04.06.17

OSDL, OIN, Linux Foundation, PAX and the Likes of Them Dodge the Real Problem, Which is Software Patents

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, OIN, OSDL, Patents at 10:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Their biggest sponsors simply do not oppose software patents and instead hoard some themselves

Linux Foundation sponsors

Summary: The arms race of patents, or the notion that bad patents can be countered using more bad patents, has become an infectious mentality that acts as a barrier to real progress and only makes the patent thickets a lot ‘thicker’ (impenetrable to small companies/market entrants)

THE US patent office is no longer as lenient as it used to be, but software patents continue to be granted on occasions and troll lawsuits are still being filed (albeit fewer of them than before). As so many companies out there now use Android (Linux), the targets of litigation are often users/distributors of Android and hence “PAX” has some real/perceived necessity. We recently wrote two articles about PAX [1, 2] and Andrew Updegrove, who had worked for the Linux Foundation, wrote the following about it yesterday, under the headline “Google Announces Android “PAX” Cross-License Program – But to What Purpose?”

The first meaningful OSS defensive initiative was Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), founded back in 2000 by companies like IBM, Intel and HP to reassure developers and customers in the face of the veiled threats then being made by Microsoft against users of Linux and other OSS, and in light of the actual (and ultimately unsuccessful) litigation by SCO, perhaps bankrolled by Microsoft, against four companies using Linux.

[...]

Like OSDL, OIN was heavily funded by its founding members and has a high-powered Executive Director and staff. Over 2,000 organizations have now signed the OIN License Agreement, which you can read here, without having to send in a request to be vetted, or incurring a confidentiality obligation.

And then there are the many efforts that were far less meaningful. Beginning with an announcement by IBM on January 11, 2005, many of the leading IT companies made public “patent non-assertion pledges” to reassure users of Linux (and sometimes other prominent OSS programs) that they would not be sued. Those companies ultimately included Motorola, Nokia, Sun, Google, Oracle and others, each publicly releasing its own slightly different legal pledge, and its own specified list of patents – dozens, scores and even hundreds of them. In the case of IBM, the package included exactly 500 patents, an oddly round number. (The same press release also noted that IBM had filed more patents than anyone else for the fourth year in a row, conveying a rather mixed message to the patent-averse open source community.)

PAX and OIN are both ineffective against trolls and as we reminded readers earlier this afternoon, companies like Ericsson and Microsoft pass patents for trolls to sue, bypassing all sorts of alleged defenses such as OIN.

Yesterday or earlier this week, more detailed analysis emerged on the cases involving Samsung, Apple and Qualcomm (which had abused its position against both Samsung and Apple). To quote what Florian Müller wrote this morning:

Procedural decisions relating to two major Apple cases have come down this week. With respect to design patent damages in Apple v. Samsung, Apple did not get its preferred way forward (affirmance of prior damages verdict and an immediate re-retrial necessitated by the Federal Circuit’s dismissal of Apple’s trade dress claims), but the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has granted Apple’s wish that its contract, patent and antitrust action against Qualcomm be kept separate from a long list of (consumer) antitrust cases related to the FTC’s mid-January complaint against Qualcomm.

There isn’t much to say right now about the Apple v. Samsung design patents case. In a case management order handed down on Tuesday, Judge Lucy Koh disagreed with Apple’s most aggressive suggestions, which would have cut the remand proceedings short (after the Federal Circuit decided that the district court should take a closer look at the record in light of the December Supreme Court ruling). I’m not surprised and I doubt Apple itself was.

Qualcomm’s abuses against all sorts of companies were covered here before [1, 2] and where were groups like OIN while this was going on? Nowhere. Because in practice they are something between “deterrent” and “bloody useless”. To properly address these issues, we need to tackle the underlying issues, which are the patents themselves, notably software patents that Qualcomm still uses and advocates for. █

Like EPO ‘Grants’ (up 40% in a Year), Patent Trolls in Europe Are Growing at Double-Digit Rates (Now 20% of All German Lawsuits)

Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Rendition by Dutch cartoonist and illustrator KrewinkelKrijst [Web site], inspired by Animal Office

EPO Cartoon by KrewinkelKrijst
Full size (larger)

Summary: As Battistelli keeps crushing quality control at the EPO, in order to maximise supposed output (by compelling workers to hurry, doing a shoddy job under pressure), the level of abusive litigation soars in Germany — the very same nation that generously hosts Battistelli’s endless abuses of German law

THE EPO has certainly become a sham — so much so that it now flagrantly violates the very treaty that brought it into existence (EPC). The EPO is like an animal farm, where people are treated like animals (in industrial farming) and production is paramount irrespective of quality, health of workers, health/welfare of animals etc.

Thanks to the EPO’s management (at least in part, for we recognise Germany has its own patent office), Germany is now attracting a lot of patent trolls, with promise to do the same in the rest of Europe if this patent lunacy/frenzy isn’t stopped soon. This has already spread to London, as we first noted at the end of 2015 (Ericsson’s patent troll has just gotten its way there).

“They must be emboldened by plenty of terrible patents and terrible precedence — like that set by the EPO with controversial policies.”Yesterday, Florian Müller told me about this new report of his. As a team manager dealing with app development (he too is a programmer), he must be worried about patent trolls in Germany (he famously campaigned against software patents in Europe for this reason) and he is certainly worried about what goes on at the EPO these days. “Horacio,” he told me, the man who led Microsoft's trolling campaign for nearly a decade, “has now joined an anti-troll advocacy group whose other members include, for example, Google…”

“New IP advocacy group warns,” says the headline, that “trolls [are] now accounting for 20% of German patent suits…”

They must be emboldened by plenty of terrible patents and terrible precedence — like that set by the EPO with controversial policies. EPO examiners repeatedly tell us that they feel compelled to grant software patents even if they are against them (as per the EPC, European directives, common sense, industry and so on).

Müller has mentioned the UPC as well:

In mid-December, a new Brussels-based advocacy group named IP2Innovate (Intellectual Property 2 Innovate) made its first announcement. Its members include Google, Intel, Daimler, Spotify, Bull, adidas, Proximus, Wiko, and two other associations (the European Semiconductor Industry Association and the Syndicat de l’industrie des technologies de l’information). The new industry body is primarily concerned about the impact of patent trolls on innovative companies in Europe and believes that the situation will exacerbate dramatically if and when the Unified Patent Court is put in place.

