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The $100 Billion Problem No One Is Talking About – Forbes (Kevin West)

January 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

When we start to talk losses in hundred of billions of dollars, it’s easy for our eyes to glaze over. It’s a big number. Hundreds of billions is reserved for things like out-of-control healthcare costs. But healthcare gets plenty of attention from government, private corporations and consumers. You know what else will cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars by 2018? Data loss.

In fact, if data loss continues on its current trends, it will cost the U.S. economy $290 billion by 2018. This equates to 1.6% of  GDP. The 2010 U.S. budget allocated $290 billion to Medicaid – that’s a topic that gets plenty of attention. But the $290 billion problem of data protection is largely ignored, even by those most effected by it – U.S. corporate executives.

via The $100 Billion Problem No One Is Talking About – Forbes.

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China Beefs Up IP Enforcement in Six Month Parade

February 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

(Westlaw Business) Though only the world’s second-largest economy, China reportedly surged past the U.S. last year in trademark registrations, ranking first globally with 4.6 million registered trademarks in 2010. Spurned by awareness of the importance of intellectual property protection, the jump in trademark registrations reflects growing confidence in China’s judicial enforcement of intellectual property laws.

Set to close at the end of this quarter, China’s six month Intellectual Property Rights Campaign has focused on education as well as enforcement. Cracking down on pirated computer software, designer goods, pharmaceutical products and other acts of counterfeiting, the Chinese government previously announced that it had uncovered approximately 700 IP violations amounting to US$125 million since the campaign began last year.

Motivated by the prospect of boosting the economy, encouraging companies to implement trademark strategies have rung a bell with local level governments in certain Chinese cities. As incentive, authorities in Hebei province previously announced a bonus of RMB300,000 (US$45,300) would be granted to companies that had achieved the status of a well known trademark under PRC law. In 2010, well known trademarks owned by Chinese companies were far and few between, with the most recognized marks belonging to foreign household names such as Sony, Apple and Total.

Joining the IP blitz, Chongqing and cities in China’s Shandong province have also enacted training programs and tougher enforcement against counterfeiting in recent months. In particular, internet piracy and technology-related disputes have emerged as hot areas for enforcement actions.

By the way of background, PRC trademark registration is vital part of any company’s IP protection strategy, as foreign registrations are generally not recognized under PRC law. As a result, domestic and foreign companies alike are often advised to register their trademarks and intellectual property as early as possible in order to mitigate the risk of IP theft.

via China Beefs Up IP Enforcement in Six Month Parade.

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10 e-Discovery Trends in the Cloud

January 12, 2011 By 1 Comment

Cloud computing is rapidly changing the way enterprises go about their business. Over the past 18 months we have noted a trend amongst enterprises to take their e-Discovery in-house. According to email and archiving security vendor Proofpoint, the economy available through the cloud is going to speed up the process and by the end of this year in-house e-Discovery could well be the norm.

The move in-house will be driven by organizations looking to lower legal expenses while gaining more control over the e-Discovery workflow.

Proofpoint says it also expects cost to be a driving factor in accelerating the adoption of archiving in the cloud over traditional on-premise technologies.

As a provider of SaaS email security, email archiving and data loss prevention solutions, Proofpoint has made it its business to protect email boxes across private and public sector enterprises. Leaving aside its private sector deployments, it has over one million US government and defence inboxes under its care so for its own survival it needs to know.

So where is e-Discovery going for this year? According to Proofpoint and based on its interaction with customers and legal professionals in email archiving and e-Discovery, it has noted ten trends that will unfold as the year progresses:

via 10 e-Discovery Trends in the Cloud.

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The Data-Driven Economy | Andrew Dermont | Big Think

November 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Studies have shown that people who have recently read online obituaries tend to be higher purchasers of weekend rental cars. Why this is true isn’t exactly clear to Dave Morgan, founder of Tacoda Inc., an online advertising company that was acquired by Aol. in 2007 for $275 million. But the correlation in the data is significant enough that Avis, Hertz, and Enterprise Rent-a-Car ads should start appearing in front of you soon after you have read about the passing of an old friend, a loved one, or (as is often the case when reading obituaries) someone you didn’t know at all.

