University.

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[Phelps, Erik J.]

Because it has been discussed in this forum before, thought I'd pass
this along:

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9770621-7.html

"Minnesota authorities have missed a court-imposed deadline for turning
over the source code for a breath-testing machine at the heart of a a
high-profile dispute that recently made it to the state's Supreme
Court."

Erik Phelps
My opinions are my own and may not be shared by my employer.


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[Carol Shepherd]

Indeed, I just blogged about the trade secrets aspects of this. When
code is being turned over and inspected, it is usually proving to be
very poorly constructed.  Based on these and the electronic voting
cases, I'm predicting that source code requests are going to be more and
more frequent, and successful, in civil litigation.

I'd like to follow up on the issue of producing source code in other
litigation situations (ie, breach of contract, fraud, criminal
negligence). I can easily see legitimate requests for code arising with
regard to software that controls medical devices, traffic devices, etc.

I'd welcome leads on any cases or trends.

http://arborlaw.com/blog/2007/09/06/trade-secret-and-source-code-discovery/

Phelps, Erik J (22247) wrote:

> Because it has been discussed in this forum before, thought I'd pass
> this along:
>
> http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9770621-7.html
>
> "Minnesota authorities have missed a court-imposed deadline for turning
> over the source code for a breath-testing machine at the heart of a a
> high-profile dispute that recently made it to the state's Supreme
> Court."
>
> Erik Phelps
> My opinions are my own and may not be shared by my employer.
>

--
Carol Ruth Shepherd
Arborlaw PLC
Ann Arbor MI USA
734 668 4646 v  734 786 1241 f
http://arborlaw.com

licensing  •  protection  •  franchising  •  distribution


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