Yes, this is exactly what we have warned about for years. Even some large companies openly admitted this (HP for example). It’s not hard to see who would benefit if UPC became a reality. Will companies care enough to undermine the UPC and oust Team Battistelli? The damage already done is enormous and the toll is far higher than the EPO’s annual budget. To Battistelli it’s all just an externality, or the cost of doing ‘business’ (or making a killing, sometimes literally).

Watch what happens with patent trolls in China right now (we wrote a lot about it). Or in Singapore…

“There are truly massive economic ratifications, especially where there is no indemnification, to the marginalisation of examination — just what Battistelli is doing right now.”“As it branches out,” IAM wrote today, “Razer [in Singapore] has faced its share of NPE [troll] litigation. Gaming-oriented smart watches, tablets and over-the-top streaming boxes have triggered US infringement suits from the likes of Blue Spike and Sportbrain. Razer will hope that audio and smartphone-related assets from THX and Nextbit complement its own modest portfolio, much of which names Tan as a co-inventor, to put it on stronger footing as it continues to come out with new devices.”

Patent maximalism tends to lead to more litigation and trolls find that economically attractive. There are truly massive economic ratifications, especially where there is no indemnification, to the marginalisation of examination — just what Battistelli is doing right now.

Battistelli is crushing Europe and crippling people while sipping drinks at his new bar. █

At the Courts, Another Reminder of PTAB’s Importance and Ericsson’s War (via Patent Trolls) Against Linux and Android

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Patents at 9:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Ericsson is a patent troll by proxy

Ericsson troll

Summary: The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) is grappling with dubious patents that Ericsson’s patent troll is using against GNU/Linux/Android while this troll continues to taunt and pursue ‘protection’ money from various large Android OEMs, including the largest one (Huawei)

PTAB is an essential ‘tool’ for eliminating bad patents and patent trolls. It can stop them before they even initiate a lawsuit, sometimes before they even make a threat thereof.

“PTAB basically applies the law and does so in an affordable fashion which is thus accessible to small(er) companies.”Google’s petition against Unwired Planet’s patents, as we covered here recently, is an example of this. Unwired Planet is nothing but a troll, and this troll is directly being armed by Ericsson — a company whose aggressive patent strategy IAM has been repeatedly grooming in recent weeks. Here, in this new IAM article, IAM continues to protest against PTAB. “The Patent Trial and Appeal Board,” IAM writes, “has allowed Shire to cancel all claims instituted for inter partes review except for one multiple dependent claim that was amended to depend on only non-instituted claims”

In another new article, IAM’s Richard Lloyd uses talking points from Martin M Zoltick and Derek F Dahlgren from Rothwell Figg; Finnegan’s Jason Stach and Joshua Goldberg; and Scott McKeown from Oblon. They are, as usual, bashing PTAB, which they view as an obstruction to patent maximalism. “Since its establishment in 2012,” Lloyd says, “the Patent Trial and Appeal Board has reshaped the US patent litigation landscape. Whether you think it is helping to improve patent quality or killing IP rights, there is no doubt that the changes have been profound…”

Yes, and yet, it's under persistent attack/scrutiny from 'Establishment' microcosm like Crouch. They want to stop PTAB and thus empower patent aggression, trolling, etc. There’s no secret about that. They’re hardly even hiding these desires.

In the latest bit from Crouch, which is as usual about PTAB, he writes: “The most interesting aspects of the decision are found under the surprising heading: Prior Judicial Opinions Did Not Bind the PTAB. When taken out-of-context, we can all agree that the statement is silly and wrong. The PTAB is obviously bound by Supreme Court and other precedent.”

“We certainly hope that, especially at this point, Google will appeal and repeal (or invalidate) all of Unwired Planet’s patents.”“The PTAB is obviously bound by Supreme Court and other precedent.”

Well, yes. PTAB basically applies the law and does so in an affordable fashion which is thus accessible to small(er) companies. It’s not surprising that proponents of trolls hate PTAB so much. Trolls rely on being able to go after vulnerable companies one by one and blackmailing them in isolation. PTAB potentially puts that at risk. Moreover, trolls prefer going after Android OEMs rather than after Google itself because the OEMs have less financial incentive to fight back (a costly process); in some rare cases, for this very reason, Google actually helped particular OEMs by buying patents and passing these to the vulnerable OEMs for legal defence, e.g. against Microsoft and Apple.

Going back to our original point about Google’s use of PTAB against the troll (Unwired Planet), see what we wrote about it earlier this week and just over a week ago.

James Nurton, who habitually produces EPO puff pieces, suggested in his latest report that Unwired Planet keeps rolling and trolling Android (Linux) though he did not mention the Ericsson connection (which is rather obvious) and the implications for GNU/Linux. “Unwired Planet,” he wrote, “did not abuse its dominant position by seeking to enforce standard-essential patents against Huawei, and is entitled to damages and possibly an injunction, Mr Justice Birss of the UK Patents Court has ruled…”

This also mentions “the manufacturers Huawei, Samsung and Google.” We are not going to resort to judge bashing (that’s what Watchtroll likes to do) but instead we shall concentrate on the role of Unwired Planet, a satellite of Ericsson.

“Sadly, however, Ericsson has created trolls/proxies other than Unwired Planet and they too are running after legitimate companies all around the world — a strategy now shared by Microsoft.”The Bristows lobbyist quoted the judge as saying: “I have found to be FRAND, and since Unwired Planet are not in breach of competition law, a final injunction to restrain infringement of these two patents by Huawei should be granted.”

We certainly hope that, especially at this point, Google will appeal and repeal (or invalidate) all of Unwired Planet’s patents. It’s a monumental task. It has not much to sue Unwired Planet over because unlike Unwired Planet’s ‘feeder’ (Ericsson) it has no products. Sadly, however, Ericsson has created trolls/proxies other than Unwired Planet and they too are running after legitimate companies all around the world — a strategy now shared by Microsoft.

