Managing Your Intellectual Property

An open letter signed by forty-one Nobel Prize winners in support of the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) was sent to the U.S. Congress earlier this week. 

An excerpt:  “Passage of FRPAA will make it easier for scientists worldwide to better and more swiftly address the complex scientific challenges that we face today and expand shared knowledge across disciplines to accelerate breakthrough and spur innovation.”

The Science and Technology Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, which has oversight of non-defense federal civilian research and development, has convened a scholarly publishing roundtable charged with developing recommendations for government policies that promote public access to the results of federally funded research.  The roundtable, which consists of representatives from university, publisher, librarian, and research communities, released an initial status report this week.

According to The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an official investigation into whether the Google Books agreement between the Internet giant and authors/publishers violates antitrust laws. 

The text of the department’s notification letter is available on John Paczkowski’s Digital Daily blog.

Today, Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX) reintroduced the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), a bill to ensure free, timely, online access to the published results of research funded by eleven U.S. federal agencies.  The bill covers unclassified research funded by the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Transportation as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation.

American Public Media’s Radio show Marketplace takes a look at the cost of publicly funded research and its impact on taxpayers, researchers, and the business models of publishers.  The focus is on the NIH Public Access Policy and the Fair Copyright in Research Act, the proposed law in the U.S. Congress to overturn it.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the antitrust implications of the Google Book settlement with authors.  Further details are available in a New York Times article.

 Separately, the judge overseeing the settlement has extended the deadline for authors to opt out of the agreement until September 4, 2009.  This gives authors and copyright holders more time to review the settlement and decide whether to participate.

Representative John Conyers (D-MI) has reintroduced legislation before the Judiciary Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives that would amend federal copyright law to prohibit federal agencies from requiring articles resulting from research projects they fund to be made publicly accessible via open access outlets.  This legislation is in response to the National Institutes of Health’s public access policy.

Among the organizations opposed to the legislation are the American Association of Universities and the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, which sent a joint letter to committee members. If you would like to send a message to your representative, visit the House Judiciary Committee Web page for a list of members and links to their Web sites.

The bill brought forth during last week’s congressional hearing regarding the NIH Public Access Mandate has been shelved until next year, reports Library Journal, but the copyright debate rages on.

The bill, focusing on publisher’s copyright, stated: “No Federal agency may, in connection with a funding agreement…impose or cause the imposition of any term or condition that requires the transfer or license to or for a Federal agency any right provided under [copyright law].”

The Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property heard testimony Thursday from Nobel Prize winners, open-access advocates, publishers of scholarly content and copyright lawyers regarding the pros and cons of the NIH Publc Access Mandate.  A bill was presented that would curtail the National Institutes of Health’s public-access policy.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed and Library Journal covered the hearing details.

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property scheduled a  hearing to address the copyright policy implications of the NIH Public Access Policy.  The hearing will be this Thursday, September 11 at 1pm Eastern and can be viewed online.

Several members of the UCLA community including the Director of Research, the Director of Office of Intellectual Property Administration, and the University Librarian today sent letters to the California delegation in support of the NIH Public Access Policy to make published research funded by NIH openly accessible after 6 months.

Submit comments to your representative or the chair of the Judiciary Committee.

For more background on the issue, see the Library Journal article “NIH Public Access Policy To Face Copyright Challenge in Congress?”