The Federal Lawyer In Cyberia MICHAEL J. TONSING The Wiki Family of Web Sites he growth in the number of informative Web set of resources. Much of what follows is drawn from the sites seems exponential. It is increasingly hard self-descriptions on the Wiki Web sites themselves. Tto keep up with them. If you’re not using the “Wiki” family of sites, you’re missing some sources that Wiktionary are almost stupefying in their scope. A “wiki” is essen- Wiktionary (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiktionary) is tially a Web site in which contributors can add their a sister site to Wikipedia. Wiktionary is not an online own copy. (I capitalize the word in most instances in encyclopedia but an online dictionary, and its entries this column to make it clear that I am referring to a par- are about words. A Wiktionary entry focuses on mat- ticular family of wikis. There are many other wikis out ters of language and wordsmithery, spelling, pronun- there. You may decide to start your own someday.) ciation, etymology, translation, usage, quotations, and links to related words and concepts. Because Wiktion- Wikipedia ary is not written on paper, it has no size limits, it can Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), then, is an online include links, and its information can be more timely encyclopedia in which visitors can read infor- than that found in a written dictionary. mation on the topics they visit, then edit the information on the site itself if they choose Wikisource to do so. (The name “Wikipedia” is a meld- Wikisource (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikisource), which ing of the works “wiki” and “encyclopedia.”) dubs itself “the free library,” collects and stores previ- Out of what might at first have seemed like ously published texts in digital format; contents include online chaos has come semirespectability and novels, nonfiction works, letters, speeches, constitutional order. However, despite its utopian goals, in- and historical documents, laws, and an amazing range of credible size, and instant accessibility, Wiki- other documents. All texts collected are free of copyright pedia should be used with a very critical eye. restrictions—many because of their age, others for other The site should not be considered a primary reasons. Wikisource does not host “vanity press” (self- source, and information gleaned there always should published) books or documents produced by its own be subject to cross-checking. contributors. The site hosts real books. For example, biographies of ordinary people are not The growth of Wikisource has been phenomenal. included in Wikipedia, as they are in an encyclopedia, By mid-2004, the number of documents and articles but those of famous people are included in the Web exceeded 2,400. Less than a year later, the number site. It was an abomination to see what political loons of items on the site surpassed 19,000 documents and did to the biographies of Senators Obama, Clinton, and articles. A year ago, the English-language version of McCain as the last presidential election approached. Wikisource had more than 100,000 text units. Wiki- Some of the “information” that was “edited” by “con- source, in the meantime, spawned other “wikisourc- tributors” was scurrilous. Wikipedia tries to tread a es” in more than 60 languages. path between censorship and free speech that leads ultimately to truth and enlightenment, but the path is Wikibooks sometimes littered with dross. Wikibooks (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikibooks) is a Help support the Foundation of the FBA’s current initatives There’s a lot to learn about using Wikipedia; thank- community for creating a free library of educational fully, however, there’s a lot of help right on the Web textbooks that anyone can edit. Since the site began in site. In fact, there are multiple ways to find help there: 2003, Wikibooks has grown to include a multitude of a help desk, a “cheat sheet,” and lots of other users’ textbooks—large and small—created by volunteers. questions to look at. It is a gross understatement to say (One book that I have sampled is on first aid; another that Wikipedia is “user-friendly.” is on playing the guitar.) Some books are original; Wikipedia, the institution, has also endured serious others began as text copied from other sources of internal conflicts and power struggles. There are at least free-content textbooks found on the Internet. a dozen or more blogs whose sole mission is to dis- Wikibooks differs from Wikisource in that con- credit Wikipedia or to gossip about the ongoing internal tent on Wikibooks is designed to be significantly struggles within the enterprise (for example, see wiki- changed by participants. For example, texts such as the problem-pedia.blogspot.com). That having been said, the Wiki family of sites represents a not-to-be ignored CYBERIA continued on page 17 14 | The Federal Lawyer | July 2009 community waiting for more guidance