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The MIT Of Europe
by Winter Casey
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has proposed a technology institute comparable to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a way to attract the best minds, ideas and businesses in the world to Europe.
Barroso indicated that the institute would be based in Poland, with branches throughout Europe. Funding would come from both the public and private sectors.
Barroso's pitch for a European Institute for Technology is just one policy recommendation the commission has made following the review of the European Union's 2000 economic reform agenda known as the Lisbon Strategy. The commission's revised strategy is focused on job growth and ways the European Union can better compete with countries such as China and India.
The EU agenda includes a call for improved information technologies and increases in public-private partnerships. The union is targeting a gross domestic product of 3 percent for research and development spending and would like to see what it refers to as "innovation poles" linking regional centers, universities and business.
"The lesson from the last five years is that we must refocus this agenda to deliver results," Barroso said in a statement released last week. "With this new strategy, I believe we have the right tools to achieve our goals."
In other news, the commission announced this week that enforcement authorities in 13 European countries have agreed to share information in order to pursue across borders people suspected of sending unsolicited commercial e-mail, known as spam.
"Enforcement authorities in member states must be able to deal effectively with spam from other EU countries even though at present most spam originates from outside the EU," Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement. She added that the commission is working with other countries individually and through bodies like the International Telecommunication Union and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
EU nations participating in the anti-spam crackdown include: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands and Spain.
Europe Plans Rules On E-Waste, Stock Options
EU environmental rules that ban imports of equipment containing hazardous metals are costing New Zealand's electronics exporters millions of dollars, a New Zealand news site reports.
The directive bans European sales of common alloys such as lead, mercury, cadmium, a type of chromium and two common flame retardants. The rules will take effect in July 2006 if approved by EU nations. An accompanying directive on e-waste also would hold manufacturers responsible for recycling what they sell.
Canterbury Development, the manufacturing group Electronic South, and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise have united to help exporters cope with the rules.
"There haven't been any regulations like this banning these things from electronics before," project leader Roland Sommer said. "It's a very big ask for the electronics industry."
As part of a larger effort to reform business accounting standards, meanwhile, the European Union issued rules Monday requiring European companies to count employee stock options as expenses, AP reports. Many companies, specifically those in the technology and telecommunications sectors, fear that treating stock options as expenses will cut into their profits.
U.S., European Officials Discuss Patent Law
Officials from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office met with representatives from the European Commission and European Patent Office last week to discuss patent law and intellectual property in developing countries.
The participants agreed to future talks to discuss ways to harmonize the countries' patent laws, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) proposals, and intellectual property and development. The group plans to invite representatives from the European Commission, as well as nations in the European Patent Organization and European Union, the European Patent Office, and WIPO.
Regular meetings of smaller subgroups also are planned.
In other news, WIPO and the International Trade Center published a manual on how to negotiate licensing agreements for intellectual property and patent-protected technologies. The guide provides an introduction to licensing agreements and includes information on the identification, acquisition and transfer of intellectual property.
And Reuters reports that the Japanese unit of Intel, the world's biggest chip maker, may be getting an antitrust warning from Japan's Fair Trade Commission regarding its business practices. The company declined on Saturday to comment on reports on the issue by the daily Asahi Shimbun.
Last year, Japan's FTC raided three Intel offices as part of an investigation that involved similar suspicions. A warning from the Japanese trade authority against Intel would mark the second such action of its kind.
Greece Rules On Workers' E-Mail Rights
The independent Data Protection Authority, Greece's personal data watchdog, has barred companies from collecting and processing information on workers' communications, including their private e-mails.
"Recording and processing of [an employee's] entire communications cannot be allowed under any circumstance," the authority concluded. It ruled that though business and cost controls can be monitored, installing systems to secretly record the Internet sites visited by and e-mails sent by employees is not permissible. The authority's decisions are binding.
Meanwhile, phone lines and Internet connections have been restored in Nepal after an interesting sequence of events last week. The king of the Asian nation had declared a state of emergency, fired the government and abruptly ended all communications within the nation. BBC reports that mobile phone service remains down.
Israeli Music Industry Ups Anti-Piracy Fight
The Israeli branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has threatened to sue anyone who downloads illegal music files from the Internet, Haaretz reports.
In the past, IFPI's Israeli branch has tried to discourage piracy by airing commercials that claimed pirated compact discs could silence Israeli performers and that there is a link between pirated CDs and buying drugs. Motti Amitay is the anti-piracy coordinator of IFPI and considers himself "the good guy" in the debate about access to digital music.
"I defend the vital assets of the state of Israel, its culture," he said. "The people who say I am bad are lending a hand to the collapse of this industry. Whoever steals music, and it doesn't matter whether this is on the street or via the Internet, is a partner in crime and is cutting off the music industry. The bad people are those who do this, not those who enforce it."
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