INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TREATY WORRIES SOME ACADEMICS

[Tony Barry]

>From EDUPAGE

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY TREATY WORRIES SOME ACADEMICS
A multinational treaty on intellectual property protection for databases,
slated for consideration at the World Intellectual Property Organization's
meeting next month in Geneva, has scientists, librarians and some scholarly
societies concerned over what they view as overly broad protections for
information contained in a database.  While database publishers need some
protection against digital piracy, any solution should also protect "the
interests of society and the full and free flow of information for
scientific research," says the president of the National Academy of
Engineering.  The Academy has joined with the Institute of Medicine in
recommending that the U.S. take "no precipitous action" on the treaty.  A
lawyer at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has called scientists'
concerns about fair use overblown.  He says the draft treaty contains
provisions to allow the U.S. to enact a fair-use exemption in the
legislation it would pass to enact the treaty.  (Chronicle of Higher
Education 15 Nov 96 A31)

______________________________________________
Email          : Tony.Barry@anu.edu.au
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Head, Center for Networked Access to Scholarly Information,
Australian National University Library, A.C.T. 0200, AUSTRALIA.