on the matter. earlier this year in hopes that the U.S. Supreme Court The court did not expressly rule out software patents, would hear the Bilski case on appeal and clear up any but it did make them much more difficult to obtain. confusion. Well, the day has come; the Supreme Court Claims must now be tied to a particular machine or granted certiorari in Bilski on June 1, 2009. Although apparatus or they must transform any article into a practitioners and academics are in disagreement over different state. The problem is that no one is really whether this is the “right” case to bring before the Court, sure just what those statements mean in the context the hope is that we emerge with a clearer view of what of software. An immediate concern was whether the is patentable subject matter. Until that happens, no one inclusion of a computer, for example, as part of the can be sure about the future of these patents. Given the claims for software would be sufficient to satisfy the fact that patents usually take a few years to even reach “machine” requirement. The simple answer is that it an examiner, an application filed today could be writ- probably doesn’t. In early 2009, the BPAI issued a non- ten to satisfy a completely different standard than what precedential decision in Ex parte Cornea-Hasegan,4 in may exist two years from now. Nevertheless, patent which the board rejected claims directed at perform- protection is still the most expansive type of protection ing a series of mathematical calculations executed by available for intellectual property, and the risk associ- a computer processor. The BPAI stated that claiming ated with filing a patent application for software these a processor or even computer media in an application days may still be worth taking. TFL for software is insufficient in itself to satisfy Bilski. The transformation aspect of the test has been no Michael Capiro is a registered patent attorney and a easier to define. In Bilski, the court provided some guid- member of the Intellectual Property and Technology Li- ance from the Abele5 case and distinguished the patent- censing Group of Wyatt, Tarrant, & Combs LLP, where able process of displaying X-ray attenuation data by a he counsels and represents clients in designing strate- computer tomography scanner from the unpatentable gies for protecting intellectual property and technology process of displaying “variances of data from average assets. He is based in the firm’s Louisville office and values” without further specifying those values. The can be reached at [email protected] or www. problem is that the court’s decision fails to provide much twitter.com/mcapiro. guidance with regard to what transformation actually en- tails. Even though the transformation in Abele did not ne- Endnotes cessitate an actual physical transformation, it did require 1In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 U.S.P.Q.2d 1385 (Fed. the data to represent “physical objects of substances rep- Cir. 2008). resentative of physical objects or substances.” In short, 2State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Signature Finan- even a transformation of data on the screen must be tied cial Group Inc., 149 F.3d 1368 (Fed. Cir. 1998). to a physical object in some fashion. 3U.S. Pat. No. 5,960,411. The post-Bilski world of business method patents is 4Ex parte Corea-Hasegan, 89 U.S.P.Q.2d 1557 one of uncertainty over the future direction that case (B.P.A.I. 2009). law may take. In fact, a petition for certiorari was filed 5In re Abele, 684 F.2d 902 (C.C.P.A. 1982). CYBERIA continued from page 14 collected plays of Shakespeare are hosted on Wiki- it, emphasizes “learning groups” and “learning by do- source, not on Wikibooks. This project is working to- ing.” Wikiversity’s motto and slogan is “set learning free.” ward completion of several textbooks in numerous lan- Wikiversity’s learning projects include collections of wiki guages that the site’s founders hope will be followed Web pages that focus on exploration of a particular topic. by mainstream adoption and use. The project is also Wikiversity participants are encouraged to express their working on a separate series of books for children. learning goals, and the Wikiversity community then— at least in theory—collaborates to develop learning ac- Wikiversity tivities and projects to designed to achieve those goals. Wikiversity (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiversity) is a However, because the project is still in its early stages, its center for the creation and use of free learning materi- e-Learning model is still in development. als and the provision of learning activities. Wikiversity Wikiversity resources include teaching aids, les- is one of many wikis used in educational contexts as son plans, curricula, links to off-site resources, course well as one of many initiatives that are creating free notes, examples and problem sets, computer simula- and open educational resources.