Consumers today are knowingly and unknowingly providing businesses with more data than they’ve ever been capable of collecting before. Internet entrepreneurs, privacy analysts, and business consultants alike believe that for the next fifty years, capitalism around the world will (for better or worse) be focused on sussing out what all this data actually means. “We are finding things that are completely non-intuitive,” says Morgan. “This is just the very beginning of this enormous explosion of information being available about what people do, how they react to information, and how they interact with each other.”

Most big businesses today are already data businesses at heart. Facebook, which claims to help you connect and share with the people in your life, is worth a reported $33.7 billion largely because 400 million people have shared with it the details of their personal lives. Google processes about a petabyte of information every hour. To put this seemingly insignificant number in perspective, that’s 1,125,899,906,842,624 bytes, or about a fifth of all the information delivered in letter form by the USPS in a year. What’s worse—or better, if you’re in the data business—businesses are not only recording your data while you’re surfing the Web. Long gone are the days of a bifurcated online and offline world.

“There are ways that we probably don’t think about that we’re sharing information,” says Mike Spinney, Senior Privacy Analyst at the Ponemon Institute. “Whether it’s an E-Z Pass, or a public transit card or swiping your credit card to make micro-purchases.” Wal-Mart collects data from more than 278 customer transactions every second.

via The Data-Driven Economy | Andrew Dermont | Big Think.

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White House Council Launches Interagency Subcommittee on Privacy & Internet Policy « USDOJ: Justice Blog

October 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

As part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to promoting the vast economic opportunity of the Internet and protecting individual privacy, the National Science and Technology Council has launched a new Subcommittee on Privacy and Internet Policy. Populated by representatives from more than a dozen Departments, agencies and Federal offices, and co-chaired by the two of us, the subcommittee will develop principles and strategic directions with the goal of fostering consensus in legislative, regulatory, and international Internet policy realms.

In this digital age, a thriving and dynamic economy requires Internet policies that promote innovation domestically and globally while ensuring strong and sensible protections of individuals’ private information and the ability of governments to meet their obligations to protect public safety.

Recognizing the global nature of the digital economy and society, the Subcommittee will monitor and address global privacy policy challenges and develop approaches to meeting those challenges through coordinated U.S. government action.  The Subcommittee is committed to fostering dialogue and cooperation between our Nation and its key trading partners in support of flexible and robust privacy and innovation policies. Such policies are essential to the health of competitive marketplaces for online goods and services.

via White House Council Launches Interagency Subcommittee on Privacy & Internet Policy « USDOJ: Justice Blog.

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Apple Could Sell 11 Million iPads This Year, Analysts Say – FoxNews.com

October 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The fastest selling electronics device ever is gaining momentum.

The boom in laptop computer sales is losing some steam, analysts report, and not only because of a still-sluggish economy. Some shoppers are spending their money on Apple’s iPad tablet rather than the low-priced laptops that have fueled sales in recent years.

One is Vanessa Cole, a 31-year-old sales representative in Detroit, whose husband bought her an iPad as a gift in April. She had considered getting a low-priced laptop but said she prefers the iPad “for the bigger screen and apps” — even though the tablet cost more at $499.

Analysts expect Apple to sell 11 million to 12 million iPads this year, more than double many initial estimates, and to reach 20 million next year. Samsung, Dell and other companies are racing to introduce their own tablets.

The tablet frenzy contrasts with some indicators for laptops. NPD Group estimates that laptop unit sales in U.S. retail channels rose 12.3% in the first eight months of the year — well below the 30% growth of the year-earlier-period — and were down 1% in July and August, the peak of the important back-to-school shopping season.

via Apple Could Sell 11 Million iPads This Year, Analysts Say – FoxNews.com.

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Apple Could Sell 11 Million iPads This Year, Analysts Say – FoxNews.com

October 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The fastest selling electronics device ever is gaining momentum.

The boom in laptop computer sales is losing some steam, analysts report, and not only because of a still-sluggish economy. Some shoppers are spending their money on Apple’s iPad tablet rather than the low-priced laptops that have fueled sales in recent years.

