FTC Wants To Straighten Out IP Law

coondoggie writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "What do you get when you mix the government, the court system, company lawyers and Joe Consumer? A serious mess that would send most people screaming into the night. But the Federal Trade Commission is no such entity. It wants to straighten Intellectual Property (IP) out and today said it will hold a series of hearings — the first in Washington, DC on Dec. 5 — it will use to examine IP law and the myriad issues surrounding it. Interested bigwigs from the tech industry, including Cisco, Yahoo and the Computer & Communications Industry Association are expected to testify along with professors, lawyers and other industry players. The patent system has experienced significant change and more changes are under consideration, the FTC said." The FTC held some different, but related hearings this week which addressed topics such as copyright law and DRM interoperability. Transcripts, podcasts, and summaries of the talks are available on the FTC-hosted "Protecting Consumers in the Next Tech-ade" site.

Comments

Re:Straighten out?

[Anonymous Coward]

When Mickey Mouse was allowed to decide the duration of copyright.

Re:Me being a cynic says...

[aproposofwhat]

It really depends upon who turns up from the corporations - if the IP lawyers have their say, then expect crazy software and business process patents to be favoured.

If the CFOs and CTOs are involved, then the debate may be more balanced - fighting stupid patent cases as a cost of doing business can't be attractive for the beancounters, and the technical guys are more likely to appreciate how ludicrous the idea of patenting an algorithm is.

This could turn out to be a good thing - the fact that it is being debated at all is encouraging.