The amount and timing doesn't surprise me. It is similar to other Microsoft smaller initiatives (unlike the funds for health in Africa, etc.) But the issues of protecting intellectual property in a proposal, even to government sources, is real. Proposals are read by external reviewers who are sworn to keep the ideas they review confidential. However, not everyone does so. I have had the experience of having a proposal turned down and the following year seen an almost identical project show up. I can't prove that the idea was appropriated. It could be a coincidence - after all, most proposals are variants of an idea that is currently vogue. I think it's a risk one takes if one wants/needs grant funding. I don't know how to avoid unethical behavior on the part of others short of lengthy legal battles.
Karen L. Michaelson, Ph.D., Executive Director TINCAN (The Inland Northwest Community Access Network) 827 West First Avenue, Suite 418 Spokane, WA 99201 509-744-0972 FAX: 509-744-1120 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.tincan.org ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: "Gurstein, Michael" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 14 Nov 2005 08:23:56 -0500 > >Further, during my many years as a professional consultant and contract >researcher one of the things I learned to watch out for was CfP's that >were clearly outriders of some sort... Anomalous in the context of the >source, either too large or too small budgets and so on... What these >CfP's were often about was the source of the proposal call looking for >some free consulting advice/research ideas and so on. > >What they would do would be to send the CfP around as broadly as they >could and then wait to harvest all the free consulting ideas/research IP >that came flooding through the mail box from the poor shnooks who were >responding in good faith. > >Far be it from me to suggest that an august corp. like MS would do >anything of this kind, but a "research" fund of $1.2 million on Digital >Inclusion with a closing date of January 13 seems just a wee bit >peculiar to me.... > >So how does one protect Intellectual Property in a proposal? > >MG _________________________________ SISNA...more service, less money. http://www.sisna.com/exclusive/ _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