One is Vanessa Cole, a 31-year-old sales representative in Detroit, whose husband bought her an iPad as a gift in April. She had considered getting a low-priced laptop but said she prefers the iPad “for the bigger screen and apps” — even though the tablet cost more at $499.

Analysts expect Apple to sell 11 million to 12 million iPads this year, more than double many initial estimates, and to reach 20 million next year. Samsung, Dell and other companies are racing to introduce their own tablets.

The tablet frenzy contrasts with some indicators for laptops. NPD Group estimates that laptop unit sales in U.S. retail channels rose 12.3% in the first eight months of the year — well below the 30% growth of the year-earlier-period — and were down 1% in July and August, the peak of the important back-to-school shopping season.

via Apple Could Sell 11 Million iPads This Year, Analysts Say – FoxNews.com.

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AFP: US indicts ex S.Korean airline execs for price fixing

August 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Two former Asiana Airlines executives were indicted in New York on Thursday for a price-fixing scheme involving economy class airfares for travel between the United States and South Korea.

A grand jury in Brooklyn, New York issued the one-count indictment against Joo Ahn Kang and Chung Sik Kwak, both former Asiana vice presidents and South Korean nationals. Kang also served as airline president from 2005 to 2008.

The pair were charged with “conspiring with others to suppress and eliminate competition by fixing passenger fares” from about January 2000 to February 2006, the Justice Department said in a statement.

“As a part of the conspiracy, Kang, Kwak and co-conspirators monitored and enforced adherence to the agreed-upon, noncompetitive rates charged to passengers traveling between the United States and Korea,” it added.

via AFP: US indicts ex S.Korean airline execs for price fixing.

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The DMCA Safe Harbor Provision Is Stronger Than Ever | The Legal Intelligencer

July 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Even as the economy continues to slowly recover from this recession, online sales are still booming, accounting for more than $200 billion over the past year. As the marketplace shifts from the sales counter to the desktop, counterfeiting, and software piracy has also shifted to the virtual world.

For copyright and trademark owners, this creates a constant stream of newly evolved infringing activities to monitor. Although intellectual property owners have sought to hold online service providers liable for the infringing activities of their users, courts have repeatedly found them not liable so long as they adhere to the guidelines for the Safe Harbor Provision found in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. While online service providers like YouTube and eBay rely heavily on the safe harbor to operate, the protection provided by the safe harbor remains a point of frustration among the entertainment industry and other copyright and trademark holders looking to protect their intellectual property rights.

Although intellectual property holders are having a difficult time monitoring and controlling piracy with the threat of civil litigation, the creation of the Obama administration’s Joint Strategic Plan to Combat Intellectual Property Theft at least offers IP holders an alternate route for combating online infringement.

via Law.com – The DMCA Safe Harbor Provision Is Stronger Than Ever.

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UAE Arbitration law set for year-end | Gulf News

May 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The UAE expects to pass a draft federal arbitration law this year which will help boost investor confidence and strengthen the country's investment environment, Minister of Economy Sultan Bin Saeed Al Mansouri said here at a conference yesterday.

“Arbitration is of major importance in attracting investments and achieving the development and stability of the national economy,” Al Mansouri said.

“I do hope we will be able to pass it by the end of this year. We will try to move on it as fast as possible. It will help prevent accumulation of cases in courts,” he added.

“Arbitration is one of the key instruments to resolve disputes amicably and thus enhance investor confidence in the economy's fundamentals to support businesses.”

He said the country is in the process of developing about 14 regulations, which include a law on foreign investment, a companies law and a competition law.

The draft law addresses arbitration procedures, confidentiality, and the selection of arbitrators.

It will also cover Islamic arbitration and will be the first to govern arbitration and reconciliation procedures nationwide.

Both Dubai and Abu Dhabi have arbitration centres — the Dubai International Arbitration Centre and the Abu Dhabi Conciliation and Arbitration Centre — that deal with cases on an emirate level.

The draft federal law of arbitration is taking feedback from these centres as well as the International Islamic Centre for Reconciliation and Arbitration.

via gulfnews : Arbitration law set for year-end.

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