None of this spurs innovation. It’s more like legalised extortion by losers (those who lost the race on purely technical grounds). As GNU/Linux grows in prominence and dominance we should expect the losing firms (Apple, Microsoft, Ericsson, Nokia and so on) to do nothing but attack with patents, significantly raising the prices of everything and thus harming end users. It’s the hidden cost of public apathy. █

IBM, IPO, AIPLA, ABA and Other Lobbying/Front Groups of the Patent Microcosm Are Trying to Change US Law for Software Patents

Posted in Deception, IBM, Patents at 8:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

David Kappos as lobbyist
Source: David Kappos interview with Intellectual Property Magazine (2010), modified by us

Summary: The ruthless attempts to run over companies that create software and don’t have ~50,000 patents (including software patents) definitely carry on, and this serves to show just how crooked the process of legislation has become, complete with lobbyists, think tanks, and subversive agents of monopoly

EARLIER this year we took note of IBM establishing a sort of "task force" (their word) with IPO, in which IBM took leadership with clearly malicious intent like resurgence of software patents. It was hardly even made secret, they just didn’t advertise this to geeks who are ‘supposed’ to think that IBM is a ‘friend’. It’s an enemy now. For what it’s worth, participating in it were the other ‘usual suspects’.

“Rewriting [Section] 101 in an echo chamber called IPO,” Benjamin Henrion noted yesterday (after we had spotted this too), there was activity in which “no developer involved, only large companies again…”

“It was hardly even made secret, they just didn’t advertise this to geeks who are ‘supposed’ to think that IBM is a ‘friend’.”Watch who’s in there: IBM’s Manny Schecter, David Kappos (worked for IBM and still paid by IBM, with a USPTO period in between and no ‘cool-off’ time), and even Bob Stoll!

MIP wrote about it: “The cover story assesses the chances of a change to the test for patentable subject matter under Section 101 in the US. Calls for changing 101 are increasing. In January, for example, a proposed amendment from the Intellectual Property Owners Association provided one concrete way to do it. We spoke to patent practitioners including IBM’s Manny Schecter, Cravath’s c and Drinker Biddle’s Bob Stoll to assess what impact 101 is having now and what should change.”

“All they care about is money and if they get to shape the law, guess whose money they will pocket or at whose expense they will enrich themselves…”So here they are. A bunch of self-serving, greedy, manipulative lobbyists trying to rewrite the law for personal gain. Where is the outrage? In another post, this one behind a paywall, it says that “The ABA has proposed an amendment to Section 101, which follows an IPO subject matter eligibility proposal in January. The president of AIPLA has told Managing IP his association’s board will likely approve a 101 proposal within the next six weeks”

Well, we must never ever let the American Bar Association (ABA) or AIPLA override or rewrite US patent law. It’s like letting oil companies and their lobbyists write up environmental regulations! All they care about is money and if they get to shape the law, guess whose money they will pocket or at whose expense they will enrich themselves… █

LexOrbis is Wrong About Software Patents

Posted in Asia, Europe, Patents at 7:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

LexOrbisSummary: The latest attempt (among many) by IAM and its affiliates to push for software patents in India even though India neither needs nor wants such a ludicrous thing

WE habitually write about the ban on software patents in India because law firms and their large clients (IBM, Microsoft etc.) keep challenging this ban, no matter how rational it is for a country with an economy and an industry like India’s — a topic covered here many times before.

“He bemoans India’s insistence on doing the right thing for its people and its businesses.”The latest to challenge this ban is Joginder Singh of LexOrbis (greedy law firm that IAM keeps publishing for). He bemoans India’s insistence on doing the right thing for its people and its businesses. IAM blindly reposts this as “international report,” but it’s hardly a report, it’s just marketing. it’s advertising. Example of nonsense from a non-programmer: “copyright law does not protect the basic idea behind the software code.”

As a programmer myself (since my early teens), I can immediately call nonsense on that. Even terms like “software code” are somewhat inane and are expected from people who don’t understand that software is code, or that code is software. Here are Singh’s concluding words with our comments in yellow: “the situation has remained unchanged [oh, poor you! Think about the poor patent law firms!]. The patent office has issued manuals and guidelines to streamline its practices and procedures, and the tribunals and courts have provided some judicial precedents [as they certainly should]. However, more clarification is needed [same propaganda that the patent maximalism lobby uses in the US right now, “clarity”/”clarification”]. For example, the denial of patent protection under the per se exclusion must be limited to those aspects covered by copyright law [that statement makes no sense as all code is copyrighted]. Considering that the same piece of source code can be written in many different ways and different programming languages, and the copyright law protects only the literal copying of software code, copyright law cannot provide adequate protection to software-driven inventions [so you want to patent or copyright binaries now?]. The copyright law does not protect the basic idea behind the software code [formulations of commands are more like recipes, not ideas]. The functional and technical aspects of software-driven inventions [oh, that’s a new dodge, “software-driven inventions” instead of “software patents” or CII] ought to be patentable considering that it is the improvements in software that significantly affect the performance of hardware.” [no, software does not enhance the “performance of hardware”; hardware just runs software]

That’s just one paragraph. Given the amount of such nonsense that IAM spews out on an almost daily basis, we cannot do a rebuttal of everything but instead point out that IAM has been very busy shaming India for software patents (we have lost count of how many times IAM has already done that this year alone), in what can only be characterised as a twisted, self-serving lobbying campaign. That's just what IAM does, with or without direct help from the outside. █

The EPO’s Management is Silencing Its Critics by Sheer Intimidation

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:00 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Related: After EPO Sanctions Against IP Kat (Censorship of More Than 10,000 Articles) Even Merpel Throws in the Towel (“Merpel” is a collective name for several IP Kat writers)

EPO animated

Summary: The regime of the EPO is ruining the European economy and those who dare criticise the EPO for it are being greeted with multiple legal threats if not dismissals, emotional torture and even harassment of spouses

WITH over 3 UPC puff piece in less than a week and nothing about EPO scandals anymore, IP Kat helps Battistelli more than it harms Battistelli's agenda these days. Readers are noticing this. Not only that; former insiders/Kats are aware of this issue, which is why perhaps some of them left (including those who used the pseudonym “Merpel”, shared by several people, including Jeremy who left). We don’t intend to unmask anyone but rather to point out that there seems to be a mild form of “turf war” inside the blog (competing interests) and Battistelli’s side has been securing a foothold. We predict that a lot more nonsense about the UPC will come from firms like Bristows inside IP Kat, even if they lie.

