Virtual cartels; mergers In parallel to the deregulation of markets, there has been a trend towards large-scale mergers which ridicules dreams of increased competition. Recent mega-mergers and acquisitions include SBC Communications - Ameritech, $ 72,3 bn Bell Atlantic - GTE, $ 71,3 AT&T - Media One, $ 63,1 AOL - Time Warner, $ 165 bn MCI Worldcom - Spring, $ 129 bn The total value of all major mergers since the beginnings of the 1990s has been 20 trillion Dollars, 2,5 times the size of the USA's GIP. The AOL- Time Warner reflects a trend which can be observed everywhere: the convergence of the ICT and the content industries. This represents the ultimate advance in complete market domination, and a alarming threat to independent content. "Is TIME going to write something negative about AOL? Will AOL be able to offer anything other than CNN sources? Is the Net becoming as silly and unbearable as television?" (Detlev Borchers, journalist)

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"Attention Brokerage" "Attention Brokerage" is one of the latest developments in the field of online advertising. The first Web-site applying the concept of selling and buying attention is Cybergold. Users, who want to earn money have to register and then look at ads, which, of course, they have to prove by e.g. downloading software. Attention, according to this idea, represents a good, which is worth being paid for.

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Invention According to the WIPO an invention is a "... novel idea which permits in practice the solution of a specific problem in the field of technology." Concerning its protection by law the idea "... must be new in the sense that is has not already been published or publicly used; it must be non-obvious in the sense that it would not have occurred to any specialist in the particular industrial field, had such a specialist been asked to find a solution to the particular problem; and it must be capable of industrial application in the sense that it can be industrially manufactured or used." Protection can be obtained through a patent (granted by a government office) and typically is limited to 20 years.

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