Re: Protection for proposal for database design

On 26 Apr 99, Sabrina McLaughlin <smclaughlin1[_at_]doc.gov> wrote:
>
> I understand your concern, but I'm less focused on the
> client/contract/overgenerous disclosure aspect than on the public
> agency aspect. Granted, I may be TOO focused on that angle (!), but
> this is the scenario that I envisioned: let's say some federal agency
> -- we'll say the Bureau of Land Management -- hires the company to
> design an on-line system for keeping its data on oil-drilling sites.
> ("Database design work" can mean organizing a simple, noncopyrightable
> database). The company plans for the basic digitization of the
> Bureau's information by state, oil company involved, and by oil
> quantity recovered -- something not terribly original. If the
> Department of Interior wants to set up a similar database covering
> Native reservations and their natural resources, what does design
> company do? If the design work involved is technical advice on how
> to go Internet, then we're talking about the overly-broad disclosure
> problem. If the design work also involves a system for maintaining
> the information (by resource, by tribe), then the design company may
> not have the freedom to offer the system of information collected at
> tax-payer expense to any for-profit. Then we start getting into
> HR 354/capture of government data problems. I would say that much
> depends on what that "blueprint" IS.

Under 354, information (such as the one in your hypothetical) produced through exclusive licensing arrangements between the government and a private party are not subject to protection. It seems to me, whatever the outcome, that this bill will have no effect on the transaction at all.

Moreover, the "system" used to collect the information remains outside 354 (and probably copyright's) ambit. The disclosure question with regard to both the technical expertise and the fields of collection should be addressed within the contract between the designer and the agency (as, one would think, it is now). Whatever the issue there, it sounds like it revolves around gov't contracting practices rather than the effect of HR 354.

Cheers.
Chris

Christopher A. Mohr
<chrismohr[_at_]sprintmail.com>
(opinions personal not professional, etc.) Received on Tue Apr 27 1999 - 21:36:30 GMT