legal

(to know and discuss the conclusions of our H2020 research, please participate to the DiDIY Final Conference "Digital Makers – Making a Difference?")

Here's a message from Michigan Tech's researcher and lecturer Joshua Pierce:

In an attempt to make patents even marginally useful we have just created an open source free inactive patent search. Roughly 1/2 of US patents become inactive before the 20 year mark because owners don't pay fees on time.

An important development (*) that may have serious impacts on many forms of Digital DIY:

[In July 2016] the UK government extended copyright for designs from 25 years to the life of the designer plus 70 years. In practice, this is likely to mean a copyright term of over 100 years for furniture and other designed objects.

More input to our ongoing analysis of "DiDIY vs gun control" issues comes from the so-called Imura case in Japan. Quoting 3ders:

Digitally enabled Do-it-Yourself equipment, therapies and other healthcare procedures are becoming more and more common. Let's look at just a few, very recent examples first, and then at the questions they pose for our research.