Big Data and Intellectual Property

SCL - 15 October 2013

The story of the wheat

on the chessboard18,446,744,073,709,551,615

= 264 - 1

•Earth mass = 5.97219 x 1024 kg

•Wheat mass (1 grain = 1g)= 1.8446 x 1016 kg

•Wheat mass = 1/100,000,000 Earth

•2013 grain production = 2,140 Million Tonnes (= 2.140 x 1012 kg)

•Wheat mass= 10,000 x 2013 production

MATHMATH

Mental Abuse To Mental Abuse To HumansHumans

What does this mean?

•Humans struggle with:

- intuitive understanding mathematics

- exponential growth

Big Data•The amount of

data doubles every 18-24 months

•90 % of all data in the world was created in the last 2 years

•most data is generated by users, sensors or machines

http://www.kurzweilai.net

Patents (US only)Linear scale

Patents (US only) Log scale

doubling time: 1963-1990: 27

y1990-2009: 19

y

Big Data doubling time:

2 y

Big Data doubling time:

2 y

Big Data = Prior Art

Prior Art doubling time:

2 y

Yeah but no but...

•1 patent > 1 byte

•1963 > 1 byte

• Intelligence & analytics

This can’t be the solution

illustration from patent on “circular

transportation facilitation device”

aka the wheel (2001, Australia)

YouThe landlordThe builderThe neighbourThe local councilGoogle StreetviewThe Real Estate Research Bureau....

Ownership of Data

Value of Big Data

•Volume

•Velocity

•Variety

•Access

•Analysis & intelligence

•Recombination

• It’s a non-rivalrous commodity

•Most data are generated automatically (sensors, machines) - i.e. by “someone else”

•Data are almost always being recombined & contextual

Can you own data?

How to “own” data?•Copyright? Where’s the creativity

in data picked up by a sensor or a machine?

•Database right & compilations?

•Trade secret? “value is in secrecy”

•Patents? Analysis? “Frozen algorithm”

•Other legal foundation? (tort,criminal)

•Freedom to copy

IP on Big Data

• IP is based on first making the abundant scarce, then charge for access/use

•Will this approach still work for IP/legal advice on Big Data?

Value of Big Data is in open use and access, not

ownership

•Big data is like a river: the value is in the flow, not the source

IP approach:

•Advice on how to increase use of data, rather than restricting/limiting

• Integrate open source, open data, open standards as part of any advice

Thank you