VISA offers IP protection paper
Sep. 01, 2000 (Electronic Buyers News - CMP via COMTEX) -- Silicon Valley - To
encourage widespread intellectual property trade, the Virtual Socket Interface
Alliance (VSIA) is releasing a white paper that aims to bring IP protection to
the forefront, and demystify-for the novice and the expert, alike-the associated
legal and technical issues.
According to the VSIA, overall awareness of the infringement problem is low,
while at the opposite extreme, fear of theft has impeded development of a
healthy IP industry.
"The problem is there, and we need to address it," said Ian Mackintosh, chair of
the IP protection development working group (IPP DWG) of the VSIA, based in Los
Gatos, Calif. "There's a large number of tools and products growing up around
this whole area of providing IP."
Yet there hasn't been anything that addresses the subject of IP protection in
simple, concise fashion, Mackintosh said.
The VSIA's free 17-page white paper, titled "Intellectual Property Protection:
Schemes, Alternatives, and Discussion," delves into existing and emerging
deterrents to IP theft, such as patents, copyrights, and trade secrets;
protection mechanisms, including encryption, hardware, and chemical means;
detection schemes like digital watermarking and fingerprinting; and silicon
security options.
The VSIA is not trying to pass the paper off as legal advice; rather it is
hoping to raise awareness among virtual component providers and users with a
frank discussion of the pros, cons, and costs of various IP-protection
approaches, Mackintosh said.
"The paper gives insight into what these things are, and what might be
appropriate for you," he said. "To get a comprehensive briefing like this, to
dig out at this level, you'd have to read 25 books on the subject."
The need to protect IP is also driven by the increasing practice of design
reuse, a convention the VSIA was formed to promote. Design reuse, combined with
a growing commercial IP trade, raises the potential for infringement, the group
said.
The market for semiconductor IP grew by 36% last year to represent over $400
million of the total chip market, according to Dataquest Inc., San Jose. While
half of that figure is comprised of three major players-ARM, MIPS Technologies,
and Rambus-smaller suppliers, particularly those in communications and consumer
areas, experienced strong growth.
Among these, there are hundreds of emerging companies with unique technologies
to sell, but with no idea of how to protect it, the VSIA contends.
The IP protection white paper was a collaborative effort by IPP DWG member
companies and individual contributors, including ARM, Cadence Design Systems,
European Electronic Chips & Systems design Initiative (ECSI), Fujitsu, Mentor
Graphics, Metis Associates, NetLogic Microsystems, Oki Electric Industry Co.,
PalmChip, UMC, and Xilinx.
The white paper can be downloaded free from the VSIA's Web site located at
www.vsi.org.
Mackintosh said the group continues to investigate emerging technologies,
including noise-based fingerprinting and digital fingerprinting, and is
soliciting industry input.
IP Protection Methods
- Legal deterrents (patents, copyrights, trade secrets, governing law)
- Protection mechanisms (encryption, hardware, chemical)
- Detection (tagging, digital signatures, digital fingerprints, digital
watermarks, noise fingerprints)
- Silicon security (programmable SRAM, hard mask, antifuse
programmable)
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