The New Ontologies: The Effect of Copyright Protection on Public Scientific Data Sharing Using Semantic Web Ontologies, 10 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 181 (2010)

THE JOHNIMARSHALL REVIEW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW THE NEW ONTOLOGIES: THE EFFECT OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTION ON PUBLIC SCIENTIFIC DATA SHARING USING SEMANTIC WEB ONTOLOGIES ANDREW CLEARWATER ABSTRACT The semantic web is going to become an important tool for scientists who need to accurately share data given context through structured relationships. The structure that defines contextual relationships on the semantic web is known as an ontology; which is a hierarchical organization of a knowledge domain that contains entities and their relations. This paper seeks to answer whether semantic web ontologies are protectable by copyright, and regardless of the outcome, what the best practices are for the scientific community. The best practices for the scientific community should include the adoption of a machine readable ontology license which disclaims copyright protection for publication of public scientific data to assure automation of the integration of ontologies and to maximize easy access to public science materials that can be queried. Sharing and information is essential for scientists and failure to address the possibility of ontologies as a possible constraint to public data access could result in data fragmentation and lost scientific opportunities. The ability of the semantic web to annotate and reuse data relies on the social structure of science supporting data sharing as a norm and as an extension of this norm, open licensing of ontologies should be embraced. Copyright C 2010 The John Marshall Law School Cite as Andrew Clearwater, The New Ontologies: The Effect of Copyright Protectionon Pubhc Scientific Data Sharing Using Semantic Web Ontologies, 10 J. MARSHALL REV. INTELL. PROP. L. 182 (2010). THE NEW ONTOLOGIES: THE EFFECT OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTION ON PUBLIC SCIENTIFIC DATA SHARING USING SEMANTIC WEB ONTOLOGIES ANDREW CLEARWATER INTRODUCTION.............................................................183 I. DATA SHARING IN SCIENCE, AN UNREALIZED IDEAL........................184 A. Social Norms and the Importance of Openness in Science .............. 184 II. THE SEMANTIC WEB...................................................... 185 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . .. . . A. What is the Semantic Web? . ...... 185 1. Resource Description Framework ("RDF")........................... 186 2. Ontologies-Using Ontology Web Language ("OWL2").............187 3. Source Databases (data storage) ........................ ........ 188 B. Querying the Semantic Web Using SPARQL. ................... ..... 188 III. COPYRIGHT PROTECTION AND THE SEMANTIC WEB ..................... ...... 189 A. Copyright Overview...................................... ...... 189 B. Copyright of Ontologies.................................... ..... 190 C. Copyrightable Subject Matter-Ideas/Expression........... .......... 191 D. Copyrightable Subject Matter-Titles, Headings, Short Phrases.................192 E. Copyrightable Subject Matter-Compilations & Taxonomies.............. 193 F. Copyrightable Subject Matter-Government Works ................... 195 G. Copyrightable Subject Matter-The Merger Doctrine .................. 196 H. Fixation......................................................... 197 I. Brief Restatement of Copyright Conclusions .................... ..... 199 IV. BEST PRACTICES................................................... ..... 200 A. The Panton Principles. .......................................... 200 B. Science Commons: Protocol for Implementing Open Access Data............201 C. Embedded Licensing in Interlinked Data Sets................ ............. 203 D. Example Semantic Ontology License ...................... ......... 204 CONCLUSION..............................................................205 182 The New Ontologies [10:182 2010]1 183 THE NEW ONTOLOGIES: THE EFFECT OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTION ON PUBLIC SCIENTIFIC DATA SHARING USING SEMANTIC WEB ONTOLOGIES ANDREW CLEARWATER* INTRODUCTION The current web is a web designed for finding documents.' The semantic web is a web designed for finding data. 2 Data is best found through structured relationships when accuracy and context are desired. 3 Data sharing in science is the type of exercise where accuracy and context is required. 4 Scientific patterns of information exchange require standards, and the semantic web can provide useful tools for structuring data according to standard structured relationships. 5 The structure that defines contextual relationships on the semantic web is known as an ontology, which is a hierarchical organization of a knowledge domain that contains entities and their relations. 6 Is a semantic web ontology protectable by copyright law? Semantic web ontologies may be substantially similar to compilations and taxonomies which are copyrightable subject matter.7 This paper seeks to answer whether semantic web *Andrew Clearwater is a legal consultant to iCommons, Ltd., a graduate of Suffolk University Law School's Global Law and Technology LLM, and a former Research Assistant at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The author would like to thank Stephen McJohn, his faculty advisor; Stephen Hicks, the Director of the Graduate Law Program in Global Technology; and John Wilbanks, VP of Science at Creative Commons whose outstanding work is the foundation of this article. This essay may be freely reused under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/. Attribution must include the recommended citation and indicate that the Article was originally published in The John Marshall Review of Intellectual Property Law. 1See Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler, & Ora Lassila, The Semantic Web, SCI. AM., May 2001, at 34, 36-37. 2 See id.; see also James Hendler, Tim Berners-Lee, & Eric Miller, IntegratingApplications on the Semantic Web, 122 J. INST. ELEC. ENG'RS JAPAN 676 (2002) (describing how the semantic web allows information to be more easily linked together). 3 See Berners-Lee et al., supra note 1, at 40. 4 RESEARCH INFO. NETWORK & THE BRITISH LIBRARY, PATTERNS OF INFORMATION USE AND EXCHANGE: CASE STUDIES OF RESEARCHERS IN THE LIFE SCIENCES 7, 37 (2009) [hereinafter PATTERNS OF INFO.], available at http://www.rin.ac.uk/system/files/attachments/Patterns information-use-REPORTNovO9.pdf. 5 See id. 6See WEBSTER'S THIRD NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 1577 (Philip Babcock Gove, ed., Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2002) (1961); WordNet Search 3.0, PRINCETON.EDU., http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=ontology (last visited Sept. 30, 20 10). 7See 17 U.S.C. § 103(a) (2006) ("[T]he subject matter of copyright as specified by § 102 includes compilations. . . . "); see also Am. Dental Ass'n v. Delta Dental Plans Ass'n, 126 F.3d 977, 980 (7th Cir. 1997) (holding that the taxonomy is an original work of authorship and qualifies for copyright protection); Oren Perez, Complexity, (...truncated)