Volume II

Issue : 13: June 24, 2004

• Canadian Spammer Settles CAN-SPAM Lawsuit
• Extracting and Posting Website Facts Not Copyright Infringement
• Federal Court Overturns Privacy Commissioners Finding in Video Surveillance Case
• US Court Says No to Employment Notification Sent via Email
• EC Releases Consultation Paper on Regulation of VoIP - U.S. Justice Department seeks Regulation of VoIP to Facilitate Police Surveillance
• Zero-Knowledge Initiates Copyright Suit Against IBM
• French Court Fines AOL for Abusive and Illegal Contracts
• U.S. Appeals Court Finds No Civil Liability for Mere Possession of Pirate Access Devices
• ISPs Not Liable for Copyright Infringement for Storing Data

Home > Volume II > Issue 13: June 24, 2004 > Zero-Knowledge Initiates Copyright Suit Against IBM

Zero-Knowledge Initiates Copyright Suit Against IBM

Montreal-based Zero-Knowledge Systems Inc. ("ZKS"), on behalf of its subsidiary Synomos Inc. filed a motion to initiate a copyright suit against International Business Machines Corporation in the Superior Court of Quebec June 7, 2004. The motion alleges copyright infringement under the Canadian Copyright Act and a violation of the Civil Code of Quebec in relation to joint work completed by the companies.

The suit alleges ZKS' Enterprise Privacy Unit (now known as Synomos Inc.) and IBM worked together from June 2001 to February 2002 toward the creation of an XML-based language standard for writing enterprise privacy policies. Based on a Privacy Rights Markup Language (PRML) that ZKS had previously created and then confidentially shared with IBM, the joint work on PRML led to the creation of an Enterprise Privacy Markup Language specification. ZKS claims joint ownership of this work and alleges further that this specification forms a substantial part of IBM's Enterprise Privacy Authorization Language specification. IBM is alleged to have published, publicized, submitted, and licensed its specification to the World Wide Web Consortium without acknowledging ZKS' contribution, and without the license, authority or consent of ZKS. In addition to seeking an injunction, the suit asks for $7M in damages.

For more a copy of the suit, visit:

http://www.synomos.com/html/EPML/

For additional information, visit:

http://www.itbusiness.ca/