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NEWS RELEASE |
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IP-SHIELD UNVEILS COPYRIGHT AWARE™ PRODUCT
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Company educates corporate America on the perils of mishandling intellectual property
in the workplace.
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Chicago - June 30, 2006 - Intellectual Property Shield, Inc., today unveiled
its new web-based training product called Copyright Aware™ . Designed for
users of copyrighted Standards and technical documents in the workplace, the course
teaches users how to properly handle these copyrighted materials. Common practices
such as photocopying, emailing or putting content on a CD for distribution are generally
infringing activities, which is pointed out in the course. |
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Virtually every company that designs or sells a product will use several or even
hundreds of technical documents and Standards daily. “With the recent $615M Boeing
intellectual property settlement in the news, companies should be aware that many
of the common practices their employees engage in really amount to copyright infringement,”
says John Toth, company co-founder. “The providers of Standards, called Standards
Development Organizations, lose millions in unrecognized revenues every year due
to mishandling of their content in the workplace,” states Toth. “This is generally
not done with malicious intent, it is usually due to lack of knowledge by employees
as to what they can or cannot do when distributing content to other employees or
partners in their supply chain.” The Copyright Aware™ course is designed
to reduce a company’s risk of being named in an infringement action by giving users
the proper training and knowledge to handle content correctly. |
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This engaging course takes its audience through the history and definition of copyright,
general rules for copying and distributing licensed documents, and the ramifications
of misuse. It provides real-world examples of infringing activities in the workplace.
For the highly engaged student or attorney audience, it even cites case law and
allows for a drill-down into the topics or cases of interest. The course content
was designed, researched and developed by IP counsel at Chicago law firm Smith Amundsen,
LLC. “Given the implications and ramifications of common employee practices that
constitute infringement and give rise to law suits against companies, both private
practice attorneys and corporate counsel, as well as the employees themselves, will
benefit from this fresh presentation of how to protect one’s own copyrights, and
avoid infringement actions,” says Brian Rosenblatt, the Smith Amundsen partner who
developed the course. For IP and copyright experts, there is a pre-test feature
that allows them to test out and become certified without taking the full course. |
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Once the course and quizzes are successfully completed, employees earn a certificate
of completion. To support their day-to-day questions, a Permissions Matrix is provided
which gives general guidance called “Do’s and Don’ts” as well as specific permissions/restrictions
submitted by the most widely recognized content providers.
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| About IP-Shield: Intellectual Property Shield was formed in 2005 and incorporated in Illinois, with offices in Colorado and Michigan. The Company serves both the providers and consumers of intellectual property in the workplace, and teaches employees how to properly handle such valuable content as Standards and internal technical documentation.
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| IP-Shield protects content providers and Standards Development Organization (SDO’s) via a member alliance. The product, Copyright Aware™ teaches both content developers and consumers of intellectual property about the proper use of this content in the workplace. The Company’s primary customers include content providers and corporate enterprises in the automotive, aerospace, engineering, electronics and manufacturing markets.
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| Media contact: John Toth, 720.226.9108 or john.toth@ip-shield.com |