The Role of Scientific and Technical Data and Information in the Public Domain Proceedings of a Symposium (2003) / Chapter Skim
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Session 1: The Role, Value, and Limits of Scientific and Technical (S&T) Data and Information in the Public Domain -
Session 1: The Role, Value, and Limits of Scientific and Technical (S&T) Data and Information in the Public Domain -
1. Discussion Framework
Pages 1-9
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From page 3... ...
This regime, which has been among the most open in the world, has placed a premium on the broadest possible dissemination and use of scientific data and information produced by government or government-funded sources. This has been implemented in several complementary ways: by expressly prohibiting intellectual property protection of all information produced by the federal government and in many state governments; by contractually reinforcing the traditional sharing norms of science through open data terms and conditions in federal research grants; and by carving out a very large and robust public domain for noncopyrightable data, as well as other immunities and exceptions favoring science and education, from proprietary information otherwise subject to intellectual property protection.
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From page 4... ...
Because of the long lag time in entering the public domain, however, it is not of great importance to most types of research. The other subcategory of information that is not subject to protection under exclusive intellectual property rights consists of ineligible or unprotectible components of otherwise protectible subject matter, such as an idea, fact, procedure, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, all of which are expressly excluded r , , , · at, , , ~ ~' ~~ · ~ r , , · ~ · i' · · it, ~ ~ ~ from statutory copyright protection.
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From page 5... ...
At the same time, the United States unlike most other countries overrides the canons of intellectual property law that could otherwise endow it with exclusive rights in government-generated collections of data or other information. To this end, Section 105 of the 1976 Copyright Act prohibits the federal government from claiming protection in its publications.
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From page 6... ...
The following are a number of well-established reasons for placing government-generated data and information in the public domain: · A government entity needs no legal incentives from exclusive property rights that are conferred by intellectual property laws to create information, unlike individual authors or private-sector investors and publishers. Both the activities that the government undertakes and the information produced by the government in the course of those activities are a public good.
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From page 7... ...
Databases and other information goods produced in these settings become presumptively protectible under any relevant intellectual property laws unless affirmative steps are taken to place such material in the public domain. In this case, the public domain must be actively created, rather than passively conferred.
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From page 8... ...
The "small science," independent investigator approach traditionally has characterized a large area of experimental laboratory sciences, such as chemistry or biomedical research, and field work and studies, such as biodiversity, ecology, microbiology, soil science, and anthropology. The data or samples are collected and analyzed independently, and the resulting data sets from such studies generally are heterogeneous and unstandardized, with few of the individual data holdings deposited in public data repositories or openly shared.
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From page 9... ...
This trend is being fueled by the creation of new legal rights and protectionist mechanisms largely from outside the scientific enterprise, but increasingly adopted by it. These new rights and mechanisms include greatly enhanced copyright protection in digital information, the ways in which access to and use of digital data are being contractually restricted and technologically enforced, and the adoption of unprecedented intellectual property rights in collections of data as such.
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