The House passed H.R. 4279 (PRO-IP Act) yesterday, which, among other things, would create the “Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative” under the Executive Office of the President.  It also increases the amount of resources and personnel related to CHIP (Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property) enforcement.

Read a summary here

See the full text here (PDF)

The EFF has this to say about the legislation (House Passes Controversial PRO IP Act):

“The most outrageous provisions would create new and unnecessary federal bureaucracies devoted to intellectual property enforcement. None seems more ridiculous than language creating a Cabinet-level “IP enforcement czar” that would report to the President and coordinate enforcement efforts across government, a proposal that has been loudly opposed by the Department of Justice.”

In a time when many public University systems are facing huge budget deficits (for example, the University of California faces a $400 million deficit), is creating a new layer of federal IP enforcement a useful allocation of funds?  Especially when the proposed legislation has been criticized by the very people it directs.  Rather than using funds to relieve financial stress in education, or any other strained public service, the 110th Congress has chosen to help organizations like the RIAA and MPAA fortify their own warped IP ideologies.

Stay tuned for more updates and analyses.

One slippery subject in “intellectual property” is trademark law. When someone tries to abuse their trademark, it’s not hard to notice — and to do something about it, as in the case of Barbie in a Blender. What’s less clear is what to do in that nebulous realm where trademarks intersect with free software, free content (like Creative Commons-licensed material), and the groups who work with them.

One well-known example is Mozilla’s open source Firefox Web browser. The source code is open, but the trademarked logos, etc. are not. I don’t want to pick on Mozilla — they’re just one prominent example.

I don’t think it’s neccesarily a bad thing. A trademark is supposed to be just that: a distinct mark by which consumers can recognize a product or company. There’s nothing wrong with helping consumers identify products, nor with helping businesses and organizations stay recognizable. The problem is in knowing if you’ve gone too far.

There is, of course, basic information about trademarks available, both online and in print. Naturally, though, most of that information is aimed at how to “protect” one’s mark. As far as I’ve seen, there’s precious little about how to use your mark responsibly: what to register and what not, which uses of a mark to allow and which not, how to tell the difference between infringement and fair use, etc.

Such a document — a short “best practices for trademarks” — seems like it’d be useful, especially for authors of free software and people concerned with freedom. (I don’t think Mattel’s going to pay much attention.)

We at FreeCulture.org are not the right people to write that paper. We’re not lawyers; most of us aren’t even law students. But a small contingent of present and future lawyers follow what we do — and we know where to find others. So we can’t write it, but if anyone out there is interested working on such a paper, we can help you find collaborators and reviewers, help you work together, and help distribute the final draft.

If you’d like to work on the paper, add a comment on this post or send an e-mail to freedom@freeculture.org.