Are domain name registrars responsible for intellectual property infringement?

A recent case filed by Dell against a number of domain tasters and their registrars attempts to hold the registrars liable for infringing some of Dell’s intellectual property. The claims that are relevant to domain name registrars allege that at least 3 registrars created a chain of registrars who took advantage of the ICANN 5 day redemption period to profit off Dell’s trademarks. Dell alleges that these registrars allowed domain tasters to redeem domain names at one registrar and subsequently register it at an affiliated registrar. This would preserve the taster’s interest in the domain name, and allow the affiliated registrars to share in any click through revenue created by the registration of the name.

Without going into the technical legal arguments raised by this case, a suit against domain name registrars has serious implications for hosts and other internet infrastructure providers. Dell’s arguments are very similar to copyright infringement claims made in the early days of the web: that those who facilitated the infringement of the copyrighted work were liable as third parties since they facilitated the infringement, and profited from it through the fees they collected. While the facts in Dell’s case are pretty sensational (a chain of registrars profiting off a nuance in ICANN rules), the case shows that transparent attempts to exploit legal loopholes, are often only temporarily successful. In this case, setting up a chain of (allegedly) related registrars to profit off of a registered trademark merited a swift response from Dell.

So what does this mean for hosts and other Internet infrastructure providers? The first lesson is that the doctrine of third party liability for intellectual property infringement is alive and well. This means that you need to remain aware and vigilant about your business activities. This vigilance is important particularly in the area of trademarks, where, unlike copyrights, there is no “safe harbor” for businesses who are simply links in the chain of bad acts of customers or third parties. A second lesson relates to Domaining. While initially a suspect business, domaining has become a legitimate part of the Internet. Hosts and other Internet infrastructure providers need to be aware that registering domain names involves a different risk assessment than other business efforts. Because domainers tend to be very creative in their business, and business creativity often requires a higher level of legal analysis, those who provide business services to domainers need to examine whether the processes and procedures they have put into place effectively isolate the risk that these new customers may pose to their business.

Indian patent filings lag behind global average

India lags behind the world average in patent filings, with its total number of filings by residents being just three per million people in its population, compared with the world average of 250, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization Patent Report: Statistics on Worldwide Patent Activity.

"The number of patents in force in India in 2004 was 6,406, while it was 182,385 in China, and the world average of patents in force in 2004 was 84,671, worked out on the basis of the world population (6,378 million), with the number of patents in force worldwide during 2004 being 5.4 million," according to the Indian federal ministry for commerce and industry.

The global patent numbers include those obtained in different countries for the same invention, therefore it is not possible to arrive at a conclusion on the proportion of patents in force in India vs. those in force worldwide. However, the number of patents in force in India was 6,857 in 2005, the ministry said in a statement.

The Indian government has in recent years tried to strengthen the processes that help create intellectual property rights with a scheme of modernization of intellectual property offices at a cost of nearly $40 million for infrastructure development, computerization, human resource development and training and awareness.

A National Institute of Intellectual Property Management is being set up in Nagpur in central India, with four regional offices and agreements reached with France, the United States, the U.K., the European Patent Office, Japan, Switzerland and Germany for cooperation in the field of intellectual property rights.

March-In Rights, Domestic Manufacture, and Inventor Royalties under Bayh-Dole

According to Stephen P. Rothman in "Investing in university spin-out companies," the U.S. Bayh-Dole Act allows a federal agency that funded an invention to require the patent holder to grant a license to a responsible applicant on reasonable terms. If the patent holder refuses, then the federal agency can grant a license itself under what are referred to as "march-in rights." However, "march-in rights have never been exercised and appear unlikely to be exercised in any realistic scenario,"writes Rothman, partly because the law directs federal agencies not to exercise march-in rights unless the action is necessary:

• "Because the patent holder is not taking effective steps to achieve practical application of the invention,
• "To alleviate health or safety needs which are not reasonably satisfied by the patent holder,
• "To meet requirements for public use specified by federal regulations not reasonably satisfied by the patent holder; or
• "Because an exclusive licensee has failed to give preference to U.S. manufacturing where that would be required."

