The office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (“IPEC”) issued a request for public comments regarding the Development of the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement earlier this summer. The full request for comments was published at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/jsp_2013_frn_final.pdf. Comments were due by last Friday.
A search of the internet reveals that a wide variety of organizations have submitted comments, including:
Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) [“There is, however, a range of possible enforcement tactics or practices that could be attractive from a copyright protection perspective but would carry significant costs to innovation and free expression. These are tactics the Federal Government should studiously avoid.”]
Public Knowledge [“PK believes that in order to make the most efficient use of scarce government resources, the US government’s enforcement strategy should be directed at large scale commercial infringers of copyright and not small scale operations. To be successful, that enforcement strategy has to be targeted and avoid collateral damage to innocent actors. Certain practices the government has adopted, in particular the seizures of domain names and servers, have not followed this targeted approach.”]
Future of Music Coalition [“There is no reason why IP enforcement cannot exist comfortably with free expression, innovation and commerce. To achieve the appropriate balance between these ideals will require consultation with a wide array of stakeholders, as well as the close consideration of data that can shine light on how the existing IP marketplace functions. Going further, there is a need to understand how creators — including musicians and songwriters — are faring in today’s cultural economy, as well as which structures are proving the most useful advancement of their expressive ambitions.”]
Erik M. Pelton & Associates, PLLC [“In addressing infringements both before and after they occur, we believe that the Joint Strategic Plan should fairly balance the interests of legitimately infringed rights holders against the costs imposed on those who are wrongly accused of infringement or mistakenly violate the rights of others. While it is essential to respect and enforce intellectual property rights, excessive measures to prevent infringement are not cost-free.”]
Internet Society [“We believe that combating online infringement of intellectual property is a significant objective. However, it is equally important that this objective is achieved through lawful and legal paths and in accordance with the notion of constitutional proportionality.”]
American Intellectual Property Law Association (“AIPLA”) [“AIPLA recognizes that it is easier and more practical for CBP to enforce trademarks and copyrights at the border than it is to enforce patents, partially because of the nature of infringing products and the relative difficulty of determining potential infringement. However, AIPLA believes that design patents, at least, are of the nature that they may be enforced at the border in a way similar to the enforcement of trademarks and copyrights, and would favor looking into the possibility of including design patents within CBP authority.”]
Business Software Alliance (“BSA”) [“use of unlicensed software by federal contractors remains a problem.”]
Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) [“BIO urges the Office to consider expanding the resources and scope of the mission to include judicial training, compulsory license abuse, foreign office resource issues, and other TRIPS noncompliant activities.]
American Association of Independent Music (“A2IM”) [“The independent music community is struggling and has been severely economically damaged as a result of unlicensed, uncompensated acquisition and usage of our music. Yet we remain hopeful that government action; combined with voluntary industry programs like the Copyright Alerts program that A2IM will be participating in, will help protect the interests of small businesses and creators. Our goal is a level playing field for legal activity on the Internet, which would allow all users to compete on an equal technological footing while at the same time allowing economic benefits to flow to the independent labels and the artists they represent.”]
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (“MPAA”) [“All in all, we are striving relentlessly toward the ultimate goal of an Internet that works for everyone. That means continuing to innovate new and better ways for audiences to view great content, but it also means protecting their rights and the rights of the creators and makers in our community. Creative intellectual property is a core American right and value that must be protected as we innovate.”]
Joint comments of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) [“In the current marketplace, in which rampant digital infringement presents constant unfair competition to every new legitimate service, the options for copyright owners are quite limited. There is not enough money in the world to fund litigation against every significant pirate, even if copyright owners could find courts that could exercise jurisdiction over all of them.”]
Verizon Communications Inc. [“There are serious questions about ICANN’s ability to manage the huge influx of new gTLDs, the qualifications and background of many of the proposed applicants, the planned expansion’s effect on the security and stability of the Internet and the potential harms many of the new applications will cause for IP owners and consumers.”]
Meetup, Inc. [“To be sure, there are aspects of the current intellectual property legal framework that should be modified. However, attempts to strengthen the position of rights holders through increased enforcement of existing legislation or implementation of new legislation will have a direct and certain negative impact on one of the most successful and rapidly growing sector of our economy.}
Joint comments of many tech entrepreneurs including Will Aldrich (SurveyMonkey), Evan Williams (Founder of Twitter), Dennis Crowley (Co-founder and CEO of Foursquare) Erik Martin (General Manager of Reddit), Alexis Ohanian (Founder of Reddit & Breadpig), Ian Rogers (CEO of TopSpin), David Ulevitch (Founder & CEO of OpenDNS), Ben Huh (CEO of Cheezburger), Drew Curtis (CEO of Fark) and others [“Don’t disrupt the legal and technological frameworks that we know work today. While various parts of the DMCA have significant problems that could be fixed, the clear delineation of safe harbors means that innovators and entrepreneurs can develop services knowing that they are mostly safe from sudden legal attacks for how their users use the services.”]
The Coalition for Patent and Trademark Information Dissemination (CPTID) Note: consists of Thomson Reuters, CT Coresearch, Dialog, Reed Elsevier [“The U.S. patent and trademark system depends on the dissemination of value-added information. Such dissemination can best be achieved by a public-private partnership that takes advantage of the core strengths of the patent and trademark offices as well as the private sector publishers. A competitive private sector patent and trademark information industry complemented by the USPTO provides the optimal approach for meeting the broad range of user needs—from specialists at IPEC and other IP enforcement agencies to the general public.”]
Deckers Outdoor Corporation [Note: makers of UGGs, Teva, and other brands] [“We encourage IPEC to actively support legislation that gives companies the legal tools they need to protect their brands and keep dangerous goods out of the hands of consumers.]
Software & Information Industry Association [“Whether through new or existing legislation, voluntary agreements, new business models, bilateral and multilateral agreements with U.S. trading partners, litigation or education –or more likely some combination of all of these – the so-called rogue website problem is an affliction on the software and digital content industries (and many others), the U.S. economy and innocent consumers that needs to be combatted.”]
Altria Client Services, Inc. on behalf of Philip Morris USA Inc. [“IPEC should expand its efforts to address the full scope of counterfeit Consumer Safety and Critical Technology Products beyond pharmaceuticals and military electronics”]
More comments can be found via the Regulations.gov website by searching for document number OMB-2012-0004.
