Intellectual Property: A Definition

Intellectual property, very generally, relates to the output, which result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields. Traditionally intellectual property is divided into two branches:

1) Industrial Property

a) Inventions
b) Marks (trademarks and service marks)
c) Industrial designs
d) Unfair competition (trade secrets)
e) Geographical indications (indications of source and appellations of origin)

2) Copyright

The protection of intellectual property is guaranteed through a variety of laws, which grant the creators of intellectual goods, and services certain time-limited rights to control the use made of their products. Those rights apply to the intellectual creation as such, and not to the physical object in which the work may be embodied.

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Digital Signatures, Timestamps etc

Most computer systems are far from being secure.
A lack of security - it is said - might hinder the developments of new information technologies. Everybody knows electronic transactions involve a more or less calculated risk. Rumors about insecurity let consumers doubt whether the commodity of e-commerce is bigger or its risks. First of all the market depends on the consumer's confidence. To provide that another application for public key cryptography gets essential: the digital signature, which is used to verify the authenticity of the sender of certain data.
It is done with a special private key, and the public key is verifying the signature. This is especially important if the involved parties do not know one another. The DSA (= Digital Signature Algorithm) is a public-key system which is only able to sign digitally, not to encrypt messages. In fact digital signature is the main-tool of cryptography in the private sector.

Digital signatures need to be given for safe electronic payment. It is a way to protect the confidentiality of the sent data, which of course could be provided by other ways of cryptography as well. Other security methods in this respect are still in development, like digital money (similar to credit cards or checks) or digital cash, a system that wants to be anonymous like cash, an idea not favored by governments as it provides many opportunities for money laundry and illegal transactions.

If intellectual property needs to be protected, a digital signature, together with a digital timestamp is regarded as an efficient tool.

In this context, the difference between identification and authentication is essential. In this context smartcards and firewalls are relevant, too.

A lot of digital transactions demand for passwords. More reliable for authentication are biometric identifiers, full of individual and unrepeatable codes, signatures that can hardly be forged.

For more terms of cryptography and more information see:
http://poseidon.csd.auth.gr/signatures
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/december97/ibm/12lotspiech.html
http://www.cryptography.com/technology/technology.html
http://www.cdt.org/crypto/glossary.shtml
http://www.oecd.org//dsti/sti/it/secur/prod/GD97-204.htm

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Epilogue

As scientists are working hard on a quantum computer and also on quantum cryptography one can imagine that another revolution in the study of encryption has to be expected within the next years. By then today's hardware and software tools will look extraordinary dull. At the moment it is impossible to foresee the effects on cryptography and democratic developments by those means; the best and the worst can be expected at the same time. A certain ration of pessimism and prosecution mania are probably the right mixture of emotions about those tendencies, as the idea of big brother has come into existence long ago.

At the same time it will - in part - be a decision of the people to let science work against them or not. Acceleration of data-transmission calls for an acceleration of encryption-methods. And this again falls back on us, on an acceleration of daily life, blurring the private and the public for another time.
We live in an intersection, job and private life growing together. Cryptography cannot help us in that case. The privacy in our mind, the virtuality of all private and public lies in the field of democracy, or at least what is - by connection to the Human Rights - regarded as democracy.

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Extract of AOL Time Warner’s Content Production and Distribution Holdings

The following selection does not claim to present an exhaustive listing, but rather picks some of the company's most important assets. Due to the rapid developments in the world of media giants the list is also subject to changes.

Cable TV Systems and Channels/Networks

Time Warner Cable has 12.6 million subscribers in the U.S. and also runs 5 local 24-hour news stations.

Cable TV channels/networks (some part-owned): HBO, HBO Plus, HBO Signature, HBO Family, HBO Comedy, HBO Zone, Cinemax, MoreMAX, ActionMAX, ThrillerMAX, HBO en Espa-ol, Comedy Central, Court TV, HBO Ole, HBO Asia, HBO Central Europe, CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN International, CNNfN, CNN/Sports Illustrated, CNN en Espa-ol, CNN Airport Network, CNN Radio, CNN Radio Noticias, CNN Interactive TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, TNT Europe, Cartoon Network Europe, TNT Latin America, Cartoon Network Latin America, TNT & Cartoon Network/Asia Pacific, CNN+, n-tv

Movies, TV, Video Production, and Movie Theaters

Warner Bros. film studio

Warner Bros. Television production studios

Warner Bros. Home Video

Turner worldwide Home Video

Turner Pictures

Castle Rock Entertainment movie production company

New Line Cinema movie production company

Warner Bros. film library

Turner Film Library

Hanna Barbera Cartoons

Owns many movie houses, with over 1,000 screens, around the world

Book Publishing

Time Life Inc.