Rothman goes on to concisely summarize several written decisions of the NIH that he says "display a keen awareness that exercise of march-in rights could disrupt the incentive for commercialization of federally funded research, and thereby undermine attainment of the principal purpose of the Bayh-Dole Act."

His artcle also sheds light on the law's preference for exclusive licensees to manufacture in the United States:

An exception applies if domestic manufacture is not commercially feasible, or if the university tried unsuccessfully to find a licensee that was likely to manufacture in the U.S. To take advantage of one of these exceptions, a waiver must be obtained from the agency that funded the research.

. . . There is some difference between the federal agencies, with NIH having a reputation for a streamlined waiver process, and a willingness to grant waivers fairly freely, particularly if there is reason to believe that foreign manufacturing will allow a medical product to be made available to patients at a lower cost. The Department of Defense, not surprisingly, may be somewhat less quick to agree to foreign manufacture, particularly for a sensitive military product.

. . . One could take the position that this is not an exclusive license, though the issue is not free from doubt. Another approach involves interpretation of the requirement to manufacture "substantially in the United States." There is no clear percentage requirement, nor is there guidance from the Department of Commerce or other sources on what "substantially" means. . . . [However, t]he two approaches described above leave some risk of challenge . . . .

Bayh-Dole further requires patent owners to share a portion of any royalty payments with the inventor or inventors. "The amount of the inventor's share is not set by law, and varies from one institution to the next." But Rothman cautions, "If the inventor is an officer of the spin-out company, there is a potential conflict between the interests of the inventor and the investors that needs to be managed."

Finally, Rothman gives his insight as to why universities typically will not agree to trade secret license terms that would prohibit publication of research findings:
A typical university license or joint development agreement provides a limited delay of publication (30 - 60 days) during which the licensee can determine whether to file for patent protection. Even if universities were willing to adopt restrictions on information flow (which they are not), university laboratories are generally not set up with the kind of procedures that commercial enterprises routinely use to establish trade secret status, such as: preparing and following a written trade secret protection policy; limiting access to the portion of the facility where trade secrets are stored; requiring visitors to sign in and out; requiring all participants to sign confidentiality agreements, etc.

China imposes stiff penalties for online piracy

New regulations go into effect July 1 in China targeting distributors of unauthorized content online. The regulations, which carry a maximum administrative fine of approximately US$12,000, target search engines like Baidu, which are the backbone of online file sharing in China, as millions of users can search the various Chinese search engines for links to thousands of unauthorized copies of songs and movies.

Bloomberg.com quotes one analyst as saying that “Baidu will be under a lot of pressure to stop offering links to illegal MP3 files and may have to stop their MP3 search service.” Stop offering links to illegal MP3 files? I don’t see it. Providing links to unauthorized content is a cornerstone of Chinese search engine revenue–not just for Baidu, but for all the Chinese search engines. A $12,000 fine is not going to intimidate any search engine; they’ll just chalk it up to the cost of doing business.

But they’re painted into a corner, and effectively, copyright owners have forced their hand. These search engines want to go legit and play ball with copyright owners. But if Baidu were to give up its MP3 links, as the analyst quoted above suggests, they’d be committing suicide. The other Chinese search engines would gladly take Baidu’s share of the music search traffic, administrative fines and all. Copyright owners are not going to win a shoving match with search engines.

But, in the words of Obi Wan Kenobi, “You can’t win. But there are alternatives to fighting.” For example, search engines have offered to give copyright owners a portion of their ad revenue in return for licensing the content, but the major entertainment companies will have none of it. Some Chinese record companies–like Taihe Rye, a successful domestic Chinese label–recognize that online piracy is a fact of life and business, so Taihe has made special arrangements with Baidu to clamp down on pirate links for the first two weeks after a new release. This allows Taihe to capture the majority of its expected revenue from a release while not eviscerating Baidu’s revenue or market share. $12,000 fines won’t do it. Frankly, even bigger penalties are unlikely to have much effect. But copyright owners have alternatives.

Property, on the decline

The implications are enormous and far-reaching. The capitalist economy was founded on the concept of possessing and exchanging property in the market. The word market first appeared in the English language in the twelfth century.

It referred to the physical space set aside for the sellers and buyers to exchange goods and livestock. By the late 18th century, the term came to be used to describe the abstract process of selling and buying.

