IP: DIGITAL AGENDA: SCIENTISTS BE DAMNED -- FULL SPEED AHEAD.

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

WHAT'S NEW by Robert L. Park   Friday, 6 Dec 96    Washington, DC


1. DIGITAL AGENDA: SCIENTISTS BE DAMNED -- FULL SPEED AHEAD.  
Negotiation on a draft database treaty (WN 22 Nov 96) began on
Monday in Geneva.  In a letter to Secretary of Commerce Kantor,
APS President Robert Schrieffer requested that negotiations be
deferred to allow a public discussion of the treaty's impact on
science.  The response came from Bruce Lehman, Commissioner of
Patents and Trademarks, who is heading the US negotiating team. 
Lehman, a former lobbyist for the copyright industry, brushed off
the concerns of the scientific community.  "It is important," he
wrote, "that the international treaty process not be derailed or
delayed.  To do so would frustrate the Nation's interests."  But
critics characterize the draft treaty as a flagrant giveaway to
the copyright industry and are dismayed by Lehman's attempt to
use an international treaty to make an end run on Congress.