Grid service provisioning is a nascent market. As a result, the tension between the interests of one entrepreneur (individual profit from licensing his or her intellectual property rights) and the industry as a whole (rapid dissemination and free use of the technology through the adoption of open standards) will greatly affect the future development in the market. The principal IPR considerations are set out below.
One should distinguish between the copyright implications that may arise due to the use of a specific technology and the possibilities that are available for entrepreneurs active in the grid for profiting through the marketing of their intellectual property rights in the software developed for the provision of grid services. As far as the first issue is concerned, we should mention that grid technology is, due to its digital networked nature, prone to possible copyright infringements, since every attempt to send copyrighted information over the grid fabric automatically results in an electronic copying of the work. While the law provides for some exceptions to the rights of the copyright holder, the present regulatory provisions are not sufficient to immunise the provider of the grid network and/or grid services against copyright violations. It follows that the partners need to acquire the permission of copyright owners, so that the copyrighted material can be stored, copied and processed in the various grid elements. As far as the possibilities of securing the protection of computer programmes as valid copyrighted material, we should mention that copyrightability of software depends on whether the specific programme is characterised as original (in the sense that it constitutes the authors own intellectual creation). This is a factual evaluation, although, one could argue that the given prerequisite is admittedly met by most independently developed code. If third party software is used in the context of grid services, licensing issues between the owner of the programme and the grid partners have to be addressed, explicitly taking into account the intricacies of grid architectures (e.g. avoiding the per-CPU licensing model).
With regard to databases, the European legislator has acknowledged that they should be protected both under copyright legislation (if they are considered original in terms of their structure or arrangement) and under a separate sui generis right (if they represent a substantive investment for their maker). Although grid databases constitute an essential part in the deployment of grid service provision scenarios, we find it doubtful that they are eligible for protection under copyright or the sui generis right, because they fail to meet the respective legislative prerequisites. Still, there could be cases where this aforementioned finding may be reversed.
With regard to patentability of grid software (grid middleware; tailored applications running on gird networks) and architectures, the document attempts an overview of the problematic of software patentability in general, and provides case law of granted software patents that have similar uses (or functions) to software used in grid networks. However, the relevant discussion correlates with the tension between patents and open standards / open source software, which may be resolved through the adoption of alternative business strategies.
While technical measures should be taken to ensure that sensitive information remains hidden, the document discusses the cases for civil and criminal liability when such information is disclosed, either by a breach of an obligation of confidence, or through the acquisition of the information by improper or surreptitious means (hacking). While the first case is handled mostly by the national legislation of the Member States, the European Convention on Cybercrime includes dedicated provisions that ensure the penal punishment of the industrial spy.
Licensing is perceived both as an enabler/prerequisite for the proper functioning of a grid network (when licenses should be required by third parties) and also as an opportunity for profit for various actors in the grid value network. With regard to the first group of licenses, there are some interesting questions arising in cases where the outcome is based on the use of various software elements that are licensed under different terms (e.g. open source software and proprietary software) in the different layers (resource/hardware, middleware, service provision, application etc). With regard to the second group, it is important that the grid partners explicitly decide on the ownership of the results of the service provision. This refers both to the development of glue software and also to the data created as the result of the provision of grid services (e.g. the results of task performed in the context of grid services).
This material is taken from the document "Report on Relevant Intellectual Property Rights Issues" produced by the BEinGRID project. Please follow the link below for the original document: IPR Issues in Grid
© 2007 BEinGRID