ERP vendors Syspro, Unit4 launch app stores
The app store model popularized by Apple is gaining further adoption in the world of ERP (enterprise-resource-planning) software, with new stores announced this week by Syspro and Unit4.
Syspro's app store, which was announced on Friday, will be available "shortly" and will eventually feature thousands of applications, the company said in a statement. Publishers can provide their offerings on the store for no charge, receive a one-time payment, "or protect intellectual property through Syspro's licensing model," it added.
About 90 percent of Syspro's sales come through channel partners, and the bulk of those thousands of applications will likely be generated through them, according to ERP analyst Cindy Jutras of the consulting firm Mint Jutras. The company's software features an architecture that allows the creation of added functionality "from the outside in as a component, without touching the source code," she said. Read more...
Samsung fights Apple move to block Galaxy sales
Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it will fight Apple's move to stop U.S. sales of its new Galaxy phone in the latest flare-up of an intellectual property battle between the world's top smartphone makers.
Samsung said it will vigorously oppose Apple's request for a court to ban sales of the Galaxy S III smartphone and still plans to go ahead with the device's scheduled release in the U.S. on June 21.
The South Korean company said in a statement that it will "demonstrate to the court that the Galaxy S III is innovative and distinctive." Read more...
High Court: Computer simulations can get patent protection
The High Court said that the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) had wrongly applied UK patent law when assessing four patent applications for computer simulations of designs made by oilfield company Halliburton Energy. The IPO had previously ruled that the company's computer simulations were mental acts which cannot be patented under the UK's Patents Act.
Under the Act, inventions must be new, take an inventive step that is not obvious and be useful to industry in order to qualify for patent protection. An invention cannot be patented, according to the Patents Act, if it is "a scheme, rule or method for performing a mental act, playing a game or doing business, or a program for a computer ... as such". Other inventions that cannot be patented include "a discovery, scientific theory or mathematical method", according to the Act.
The IPO had rejected Halliburton's patent applications for computer simulations. The simulations related to improving designs for the workings of engineering drill bits used in the oil industry. Read more...
Russian Minister: YouTube and Google Should Be Shut Down For Copyright Infringement
Recently leaked confidential diplomatic cable has revealed that not only is the United States government unhappy with the level of intellectual property rights enforcement carried out by Russia, but also that the reverse is true. Russia’s Deputy Minister of Economic Development said that not only do U.S. sites continue to offer pirated Russian movies, but that YouTube and Google should be shut down for not respecting local laws.
When it comes to the protection of intellectual property, it’s well known that the United States is almost continually unhappy with just about every other country’s regimes. A huge amount of lobbying is carried out on a continual basis by government and the private sector in the hope that one day everyone will adopt US-like approaches to rights enforcement. Read more...
Europe’s Odd Anti-Piracy Stance: Send Money to the US!
The European Strategy: Send Money to the US
Most of the time, the international politics of intellectual property law are pretty easy to follow: countries that are large exporters of intellectual property usually favor stronger international IP agreements that help exploit international markets. Countries that are large importers of IP, in contrast, generally favor lower levels of IP protection that minimize the outflow of royalties, licensing fees, and other payments for foreign-owned products and technologies–whether computers, drugs, movies, or books. Whatever other rhetorics are in play, from the rights of authors to the right to development, political positions usually line up with those underlying incentives.
The turn toward the use of trade agreements to set IP obligations–from the early bilateral agreements of the 1980s to the WTO’s TRIPS agreement in the early 1990s–more or less formalized this instrumental approach to IP law. Trade agreements, at the end of the day, are about economic deals–not morality or even fairness. For anyone clinging to a moral interpretation of these arrangements, it’s worth revisiting at the US and EU positions in the South African AIDS drug controversy from the late 1990s or more recent opposition to the proposed WIPO treaty for the visually impaired. Read more...
Oracle vows to get full $1.3 billion penalty from SAP
A defiant Oracle Thursday vowed to continue its legal battle against rival SAP after a federal judge in California threw out the $1.3 billion judgment the company had won against SAP late last year. In a statement released shortly after the verdict, Oracle said it intends to "pursue the full measure of damages" it believes SAP owes it for the theft of its intellectual property.
"There was voluminous evidence regarding the massive scope of the theft, clear involvement of SAP management in the misconduct and the tremendous value of the intellectual property stolen," Oracle said, "We believe the jury got it right."
In a development not entirely unexpected, U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, Calif., today upheld SAP's request that the court lower the $1.3 billion in damages that a jury late last year ordered it to pay Oracle. In announcing the decision, Hamilton called the jury award "grossly excessive" and asked that Oracle either accept a lower $272 million payment or submit to a new trial. Read more...
German court’s ruling may pose long-term concerns over Android
A German court's ruling on Monday that bars distribution of Samsung's Android-based Galaxy Tab 10.1 in most of Europe shocked many. It also raises some long-term licensing worries for Android globally, some believe.
Samsung is expected to appeal the preliminary injunction in Germany over what Apple called a design infringement -- an imitation -- by the Galaxy Tab of its iPad. Still, Samsung and other Android device makers face patent and design infringement lawsuits from Apple in the U.S., Australia, the Netherlands and elsewhere.
It's unclear whether Apple eventually will win its battle in the courts to ban sales of competing tablets and smartphones or perhaps settle with some Android makers, such as Samsung or HTC, and grant them design or patent licenses that could raise the cost of their products. Read more...
Time to guard your digital certificates
When criminal hackers break into a company, they're usually looking to steal stuff they can sell, like credit-card information or intellectual property. But these days, some sophisticated thieves also seek digital certificates -- as a way to make their malware appear to potential targets to be valid software.
In a recent report, security firm AVG gave two examples of companies whose certificate data was taken by attackers and then used to sign malicious software so that it would better bypass security protections. "More malware -- almost three times more malware -- is digitally signed with a legitimate stolen digital certificate," says Yuval Ben-Itzhak, chief technology officer for AVG. Read more...
China piracy cost U.S. firms $48 billion in 2009: report
Chinese piracy and counterfeiting of U.S. software and a wide range of other intellectual property cost American businesses an estimated $48 billion in 2009, the U.S. International Trade Commission said in a report released on Wednesday.
It also concluded 2.1 million jobs could be created in the United States if China complied with its current international obligations to protect and enforce intellectual property rights. The most direct jobs impact would come in high-tech and other innovative industries. Read more...