12.28.11

Links 28/12/2011: Quad Core Linux Devices, Darrell Steinberg for Open Access

Posted in News Roundup at 5:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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Commissioner Barnier: Enemy of European Development

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Naming the leading culprit among European politicians that let Europe be contaminated by foreign monopolies

TECHRIGHT wrote quite a lot about Commissioner Barnier because he took a leading role in the push for unitary patent, which ushers in software patents. Currently, Barnier is the main politician threatening to indirectly bring software patents to Europe. He is an enemy of science and technology, but then again, he is neither a scientist nor a technologist. Almost no politician is really aware of those disciplines. Watch Michel Barnier saying: “A few more days needed to cross the finishing line. 22nd December: I am confident we’ll be able to sign final agreement then.”

What a clown. This is the ‘gift’ he wishes to give people for Christmas? The loss of their sovereignty? The patent lawyers love him and quote him: “#Barnier: Spain and Italy still don’t support #unitarypatent”

Utter nonsense. We wrote about this before. He says what he wants to be true, not what is true.

The president of the FFII says:

a central patent court means EU software patents. Patent judges will do the job, as they did in the UK and DE.

Later he wrote that the “Unitary Patent gives a free ride to the patent microcosm, it will die on its own once it will be tested in front of the ECJ”

“EU Patent policy is cursed. Always the same stupid mistakes,” writes the FFII and the “European Patent Court – Disaster before Christmas” is one suitable headline. The president of the FFII rants that:

When it comes to patents, the EU finds itself a way not to respect the Fundamental Rights written in the Lisbon Treaty

Here is what lawyers are saying and what ceptics are saying: “FICPI Says “Go Slowly” on Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court”

“Software patents are not even for the “one percent”; those benefiting from them are far fewer than one percent of the population.”Sooner or later we might see some US-based patent trolls coming to Europe, assuming we cannot hold back the tide of corporate power. People who help companies gain patents do not seem to care if they end up abused even by patent trolls/lawyers. As Masnick puts it: “There was a recent post on the Patent Examiner blog about yet another patent troll who’s been suing a ton of companies with a variety of patents. Among recent lawsuits there was one against General Motors, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, BMW of North America, Rolls-Royce, Hyundai, KIA and ATX Group for using GPS systems to track cars, and two more against AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel, MetroPCS, T-Mobile and others over patents 7,852,995 and 7,860,225, titled “Method and apparatus for selectively providing messages in telecommunications systems.”

At stake when it comes to the unitary patents are not just software patents but also patent trolls. There is absolutely no reason for European citizens to support this thing, unless they are patent lawyers or CEOs at one of the multinationals. Software patents are not even for the “one percent”; those benefiting from them are far fewer than one percent of the population. █

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Unitary Patent is Not a Done Deal

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Response to erroneous claims that the back door to software patents has been successfully set up

ATTEMPTS were made to pass the unitary patents before Christmas. Did that succeed? Well, let us see what people are saying.

A critic calls it an undone “done deal” because:

Unitary patent: an undone “done deal”

On December 1st 2011, the Committee on Legal affairs of the European Parliament has published a press release welcoming with pride that negotiations about the unitary patent have succeeded in reaching a « final agreement » between the Council of the European Union and rapporteurs of the European Parliament. However, issues already raised by April, including questions on the legality of the adopted solution1, are not solved yet. Concerns about powers left to the European Patent Office, which is well-known for its attempts to legalise software patents2, have neither been addressed.

April wrote a press release on the subject (English version). To quote:

Members of the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament have given a rubber stamp1 on an agreement, negotiated behind close doors2 with the Council, about the introduction of a unitary patent and a unified patent jurisdiction. Unfortunately, today’s vote has failed to address major legal issues surrounding this project, which are likely to make the regulation voided by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Moreover, the architecture of the unitary patent as voted today betrays the withdrawal from European Union (EU) legislators in deciding about EU policy on innovation for the profit of the European Patent Office, a self-governed non-EU agency, which is notably known to favour software patents against the letter and the spirit of European Patent Law.

