Feeding the data body

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Legal Protection: WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization)

Presumably the major player in the field of international intellectual property protection and administrator of various multilateral treaties dealing with the legal and administrative aspects of intellectual property is the WIPO.

Information on WIPO administered agreements in the field of industrial property (Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1883), Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (1891) etc.) can be found on: http://www.wipo.org/eng/general/index3.htm

Information on treaties concerning copyright and neighboring rights (Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886) etc.) is published on: http://www.wipo.org/eng/general/index5.htm

The most recent multilateral agreement on copyright is the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty. Among other things it provides that computer programs are protected as literary works and also introduces the protection of databases, which "... by reason of the selection or arrangement of their content constitute intellectual creations." Furthermore the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty contains provisions concerning technological measures, rights management information and establishes a new "right of communication to the public". It is available on: http://www.wipo.org/eng/diplconf/distrib/treaty01.htm

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Microsoft Corporation

Founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen and headquartered in Redmond, USA, Microsoft Corporation is today's world-leading developer of personal-computer software systems and applications. As MS-DOS, the first operating system released by Microsoft, before, Windows, its successor, has become the de-facto standard operating system for personal computer. According to critics and following a recent court ruling this is due to unfair competition.

http://www.microsoft.com

For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,1524+1+1522,00.html

http://www.microsoft.com/
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0...
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Chappe's fixed optical network

Claude Chappe built a fixed optical network between Paris and Lille. Covering a distance of about 240kms, it consisted of fifteen towers with semaphores.

Because this communication system was destined to practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such secretly, even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning, they just transmitted codes they did not understand. Depending on weather conditions, messages could be sent at a speed of 2880 kms/hr at best.

Forerunners of Chappe's optical network are the Roman smoke signals network and Aeneas Tacitus' optical communication system.

For more information on early communication networks see Gerard J. Holzmann and Bjoern Pehrson, The Early History of Data Networks.

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