IP Number of the Day

Hedy Lamarr is often recognized as an early Hollywood starlet with film credits such as Algiers and Boom Town.

As an inventor, Lamarr made significant contributions to radio and technology and systems. She was granted a patent for secret communication systems under U.S. Patent 2,292,387 on 11 August 1942 (filed using her married name Hedy Kiesler Markey). 

The term of protection of copyright for a literary or artistic work is set at 70 years from:

• the death of the author of the work, or the death of the last surviving author in the case of a work of joint ownership;
• the date on which the work was lawfully made available to the public if it is anonymous or was produced under a pseudonym.

Web-based fiction dates to the earliest days of the World Wide Web, including the extremely popular The Spot (1995–1997), a tale told through characters' journal entries and interactivity with its audience. The Spot spawned many similar sites, including Ferndale and East Village. Since 2008, web fiction has proliferated in popularity. Possibly as a result of this, more fans of web serials have decided to create their own, propagating the form further, leading to the number of serious, original works growing quickly.

€ 121 billion of fake goods are making their way into the EU every year.

The Michelin tire company’s iconic logo is Bibendum, commonly known as the Michelin Man Logo is one of the world’s oldest trademarks, having been introduced by the Michelin brothers in 1898.

R.U.R. is a 1920 science-fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. "R.U.R." stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum's Universal Robots,a phrase that has been used as a subtitle in English versions). The play had its world premiere on 2 January 1921 in Hradec Králové; it introduced the word "robot" to the English language and to science fiction as a whole. R.U.R. soon became influential after its publication. By 1923 it had been translated into thirty languages. R.U.R. was successful in its time in Europe and North America. Čapek later took a different approach to the same theme in his 1936 novel War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant-class in human society.

The second ever printed book in English is "The Game and Playe of the Chesse", dating back to 1474.

The first public "happening" was produced by Allan Kaprow in 1959 at the Reuben Gallery in New York.

Happenings were influenced by Jackson Pollock's process of action painting, Dada and the teachings of John Cage on chance and indeterminacy. Kaprow defines "а happening" as a choreographed event that facilitates interactions between objects including performers and visitors.

Electronics evolved into the driving force of development with the advent of the first electronic autonomous robots created by William Grey Walter in Bristol, England in 1948, as well as Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine tools in the late 1940s by John T. Parsons and Frank L. Stulen.

In 2021 Sotheby’s hosted "Natively Digital", the first curated NFT sale at the auction house.