I have been looking at a very interesting proposal from fellow Costarican Jaco Aizenman about something called “Virtual Rights”. The idea is to create a set of rights that apply to all citizens, who will have the right to have (or to choose not to have) a virtual personality. This Read more
(Thanks to Jo Gibson for the link) The news wires are replete with stories of the death of a Chinese MMORPG player apparently due to exhaustion after playing non-stop for 3 straight days in World of Warcraft (the news has made it even to Metro). The story comes with calls Read more
patentingLIVES Law, Culture, Development 1-2 December 2005 London, United Kingdom Clore Management Centre, 25–27 Torrington Square, London WC1 A 2 day international and interdisciplinary conference on life patents An exploration of the ethical, cultural, social, legal, and scientific questions 1 December 2005 Opening Session: Tony Howard, UK Patent Office Human Read more
2005 will probably be remembered as the year of the Grokster and KaZaa cases, but there is something more important happening. It is the year of the DRM wars. Digital Rights Management has always been a controversial subject, with a very outspoken camp against it (and it has even been Read more
As if the patenting of software was not enough of a nightmare, the next step could be the patenting of movies. You would be wise to be sceptical of this claim, who in their right mind would think of patenting movies? Behold U.S. patent application 2005/0244804, an application for the Read more
There is a new licensing scheme for Spanish-speaking countries called“ColorIuris: Colores de Autor”, literary Author’s Colours. This page was created by a law firm in Spain under the assumption that all sorts of open licences (including Creative Commons) are incompatible with Continental traditions based on the droit d’auteur. This is Read more
Some of the top patent judges in Europe are pleading for a unified first instance European patent court. After all, there is a European Patent Office, but the patents must be enforced in the national jursidictions, which creates a patchy and unneven application of patent rules and produce the wildy Read more
I was checking some links in a class that I teach for our LL.M. in Innovation, Technology and the Law through distance learning. I clicked on an article that was supposed to take the students to this page, looking for the article “What is the Future of the WTO Dispute Read more
(via Boing Boing) The latest viral video to hit the Net is a video by the “Back Dorm Boys”, two kids from Guandong Arts Institute, and that is making the rounds and wasting bandwidth around the world. My favourite is still the tremendously funny Numa Numa Dance. There’s no doubt Read more
(via Lenz Blog) Last March, the WTO’s Appellate Body confirmed the ruling against the United States in the case of cotton subsidies (DSB 267). This case was brought by Brazil against the United States arguing that the cotton industry in that country is obtaining subsidies from the government that are Read more