Date: Wed, 27 Sep 1995 17:18:16 -0400 (EDT) From: James McDonough Subject: EPIN Summary ********************************************************** =20 SUMMARY OF ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER VOL. 5, NO. 18; September 22, 1995 ********************************************************** INDEX: 1. NLM GROSSES $10 MILLION FOR FY 1994 FOR MEDLARS USAGE 2. JUDGE SITS ON WEST MOTION TO DISMISS JURIS FOIA SUIT 3. PTO SETS TO OFFER PATENT DATABASE OVER INTERNET **************************************************************** For more information on the complete ELECTRONIC PUBLIC INFORMATION NEWSLETTER or to receive a FREE sample of the complete printed copy send an email message to EPIN Publishing at epin@access.digex.net. Include your snail mail address. ***************************************************************** 1. NLM GROSSES $10 MILLION FOR FY 1994 FOR MEDLARS USAGE: The National Library of Medicine (NLM) grossed $10 million for fiscal year 1994 in online charges for access to Medlars (MEDical Literature Analysis and Referral System). NLM's Medlar system is a series of 35 medically-related databases, including Medline, a compilation of abstracts of articles from medical journals. In addition, for that same fiscal year gross sales of the software interface necessary to access Medlars totaled $300,000. The above statistics were supplied to EPIN by Sue Levine, NLM Budget Director. In spite of the high amount, NLM officials insisted that fees are based on the cost of dissemination, and are therefore in line with the dispositions of the reauthorization of the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA, Public Law 104-13) and OMB Circular A-130. However, Jamie Love, Director of the Taxpayer Assets Project (TAP), said in a telephone interview from his Washington Office, that he believes NLM is in violation of PRA, unless the agency has a special statutory exemption. 2. JUDGE SITS ON WEST MOTION TO DISMISS JURIS FOIA SUIT: U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler has been sitting for about a year without taking any action on a motion involving a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Department of Justice for large sections of the JURIS database. Last October, after having been fully briefed, Kessler took under advisement a motion by the West Publishing Company and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismiss the FOIA suit brought against the DOJ by Tax Analysts, a publisher of tax information located in the Washington, D.C. area. The motion=FEoriginally filed in February of 1994=FEalleged that the parts of the JURIS database sought by Tax Analysts is the property of West and not an =FEagency record=FE, and therefore not subject to a FOIA request. Tax Analysts argued that the company can not exercise proprietary rights over the JURIS information it seeks because the West-supplied data was made up of public domain material, i.e., federal court opinions, and that it was processed or prepared by software owned by DOJ.=20 3. PTO SETS TO OFFER PATENT DATABASE OVER INTERNET: The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) will probably put its Automated Patent System on the Internet without charge to the public, but the exact configuration of the system has not yet been determined. PTO is acting after the Internet Multicasting Service (IMS) announced last month that it would no longer be able to offer free access to the patent database over the Internet. IMS had been offering two years of patent information on the basis of a grant it received from the National Science Foundation. The grant expires Oct. 1.=20 *************************************************************** ARCHIVE: EPIN Summaries are being archived on the Electronic Frontier Foundation system. To access past summaries, use the following addresses: =20 ftp.eff.org, /pub/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Publications/E-journals/EPIN gopher://gopher.eff.org/hh/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/E-journals/EPIN/ ***************************************************************** James McDonough, Editor Electronic Public Information Newsletter epin@access.digex.net; Tel:/Fax: (301) 365-3621