This is thus far failing to materialise and JURI vote is all they have. There is silly talk about “green light”, but do not be confused by it. To quote:

The EU came a step closer to getting a single patent system on Tuesday, when a deal struck by European Parliament representatives and the Polish Presidency of the Council was backed by the Legal Affairs Committee. The new EU patent would be substantially cheaper and thus more competitive than current ones. Parliament succeeded in adapting the proposed regime to small firms’ needs.

As the FFII’s president noted at the time, “JURI or EP can give as many green lights as they want, their legal construction is unstable…”

Gérald Sédrati-Dinet says: “gonna love this council doc on compatibility of #upc with opinion 1/09″

Well, the results of the JURI vote on the unitary patent can be seen here and reactions are telling:

I got a depression after reading the results of the JURI vote on unitary patent

“If Unipat was getting as attention as ACTA, it would be dead already,” he wrote later. But this is far from a “done deal” and we shall keep an eye on it. Now more than ever we need to fight back and pressure politicians. █

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Patent Lawyers Push for Software Patents, Poorly

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Continuation of this post, this post, and this post

Summary: A deeper look at the lobbying for software patents in Europe and more from Marty Goetz

THE unitary patent is the back door for software patents in Europe, so patent lawyers are rallying for this extra business in their blogs, using dogma and drama (“Are EU ministers driving us towards a European patent disaster?”). This one blog post says: “The AmeriKat encourages all members of our very large “interest group” (a.k.a patent litigators, attorneys, users, academics, judges, etc) to keep up the pressure on and conversations with their national governments and MEPs. Its not too late to change this for the better and to work to achieve the original aim of creating a user-friendly and efficient unitary patent system.”

How shameful. These are just a parasitical element of society. One tweeter user says that the “patent microcosm unhappy with #unitary #patent: they do not want not-patent judge to put her nose into patent law” (source: Gérald Sédrati-Dinet)

The lawyers say that the “Polish Presidency hopes to obtain agreement today on the location of the Unified Patent Court.”

” These are just a parasitical element of society.”Yes, the money-grabbing patent lawyers will cling onto anything to pass laws that harm European citizens, just so that they — the lawyers — can extract another tax from the population. Those who grow a meta-industry at the expense of producers rely on continued expansion of their taxing mechanism, which requires litigation, paperwork, and legal complications that necessitate advice. “Chairman W Pawlak (PL) said EU Council has reached an agreement on EU patent package but didn’t disclose any details,” Oh, really? That smells wrong. As put by some like Rui Seabra over at Twitter, the “panel is filled with filthy people, straight from the patent regimes. So sick…”

Here is an alternative view from a different type of lawyers, ones like Carlo Piana who recognise that software patents need to go.

The president of the FFII points out “Yet another patent lawyer spamming programmers with patent claims, talks about “certainty”, but for who?”

Patently-O keeps pushing its pro-software patents agenda as one would expect and contrariwise, in a magazine with Microsoft connections there is a more balanced coverage with counterparts doing the same. Now that we see new patents on geometry/math we must really decide on whether laws of nature should be patentable. Software patents booster Marty Goetz is back to his boosting, only to be tackled by weakness of his arguments, such as: “Goetz mentions the software industry being an industry, so is the music industry, that’s why music is patentable”

“On objective grounds of reason and also based on economic studies, software patents haven’t a place in society.”Here is another very inane statement from the mouths of proponents of software patents: “Dirk Elias from Fraunhofer told me that “MP3 patents were possible to obtain because they’re algorithms, not software, which is allowed”.”

Hilarious.

