Cash Cow Patent & Overturned Decency Act
Ray Van Eng (06/12/96)
There are good news and bad news.
The bad news is that a little-known patent granted in 1985 could have serious financial implications for anyone interested in sell software directly online by allowing the purchaser to download digital material over the Internet.
The good news is that a panel of three federal District Court judges has overturned the recently passed Communication Decency Act (CDA) which was deemed as unconstitutional.
E-Data of New Jersey has purchased the rights to a patent which would effectively gave the tiny three-person company the legal power to demand licensing fee from anyone who is marketing digital data -- software, music, video, fonts, clip arts, text etc. electronically over the Internet.
The company is currently taking a 'Carrot or Stick' approach. E-Data would offer a one-year guaranteed renewable license for an amount based on a company's year-end earnings. Some industry heavyweights such as IBM, Adobe and VocalTec have taken a bite at the carrot and agreed to pay. At the same time, E-Data is taking out the stick and started whipping 43 companies to court including CompuServe who have refused to settle.
For the various court cases, witness selection and preliminary hearings will begin later this month, but the trails themselves are not expected until sometime next year.
Meanwhile, some critics have stated that the federal Patent and Technology Office is so deluged with software patent applications in recent years that in lack of adequate manpower to investigate the technical intricacies of all proposed cases, the federal agency simply approve whatever that comes across its desk.
For advocates of the First Amendment Rights, the recent judges ruling against the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is seen as a major victory. The CDA which came into being as part of the sweeping Telecommunications Act 1996 became a US law earlier this year. The Act would in effect make it illegal for anyone to post "indecent" material on public electronic forums such as online services and world wide web servers and make that content freely accessible to minors. The maximum penalty is two years in jail and up to $250,000 in fines.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the online community and many others have argued that the term 'indecent' is too vague for a precise definition and that law-enforcement would find the Internet too big and far-reaching to exercise control over it. Furthermore, the ACLU indicated that web site publications are like their counterparts in the print world and therefore should enjoy the same rights and protection granted to companies in the print media.
In formulating the decision to rule against the CDA, the three judges zeroed in on a number of issues. First, the filtering technology that exist today may not be sophisticated enough to be relied upon to screen out indecent material and the second thing is the word 'indecent' is subject to interpretation in different parts of the country.
The judges are also concerned with the abilities of the US government to block out the very large pool of illicit material originated from other countries that are now so freely accessible to youngsters in the US.
Although the ACLU and other free speech advocates are winning a battle today with this federal judge ruling, the CDA saga may take many years to resolve as it depends greatly on the technological, sociological and political developments that are about to unfold in the evolution of this great global phenomenon known as the Internet that we are just beginning to appreciate its impacts upon our lives.