Here is a comment we spotted last night:

As I see it, the reason why many people turn away from the IPkat is not so much related to “old boys”, but rather to the blog’s apparent transformation from an academic, open-minded forum valuing free speech into a marketing tool for the interests of those in charge after Jeremy’s departure and for their firms, apparently aiming at influencing public opinion on certain topics.

This has been re-emphasized recently by the blog’s sudden refusal to cover the situation at the EPO any longer, but it is obvious for quite some now also in relation to the UPC topic, on which comments expressing a certain, probably undesired opinion seem to go missing on an unusually regular basis.

“We don’t think that IP Kat necessarily preaches to the converted. In fact, Team UPC is finding some “tough crowd” (or hostile audience) there.”At the end of the day, every blog boils down to the people who run it and their views/agenda. The same goes for corporate media and its owners, which we suspect explains why German media mostly ignores the EPO scandals.

We don’t think that IP Kat necessarily preaches to the converted. In fact, Team UPC is finding some “tough crowd” (or hostile audience) there. These people are not stupid. A lot of the latest comments in this thread show that commenters are not tolerating the latest UPC propaganda. “The UPC is new, big, fast, powerful and expensive like the Titanic,” one person wrote about the UPC, which has just been sunk by Brexit. SUEPO, linking to this thread, added: “Please note that the comments are also worth reading.”

“UPC is a coup. It’s a bunch of firms hijacking the law of the land.”That’s like saying that the comments are better than the article. “The problem,” one person wrote, “irrespective of Brexit, is that this is a lawyer-led white elephant.”

UPC is a coup. It’s a bunch of firms hijacking the law of the land. As someone recently put it: “What we see here is a perfect example of what lobbying can achieve!”

It “may be correct to say that the UPC was started by lawyers,” said another new comment. They are eager to destroy legitimate businesses in their countries if that means they can make a buck (or a shilling) out of it.

“It’s clear that people are not tolerating the UPC and some who are sufficiently informed have signed a petition.”“I also find it unfathomable quite why CIPA have lobbied so hard for the UPC,” another new comment said. Well, that pretty much sums up what sort of forces and interests are propelling the UPC and trying to force its ratification in defiance of constitutions, laws, common sense, and public interests.

“Let’s call for a demonstration against UPC in the UK,” one person suggested yesterday, “what would be the best place in London to do this? I can’t find an address for Mr Johnson office. Otherwise Westminster?”

It’s clear that people are not tolerating the UPC and some who are sufficiently informed have signed a petition. “We can already fix a date in advance in like a month,” said this person about a demonstration, “there is Easter in the middle, and make it public when we have enough companies supporting it. Another idea is to call for a strike and ask people to take a day off for this. Problem is the 29 May Council in Brussels, where UPC guys want to have it done in the UK.”

“The EPO not only destroys its own workforce; right now, with the UPC among other things, the EPO is wrecking Europe’s economy.”We don’t suppose that, in defense of their jobs (which UPC would be making growingly redundant), EPO workers too would wish to initiate another strike. About SUEPO, one source told us, “[t]hey are so scared of management retribution now, that [...] SUEPO seems broken by what has been done to them by the EPO management. It is a disgraceful situation. Where this goes from here, who knows? But any organisation that has tried to destroy union representation has suffered in the end.”

The EPO not only destroys its own workforce; right now, with the UPC among other things, the EPO is wrecking Europe’s economy. It flagrantly disregards the EPC, which is like its Constitution. Some people openly speak about this, but a lot insist that not much can be done because the EPO is accountable to nobody and vehemently insists that it’s immune from any law enforcement. We have got ourselves another Ankara right in the middle of Bavaria and we certainly hope that Bavarian Parliament will come up with a plan today. We eagerly await readers’ input on what happens/happened in today's hearings. █

Thorsten Bausch (Hoffmann Eitle) Bemoans Declining Quality (Service and Patents) at the European Patent Office

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Thorsten Bausch (Hoffmann Eitle)

Summary: Some courageous stakeholders are willing to say the truth about what the EPO has turned into, even without a cloak of anonymity (for fear of retribution)

RECENTLY, Benoît Battistelli met Michelle Lee and then spread the lie of “higher quality patent procedures”, shortly after we had criticised the EPO preparing photo ops (sometimes the EPO publishes things just to distract from Techrights, e.g. [1, 2]).

“Think prosecution. Think litigation. Battistelli makes it easier to sue companies in Europe and issue injunctions against more of them (in several countries) in one fell swoop.”A rebuttal to the latest nonsense from Benoît Battistelli is necessary because the EPO is just dripping lies. It’s embarrassing. The EPO now promotes this ‘blog’ post Battistelli, which ends with (warning: epo.org link): “I would like to take this opportunity to thank Under Secretary of Commerce and USPTO Director Michelle Lee, Commissioner Komiya of the JPO and the industry representatives for their engagement in supporting this important process. Following this Trilateral session, it is clear that we can look ahead with confidence to the upcoming IP5 meeting in May, where we will deepen our harmonisation efforts with our colleagues from China and South Korea.”

What he means by “harmonisation” (similar to the language used to promote the UPC well before it was known as “UPC”) is not what people typically assume. We wrote about this in great length more than half a decade ago. We provided extensive proof — at times citing material from Wikileaks as evidence — just over half a decade ago. Think prosecution. Think litigation. Battistelli makes it easier to sue companies in Europe and issue injunctions against more of them (in several countries) in one fell swoop. He is swapping quality examination with maximal sanctions. It’s a nightmare for innovation and also for trade. It’s everything that the patent system was not supposed to be for. But let’s leave aside UPC for a moment, as we intend to deal with it separately later today.

“Anyone who still thinks that the EPO is a world leader in patent quality is clearly not paying attention, relying on past (outdated) truisms instead.”What we are seeing these days at the EPO is a rapid transition; it’s a transition away from quality examination and into patent maximalism. See this new press release for example (turned up this morning). Not only does the EPO grant controversial patents on cancer but it also grants a patent before JPO, SIPO and the USPTO do (because EPO quality control does not really matter anymore). To quote the press release: “In addition to Europe, Cantargia has submitted patent applications for CAN04 in several other territories, including the United States, Japan and China.”