Book-of-the-Month Club

Warner Books

Little, Brown and Company

Oxmoor House

Leisure Arts

Sunset Books

Magazines

Time, People, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Life, Money, Parenting, In Style, Entertainment Weekly, Cooking Light, Baby Talk, First Moments, Coastal Living, Health, Progressive Farmer, Southern Accents, Southern Living, Sports Illustrated, For Kids, Sunset, Teen People, Time for Kids, Weight Watchers, Mutual Funds, Your Company, Asiaweek, President, Wallpaper. Hippocrates

Recorded Music

Warner Music Group

The Atlantic Group

Elektra Entertainment Group

Rhino Entertainment

Sire Records Group

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Music International

WEA Inc.

WEA Corp.

WEA Manufacturing

Ivy Hill Corp.

Warner Special Products

Alternative Distribution Alliance

Giant Merchandising

Deals with record labels include:

Maverick records

Tommy Boy Sub Pop

Qwest

143 Records

Internet and New Media

About 130 Websites including: CNN.com, AllPolitics.com, CNNSI.com, Time Digital, People, Southern Living, Sports Illustrated

Turner New Media

Online Services including: Compuserve, Netscape, Netcenter

Pro Sports Teams and Promotions

Atlanta Braves major league baseball team

Atlanta Hawks NBA basketball team

World Championship Wrestling

Goodwill Games

Other

Six Flags entertainment/excursion parks

Warner Bros. Movie World theme park

Over 150 Warner Bros. stores, plus Turner Retail Group

25 % stake in Atari

14 % stake in Hasbro

Business Connections with Other Media Companies

Joint ventures, equity interests or major arrangements with Viacom, Sony, Bertelsmann, News Corp., Kirch, EMI, Tribune Co., and others.

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1700 - 1800 A.D.

1713
First typewriter patent filed

In 1714 Henry Mill got granted a patent for his idea of an "artificial machine or method" for forgery-proof writing. Still it was not before 1808 that the first typewriter proven to have worked was built by Pellegrino Turri for his visually impaired friend, the Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzono. The commercial production of typewriters began in 1873.

For a brief history of typewriters see Richard Polt, The Classic Typewriter Page, http://xavier.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters.html

1727
First photocopies

Searching for the Balduinist fluorescenting phosphor (Balduinischer Leuchtphosphor), an artificial fluorescent, Johann Heinrich Schulze realized the first photocopies, but did not put them into practical use.

The first optical photocopier was not patented before 1843, when William Henry Fox Talbot got granted a patent for his magnifying apparatus.

In 1847 Frederick Collier Bakewell developed a procedure for telecopying, a forerunner of the fax machine. Yet it was not before 1902 that images could be transmitted. Almost 200 years after Schulze's discovery, for the first time photo telegraphy was offered as a telecommunication service in Germany in 1922.

1794
Fixed optical network between Paris and Lille

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 the communication system was designed for practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such a secret that even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning; they 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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William Frederick Friedman

Friedman is considered the father of U.S.-American cryptoanalysis - he also was the one to start using this term.

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Neighboring rights

Copyright laws generally provide for three kinds of neighboring rights: 1) the rights of performing artists in their performances, 2) the rights of producers of phonograms in their phonograms, and 3) the rights of broadcasting organizations in their radio and television programs. Neighboring rights attempt to protect those who assist intellectual creators to communicate their message and to disseminate their works to the public at large.

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Kessler Marketing Intelligence (KMI)

KMI is the leading source for information on fiber-optics markets. It offers market research, strategic analysis and product planning services to the opto-electronics and communications industries. KMI tracks the worldwide fiber-optic cable system and sells the findings to the industry. KMI says that every fiber-optics corporation with a need for strategic market planning is a subscriber to their services.

http://www.kmicorp.com/

http://www.kmicorp.com/
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blowfish encryption algorithm

Blowfish is a symmetric key block cipher that can vary its length.
The idea behind is a simple design to make the system faster than others.

http://www.counterpane.com/blowfish.html
http://www.counterpane.com/bfsverlag.html

http://www.counterpane.com/blowfish.html
http://www.counterpane.com/blowfish.html
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News Corporation

The News Corporation Ltd., a global media holding company, which governed News Limited (Australia), News International (U.K.), and News America Holdings Inc. (U.S.) was founded by the Australian-born newspaper publisher and media entrepreneur, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's corporate interests center on newspaper, magazine, book, and electronic publishing; television broadcasting; and film and video production, principally in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

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