Seems like rights restrictions on standard ontologies (within UMLS for example) could be a significant hindrance to semantic web efforts.

John, Daniel,
I wonder if this may be an area where Science Commons (and the NCBO) can help? 
i.e. By encouraging the rights owners for ontologies to open them up to allow the semantic web to make full and flexible use of them, and by drafting standard terms on which this might be done...
[And by identifying/prioritizing problem areas where there may be a need for  the creation of alternate non-rights-encumbered ontologies?]

Matt

Begin forwarded message:

From: Olivier Bodenreider <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: 5 June 2006 22:54:01 BDT
To: kei cheung <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: 'public-semweb-lifesci' <public-semweb-lifesci@w3.org>
Subject: Re: BioRDF [Telcon]: slides for the UMLS presentation


kei cheung wrote:
Hi Olivier,

Sorry, I missed part of your talk (the beginning part and the ending part) as I needed to be at other meetings. Is Neuronames (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9410576&dopt=Abstract) part of UMLS now? If so, does it make sense to convert (all or a portion of) the Neuronames Brain Hierarchy into RDF/OWL instead of converting the entire UMLS into RDF? It might  be helfpul to our RDF conversion efforts if they share the same neuroanatomical terminology.
Some version of Neuronames (1999) is integrated in the UMLS.
Converting one single vocabulary to RDF/OWL is likely to be much simpler than converting the whole UMLS.
I don't know enough the specifics of Neuronames to be able to estimate the difficulty of converting it to to RDF. At first glance, all relations seem to be parent/child relations and it should be pretty trivial.
Attached below is the list of restrictions for "Category 3" vocabularies in the UMLS. My understanding is that it wouldn't be possible to make the RDFized version of Neuronames publicly available or even part of a production system.

-- Olivier


12. 3. Category 3:

LICENSEE's right to use material from the source vocabulary is restricted to internal use at the LICENSEE's site(s) for research, product development, and statistical analysis only. Internal use includes use by employees, faculty, and students of a single institution at multiple sites. Notwithstanding the foregoing, use by students is limited to doing research under the direct supervision of faculty. Internal research, product development, and statistical analysis use expressly excludes: use of material from these copyrighted sources in routine patient data creation; incorporation of material from these copyrighted sources in any publicly accessible computer-based information system or public electronic bulletin board including the Internet; publishing or translating or creating derivative works from material from these copyrighted sources; selling, leasing, licensing, or otherwise making available material from these copyrighted works to any unauthorized party; and copying for any purpose except for back up or archival purposes.

LICENSEE may be required to display special copyright, patent and/or trademark notices before displaying content from the vocabulary source. Applicable notices are included in the list of UMLS Metathesaurus Vocabulary sources, that is part of this Agreement.


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