01.01.18

Raw: The EPO’s Disregard for Christmas and New Year’s Days Off

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The EPO is back to tweeting this morning, so someone is working.

Original/full: English [PDF] | French [PDF]

Christmas and New Year's break

Summary: The EPO’s ‘cheapening’ of public holidays goes quite a way back; it was challenged by staff representatives who, even at the time, complained that the committee had been stuffed (or stacked) by Battistelli

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

Permalink Mail Send this to a friend

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

Pages that cross-reference this one

What Else is New

At ZDNet, in 2020, “Linux” Means Microsoft and Windows

The incredible charade of ZDNet carries on; the site whose parent company went bust last December isn’t even trying to hide its true agenda
Red Hat is Spamming People in Order to Promote Its Sites and Its Products, Subscribing People to Mass-Marketing Lists Without the Recipients' Consent

"Engagements" from Red Hat; have the IBM-led marketing people gone overboard, subscribing lots of people to marketing spam without bothering to ask for consent?
“If I'm the Father of Open Source, It Was Done by Artificial Insemination With Stolen Sperm”

The father of the Free software movement, Richard Stallman, is being wrongly compared to some patron of an “open source” ‘movement’ (an early effort to cancel Stallman and the FSF), which is basically a hostile corporations-led ploy these days
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 23, 2020

IRC logs for Wednesday, September 23, 2020
The Second Wave (of Free/Libre Software)

Despite some major setbacks and new threats to digital freedom (autonomy is perhaps a more suitable term), progress is being made and activism must adapt to tackle newer trends
Exploring the Relationship Between Red Hat and Microsoft: They're Barely Even Rivals Anymore

The ‘older Microsoft’ (serial monopolist IBM) bought Red Hat, but evidence shows that one would be wrong to assume Red Hat really competes against Microsoft (any more than Novell did; there’s a strong relationship)
Microsoft Lost More Than 15 Million Web Domains in One Month!

Microsoft's presence on the Web is being reduced to ridiculously low levels; sooner or later Microsoft will turn from 'king' of parked (unused) domains to master of nothing
Links 23/9/2020: Lenovo's Deeper GNU/Linux Dive and Tor Browser 10/Tails 4.10

Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 22, 2020

IRC logs for Tuesday, September 22, 2020
The Latest Greenwashing Campaign by the EPO is Just 'Chinese Propaganda'

When the EPO speaks of “innovation” and “clean energy transition” it means nothing but patents on batteries, in effect monopolies being granted in Europe (to a lot of Asian — not European — companies)
Links 23/9/2020: Librem 14 Shipping in December, Linux Journal Returns, Istio 1.6.10 Released, Release Candidate 3 of LLVM 11.0

Links for the day
Welcome Back, Linux Journal!

Linux Journal is coming back under the ownership/umbrella of Slashdot folks, who are sadly preoccupied and obsessed with Microsoft talking points and PR campaigns
What the Efforts to Remove Dr. Stallman Reveal About the Agenda of Large Corporations (Looking to Absorb the Competition, Remove Freedom, Spread Proprietary Software in 'Open' Clothing)

Richard Stallman's (RMS) positions and foresight are usually correct; at the moment we're losing access to key people whose leadership positions are essential for the independence of cornerstone projects
Links 22/9/2020: Tails 4.11, Linux Lite 5.2 RC1

Links for the day
Minimalism for Maximisation of Productivity and Clutter Mitigation

Unfortunately, GNU/Linux (especially the latter, Linux) embraces bloat and anti-features in pursuit of sales (appeasing large corporations, not users’ needs), reducing the modularity, reliability and productivity of computer systems in the name of helping “dumb” users (they keep telling us people are very dumb and those who disagree are “elitist” and “extremist” or even “neckbeards” — in effect insulting every person out there)
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 21, 2020

IRC logs for Monday, September 21, 2020
Post-Coronavirus Linux.com Became Nothing But a SPAM Site

As per the Linux Foundation‘s very own brochure, scripted and fake ‘interviews’ are to be produced and then edited/negotiated (before publication) with the sponsor… in Linux.com as the platform. This is corruption (or marketing, one might call them de facto ads presented as fake ‘articles’).
Erosion of Free Speech and Tolerance of Opposing Viewpoints in Free Software Communities

The concept of free speech is being reinvented by oversensitive people who nowadays expand the list of exclusions/exemptions (from scope of 'permissible' speech) to politics and criticism of large and highly abusive corporations
Links 21/9/2020: PlasmaShell With Vulkan, Plasma Beta Review Day, OpenMediaVault 5.5.11

Links for the day
Guest Post: The Worrying State of Political Judgement in Free Software Communities

A look at what Mozilla has become and what that teaches us about the Web and about software
Links 21/9/2020: KTechLab 0.50.0, Linux 5.9 RC6

Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 20, 2020

IRC logs for Sunday, September 20, 2020
Git is Free Software, GitHub is Proprietary Trap

More and more people all around the world understand that putting their fruit of labour in Microsoft's proprietary (but 'free') prison is misguided; the only vault they have is for human beings, not code
Daniel Pocock on Codes of Conduct and Their Potential Dangers in Practice

In Debian we’ve already witnessed several examples where Codes of Conduct, if put in the wrong hands (in the Linux Foundation it’s corporate hands), can achieve the very opposite of their intended goal and its a true shame as well as a travesty for legitimate victims of real abuse
Links 20/9/2020: Flameshot Screenshot Tool 0.8, Okular Improvements and More

Links for the day
Reminder: Vice Chair of the Linux Foundation's Board is an Oracle Executive Who Used to Work for Microsoft

The Linux Foundation issued statements to the effect of opposing Donald Trump, but its current leadership (people from companies like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM) is a strong proponent of doing as much business as possible with Trump (even in violation of international law)
[Meme] How to Hijack Linux and Free Software to Make Them Proprietary and Microsoft-Controlled

Intel keeps outsourcing almost everything (that's not proprietary with back doors, e.g. ME) to Microsoft's proprietary software prison, known as GitHub; to make matters worse, Intel now uses the Microsoft-hosted Rust to develop in Microsoft servers, along with Microsoft, code that promotes Microsoft proprietary software (e.g. Hyper-V) and non-standard 'extensions'.
DDOS Attacks Against Us Lately

(Distributed) Denial-of-service attacks or DDOS attacks have slowed down the site, but we treat that as evidence of suppression and fear (of what's to come and what was recently published), or accuracy (in reporting) rather than inaccuracy
[Meme] Windows as Dead Man Walking (Patches Accelerate the Death)

Microsoft is squeezing whatever life is left in its “burning platform” (which is already exceeded in terms of market share by Android) that has a "burning" (bricked) WSL with barely any users and plenty of critical problems
We Let Them Get Away With Murder, But They Make up for It by Banning Words

The Microsoft propaganda machines (notably ZDNet this weekend) are busy portraying Microsoft as a “good company” for censoring words, never mind the actual, meaningful, substantial actions of Microsoft, which is boosting authoritarian people who imprison even babies (for the ‘crime’ of being on the ‘wrong’ side of the border)