1. Infrastructure II commercial relationships
Chris Reed
Professor of Electronic Commerce Law
Centre for Commercial Law Studies
Notes: 1

2. Requirements to start trading online
ISP services
Website hosting
Website design
Making website known
Search engines
Linking agreements
Protecting business methods
Selling information
Security and encryption

3. ISP Services Access Email Resource hosting
Direct (own IP addresses)
Indirect (assigned addresses from ISP’s allocation)
Resource hosting
Mirroring/other demand and traffic management
Backup/disaster recovery

4. Hosting Kinds of resource Hosting contract issues Website
Download files (http/ftp)
Business resources (e.g. inventory database)
Hosting contract issues
Site space
Access/bandwidth (availability and charging)
Complaints (notice and takedown)

5. Website design IPR ownership IPR infringement Code, Images and Design
Assignment or licence from designer?
IPR infringement
Direct copying
Linking and framing
Indirect infringement, if at all
Unfair competition issues

6. Search Engines Basic registration Enhancing placement on results
Wording of web pages
Metatags
Unfair competition - District Court of Düsseldorf (12 O 48/02)
Domain name DRP – Hanna-Barbera v. Hay (2002 Nominet DRP 00389, scoobydoo.co.uk)
Sponsored links

7. Web Linking Agreements
Unauthorised linking and framing can amount to
Copyright infringement
Breach of unfair competition laws
Implied licence to link
Likely terms
Express web linking licences

8. Patents for Business Methods
Freely granted in US
State St v Signature 149 F.3d 1368, (Fed. Cir. 1998)
European position opposes grant in principle unless there is a technical effect
Draft directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (COM(2002) 92 final)
Patents are national law rights, infringed by use
But where does on-line use occur?
Server
Desktop
Elsewhere

9. Selling and Licensing Information Products
Licence rather than sale
Distribution licence from content owner
Geographical restrictions
Identifying customer location
Self-certification
IP address
Payment mechanism
Preventing piracy
Embedded information
Digital rights management technology

10. Encryption and Security Issues
What needs to be secure?
Payment data
Personal data
EU Data protection directive
Confidential information
Encryption technologies
SSL
Proprietary higher grade encryption (e.g. for VPNs)
Export controls
Based on key length

11. Other infrastructure agreements
Application hosting
E.g. gaming engine
Note data ownership issues
Payment services
E.g. RBS Bankline
Affiliate agreements
Website refers customer to other product/ service providers
Revenue share or commission arrangement