But it certainly seems like the EPO was the first to grant, just like it recently granted patents on life (which the USPTO objected to as a matter of principle).

“Thorsten Bausch, an attorney from the firm Hoffmann Eitle, is a brave man.”Anyone who still thinks that the EPO is a world leader in patent quality is clearly not paying attention, relying on past (outdated) truisms instead. In one year alone the number of granted patent is claimed to have skyrocketed/gone up by 40% (while demand decreased). What does that tell us? What do these leaked EPO E-mails teach us? There is poor quality of service and patents from the EPO and the EPO keeps lying about that in an effort to hide and discourage discussion about it. If the staff speaks about, watch or recall what happens.

Thorsten Bausch, an attorney from the firm Hoffmann Eitle, is a brave man. Using his real name (not a pseudonym like “Merpel”) he has begun a series diplomatically criticising the EPO’s policies on technical grounds. His opening part states:

…is everything now in order with the EPO’s speed of handling cases? I am afraid not. The latest initiatives by EPO management seem to be focused on working on a problem (“early certainty” in examination) that most applicants do not really have, while not doing much, if anything, about the EPO’s real problem: the extremely slow speed of appeal proceedings.

Examiners too are complaining about “early certainty”; they don’t like it. Neither do we and we have repeatedly explained the dangers of issuing any judgment at all before facts are known because it biases the outcome (attempting to support a premature conclusion). In part 2, Bausch went into specifics: (we have added emphasis)

In my personal opinion, receiving an early and well-reasoned search report is, indeed, of great value for many users of the EPO. However, as concerns the examination stage, there are practical consequences of the President’s program, which may, in fact, be highly undesirable and will not be liked by applicants and their representatives.

First and foremost, it is my impression that the pressure exerted by the “Early Certainty” program on the work output of examiners has considerably increased. Perhaps unsurprisingly, several colleagues of mine have started to observe that the quality of the reasoning and the depth of analysis of official communications at least in some technical areas has been declining to a noticeable degree. This is exactly what should not happen. Superficial examination, whatever its outcome may be, helps no one.

Additionally, we are currently experiencing a significant surge in summons to oral proceedings by examining divisions in some technical areas. Some of my colleagues have received the same number of summons by examining divisions in the last half year that they had received in the previous ten years. And not only the frequency of summons is without precedence, but also the stage of the procedure at which summons are issued. Of nine summons received by one of my colleagues for oral hearings before examining divisions this year, five were issued after a single (!) examination report under Art. 94(3) EPC. Such early summons, on such a broad scale, are unheard of and certainly not welcomed by applicants.

Fortunately, this new practice has not been implemented with the same rigorousness in all technical fields (“clusters” in EPO speak). And it should not (principiis obsta)! This is because such a change in practice would have quite dramatic consequences for applicants and their European representatives, particularly if it is implemented all of a sudden rather than gradually over some years.

[...]

Conclusion

In summary, I am afraid that the “early certainty” program in examination proceedings, at least if implemented as described above, i.e. if it results in a significant increase in the number of oral proceedings at an early stage of the examination proceedings, will – needlessly – have quite significant negative consequences for most applicants. In my view, there is no need to introduce such an “early certainty” program in examination proceedings at all, provided that the EPO continues its previous practice to accelerate examination proceedings when so requested by the applicant (via a PACE request) or a third party (via observations under Art 115 EPC).

This would also give the examiners the necessary leeway and resources to speed up those (usually more important) cases where an actual dispute needs to be quickly resolved, i.e. contentious examination proceedings and opposition proceedings.

“Knowing patterns of Battistelli’s character, all he might do now is punish the stakeholders (particular firms/people if not collective punishment) — just what he allegedly did to the French in retaliation for political complaints.”The EPO under Battistelli is in a state of collapse and 'only' 0% of stakeholders (like Bausch) tolerate him. What should the EPO’s Council or Board conclude from all this? Knowing patterns of Battistelli’s character, all he might do now is punish the stakeholders (particular firms/people if not collective punishment) — just what he allegedly did to the French in retaliation for political complaints. The man acts as though he is clinically insane. As one person recently put it, “this man should not have been in charge of anything more involved than a hamster cage (without the hamster, because that would have been animal cruelty)…” █

Links 6/4/2017: CentOS Linux 6.9, Ubuntu is Back to GNOME

Posted in News Roundup at 3:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Enterprise Adoption of APIs is Driven by Internal Integration Needs

    The need to integrate the ballooning range of software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools being used within enterprises is driving the adoption of application programming interfaces (APIs.) While many think of APIs in the enterprise as being introduced as a way to leverage a microservices architecture or as part of a broader cloud migration effort, integration is actually the early driver for using APIs in many businesses across industry sectors.

  • Chinese university to open in Oxford despite ideological crackdown at home

    One of China’s top universities is preparing to open a campus at the heart of British academic life, just months after President Xi Jinping called for Chinese universities to be transformed into strongholds of Communist party rule.

    Peking University, an elite Beijing institution where Mao Zedong once worked as a librarian, will open a branch of its HSBC Business School in Oxford early next year, the respected financial magazine Caixin reported on Thursday.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • UPOV This Week Focuses On International Cooperation System; Benin Curiously Ratifies Twice

      The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) governing body is meeting this week, along with its technical, and consultative committees. On the agenda is a potential international system of cooperation, disputed by civil society. Separately, Benin, a least-developed country, appears to be in the process of ratifying the UPOV convention, raising questions since a regional organisation of which Benin is part already joined UPOV in 2014.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Wednesday
    • Israeli Security Expert Warns Samsung Smart TV Suffers From Major Hacking Flaws Due To Tizen OS

      Intelligence agencies could hack into Samsung smart TVs caused by a deep flaw in the ecosystem of the Seoul-based tech giant. According to security researchers, there are up to 40 zero-day exploits for the Tizen operating system that Samsung uses for its TV, phones, and smartwatches. These vulnerabilities could be used by attackers to hack the Samsung gadgets remotely.

    • Apple fans, Android world scramble to patch Broadcom’s nasty drive-by Wi-Fi security hole

      Yesterday, Apple rushed out an emergency patch to plug a severe security hole that can be exploited to wirelessly and silently commandeer iPhones, iPads and iPods.

