Access to Knowledge Blogs
FAQ: CIS' Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies
Earlier this year, the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) had proposed that the Government of India (GoI) initiate the formation of a patent pool of critical mobile technologies and mandate a five percent compulsory license. The proposal was made in light of ongoing litigation in India over standard essential patents pertaining to mobile technology, and the government's own “Make in India” and “Digital India” programmes.
Software Freedom Pledge
On September 19, 2015, celebrated globally as Software Freedom Day, a number of enthusiasts got together and collectively took a pledge.
Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September, 2015
This is an open letter by CIS to the Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi in light of his impending visit to the USA. This letter asks the Prime Minister to urge the USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty; and asks that India not be a party to TPP negotiations, in light of recent reports on a study encouraging India to join the TPP.
Comments on the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs)
Recently, the Indian Patents Office released the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (“2015 Guidelines/ Guidelines”) in an attempt to clarify examination of software related patents in India. This post is a pure analysis of the 2015 Guidelines. The new Guidelines, essentially, narrow the exclusions of secttion 3(k), thereby enlarging the scope of software related applications eligible for a patent grant. More alarmingly, there is low emphasis on the application of the subject matter test, increased ambiguity on the nature of subject matter and an exclusionary list of examples appended to the document. In the following post, CIS highlights these concerns and presents solutions, and also proposes a definition of "computer programme per se". Read on to understand how the new guidelines will potentially lead to an increase in software patenting activity by expanding the scope of patentable subject matter – in negation of the legislative intent of section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970.
Transformaking 2015 : International Summit on Critical and Transformative Making, Yogyakarta
Transformaking 2015 brought together makers, scientist, hackers, bricoleurs, researchers, artists, designers and other interdisciplinary practitioners from across the globe in a series of Residency and Research Program, Symposium, Exhibition, Fair, and Satellite Projects. It was held from August 10 to September 20, 2015. Transformaking 2015 was organized by HONF Foundation & CATEC (Culture Arts Technoloy Empowerment Community) in partnership with the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), Common Room, Crosslab, and Nicelab.
Pervasive Technologies: Working Document Series - Research Questions and a Literature Review on the Actor-Network Theory
This document is divided into two parts - the first part lays out a series of research questions, potentially seeking to apply actor-network theory as a research methodology. The second part seeks to map literature around the Actor-Network Theory ("ANT") as a research methodology.
CIS brings Nadustunna Charithra magazine under by CC BY SA licence
As a part of its content donation initiative, the Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) has brought all issues of Nadustunna Charithra magazine under Creative Common Licence.
'We Need to Proactively Ensure that People Can't File Patents Representative of the Creativity of a FOSS Community'
Rohini Lakshané attended “Open Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Our Digital Culture” in Bangalore on August 13, 2015. Major takeaways from the event are documented in this post.
Edit-a-thon to improve Kannada-language science-related Wikipedia articles
A three-day Kannada Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted for science lecturers of institutions who gathered at the District Institute of Education and Training (DIET), Bengaluru this August 18. The idea of this event was to improve science-related articles that are part of the Government of Karnataka's high school syllabus.
National IPR Policy Series: What Have the Sectoral Innovation Councils Been Doing on IPR
In this post, Nehaa Chaudhari and Varun Baliga delve into the question of what the mandate of the Sectoral Innovation Councils is, what its activities are, and what vision for IPR development in India has it put forth. An RTI Application has been filed by CIS to attain information on these issues.
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Introduction
In this blog post, Amulya Purushothama announces our new MHRD IPR Chair Series and charts the sequence of events, starting from the establishment of the MHRD IPR Chairs, to discussions surrounding their purpose and functioning, to concerns surrounding the lack of information about the IPR Chairs, the first round of RTIs CIS had filed in regard to this and the responses received. This series will document and analyze further RTIs filed and responses received in this regard.
CCI Participation at the Upcoming 3rd International Conference on IPR and Competition
The Centre for Internet & Society wrote to the Competition Commission of India Chairman on August 5, 2015 about participation at a conference organised by Ericsson and concerns regarding conflict of interest. We also had several other NGOs sign on to the letter.
Comparative Transparency Review of Collective Management Organisations in India, United Kingdom and the United States
This Transparency Review seeks to compare the publicly available information on the websites of music collective management organizations (“CMOs”) operating within India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A total of 10 CMOs were selected, which included a range of non-profit, government registered organizations to for-profit, private organizations, managing works on behalf of record labels, publishers, composers, lyricists, and music performers. This exercise intends to contribute to the growing body of research on the relationship between transparency and effectiveness of CMOs. It concludes with recommendations and learnings which may lead to more transparent and effective functioning of copyright societies in India, and management of music copyright overall.
Odia Wikisource has a new Wikisourcer, and he is the youngest in the Odia Wikimedia community!
Prateek Pattanaik (User:Shrijagannatha on Odia Wikisource) is a young researcher of Odia literature and Odissi music. He has not just digitized as many as 54 Odia-language poetry dating early 18th century but has also annotated, both poetic and prosaic translation in his blogs “Sri Jagannatha” and “Utkal Sangeet”. He has also brought a complete book “Kisora chandranana champu” on Odia Wikisource. A recent entrant into the Odia Wikimedia community, Prateek is also the youngest Odia Wikimedian. He has also digitized 18-19th century 54 poem written by various poets.
Konkani Wikipedia Goes Live After 'Nine Years' of Incubation
Konkani Wikipedia is the second Wikimedia project after Odia Wikisource that has gone live out of incubation. The project stayed in the incubation for nine long years and the community has gone through a long debate to have a Wikipedia of their own. Here is a blog highlighting three Konkani Wikimedians and an advocate of the Wikipedia movement whose efforts finally paid off.
Reading Devanagari script based sites like Konkani Wikipedia in Kannada Script
This is a small hack to read websites with Devanagari script (used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Maithili and a few more languages) based sites like Konkani Wikipedia in Kannada script.
Statement by the Centre for Internet and Society on the Broadcast Treaty at SCCR 30
The 30th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's ("WIPO") Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights ("SCCR") is underway in Geneva from 29 June, 2015 to 03 July, 2015. While CIS was unable to attend this meeting, we have the following statement to make on negotiations on the Proposed Treaty for Broadcasting Organizations.
Odia Wikipedia meets Google Developer Group
This is a guest post by Wikimedian Sailesh Patnaik who has been a ardent contributor in Odia-language Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects and has led outreach and partnership building initiatives to grow the Wikimedia projects in Odia and other Indian languages. In this post Sailesh shares his personal experience from his interaction at the Google Extended I/O organised by Google Developer Group in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. All the views are author’s personal views.
Comments on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations: Technical Background Paper Prepared by the WIPO Secretariat
Technical Background Paper prepared by the WIPO Secretariat in relation to the Broadcast Treaty (“Technical Background Paper) provides information on new and emerging technologies and on legal developments in the broadcasting sector. This Technical Background Paper will be discussed at the upcoming 30th session of the SCCR in Geneva on 29th June- 3rd July 2015. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India had called for comments on the same. This is a submission made by Nehaa Chaudhari and Amulya Purushothama on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society in this regard.
National IPR Policy Series : Follow-up RTI to DIPP on the IPR Think Tank
This RTI was prepared by Varun Baliga and Nehaa Chaudhari as a follow-up, based on the responses of the DIPP to our earlier RTI requests (available at http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/national-ipr-policy-series-rti-requests-by-cis-to-dipp-dipp-responses)
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