[Taxacom] Your input, please, on attribution, rights and licensing of names and compilations of names

[John Noyes]

Hi Gerwin,

I do not see these as a danger to taxonomy/nomenclature because these are applications for patents on systems that link information to scientific and other names for living organisms (or similar). A quick look at these links seems to suggest that the applications are trying to patent a system (systems) that has broadly already been invented at least 20 years previously by many other database compilers. In any case how can anyone take a group seriously who uses the plural "genuses" for genus (see the tinyurl application, bottom column 6 of "managing taxonomic information")? Surprisingly this application comes from a respected organisation (Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory). Maybe they were just trying it on to see how far they could get.

John

John Noyes
Scientific Associate
Department of Life Sciences
Natural History Museum
Cromwell Road
South Kensington
London SW7 5BD 
UK
jsn at nhm.ac.uk
Tel.: +44 (0) 207 942 5594
Fax.: +44 (0) 207 942 5229

Universal Chalcidoidea Database (everything you wanted to know about chalcidoids and more):
www.nhm.ac.uk/chalcidoids 

-----Original Message-----
From: taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu [mailto:taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu] On Behalf Of Gerwin Kasperek
Sent: 06 March 2013 08:50
To: taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: Re: [Taxacom] Your input, please, on attribution, rights and licensing of names and compilations of names


Can anyone explain, in a nutshell, what the reasons or motivations are behind a tendency towards protecting taxonomic methods by patent, such as the following United States patents or patent applications (all three of them explicitely about taxonomic and nomenclatural information in biology):

http://tinyurl.com/d6ep9gk
("Managing taxonomic information")

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2013/0013603.html
  ("Semiotic indexing of digital resources")

http://tinyurl.com/d4ahtq4
("Systems and methods for resolving ambiguity between names and entities")

Can anyone explain the relationship between NamesforLife(TM) and other projects in biodiversity informatics?

Regards
Gerwin

-------------------------------------------------------
Dr Gerwin Kasperek
University Library Johann Christian Senckenberg Frankfurt am Main, Germany
-------------------------------------------------------



Quoting "Scott L. Gardner" <slg at unl.edu>:

> This licensing of names will stifle scholarly communication and make 
> doing science trivial. All scholarly communication should be done at 
> cost and non-profit.  SCOTT GARDNER
>
> On 3/5/2013 4:07 PM, David Patterson wrote:
>> The Global Names project will host a workshop to explore options and 
>> to make recommendations as to  issues that relate to Attribution, 
>> Rights and Licensing of names and compilations of names.  The aim of 
>> the workshop is a report that clarifies if and how we share names.
>>
>>
>> We seek submissions from all interested parties - nomenclaturalists, 
>> taxonomists, aggregators, and users of names. Let us know what (you think)
>>   intellectual property rights apply or what rights should be 
>> associated with names and compilations of names.  How can those who 
>> compile names get useful attribution for names, and what 
>> responsibilities do they have to ensure that information is 
>> authoritative.  If there are rights, what kind of licensing is appropriate.
>>
>>
>> The submissions will be considered by those attending the workshop.
>>
>>
>>
>> Contributions can be submitted
>> http://names-attribution-rights-and-licensing.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Pag
>> e, where you will find more information about this event.
>>
>>
>> Thankyou
>>
>>
>> David Patterson
>> globalnames.org
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>
> --
> *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
>
> Scott Lyell Gardner, Ph.D.
> Curator and Professor
> Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology
> W-529 Nebraska Hall
> University of Nebraska State Museum and School of Biological Sciences 
> University of Nebraska - Lincoln Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0514
>
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The Taxacom Archive back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:

(1) by visiting http://taxacom.markmail.org

(2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here

Celebrating 26 years of Taxacom in 2013.