OCEANIA ORACLE

Deadline of papers for accepted abstracts (informed by the end of April) : 31 August 1995

The ocean is an extraordinary environment. It has enormous potential, including resources of minerals, energy, and nutriments. Morever, if we exclude the fishing and transport industries, the ocean continues to remain relatively unexploited. As the 20th century comes to a close, it is worth noting that the almost one third of the world's population lives within a radius of 10 km from the sea shore.

Since the beginning of the 19th century, the Japanese have been constructing artificial islands to protect the Bay of Tokyo from the encroachment of the seas which surround it..

For technical and economic reasons artificial islands, designed to large dimensions may well be built on floating structure. The prospects for the developments of such ocean cities are considerable : industrial, residential, leisure, ...

Foremost, the role of the "OCEAN CITIES 95" symposium will be to examine the current experiments being carried out within the field of artificial islands and "offshore" installations. It will then look at the engineering and prospects the ocean cities of the future.

TOPICS :

1. The precursors of ocean cities : offshore platforms and artificial islands

2. Projects already in existence or currently being developed

3. Ocean cities' markets and uses
   1. Offshore aquaculture and other food production processes
   2. Industrial uses (production facilities, power plants, ..., airports, deepwater ports, ...)
   3. Prospects in the fields of education, leisure and health
   4. Habitat, resorts, marine technopoles, ...

4. Technical problems facing ocean cities' infrastructures
   1. Ocean environmental conditions : waves, currents, tsunamis, seismic effects, ...
   2. Material, construction, maintenance and corrosion
   3. Underwater vehicles, underwater installations
   4. Energy supply (generation, transmission and distribution)
   5. Telecommunications
   6. Water supply and sanitation
   7. Risks and security management

5. Ocean cities' non-technical aspects
   1. Economic considerations and viability
   2. Legal issues
   3. Organization and management issues

6. Implications of ocean cities 6.1. Environmental implications 6.2. Societal, political and macroeconomic implications

Honorary sponsorship :

His Serene Highness Prince Rainier of Monaco The United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) The United Nations Organization Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT) The Academy of French-Speaking Engineers

Organized by : Fondation 2100 Societe des Electriciens et des Electriciens (SEE) Ortech Communication Monaco (OCM)

With the Sponsorship of

International Association of Macroengineering Societes Association Eurocoast France (European Coastal Zone Association for Science and technology) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

For more informations (call for papers) and details you can contact :

Dr. Jean-Pierre Damiano Member of the Organization Committee e-mail : damiano@alto.unice.fr

WEB SITE

I would like to thank Rob Walker for providing a dolphin photo for the web site. Additional thanks for upgrades go to Tak, Bob Bickford, Greg Griffin, Vern Hart, Lee Crocker, Ted Bedwell, and Tramm Hudson. In case, you haven't guessed from the above, the web site is now vastly improved. Anyone else wish to help out with the web site?

I just received a HP IIcx scanner to upgrade my web site. This has already been put to good use in multiple parts of the web. The next step is to get some more memory so OCR processing at 600 dpi doesn't involve so much virtual memory...

If you have a mutual link with our web page, please check out the suggested icon and description for our web page which is listed at the bottom of the Friends of the Web page off of the main page. We would also appreciate it if people with mutual links sent us your e-mail address for our records. (We would like to be able to inform you if our web site address changes.

IRC CHANNEL

I am developing a waiting list of people who wish to speak on the Oceania IRC Channel. If you are interested in participating, please send me the best times for your participation in this event.

HOME OFFICE VISIT

Future Oceanian Greg Winget visited our headquarters today and treated the help to dinner and bought a passport. Thanks for the support Greg!

DONATIONS

I would like to thank Michael R. Tchou his generous contribution.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

>From Jim Davidson:

Just a quick note on your latest Oracle:

Richard Johnson said, "I took a disk full of Oceania pictures with
me, in the hopes that we could show the city some of Jim Davidson's
wonderful jpegs."

Seems the work of someone else (Jim Albea?) on the *.jpg graphics was
attributed to me.  While I am versatile (shameless grin), I must say
that _I_ was impressed by these pics, and had nothing to do with
their production but to simply sit in admiration.

Also, about the virtual brick.  Some things just don't translate well
from one medium to another.