The marketplace was a pervasive force in the lives of people. From their childhood years, people learnt that in the marketplace everything was for sale and that everything had a price. When people came of age, they were inducted into the dark side of the market with the warning caveat emptor, meaning �let the buyer beware�.

Buying cheaper, selling dear

People learnt to live by the rules of �the invisible hand� of the market; and they continually honed their lives to the task of buying cheaper and selling dear. People were indoctrinated to believe that their status in the society was determined by the extent of the property they possessed.

Now, the foundation of modern life is beginning to disintegrate. The institution that once drove men to ideological battles is slowly ebbing away in the wake of a new constellation of economic realities. In the new era, markets are making way to networks. Ownership is gradually being replaced by connectivity. The physical exchange of material goods is yielding place to the network access. Ownership of physical capital is increasingly being marginalised by the emerging economic process. Intellectual capital is the driving force of the new system. Concepts, ideas, and images - not things - are the intrinsic items of value in the new economy. Wealth is no longer related to physical capital. It lies and lives in human imagination and creativity. Businesses are already well along the way towards the transition from the collateral to connectivity. They are selling off their real estate, shrinking their inventories, leasing their equipment, and outsourcing their non-core activities in a race to rid and reduce needless and inessential physical property.

Owning things is outdated and out of place in the more ephemeral and fast-paced current economy. In the contemporary commercial world, most things required to run the business are borrowed. In the era of markets, people who amassed physical capital exercised control over the exchange of goods between sellers and buyers. In the era of networks, people who amass intellectual capital exercise control over the terms and conditions by which consumers secure access to critical ideas, knowledge, and skills.

Possession makes no sense

Perhaps, a few years from now even the very idea of property may become anachronistic. Ownership is inadequate to adjust to the lightning pace of the nanosecond culture. In a world of customised production, continuous innovation, constant upgrades, and ever narrowing product life-cycles, everything becomes obsolete and outdated almost as soon as it enters the market. Possession and property in an economy characterised by perpetual change make no sense. The time has come for business to realise and reconcile to the declining role of property.

EU To Publish Online Content Rule As Industry Launches IP Standard

The European Commission’s is expected to publish by year’s end a communication on creative content online that will address how to improve the competitiveness of European online content production and distribution industry, European officials said Thursday.

In remarks broadcast at the unveiling of the Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) in New York, Viviane Reding, European commissioner for information society and the media, said the online content market in Europe can be developed faster through industry agreements, self-regulation and stringent application of competition policy.

“The uncertainties associated with the shift to digital technologies inhibit the development of many potential online services,” Reding said, adding that moving content online calls for changes in the way content rights are traded and exploited.

The commission’s policy statement will likely lead to a recommendation after consultation with the European Parliament and the member states, said Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers Council. The communication will include codes of conduct between policy holders and intermediaries to deal with piracy. The intent is to establish an online content platform concentrating on three areas: access to creative content, multi-territory licensing and digital rights management. It likely will include a European code of conduct on users’ digital rights.

“These are things that have just been left and not dealt with over the last few years,” Wade said. “We’re going to be quite busy in the coming year.”

Reding next week will participate in a publishers’ forum in Brussels to develop some of these themes, Wade added.

An international group of publishers and media groups on Thursday launched ACAP, a standard aimed at protecting the intellectual property of those wanting to make content available on the Internet. Reding said the European Commission is watching ACAP closely, adding it offers possibilities for a “win-win situation for all stakeholders.”

ACAP was developed at the behest of the World Association of Newspapers, International Publishers Association and the European Publishers Council and with the help of search engines as an automated technical solution that allows publishers to express access and use policies in a language that search engines’ indexing software - known as “crawlers” - can be taught to understand. That way, the search engine can comply with the specific policy or licence on how it can use that site’s content.

Currently, search engines like Yahoo and Google voluntarily abide by a Website’s wishes outlined in a text file known as “robots.txt,” which a search engine’s crawler knows to look for as it scours sites. A site can block indexing of individual Web pages, certain directories or the entire site. ACAP wants to have extra commands that could, for example, try to limit how long search engines can retain copies of the site’s indexes.

