The serials crisis in scientific publishing can be traced to the long duration of copyright protection and the assignment of copyright by researchers to publishers. Over-protection of scientific literature has enabled commercial publishers to increase subscription rates to a point at which...

The conventional legal analysis of technical standard setting derives primarily from antitrust law. But antitrust remedies, taken alone, may not be broad enough to address recent abuses of the standardization process. The principal example of this shortcoming is the well-known case of Rambus,...

In 1989 and 1990, federal and state agents across the United States conducted a massive dragnet operation against the nation's computer underground. Author Bruce Sterling describes the personalities and institutions behind this operation, conducing interviews with hackers, telecommunications...

Today's technology product markets are inherently international. The global character of technology markets underscores the importance of technical interoperability standards in global supply chains and commerce. This paper considers the impact of patents on international technical...

Technical standard setting, though conducted largely through private organizations, possesses many attributes of a public function. By and large, SDO policies operate effectively to enable competitors to collaborate to develop standards that produce network effects and yield significant social...

Despite their potential benefits, voluntary consensus standards have over the past decade become the subject of significant private litigation, regulatory enforcement and policy debate. Much of the current controversy centers on the perceived proliferation of patents covering standardized...