Of Cities, Street Arts, Copyrights, and Patents

There is something about the big cities. I love my suburban life-- the glorious bloom of red roses in my Sunnyvale garden, the manicured landscape around my Palo Alto office. But the mid-week visits to San Francisco on two consecutive days (to attend a conference) stoked some lazy areas of my brain in a very unique way that my daily pretty suburban routine couldn't do for quite some time now. I started writing this blog in mid February. But the gestation period was getting unpredictably long. The blog baby was not quite ready to come out. The blogger mom was letting the baby stay in indefinitely out of sheer laziness. The vibrant graffitis of San Francisco acted as the Pitocin that finally induced my labor. So here it is...my blog about the strange bedfellows--street arts and intellectual property.

I have encountered the world of street art in various different contexts in the last few months.

First, there was this very innovatively named documentary,"Exit through the gift shop," (ETTGS) that my husband recommended so vigorously, that I had to watch it--and I am so glad I did. This was in early February, i.e. before Justin Timberlake introduced himself as "I'm Banksy!" at the Oscars. I had no idea that ETTGS was nominated for the Oscars in the best documentary category, so it was a really pleasant surprise, and I love Justin Timberlake for thinking outside the Chirlie Sheen box for a comic touch. ETTGS is directed by the enigmatic British street artist Banksy, and it is about---you guessed it--street artists. The documentary explores the intriguing and complex love-hate relationship between street art and mainstream fame. The part that triggered a huge bout of nostalgia for me was when it showed the walls in Washington DC famously adorned by the modern legend of graffiti, the Borf. I used to pass by those walls everyday during my commute to DC till 2008. There is also a documentary called "Borf!", which is now on my ever-growing must-watch list.

One of the street artists that ETTGS featured is Shepherd Fairey. I didn't remember the name Shephed Fairey the first time I heard it. But, like many, I vividly remember the portrait that brought Shepherd to limelight. It was the famous "Hope" illustration, where Shepherd allegedly used a copyrighted photograph of the then-yet-to-be-President Obama. So I could associate the name with the controversial copyright infringement case that I have read about in recent past where the Associated Press and Fairey announced settlement in the Obama poster case. The coincidental convergence of entertainment and professional domains is always quite exhilarating!

I work in intellectual property law. It is probably not as appealing as criminal law or family law for the masses. I was very excited when seasoned TV producer David E. Kelley decided to create a show ("Harry's Law") about a patent lawyer. But to my utter frustration, from the very first episode in January, 2011, the premise of the show changed to criminal law to reach out to a greater audience. I wish someone in David Kelley's legal advisors' team reminded him that you don't always have to show graffiti in a negative way as the backdrop of a crime scene (typically an alley where someone gets mugged and/or killed). Tons of patent applications are filed in the online gaming industry, where the patent filers aim to protect their products (e.g., a gaming controller shaped like a bottle of spray can and equipped with sophisticated tactile feedback mechanisms emulating the experience of creation of a graffiti with a spray can on a wall) that recreate the adrenaline rush that is part of a real-life street artist.

And then there is comic book art, which is not exactly graffiti, but is kind of closely related in terms of art form. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) publishes a list of cool engineering jobs every year to reassure the engineers that their profession can be fun too. In this year's list, there was the profile of Hsin-Chien Huang, who is tantalizingly called the "Pixel Provocateur"! He started his career in engineering, but is now one of Taiwan's best-known multimedia artists. His gallery is simply mesmerizing. The IEEE article says, "Hsin-Chien Huang grew up daydreaming about becoming a comic book artist. He invented his own comic strips and doodled imaginary spaceships and military bases."

I will end this blog daydreaming about street art in three-dimension, i.e. street sculptures, possibly using recyclable containers. My son's Green Science robot toys and the fresh perspectives from the Green Tech conference in San Francisco are nicely getting mixed in my inspiration soup! Now that the GPS chip-makers have almost solved the 'urban canyon' signal-loss problem by inventing (and yes, patenting) smart algorithms, driving around in the streets of San Francisco while looking for street art may be fun! Concerned about the carbon footprint of that 'fun' activity, where you have to watch out for the occasional rollerbladers (may be some of them are street artists) appearing in front of your car out of nowhere, crossing the roads at arbitrary points, totally ignoring the crosswalks? But who's calculating! Or, may be there is a way to calculate the carbon footprint of recreational city driving. May be there is a mobile app for that!