ACAP members - which include the Associated Press, Recording Industry Association of America and the Federation of European Publishers - hope the tool will encourage rights holders to make their works easily available online while avoiding expensive legal battles between search engines and content providers. Publishers rely on being able to control online distribution of articles in order to charge for the content.

Machines already know how to talk to each other through various communication protocols like TCP/IP - used on the Internet and commercial networks - and Web feed formats. But machines don’t know how to communicate access and use policies. ACAP version 1.0 gives content owners and publishers a way to express those policies in a language that search engine robots and similar automated tools can read and understand.

The ‘big three’ search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN - have not formally endorsed ACAP but have been involved in discussions.

Joe Siino, vice president of intellectual property at Yahoo, said his company is “very eager at this point to see what ACAP has in store for the future and to learn more about it” but will continue being part of the talks as a third-party only. “We really feel like we have to take a few first steps to get this moving in a way that makes publishers comfortable,” he added.

Siino said it is not likely one solution that satisfies both content owners and search engines will fully develop anytime soon. “It’s hard to know in this industry but I think it’s going to be a multi-year evolution,” he said.

Change your passwords for Computer Security Day [Data Security]

Most people keep the same password for too long and use it for too many purposes. So if you do one thing to mark Computer Security Day, change your passwords. If you do two things, change your passwords and vacuum your computer.

These are among the tips from the US organisers of the global event, including Security Awareness Inc. and the Information Systems Audit and Control Association. Now in its ninth year, Computer Security Day exists to remind people to protect their computers and information.

The day is on 30th November each year and the organisers list 53 ways that offices can participate.

Suggestions include:

• Check for viruses
• Protect against static electricity
• Vacuum your computer and the immediate area
• Back-up your data
• Post 'No drinking' and 'No smoking' signs in computer areas
• Hold a discussion of ethics with computer users

Passwords-schmasswords

Almost two-thirds of people never change their passwords, according to a survey of 1,800 adults reported by the Department of Trade and Industry in June. One in five people said they use the same password for non-banking websites as well as their online bank. And over one-third recorded their password or security information by either writing it down or storing it somewhere on their computer.

Such behaviour is asking for trouble, according to US security guru Bruce Schneier.

"People should change their online access passwords regularly," Schneier. "The risk is that a password has been compromised, and changing your password regains security."

Microsoft suggests that a password that is shorter than eight characters should be considered "only good for a week or so," while a password that is 14 characters or longer (provided it follows Microsoft's rules and tips for passwords) can be good for several years. Others suggest that you can safely keep a password for 60–90 days as a general rule of thumb.

The HMRC incident has prompted many individuals to take protective steps. HMRC wrote to the families potentially affected by the data loss. Its letter addressed online banking risks and stated: "If your password uses any of your personal data, for example your child's name or date of birth, you may also wish to consider changing any passwords you use."

According to APACS, the UK payments association, 10% of Child Benefit recipients have since changed their online banking passwords. Six percent changed their PINs.

How to choose a new password

Andrew Moloney, a director at security firm RSA who specialises in the financial services market, offers the following tips:

• "If your password is linked to personal data – e.g. a date of birth or child’s name – it should be changed.
• The longer a password, the more difficult it is to crack. Thus, make yours of a decent length, say 10 to 16 characters if possible.
• Replace words for numbers e.g. For = 4, to/too = 2, add punctuation like exclamation marks and change capitalisation
• Consider using a phrase that includes both numbers and words and use the first letters/numbers from that. An example would be “On the 12 days of Christmas my true love gave to me = Ot12docmtlgtm”. This has a great combination of being hard to guess but easy to remember. That's the ideal scenario."

Amazon surrenders on One-Click shopping monopoly [Patent Law]

In October, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected 21 of the 26 claims of Amazon's famous patent after an Auckland patent enthusiast, Peter Calveley, produced evidence of prior art. The USPTO indicated at the time that two of the rejected claims could become patentable if they were narrowed. These claims, numbers 1 and 11, were the broadest claims in the patent.

Amazon had an opportunity to fight that decision but has now capitulated. In a conference call on 15th November with USPTO examiner Matthew Graham, Amazon lawyers agreed to amend both claims.

The changes "appear to place the claims in condition of patentability," according to Graham's report of the call. "Further review and search would be required," he wrote in his Re-examination Interview Summary (1-page, 48KB PDF).