On objective grounds of reason and also based on economic studies, software patents haven’t a place in society. But can we beat the interests of greed? Can we push back against the parasitical element which made up the lobby for software patents? Can its expansion into Europe be impeded? It’s up to us because passivity will ensure the parasites get politicians’ ears and eventually get their way. At stake: the software industry. █

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EPO and Other Lawyers-dominated Circles Push for Software Patenting

Posted in Europe, IBM, Patents at 1:47 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Continuation of this post and this post

Summary: A look at support for software patents in Europe and where this is coming from

AS the unitary patent was rushed (while people were preparing to leave for vacation) we kept accumulating news about it. Pro-patenting circles said:

Learn the latest news on the Unitary Patent and Patent Court with Marcin Korolec (PL) along with his counterpart The Baroness Wilcox (UK)

Wilcox [1, 2] is once again doing a disservice to the public. Such people operate under the assumption that the more patents society has, the better off it will be. Gérald Sédrati-Dinet says:

#unitary #patent Negociators of #EU Parliament, Council & Commission have found an agreement

He also notes that: “#unitary #patent pb: some provisions are illegal => the #unitary #patent is already dead before having been voted!”

And “despite propaganda,” explains Gérald Sédrati-Dinet, “Spain & Italy still oppose unitary patent”

Some similar speculative propaganda comes from patent lawyers who ask without basis:

ksnh::law updated posting: Will Italy Join #UnitaryPatent and Ask for Seat of Central Division of #UPC in Return?

Here is more alleged “propaganda” that says:

Agreement by EU ministers today (5 December) on outstanding issues surrounding a unified EU patent would pave the way for the Polish presidency to claim success in the venture at a signing ceremony in Warsaw on 20 December, amid mounting optimism that the new regimes in Spain and Italy could drop their opposition to the idea.

In May, Italy and Spain complained to the European Court of Justice against the use of the so-called ‘enhanced cooperation’ procedure for the patent, which allows a group of countries to go ahead without the approval of all 27 EU member states. They claimed the move went against the spirit of the EU single market.

The proposals recognise English, French and German as the patent’s official filing languages but Rome and Madrid feared this would give an unfair advantage to companies from the ‘big three’ jurisdictions.

This site habitually quotes Microsoft lobbyists as though they are grassroots/independent. The president of the FFII, Benjamin Henrion, says:

With the Unitary Patent, the patent lobby got software patents for free, without having to justify themselves again

Here is what lawyers are saying: “Battistelli: The EPO doesn’t have substantive patent law competencies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have influence [...] we can influence patent harmonisation through projects such as translation, classification, PPH”

“Look at those EPO examiners granting software patents,” writes Henrion, pointing to EPO videos. The EPO blog is rooting for it very blatantly. To quote a noteworthy remark:

Seems that the EPO has censored my comment over this article

So the EPO is silencing opposition. So much for public service, eh? Henrion adds that:

The EPO deliberately avoids rejecting patents because they are “computer programs”, they keep spamming programmers with patent claims

Some of the vocal patent lawyers from Germany (clearly proponents of software patents) say that the “EPO President #Battistelli still confident on agreement on Unified Patent Court this year” (more on the outcome later) and here is a followup. Watch this funny remark from the FFII in the face of lawyers who try to hack/break the law with help from corruptible politicians whom we wrote about before (many politicians are themselves lawyers). It is like a form of entryism and Henrion writes:

The EU patent system is now fully captured by the patent lobby: Executive: captured; Legislator: captured; Judiciary: captured. CQFD

He also notes that “Software patents was not a victory, EU Parliament was remote controlled by big firms” (including Microsoft).

The system is controlled by lawyers and it shows in just about every country, They are easily influenced by software patents proponents like Philips [1, 2, 3, 4], whose employees help control public debates. There is also IBM, whose former employee is now heading the USPTO (IBM is in favour of software patents). IBM is associated with this company which is patents-dependent. To quote this new announcement,”Software LLC, an IBM Business Partner and proven leader in innovative, integrated solutions for IBM Cognos software, announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has issued patent number 8,073,863 for its MetaManager(R) technology.”

