Mike Sunnucks
Phoenix Business Journal
Intellectual property theft costs U.S. businesses as much as $300 billion year, according to federal estimates.
While much of IP theft occurs in China and other foreign markets, there are significant home-grown intellectual property concerns, according to the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property.
We asked the Valley’s top IP attorneys to share their take on the problems facing businesses when it comes to protecting their technology and innovations.
For Evan Bolick, an IP attorney with Scottsdale-based Rose Law Group, the top issue is a potential Supreme Court ruling over copyrighted work and digital downloads.
“This year, a New York District Court ruled in favor of Google Inc. in a case that has been pending for eight years (and counting). In this case, a collection of authors sued Google after it digitized and uploaded millions of formerly hard-copy books and materials (both fiction and non-fiction), and allowed for users to search and gain limited access to the texts,” Bolick said.
Google argued that downloads are the same as a public library, and the lower court agreed.
“This case is sure to be appealed in 2014 and likely to make its way to the United States Supreme Court,” Bolick said. Continue reading
Evan Bolick can be reached at ebolick@roselawgroup.com
