Here we'll explore the nexus of legal rulings, Capitol Hill
policy-making, technical standards development, and technological
innovation that creates -- and will recreate -- the networked world as we
know it. Among the topics we'll touch on: intellectual property
conflicts, technical architecture and innovation, the evolution of
copyright, private vs. public interests in Net policy-making, lobbying
and the law, and more.
Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this weblog are those of the authors and not of their respective institutions.
Faultline report published on The Reg indicating that the US Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences has ruled that InterTrust's DRM patents have precedence over Macrovision's. At least, in the US, because that's based on "first invention." However, overseas the nod usually goes to application filing date. There, Macrovision claims to have the edge, though I don't think they've gotten an official court ruling anywhere yet. InterTrust seems to believe it owns the international patents as well.
At stake is the MPEG LA licensing group patent pool and the potential very large pot of royalties that will emerge from it as DRM starts to become an issue on mobile phones.