Jim

Editor's reply: Come on, everyone knows Jim Albea and Jim Davidson are the same person. How you are able to work on the business plan for Sea Structures Inc. and on the animations of Oceania at the same time boggles the mind. Note to our readers: expect rough drafts of this business plan in the seacell-l list any day now.

>From Richard Johnson via alt.culture.virtual.oceania:

I have been asked to supply more information on intellectual property. I knew you'd come through. :=) Therefore, this will be the first part of many. I don't know how many yet, but the subject is relatively complicated.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

Patents: Way back in the evil times, people had no property. Certainly no established property rights. Everything belonged to the liege lord the warlord or the king. It was not terribly strange that an enterprising individual could petition the crown for a writ of monopoly in exchange for a "cut". Thus was born the patent. There was no notion of who invented something, or who created it, or who developed it. Just the "legal" enforcement of a monopoly. As bad as they were, these imperial patents were actually a giant step toward a free market. In essence, they served up the king's troops to defend a marketplace, although the king probably didn't realize it at the time.

The next major step in the evolution of intellectual property came with the U.S. Constitution. Jefferson demanded that some system more advanced be built into the law of the land. He devised a comprehensive system of patents, trademarks, and copyrights that ensured the government's troops would defend the rights of the originator, rather than the petitioner. Additionally, as we all know, the Bill of Rights established clearly that individuals possess themselves and their thoughts and their beliefs.

Currently, the U.S. grants patents for inventions that are novel (not obvious), original, and "a significant advance to the art or science." Patents are good for 17 years from date of issuance of the patent. It usually takes 1.5 to 2 years for a patent application to work it's way through the system from when an inventor first must start paperwork do searches. It's the novelty requirement that enables the U.S. to automatically refuse to consider patents for perpetual motion machines, by the way. It's obvious. That it doesn't work is irrelevant. Nothing requires an invention to actually perform.

U.S. patents are not recognized in most of the world. A few places do recognize them. Most of the world follows the European system of granting patents for 20 years from date of first filing. This is a simpler, shorter process. A patent can be issued within months. However it does nothing to protect the actual inventor, only the person or company who is first to get the notary to accept the paperwork. Many countries also have "locality" rules. For instance, you might be required to submit your application in a local dialect of an uncommon language, or remember to bribe the correct people at the right time. In some of these places, the wheel has not yet been patented.

Copyright: Virtually all of the world (except the People's Republic of China) has the same copyright laws. Whatever you say or publish is yours. It's protected by copyright. Your monopoly extends for as long as you live. In some cases 50 years longer. But it's up to you to enforce your monopoly. There is enough information floating around that few cases warrant pursuing someone for misusing a few words here and there. But things do happen...

Trademarks: A trademark, tradename, or service mark is an identifying symbol or logo or phrase that causes a person to recognize or identify a product or brand with that mark. Trademarks are handled as a mixture of patent and copyright. They get recorded and recognized, but they last as long as the product.

=================================================================
Oceania: In Oceania, the individual is the king. All of eir intellectual property belongs to emself. So ey get to build contracts, trade, sell, and otherwise dispose of it as ey see fit. This means there is no government protection of any kind of monopoly. It also means there is no "bright line rule" differntiating between personal information and books and inventions.

A "patent" will probably become a certificate of authenticity. It will contain a claim from some private Patent, Trademark Office (PTO) that "person X created this and registered it this date...". It will also contain a title, claims as to its usefulness and applications, and (probably encrypted) description of how to make and operate it. Interested parties can pay for a copy of the encryption key. Because patents are not protected by troops, anyone can invent the same thing and receive a patent on it. People/organizations must choose whether their resources are better spent buying a known quantity or re-inventing. Further, because of this, patents are probably good forever.

Trademarks can probably be handled in the same way. You want one, you register it with your favorite PTO.

Copyright will probably remain unchanged, with the distinction that because the Oceania Constitution explicitly recognizes a right to privacy, one's personal information is under copyright until the individual relenquishes control of it. This means that while accumulating marketing databases is still possible, the builder must be careful about how information is collected.

-- Richard Johnson

Editor's response: This was the beginning of a series of posts in alt.culture.virtual.oceania. I am uncertain about Richard's ideas about allowing patents to last for indefinite time periods. I am following up on this topic in alt.culture.virtual.oceania.

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