There is more here and IBM PR can be found in Watson form, as usual. “The insight platform uses data mining, natural-language processing and analytics to pore through millions of patent filings and biomedical journals to look for chemical compounds used in drug discovery.” That’s just whitewash. IBM is really just looking more business that it advertises for promotional coverage. It’s advertised as a fight against trolls (courtesy of IBM), which promotes software patents and can itself be classified as a troll at times. Here’s more of that PR line (“to battle patent trolls”):

IBM’s Watson is made of many parts: speech recognition, natural language processing, machine learning, and data mining. All of these factors were perfectly combined to beat Ken Jennings in Jeopardy, and now each of these components are slowly finding their way into other applications. Health plan company WellPoint, for example, is using Watson to investigate patient records to improve diagnosis, and in a self-referential, possibly universe-destroying twist, IBM itself is using Watson to help sell Watson (and other IBM products) to other companies. Now, using Watson’s data mining and natural language talents, IBM has created the Strategic IP Insight Platform, or SIIP, a tool that will revolutionize medicine — and perhaps patent trolling, too.

IBM has been part of the problem as even in Europe it supported software patents. With IBM’s support, software patents in Europe continue to be a problem. IBM is not on the public’s side, that’s just boring PR. █

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European Commission Betrays the European Public With Stance on OOXML and Unitary Patent

Posted in Europe, Microsoft, Open XML, Patents at 1:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Continuation of this post

Summary: New examples of the Commission serving as guardian of corporations, not the public

EARLIER this year we demonstrated that the European Commission had lost its way [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Linking to this whitepaper, the FFII’s president writes that “The Commission has apparently sacrificed its function as the guardian of the principles, values and policies of the EU…”

André Rebentisch from the FFII shows that the “EU Commission explains how they slapped their citizens in the face”. It’s said in relation to OOXML:

Document Exchange – EU Commission explains how they slapped their citizens in the face

[...]

It seems to me the Commission had good reasons to keep this offensive document confidential for so long. Many persons I know are simply outraged when they think back at the OOXML standardization process.

As the FFII’s folks point out in the NO-OOXML Web site: “The preferred document exchange among European Institutions is OOXML”, this is the summary of an awful document produced by the “Inter-Institutional Committee for Informatics” of the European Institutions. Basically the document says that European bureaucrats use Microsoft Office everywhere on their desktop, and this is not gonna change.”

It’s the same in the UK pretty much. “The Great Betrayal of 2012″ calls it Glyn Moody, with others noticing that the BSA, a Microsoft front group, “tears UK policy to shreds”:

Cabinet Office scrapped its open standards policy before opening it to consultation last month, opening the way for a major policy U-turn.

It issued a procurement policy edict on 30 November that erased a standards policy that had been in place since 31 January. It was revoked after a period of lobbying by powerful companies lined against its open standards policy that included Microsoft and the Business Software Alliance.

Who is left then to stand up for the public? “Polititcians are gonna change the EU treaties once again without referendums. It is really time for a change in politics,” wrote the FFII’s president. But it gets worse. It’s not just about OOXML. This extends to patent policy to a degree. Pierre Delsaux of the Commission takes a troubling stance which jumps in line with patent lawyers. “Italy, which now has a new government led by Mario Monti, is considering joining the system, said Delsaux” (according to this report).

Regarding this article, the “tensions between EU Member States,” claims Gérald Sédrati-Dinet, “unitary patent could be dead before being born” and also:

Spain is not changing its opinion on #upat afaik

The FFII asks: “Would #Almunia prolong EUnuch rules for #patent trolls?” This one official page gives a grim outlook.

Mind the article “It’s now or never for EU patent reform – Commission” because it says that:

It’s now or never for EU patent reform – Commission

If EU member states ever want to get a deal on the patent reform package they need to put their negotiating cards on the table, a senior Commission official said today

Does the Commission think it is really helping by supporting it. Some members of it tried rushing everything and amid delays the patent lawyers became more passionate about batting for this mess and one lawyers’ site said: “As discussions over patent and trade reforms in Europe reach a critical stage, the departure of key staff could cause more delays”

There is no reason to rush into this thing and there is no reason to ever pass it until the patent systems in other continents become more sane, Over in the US media companies like CBS are being sued by patent trolls, which gives hope for reform there (the media controls public perception). To quote Masnick:

Of course, while media companies aren’t quite as used to dealing with patent lawsuits, and also don’t have patent portfolios of their own should they be sued by practicing entities, the one thing they do have is the ability to sway public opinion. It will be interesting to see, as this keeps up, if it backfires on the trolling firms by simply calling more and more attention to some of their practices.

