Intellectual Property LawWritten by Joe Regan
Intellectual Property Law can be quite confusing at times. Copyrights, trademarks and patents all have a role in protecting your hard earned content and knowing their role is half battle.Intellectual property in itself refers to creations of mind, including such things as: artistic works, literary works, inventions, names, images, symbols, and designs used in commerce. In other words, intellect that is possession of an organization or an individual is considered intellectual property. Intellectual property is divided into two categories, copyrights and industrial property. Copyrights give authors of an exclusive work, exclusive rights to that work for a limited amount of time. Copyrights cover such literary and artistic works as novels, poems, plays, films, songs and other musical works, artistic works (drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs) and architectural designs. Copyrights, which must be renewed periodically, allow creators of a piece of work, opportunity to benefit from that piece of work. Industrial property includes patents, trademarks, industrial designs and geographic indications of source. Patents give inventors of a new product, a certain (limited) amount of time in which he/she may prevent others from making, selling or using invention without authorization.
| | Instrument Proficiency Checks Under The Revised Instrument Practical Test StandardsWritten by Greg Reigel
In April, 2004, FAA updated and revised Practical Test Standards (“PTS”) for Instrument Rating. The new standards went into effect October 1, 2004. Of particular interest to instrument flight instructors (“CFII’s”) and pilots holding instrument ratings is a substantial change in requirements for administering an Instrument Proficiency Check (“IPC”).Prior to October 1, 2004, a CFII had discretion regarding what PTS tasks he or she could require for an instrument rated pilot to demonstrate instrument proficiency. That discretion allowed a CFII to be flexible in order to accommodate/address a pilot's strengths/weaknesses, as well as pilot’s aircraft, instrumentation and intended missions. That is, CFII was allowed to decide what tasks pilot needed to accomplish in order to show CFII that pilot could competently operate an aircraft solely with reference to instruments. Although this discretion presented opportunity for a CFII to conduct an IPC with minimal demonstration of ability by pilot, most CFII’s required pilots to demonstrate sufficient skills and competence to show that they could safely fly in instrument meteorological conditions (“IMC”). After all, no responsible CFII wanted to be last IPC sign-off in a pilot’s logbook if pilot was later in an accident or incident: Too many questions to answer and potential liability for CFII. However, revised PTS no longer give CFII discretion in how an IPC is to be conducted or tasks to be performed. The current PTS now require completion of specific tasks including holds, unusual attitudes, intercepting nav-aids and dme-arcs, precision, non-precision and circling approaches, partial- panel and review of instruments and aircraft equipment. Unfortunately, removal of CFII’s discretion seems to convert what used to be a learning experience tailored to a pilot and his or her needs into what is more closely akin to an actual check-ride. Under prior PTS, a student and instructor could discuss and determine appropriate and/or necessary tasks to ensure that pilot could demonstrate necessary competency to pass an IPC. This allowed a pilot to use IPC as a learning tool by agreeing with instructor to review or practice specific tasks on which pilot may have felt he or she needed additional practice.
|