      Now we know why: this remote-code execution vulnerability lies in Broadcom’s Wi-Fi stack, which Apple uses in its handhelds. Many other handsets also use Broadcom’s naff chipset, and, as a result, we expect – and hope – a lot of other phone and tablet makers push out patches: any gadget using Broadcom’s vulnerable tech is at risk to over-the-air hijacking, not just Apple’s iThings.

    • Researchers discover the Android version of iOS’s worst spyware

      A few months back, we covered a nasty and incredibly advanced piece of malware dubbed Pegasus. Created by a relatively obscure Israeli security company called the NSO Group, Pegasus seemingly set a new bar for mobile hacking sophistication. Built upon three previously undisclosed iOS zero-day exploits, Pegasus, once installed, was able to eavesdrop on conversations, remotely spy on a users’s text messages, location, browsing history, calendar records, photos and more.

    • The Rise Of Open-Source Malware And IoT Security
    • Changes coming to TLS: Part Two
    • Critical Xen hypervisor flaw endangers virtualized environments

      A critical vulnerability in the widely used Xen hypervisor allows attackers to break out of a guest operating system running inside a virtual machine and access the host system’s entire memory.

      This is a serious violation of the security barrier enforced by the hypervisor and poses a particular threat to multi-tenant data centers where the customers’ virtualized servers share the same underlying hardware.

      [...]

      Qubes OS, an operating system that uses Xen to isolate applications inside virtual machines, also put out an advisory warning that an attacker who exploits another vulnerability, for example inside a browser, can exploit this Xen issue to compromise the whole Qubes system.

    • CentOS Linux 6.9 Drops Support for Insecure Cryptographic Algorithms & Protocols
    • Canonical Outs New Kernel Security Update for All Supported Ubuntu Releases

      Canonical released earlier a new kernel security update for all supported Ubuntu Linux releases that appears to patch a vulnerability discovered recently in the upstream Linux kernel packages.

      According to the Ubuntu Security Notice USN-3256-1 advisory, the system could be made to crash under certain conditions. The security issue (CVE-2017-7308) was discovered by Andrey Konovalov in Linux kernel’s AF_PACKET implementation, which incorrectly validated some block-size data.

    • CloudLinux 7 Beta Kernel Released to Patch 2 Important Security Vulnerabilities

      CloudLinux’s Mykola Naugolnyi announced today, April 5, 2017, the availability of a new Beta kernel update for users of the CloudLinux 7 operating system series, patching a couple of vulnerabilities discovered lately.

      The announcement comes just one day after CloudLinux released a new stable kernel version for CloudLinux 7 and CloudLinux 6 Hybrid users, which included a fix for an out-of-bounds heap access security issue in XFRM framework of the Linux kernel, which was patched upstream in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Hopeless but Optimistic: Journeying through America’s Endless War in Afghanistan

      I exchanged emails of condolences with the embassy public relations officer, who was a great friend of hers. I saw heart-wrenching tributes to Anne Smedinghoff posted on-line. Secretary Kerry eulogized Anne Smedinghoff, praising her idealistic commitment to “changing people’s lives.” He noted the “extraordinary harsh contradiction” of her being killed while carrying books to a school. He described the Zabul media event was “a confrontation with modernity,” and said Smedinghoff embodied “everything that our country stands for.” It did little to salve my dismay that yet another promising American had been lost for such a dubious, failed cause. I thought of the remarks Kerry made on Capitol Hill in 1971, when he was a young, anti-war Vietnam vet.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Doomsday’s approaching: The climate could hit a state unseen in 50 million years

      If carbon emissions continue on their current trajectory, new findings show that by mid-century, the atmosphere could reach a state unseen in 50 million years. Back then, temperatures were up to 18°F (10°C) warmer, ice was almost nowhere to be seen and oceans were dramatically higher than they are now.

    • Climate change impacting ‘most’ species on Earth, even down to their genome

      Climate change is rapidly becoming a crisis that defies hyperbole.

      For all the sound and fury of climate change denialists, self-deluding politicians and a very bewildered global public, the science behind climate change is rock solid while the impacts – observed on every ecosystem on the planet – are occurring faster in many parts of the world than even the most gloomy scientists predicted.

      Given all this, it’s logical to assume life on Earth – the millions of species that cohabitate our little ball of rock in space – would be impacted. But it still feels unnerving to discover that this is no longer about just polar bears; it’s not only coral reefs and sea turtles or pikas and penguins; it about practically everything – including us.

      Three recent studies have illustrated just how widespread climate change’s effect on life on our planet has already become.

    • The end of coal: EU energy companies pledge no new plants from 2020

      Europe’s energy utilities have rung a death knell for coal, with a historic pledge that no new coal-fired plants will be built in the EU after 2020.

      The surprise announcement was made at a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, 442 years after the continent’s first pit was sunk by Sir George Bruce of Carnock, in Scotland.

  • Finance

    • Nigel Farage jeered by MEPs after comparing EU to the Mafia

      Nigel Farage has been jeered in Strasbourg after comparing the EU parliament to the Mafia over its Brexit demands of the UK.

      Asked to retract his “unacceptable” remark by the body’s president, Italian Antonio Tajani, the former UKIP leader replied that in respect of national sensitivities he would instead brand them “gangsters”.

    • A New Look At The Lasting Consequences Of Student Debt

      Recent college graduates who borrow are leaving school with an average of $34,000 in student loans. That’s up from $20,000 just 10 years ago, according to a new analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Trump Removes Stephen Bannon From National Security Council Post

      For the first 10 weeks of President Trump’s administration, no adviser loomed larger in the public imagination than Stephen K. Bannon, the raw and rumpled former chairman of Breitbart News who considers himself a “virulently anti-establishment” revolutionary out to destroy the “administrative state.”

      But behind the scenes, White House officials said, the ideologist who enjoyed the president’s confidence became increasingly embattled as other advisers, including Mr. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, complained about setbacks on health care and immigration. Lately, Mr. Bannon has been conspicuously absent from some meetings. And now he has lost his seat at the national security table.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Oath isn’t just a terrible name — it’s going to be a nightmare ad-tracking machine

      And now, with the new privacy not-rules, Verizon is free to take the data generated from the tracking supercookies it imposes on its network customers, mash it up with AOL’s ad stack, and promise advertisers hyper-targeted marketing information that can’t be blocked or stopped because Verizon will own both the pipes and an enormous amount of the content flowing through it.

