In September 2005, the Authors Guild had sued Google! Yep, the Guild took on Google because the Internet God struck deals with major university libraries to scan and copy millions of books in their collections. While some bolder books were in the public domain, millions of others were still under copyright protection.

According to past president of the Guild, Nick Taylor, “Google’s scanning is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law.”

And in response to Google’s explanation, which was that digitizing of these books represents a “fair use” of the material, new Guild prez, Roy Blount Jr. responded, “The hell you say!”

“Of such disagreements, lawsuits are made.”

The Authors Guild proposed this back in May 2006:

“While we don’t approve of your unauthorized scanning of our books and displaying snippets for profit, if you’re willing to do something far more ambitious and useful, and you’re willing to cut authors in for their fair share, then it would be our pleasure to work with you.”

Well, after back and forth chitter-chatter, Roy Blount Jr. reports, “Our proposal found a receptive audience at Google and at Association of American Publishers and the several publishing houses that had filed a separate lawsuit in October 2005 against Google. Reaching final agreement turned out to be not so simple, but today, after nearly two and a half years of negotiations, we’re joining with Google and the AAP and those publishers to announce the settlement of Authors Guild v. Google.

“The settlement, which must be approved by a federal judge before it takes effect, includes money for now and the prospect of money for later. There’ll be at least $45 million for authors and publishers whose in-copyright books and other copyrighted texts have been scanned without permission.”

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Intellectual property can have value in the form of a copyright, trademark, or patent. A copyright is protection for artistic and creative works. The holder of a copyright owns certain exclusive rights in the work, such as the right to distribute, copy, or display the work. A trademark is obtained for a unique and valuable logo, phrase, or mark used in commerce. Trademark law is based on the concept of “substantial similarity”, whereby another cannot use a mark that is substantially similar to another’s registered trademark. Patent law protects inventions or processes with physical or scientific implications. Patent protection, while more difficult and expensive to obtain then copyright or trademark protection, is very broad and exclusive, and provides for severe remedies upon breach.

An Intellectual Property Assignment and License Agreement is a unique agreement. In these agreements, one party is selling to the other the rights to their copyright, trademark or patent. However, since the selling party still wishes to retain the right to use the copyright, trademark, or patent for themselves, they ask for a “license back” to the property. Thus spawns the Intellectual Property Assignment and License Agreement, which in a sense, is actually two agreements in one.

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