practiceprofile
the information game With more and more information being catapulted into cyberspace and fast-improving technologies, intellectual property law is an increasingly dynamic and busy field. Stephanie Quine asks IP lawyers how they keep up the pace
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his April, Sony’s PlayStation network shut down after a hacker accessed over 100 million users’ account information. The Australian Privacy Commissioner investigated the security breach, which affected 1.5 million Australian users, and expressed its concern that Sony kept credit card details on an outdated database. Only weeks before, at least 10 parliamentary computers, including those of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, were reportedly hacked by Chinese intelligence agencies. The consequences of these breaches extend past the risk of identity theft, fraud and SPAM into threats to national security and defence – made clear this month when Australia and the United States formally wrote cyber attacks into an international defence treaty. The ease with which people can obtain and use devices that store large volumes of information in the 21st century is unprecedented. Head of the forensic technology practice at boutique advisory firm McGrathNicol Forensic, Mark Garnett, says this is the challenge facing intellectual property (IP) lawyers today. “You can store more on just a tiny memory stick that you can buy for $10 than you could probably fit into a skyscraper,” he says. When Garnett first started in the industry he saw the theft of electronic IP three or four times a year. Now, he gets an inquiry once a week. Part of the problem is that organisations and companies aren’t adequately prepared. “Most organisations today have a love affair with electronic information. They create huge amounts of data – a lot of it commercially sensitive – and they just lose control of it,” says Garnett, who analyses and recovers data for banking, technology and telecommunication companies. Much attention is paid to protecting IP from external sources, but companies often neglect to protect it from internal theft, he says. “They would outnumber 10 to one in terms of internal to external engagements we deal with,” he says, adding that people use a whole range of devices to steal IP to avoid raising suspicion.
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“iPods, cameras, anything they can lay their hands on to make it look like they’re innocuously showing photos to somebody and in the background their copying 10,000 documents onto their camera to remove or take to a competitor.” On the upside, the small amounts of knowledge most people possess of such devices, causes them to make mistakes. “People think that by deleting files and formatting this drive that they’re erasing that activity because they saw it on CSI last week, but it doesn’t work like that … So that little bit of knowledge can be dangerous, for them at least…[but] great for us,” says Garnett.
Valuing intellectual property The value of intellectual property and its protection is a hotly debated topic around the world, especially when creative content and design are concerned. In August, Mallesons Stephen Jaques won a six-year legal battle for Danish home wares company, BodumGroup, to have its coffee plunger design protected. Additionally, Brisbane mid-tier firm Bennett and Philp is currently fighting the 52nd trademark case for European maker and exporter of Irish whisky, Wild Geese. Director of the firm, Ken Philp, explains that his client Wild Geese has been pursued by Wild Turkey for over ten years, through over 50
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