The prior art evidence that he presented included a patent for a system called DigiCash, filed one year before Amazon's. That patent describes a system where a user has access to electronic cash to purchase items electronically. The reason that five claims in Amazon's patent withstood the challenge of the DigiCash patent is that the DigiCash patent did not propose a shopping cart ordering component, whereas Amazon did. So the USPTO told Amazon in October that two other claims could survive if they were amended to refer to a shopping cart model.

The changes to claim 1 (1-page, 26KB PDF) and claim 11 (1-page, 15KB PDF) mean that the patent will no longer cover any system for purchasing an item "in response to only a single action being performed". If the amendments are approved the patent will cover only an item "purchasable through a shopping cart model". That means that a payment system that does not also offer a shopping cart will not infringe Amazon's patent.

Calveley wrote in his blog last night that the amendments, if made, "will free people to use pre-Amazon methods of 'one Click shopping' such as DigiCash-type systems" and will "allow people to implement new and exciting ways of shopping with one click, perhaps using new technologies that didn't exist in 1997."

Calveley called the shopping cart model "an old technology that needs to be put to bed."

Adler on Patent Quality: Corporate Filers Should Conduct Pre-Filing Search

According to a presentation by IPO President and Rohm and Haas Chief IP Counsel Marc Alder to the Trilateral Users Conference in Washington, DC, on "Quality Patent Examination and Prosecution," in order to ensure quality examination corporate filers should start with a quality search

• Corporate filers should conduct a pre-filing search citing the most relevant art to the examiner. Applicants should avoid flooding the examiner with cumulative prior art references.
• Office should fully evaluate this and any other prior art brought to its attention to build a reliable and complete record of examination.

and "end with quality claims:"

• Corporate filers will measure the quality of granted claims based on claims that:
  – clearly and thoroughly protect all aspects of invention embodied in newly commercialized product or process and defend strategic goals.
  – recite the uses of invention in all appropriate streams of commerce.

Alder also asserts that "patent offices will grant high-quality patents if they:"

• Insure an independent search and examination
• Do not depend solely on applicant’s search or analysis
• Share results with other patent offices in real time
• Shift examiner incentives toward quality and away from goals based purely on production
• Encourage pre- and post-first action interviews between examiners and applicants
• Apply improved quality metrics
• Rely on meaningful measures that can improve the end result. Share measures with other offices and the public
• Develop resources to manage new technologies
• Train examiners in new technologies with the aid of private industry Patent

Call me skeptical, but I would rather know what percentage of Rohm and Haas's patent budget is actually dedicated to comprehensive prior art searching, and how those search results are presented to the persons who actually make the initial decision on whether to file the patent application.

• Does Rohm and Haas utilize a dedicted patent searching process or organization?
• Are invention disclosures and search results reviewed in detail by those who will actually have to write the resulting patent applications, before a decision is made on whether to file?
• Does that anlaysis go so far as to prepare a draft caim for business value justification before the disclosure is sent (to an outside law firm) for preparation and prosecution?
• Or is the process mostly left to attorneys with other obligations, who, in turn, carefully avoid these significant up-front commitments of time and resources by relying hapless inventors for their information?
• How does his organization draw the line on such "analysis paralysis" over these relatively small and discrete expenditures, without simply foisting the same problems onto outside counsel and/or the USPTO later in the process, where the issues are much more resource-intensive to address at both the individual and systemic levels?
• What meaningful measures does his organization use to improve the end result?
• Is there accountability for failure to obtain the initially justified scope of protection?
• And just how does Adler prevent his own business organization from obsessing over the same two internal production metrics (numbers filed and cost) as everyone else?

Now those are some questions that would would make for an interesting presentation, and a lightning rod for debate!

Get more of Adler's dos and dont's for patent quality here.

What is Inventorship?

According to "Determining Inventorship for US Patent Applications," by Patrick Gattari, the following points should help in an inventorship determination:

An inventor is:

• A person who conceives the subject matter of at least one claim of the patent.
• Two or more persons who collaborate to produce the invention through aggregate efforts.