The unitary patent can extend the reach of patent trolls and cause enormous damage to the European economy, The Commission should strongly oppose it, especially Commissioner Barnier, whose role we will write about separately. We we mentioned him not so long ago, as well as here, here, here, here and here. █

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Software Patents: How Europe Lost Its Sovereignty

Posted in Europe, Patents at 1:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The first part of a series about the unitary patent and its attempted last-minute passage

CONVENTIONAL wisdom says that when corporations accumulate joint desire to have a new law, sooner or later they will get it, some time, somehow.

Over the years we have covered the many attempts to legalise software patents in Europe. More recently, politician were 'pulling an ACTA' and using the same tactics they use to pass ACTA to also pass software patents (although not explicitly so). This one propaganda page is titled: “A unitary European patent and a unified European patent litigation system – political agreement by the end of 2011?”

“More recently, politician were ‘pulling an ACTA’ and using the same tactics they use to pass ACTA to also pass software patents (although not explicitly so).”Well, guess who that page is from? “David Sant, software patent representative of the EPO, now works for TaylorWessing, the Lehne company,” claims the FFII’s president. For those who do not know the scandals of Lehne, see previous posts such as this.

Here are some instructions for those wishing to contact politicians who are less corrupt. “The European Union is rushing to impose,” says the author, “with as less discussion as possible, a unitary patent, despite the risk that this project could introduce software patents in Europe by giving away a lot of powers to the democratically uncontrolled extra-EU European Patent Office (EPO), and despite all warnings that the legal basis of the regulation on the unitary patent is likely to not comply with EU Treaties. In such a situation, only a massive citizen rally could prevent the unitary patent to end up as a stillborn project, in the detriment of the EU innovation policy. In order to inform Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), here are some guidelines and concrete suggestions to act by contacting them.” It is probably not too late for reasons we will show in later parts.

Here is a post on the subject which says “it seems that we head now to the meeting of the Competitiveness Council on 5 December with a danger that these bad agreements might be agreed at a political level; and with the prospect of them being formally adopted during the Danish Presidency in the first half of 2012. Such agreements should be a cause of celebration. But they would not be. There is a groundswell of opinion in industry that the proposals must be looked at again afresh. Likewise at their annual Venice meeting at the end of last month, the European patents judges voted unanimously against the current form of Court agreement. Hence, it is to be hoped that even at this late stage, the politicians will listen to the users and Judges. No doubt regardless of whether agreement is, or is not reached, the Polish announcement will be triumphal. Hence we must look carefully at precisely what is said. Hopefully the announcement from Warsaw will be pure rhetoric, and no agreement will have been reached. We await the announcement with baited breath.”

The outcome of this we are going to cover later. The press release of the Polish Presidency says self-serving things and the observers say that “the Polish presidency has “hit a wall” because of the opposition over the location of the central patent court ”

One news site claims frustration at the presidency. To quote:

Poland’s European affairs minister said the “biggest disappointment” of his country’s EU presidency, largely seen as successful under the difficult circumstances of the eurozone crisis, was the failure to take on board Bulgaria and Romania in the EU border-free Schengen area.

We wrote about the Polish presidency in [1, 2, 3, 4].

In the next few posts we shall continue covering the unitary patents from more angles. It is depressing news, so we preferred not to cover it during Christmas (and yesterday was unsuitable because we had made the front page of Slashdot , so the site was generally slow and fragile). █

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IRC Proceedings: December 27th, 2011

Posted in IRC Logs at 12:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Enter the IRC channels now

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