    • DOJ Memo Shows NSA And White House Lawyers Mainly Unconcerned About Evidence Obligations In Criminal Trials

      Charlie Savage of the New York Times has obtained another document detailing the internal guidelines of the NSA’s STELLAR WIND program as a result of the NYT’s long-running FOIA lawsuit against the government. The new document is a memo from the Department of Justice, which details its lawyers’ attempts to suss out the government’s obligation to defendants when it comes to evidence derived from classified surveillance programs.

    • Bipartisan Bill Would Require A Warrant To Search Americans’ Devices At The Border

      As we’ve discussed for many years, Homeland Security and the Justice Department have convinced too many courts that there is some sort of 4th Amendment “exception” at the border, whereby Customs and Border Patrol agents (CBP) are somehow allowed to search through your laptops, phones, tablets and more just because, fuck it, they can. Now bipartisan pairs in both the Senate and the House have introduced a new bill that would require that CBP get a warrant to search the devices of Americans at the border. On the Senate side, the bill is sponsored by Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul, and in the House, it’s Reps. Blake Farenthold and Jared Polis. Honestly, it’s absolutely ridiculous that this kind of bill is even needed in the first place, because the 4th Amendment should just take care of it. But with DHS and the courts not properly appreciating the 4th Amendment’s requirment for a warrant to do a search, here we are.

    • Comcast Paid Civil Rights Groups To Support Killing Broadband Privacy Rules

      For years, one of the greasier lobbying and PR tactics by the telecom industry has been the use of minority groups to parrot awful policy positions. Historically, such groups are happy to take financing from a company like Comcast, in exchange for repeating whatever talking point memos are thrust in their general direction, even if the policy being supported may dramatically hurt their constituents. This strategy has played a starring role in supporting anti-consumer mega-mergers, killing attempts to make the cable box market more competitive, and efforts to eliminate net neutrality.

      The goal is to provide an artificial wave of “support” for bad policies, used to then justify bad policy votes. And despite this being something the press has highlighted for the better part of several decades, the practice continues to work wonders. Hell, pretending to serve minority communities while effectively undermining them with bad internet policy is part of the reason Comcast now calls top lobbyist David Cohen the company’s Chief Diversity Officer (something the folks at Comcast hate when I point it out, by the way).

      Last week, we noted how Congress voted to kill relatively modest but necessary FCC privacy protections. You’d be hard pressed to find a single, financially-objective group or person that supports such a move. Even Donald Trump’s most obnoxious supporters were relatively disgusted by the vote. Yet The Intercept notes that groups like the League of United Latin American Citizens and the OCA (Asian Pacific American Advocates) breathlessly urged the FCC to kill the rules, arguing that snoopvertising and data collection would be a great boon to low income families…

    • Revocation Of Broadband Rules Ossifying Poor Privacy Practices, Experts Say

      US President Trump Monday signed the repeal of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadband privacy rules passed by both houses of Congress in March. The decision by Congress and the new administration to smash the FCC broadband privacy rules, data security and security breach notification obligations do not bode well for internet users who want to have a say with regard to their confidentiality, according to a range of tech experts.

    • Encryption to come under renewed fire from European Commission in June

      D-Day for encryption may be here sooner than you think. The EU justice commissioner Věra Jourová said this week that the European Commission will propose in June new measures to enable police to access data from encrypted apps.

      Jourová said there will be three or four options proposed including binding legislation and voluntary agreements with companies.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • RSF calls on Jokowi to honour pledge to let journalists work in West Papua

      Indonesia is ranked 130th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2016 World Press Freedom Index.

    • Final Declaration of the Conference on: Saudi Arabia; Geopolitics in a troubled region

      The Human Rights situation in both Bahrain and Arabia is appalling.

      [...]

      10- The participants call for the immediate release of human rights activists like Nabeel Rajab, Dr Abdul Jalil AlSingace and Abdul Hadi AlKhawaja of Bahrain and Raif Badawi, Abdulla Al Hamed and Abul Khair of Saudi Arabia. They salute the bravery of these activists and urge the West to embrace Arab activism that seeks to improve human rights and achieve democracy in Arabia.

    • Imam in hiding after backing calls to close Aussie Muslim schools

      [...] when asked whether groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir should be banned in Australia she said they should be treated like “skinheads”.

      “White supremacists and all sorts of remnants of the Nazi Party … are stigmatised and they are actively marginalised and that’s what we should do with Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jemaah Islamiyah, with the Diobandi, with the Muslim Brotherhood, with all Islamism organisations that set up shop in Australia and other liberal societies.”

    • Swansea woman ends Saudi Arabia ‘locked up’ court case

      The court heard Miss Al-Jeffrey, who has dual British and Saudi Arabian nationality, had now been promised freedoms which she did not believe she would have been given by her father had it not been for the proceedings.

    • Malaysian MP: OK for rapists to marry victims, even 9-year-olds can marry
    • Want to Buy an Old CIA Rendition Jet?

      For $27.5 million you can own a valuable memento of a dark period of recent American history. The jet above is currently for sale in Dallas, Texas. The Boeing 737 business jet seats up to 16 passengers and includes one queen and two single beds, a lounge bar, and three built-in 42-inch TV screens. The jet’s listing does not mention, however, that in its former career, it was part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s extraordinary rendition program, transporting “high-value” terrorism detainees around the globe to “black sites” where they faced “enhanced” interrogation techniques.

    • Singapore: Authorities given broad new powers to police protests

      As of 3 April, organizers of public events will have to adhere to strict measures including applying for a permit at least 28 days in advance and informing the police of the estimated size of the gathering. Failure to do so will result in a fine of SGD $20,000 or imprisonment for up to a year, or both.

    • US: Release Singaporean Blogger Amos Yee

      US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials should immediately release persecuted Singaporean activist and blogger Amos Yee, who was granted asylum by a US immigration judge on March 24, 2017, PEN America and Human Rights Watch said today. Yee, who has been detained since December, remains in ICE custody on the grounds that the Department of Homeland Security may file an appeal against the grant of asylum.