An inventor is not:

• Someone whose only contribution is reducing an invention to practice by exercising ordinary skill in theart.
• A technician who simply performs experiments or assembles the invention.
• The supervisor or department manager of the person who conceived the invention.
• Someone whose only contribution is an obvious element to the invention.
• Someone whose only contribution is participation in consultations about the invention before or after conception of the invention.
• A person who only conceives of the result to be obtained but not the idea of how to achieve it.
• A person who only discovers the problem (unless he contributes to the solution).
• A person who merely provides a suggestion or improvement but who does not
work to fit the suggestion or improvement into the invention.
• A second inventor of the subject matter of the invention who did not collaborate with a first inventor ofthe subject matter of the invention.

Electronic Discovery: Notes for the Firm

Last December's revisions to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, addressing discovery of electronically stored information, underscored the fact that no lawyer today can afford to ignore e-discovery. No matter the case, no matter the court, digital data is likely to be implicated.

That means lawyers urgently need to understand electronic data discovery and keep abreast of developments in the field. In this month's column, the first of two parts on EDD, we look at some of the more useful Web sites for learning about and keeping current with this essential area of practice. Next month in part two, we will survey EDD blogs and look at some vendors' sites that include useful resources.

Getting Started

For all it offers DiscoveryResources.org may be the leading e-discovery portal. Even though the site's sponsored by EDD vendor Fios Inc., it forgoes commerce in deference to its mission, which is to provide news, information and resources. Through both original content and outside links, the site provides timely news stories, substantive articles, tutorials, seminars, podcasts, legal forms and other tools.

Another useful entry point to resources on e-discovery is the American Bar Association's Legal Technology Resource Center. The site devotes a section to courtroom technology and, within that, a guide to EDD resources. While not extensive, the guide is a good starting point.

If you want to know what federal judges know about e-discovery, you will find no better source than Ken Withers. In his former role as education attorney for the Federal Judicial Center, Withers taught judges about EDD and technology. Now director of judicial education for The Sedona Conference, Withers' personal site archives his many articles and presentations, discusses EDD rule making, and provides links to resources elsewhere on the Web.

California lawyer Richard Best started posting his civil discovery outlines on the Web in 1999 and has continued to update them ever since at California Civil Discovery Law. From his home page, follow the "electronic data" link for his extensive collection of resources covering state and federal e-discovery, as well as related issues such as EDD ethics.

The Electronic Evidence Information Center is a fairly modest collection of links to resources and conferences relating to e-discovery and computer forensics. Worth noting is the site's page collecting links to mobile phone forensics tools.

RESEARCH AND PRACTICES

The rapid growth of EDD in recent years has often left the horse trailing the cart. A number of organizations are now working to develop standards and practices with the goal of harmonizing e-discovery across courts and industries.

A leader in this research is The Sedona Conference, a nonprofit organization devoted to innovation in antitrust law, complex litigation and intellectual property law. It has devoted substantial work to the establishment of best practices in e-discovery. In June 2007, it released the second edition of The Sedona Principles on e-discovery. This document and many others are available through the Sedona site.

Given its goal of enhancing the administration of justice, the National Center for State Courts is immersed in issues surrounding e-discovery in state courts. In August 2006, it published an extensive set of e-discovery guidelines for state trial courts, which is available as a download from this site. Elsewhere, the site compiles research and resources on e-discovery and houses a variety of articles on the topic.

Directed by legal technology consultant Tom O'Connor (a member of LTN's Editorial Advisory Board), the Legal Electronic Document Institute is a nonprofit organization devoted to the development of education and standards related to legal electronic documents. Its areas of focus include practice management, electronic trial practice and litigation support, e-filing, e-signatures and e-discovery. Similarly, the Electronic Discovery Institute describes itself as a public-interest organization conducting research into the efficacy of various methods of e-discovery. According to the site, the institute's inaugural study is underway, testing the reliability of search and retrieval technology. Once completed, the study will be published here.

While the foregoing entities focus on EDD practices, Socha Consulting takes a different tack with its annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey. Think of it as the Consumer Reports of EDD vendors. The survey ranks the top e-discovery companies and provides information on many others. The full survey is pricey -- $5,000 for 2007 -- but a free summary is published each August in Law Technology News. Socha's site includes various free resources as well.

