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D. Murali

Copyright, patent, design, trademark, confidential information... If you want to know more about Intellectual Property and the laws that govern it, grab this book.

A COMMON thread running through copyright, patent, design, trademark, and confidential information is that these are all intangible.

Also, these are the main chapters in Oxford's Intellectual Property Law, by Lionel Bently and Brad Sherman, and marketed by Asia Law House (asialaw@satyam.net.in).

The book is about regulations governing IP, which is "creation, use, and exploitation of mental or creative labour."

From the mega reference, you'd learn that the Computer Programs Directive of Europe has been in force from January 1, 1993. According to it, computer programs are protected as literary works under the Berne Convention.

The four exceptions that it provides are back-ups, studying/testing of program, acts done by lawful acquirer, and `decompilation' of programs.

"In the case of programs that are made by employees in the course of their employment, the Directive requires member states to allocate the copyright in such programs to the employer."

Database Directive came into force from January 1, 1998, to harmonise the laws of copyright in the field of databases, write the authors.

"A database is defined rather vaguely as a collection of independent works, data or other materials arranged in a systematic or methodical way and individually accessible by electronic or other means."

The Directive speaks of granting copyright to `original databases', which constitute "the author's own intellectual creation" because of "selection or arrangement of their contents."

In 2000 came the Electronic Commerce Directive encompassing "matters such as electronic contracts, unsolicited communication, and codes of conduct."

A mere conduit is not liable, except under a `prohibitory injunction', clarifies the Directive. "A provider shall not be liable for `caching', that is the automatic, intermediate, and temporary storage of information."

Again, a provider of `hosting' or storage of information is not liable, "unless he has actual knowledge that the activity is illegal."

If he comes to know, liability can be avoided by "acting expeditiously to remove or disable access to the information."

If in the course of searching database, it gets downloaded into the memory of a computer, is there an infringement? The UK law on copyright would say `no'.

There are numerous cases strewn all over the book. Such as Express Newspapers vs News, where two newspapers were involved in tit-for-tat copying; and British Leyland vs Armstrong, where it was held that manufacturers were entitled to make spare parts for motor vehicles even though to do so would be to indirectly reproduce the claimant's design drawings.

A recommended addition to the property of intellectuals.

We're good at replication!

SUBIR Roy's Made in India, from Tata McGraw-Hill (www.tatamcgrawhill.com) is sub-titled `a study of emerging competitiveness', to look at `Indian best practices'. It begins with software and ends with BPO, and sandwiches between the two, biotech, steel, engineering, and so on.

The coverage, as Roy concedes, is not comprehensive; nor is the choice of sectors determined by any quantitative criteria, but `oral history'.

Disappointingly, therefore, "the study mainly seeks to capture how the main players see and remember competitiveness emerging, be it in their firms or industries." Keeping that aside, let me walk you through some of the IT-related chapters.

Chapter 1, `The Software Advantage,' has an interesting quote of Sanjay Chakraborty, CEO of MobiApps that as a nation, "our analytical and mathematical skills have been inbred."

However, our competitive edge is in replication, he'd explain in a contrary vein, elsewhere. Thus, "The core competence of the Indian software industry is that they can take something that is repetitive, to a certain extent apply their analytics, and replicate in large numbers... Mass replication will constitute an advantage at a certain scale because then the barrier to entry becomes large."

If that's not too flattering, read about how software has been `maturing under setbacks' in chapter 2, where Roy identifies three areas of weakness, viz. backwardness in product development, domain knowledge, and marketing.

Ashok Soota of MindTree Consulting feels that the biggest handicap for the software sector has been "lack of domain knowledge" and therefore inability to offer consultancy.

Roy writes that Infosys has an option to acquire a management consultancy. "It has a war chest and has also approached the government for a large standby facility. For a long time the guessing game was on as to which well known western consultancy Infosys would set its sights on." Written perhaps before Infosys Consulting got launched in April 2004. The new outfit with Steve Pratt at the helm plans to grow to 500 consultants within three years.

The chapter on BPO explains the difference between ITES and BPO. The former is "any service that can be provided remotely through the wires" but BPO "involves entire business processes in a company."

The book cites a pithy view of K. Ganesh, CEO of Customr.Asset: That they don't have our people quality and we don't have their process quality. "The challenge before Indian BPO companies is to adopt the meticulousness in systems and processes of their customer companies."

A chapter titled `Jhunjhunwala & Co' is about the IIT professor behind the TeNet initiative of n-League that divides the country into service areas of about 25 km radius each. "The first major test to which n-League has been put is the `Sustainable Rural Internet' (SARI) project launched in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu which it is implementing.

Interesting, as a catalogue of industry opinions with a good measure of subjective biases, though short on analytics.

Tailpiece

"Hey, what's this? Your P&L says `eating and lighting A/c Rs 45,000."

"In my new keyboard `h' is not working!"

Books2Byte@TheHindu.co.in

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