    • Why the US Approach to Singapore’s Amos Yee Matters

      The inherent problem of defending free speech is that one cannot pick and choose whose speech to defend. It would be so much simpler if every free speech agitator was intelligible and coherent and dignified. But this is seldom the case. And, to be sure, Amos Yee doesn’t fit that description.

      The 18 year-old Singaporean registered his first high-profile arrest in 2015 when he posted a video online mocking the death of the country’s founder and prime minister, the late Lee Kuan Yew. The deceased statesman’s son, Lee Hsien Loong, currently serves as prime minister. A short part of the video included comments about religion, which led to Amos Yee being convicted for wounding religious feelings, a crime under the Sedition Act, and he served 50 days on remand.

      The following year, Yee was once again in front of the courts, and again for insulting religion after posts he made on his blog. Pleading guilty, he was imprisoned for six weeks and fined almost $1,400 for ignoring a notice issued by the police to present himself for questioning.

    • Muslim gets into Stanford University, wrote ‘BlackLivesMatter’ 100 times in essay

      On his Stanford University application, Ahmed was posed the question, “What matters to you, and why?”

      The activist from Princeton, New Jersey, decided to use the opportunity to write “#BlackLivesMatter” a 100 times.

      To his surprise, the answer caught the attention of the California school’s admissions office and Ahmed received his acceptance letter on Friday.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • FCC, FTC Bosses Pen Misleading Editorial Falsely Claiming The Best Way To Protect Your Privacy Moving Forward… Is To Gut Net Neutrality

      As they’ve long made clear, Trump, FCC boss Ajit Pai, and other net neutrality opponents have every intention of killing net neutrality rules. Of course, given the huge, bipartisan consumer popularity of net neutrality, these folks can’t just come out and say they’re doing that, lest they incur the wrath of internet users and activists. As such, they’ve begun laying the groundwork for a misleading argument that attempts to make gutting oversight of the uncompetitive broadband industry — and killing net neutrality — sound almost pleasant.

      The latest example of this came via an op-ed this week in the Washington Post, jointly written by FCC boss Ajit Pai and FTC boss Maureen Ohlhausen, entitled “No, Republicans didn’t just strip away your Internet privacy rights.” Of course they did, and there’s not any real debate that this is what happened, but this being the post-truth era — countless individuals labor under the illusion that facts are somehow negotiable. Amusingly, the editorial can’t even make it a full sentence without being misleading (read: lying)…

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Advisory Group Supports Industry Demand For Audit Of WHO Pandemic Flu Framework

      The World Health Organization has been recommended to provide details on its spending of funds provided to its pandemic influenza framework by the private sector.

      Last week, a longstanding demand by the private sector – the major financial contributor to the framework – was clearly heard by the framework’s advisory group, which recommended an independent audit, according to sources.

      Other topics addressed by the meeting included the management of virus genetic data under the framework, and how to address the decreasing number of viruses shared with the framework.

    • Trademarks

      • “Curry favour with Donald Trump’” by granting trade mark rights… seriously?

        This Kat has come across several news reports recently on “China is trying to curry favour with the new American president by granting him preliminary approvals to his 38 trade mark registrations” (e.g. here and here), which unfortunately contain some unnecessary negative assumptions upon the Chinese trade mark system. To clear the air, this Kat would like to briefly share some fact-based disagreements.

    • Copyrights

      • American Division Of Persona 5 Developer Warns That Their ‘Masters’ Don’t Want People Streaming Spoilers

        This seems like something we’ll need to keep repeating: revealing entertainment spoilers is not copyright infringement. What ought to be common sense is apparently not so for all kinds of content owners in the entertainment space. As such, DMCA notices or threats for DMCA notices have been used to combat spoiler releases in all kinds of forms, from movie predictions, to television show predictions, to video game footage that reveals spoilers. Some of these instances involve actual footage of the copyrighted material while some don’t, but the core of the matter is that if you’re talking copyright infringement because of spoilers, you’re doing copyright wrong.

        The latest version of this comes from Atlus, developers of Persona 5. The American division of Atlus put out a notice on its website, in which it starts off with bubbling excitement over the release of the game, but then spills into a lecture on what gamers can stream and what they cannot.

      • German Court Rules Parents Must Out Their Family Members For Copyright Trolls Or Pay Fines Themselves

        Copyright trolls are a plague spreading across the world, one which has received far too little social medicine for the taste of many. This virulent form of rent-seeking tends to put out some of the more despicable strategies, from flatout falsely accusing people of piracy, lying to international students about the punishment for copyright infringement, and threatening those that expose their actions.

        But a case that was winding its way through German courts sees copyright trolls there now going even further, winning the argument over whether parents should have to serve their own children up to the courts for copyright trolls.

      • Another Major Scandal At The Copyright Office: $25 Million ‘Fake Budget’ Line Item

        On Monday, we published documents we obtained that revealed a massive amount of incompetence and waste at the Copyright Office. They had officially asked for $1.9 million on a technology modernization program, then spent $11.6 million on it without telling anyone about the ever-growing money pit, only to cancel the contract with the vendor last October with nothing to show for it. Oh, and throughout the process, it appeared that the Copyright Register misled both Congress and the Library of Congress.

        It would appear that this is not the only time that the former Register of Copyrights, Maria Pallante, was found to be misleading Congress and the Library of Congress concerning the Copyright Office’s budget and monetary needs. In the recent markup for a bill in the House Judiciary Committee that would make change the Copyright Register position to be a Presidential appointment, rather than by the Librarian of Congress, Rep. Zoe Lofgren revealed that Pallante had apparently put in place a fake $25 million budget line item, asking the Librarian of Congress to testify under oath what it was for, despite it being made up.

      • Kim Dotcom announces Bitcontent, a new Bitcoin venture for content uploaders to earn money

        Controversial New Zealand-based internet mogul Kim Dotcom plans to launch a Bitcoin payments system for users to sell files and video streaming as he fights extradition to the United States for criminal copyright charges.

        The German-born entrepreneur, who is wanted by U.S. law enforcement on copyright and money laundering allegations related to his now-defunct streaming site Megaupload, announced his new venture called ‘Bitcontent’ in a video posted on Youtube this week.

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