From the publishers of the Socha-Gelbmann survey comes this related site, The Electronic Discovery Reference Model. The site originally was devoted to development of a model set of standards and guidelines governing EDD. With the model now in place and in the public domain, the site focuses on its deployment.

EDDix is a company devoted to research, analysis and reporting on e-discovery. The "ix" in its name stands for "information exchange." Through this site, it sells various publications containing its research and also provides links to news and resources relating to e-discovery.

READING UP ON E-DISCOVERY

A number of sites house original news stories, practice pieces, white papers, seminar presentations and other materials devoted to e-discovery.

Law.com Legal Technology, for example, maintains a useful section devoted to EDD. It features news articles and expert commentary written for the site and drawn from legal newspapers and magazines. An "E-Discovery Road Map" lets you navigate your way through steps in the EDD process and learn about requirements and best practices. (Law.com is a sibling entity to LTN.)

Readers of LTN know Craig Ball for his award-winning column here. Ball is a board-certified trial lawyer and a certified forensic examiner -- a combination that qualifies him as an EDD consultant -- and prolific writer on e-discovery and computer forensics. His Web site collects his column, with a variety of his articles and presentations.

LLRX.com has long been a superior site for articles and resources on law technology and practice. From its main page, click on "E-Discovery" in the right-hand navigation column or use the site's search feature to find a library of articles and updates covering e-discovery.

A collection of EDD materials from the Federal Judicial Center can be found by following the "materials on electronic discovery" link from its front page. The collection focuses on civil litigation and includes FJC workshop and seminar materials, research and publications, along with links to selected external materials. A link points to a separate page of materials focused on search and seizure of electronic data in criminal cases.

FindLaw's Electronic Discovery Center provides substantive articles and white papers on e-discovery along with vendor press releases. An "EDiscovery Wizard" provides checklists and links to articles regarding specific provisions of the federal rules.

Law Journal Newsletters, a division of ALM, publishes the newsletter E-Discovery Law & Strategy, which can also be reached through LTN's site. Subscribers can view the full text of articles as well as download the entire newsletter in PDF. Nonsubscribers can view article summaries and purchase individual articles.

Michael Arkfeld's book, "Electronic Discovery and Evidence," is a leading treatise. The book is available for purchase through Law Partner Publishing. Purchasers get password-access to Web-only resources available here, including updates, forms and checklists.

A unique EDD resource is the Litigation Support Vendors Association. This site is home to multiple, free discussion forums covering such topics as e-discovery, computer forensics and best practices. All are moderated by industry experts and representatives of legal-technology companies. Also posted here are jobs within the litigation support industry.

Electronic Discovery: Blogs and Tools [International]

Of the 19 blogs surveyed here, some focus on e-discovery law and practice and others on the e-discovery industry, but all are potentially useful for keeping current with the field.

Alextronic Discovery. Alexander Lubarsky, the California litigator who writes this blog, admits to a bit of writer's block lately, but vows to pick up the pace of his postings. If he does, his blog is worth following.

Dennis Kennedy. Lawyer and consultant Kennedy writes about a range of legal-technology topics and frequently covers e-discovery.

EDD Blog Online. Written by Jeff Fehrman, president of Electronic Evidence Labs, a division of vendor ONSITE3, and consultant Bob Krantz, this blog promises an "insider's look" at e-discovery. Many of the posts are excerpts of articles from other sources.

EDD Update. Unveiled in September as a joint project of Law Technology News and Law.com Legal Technology, this blog is a venue for posting breaking news, key verdicts and judicial rulings, articles, press releases and more. It features a board of contributors that includes leading lawyers and consultants in the field -- and also me.

E-Discovery and Computer Forensic Blog. The blog of a Los Angeles e-discovery company, many posts are full-text articles from other sources.

E-Discovery in the Trenches. When he launched this blog in April 2007, Jerry Bui, an e-discovery manager with KPMG, dedicated it to those who work "directly in the trenches on EDD projects." Since May, he has posted nothing new.

E-Discovery Team. Ralph Losey, co-chair of the e-discovery team at the law firm Akerman Senterfitt in Orlando, Fla. writes this top-notch blog. His posts are frequent and substantive, covering both EDD law and practice.

E-discovery 2.0. Subtitled, "Thoughts about the evolution of e-discovery," this blog is written by Aaref Hilaly, CEO of e-discovery company Clearwell Systems Inc.

Electronic Discovery and Evidence. Michael Arkfeld, author of the treatise, Electronic Discovery and Evidence, uses this blog to report updates in the law of e-discovery, although his postings are infrequent.

Electronic Discovery Blog. Before he became an attorney, the author of this blog, W. Lawrence Wescott II, was an IT manager, a background that enables him to write knowledgeably about both law and technology.

Electronic Discovery Law. Technology lawyers at the firm K & L Gates write this blog that includes summaries of court decisions and updates on related legal issues.

Information Governance Engagement Area. Rob Robinson, a marketing veteran who has worked with several EDD companies, maintains this blog as somewhat of a clipping tool for aggregating e-discovery news.

In re Discovery. It's the blog of Socha Consulting, the firm that publishes the annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey (see part one, October).

LawTech Guru Blog. A well-known writer on a range of legal technology issues, Jeff Beard frequently blogs about new developments in e-discovery.

Litigation Support Industry News. This blog tracks news about the companies that provide litigation support and EDD services. It is written by Brad Jenkins, president and CEO of Trial Solutions of Texas.

On the Mark. Launched in October 2007, this is the blog of Mark Reichenbach, a vice president at MetaLincs and two-decade veteran of e-discovery and litigation support for companies and law firms. In his blog, he comments "on the issues and happenings of our industry."

Ride the Lightning. The author of this blog, lawyer Sharon Nelson, is president of computer forensics company Sensei Enterprises Inc. and a widely known speaker and writer on legal technology. She introduced her blog in July 2007 with the goal of helping readers better understand electronic evidence.

Sound Evidence. One of the best known e-discovery blogs, it is written by Mary Mack, technology counsel to e-discovery company Fios Inc. and co-author of the book, "A Process of Illumination: The Practical Guide to Electronic Discovery."

Strategic Legal Technology. Lawyer and legal technology consultant Ron Friedmann writes about e-discovery, litigation support, knowledge management and other technology topics.

VENDOR SITES

A number of companies that market e-discovery services also provide useful resources on their Web sites.

In part one of this article, I described DiscoveryResources.org, an e-discovery portal sponsored by the company Fios.

The company's main site at www.fiosinc.com provides an array of resources in its own right, some that overlap with its other site and some that do not.

Other companies whose sites include useful resources for lawyers include:

Applied Discovery. This LexisNexis division offers the Applied Discovery Law Library, a surprisingly diverse selection of case summaries, model forms, articles and white papers. Worth noting is the library's collection of court rules, covering state as well as federal rules and including links to related ethics rulings.

Attenex. Among the various resources available here, two offerings stand out as particularly useful.

First is the collection of "on-demand Webcasts" -- previously recorded Web seminars on topics such as best practices, controlling costs, and native file review.

Also worthwhile is the library of white papers on a range of practical e-discovery topics, many written by practitioners.

Catalyst Repository Systems. CEO John Tredennick is nationally known both as an accomplished trial lawyer with Holland & Hart and as a writer and speaker on legal technology. Find your way to the site's news page, then click the "articles" tab, for articles written by him and others on EDD and document management.

CT Summation. A small collection of white papers focuses on topics relating to EDD and use of electronic evidence.

Merrill Corp.. Within the Legal Solutions section of Merrill's site is a Knowledge Center with a selection of articles to download. Topics include choosing an e-discovery vendor and managing electronic evidence.

Ontrack Data Recovery. Discovery of electronic data sometimes requires recovery of lost electronic data, thanks to hard-drive damage or system failure. Ontrack's site offers more than threedozen substantive articles and white papers on data recovery. The easiest way to find them is via the site map.

Sensei Enterprises. If you've ever been to a legal technology seminar or read a legal technology magazine, odds are you have encountered either Sharon Nelson or John Simek, Sensei's principals. Both are popular speakers and authors. Fortunately for those who have not, they provide a library on their website of their broad-ranging articles dating back to 2002.

Stratify. Skip the "eDiscovery Resources" section of this site, where the focus is on pitching Stratify's products, and go instead to its selections of white papers and published articles. The latter, in particular, has several good pieces on e-discovery practice and technology.