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Links 6/7/2021: X.Org Server 21.1 Development Snapshot, Audacity Backlash Grows



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

      • Linux overview | deepin 20.2.2

        In this video, I am going to show an overview of deepin 20.2.2 and some of the applications pre-installed.

      • Steam Sale Recommendations | Linux Gaming

        Here is a list of games I'd suggest getting on the Steam sale, that are fully playable on Linux.

      • BEWARE! Audacity Is Now Spyware. Time To Fork?

        Since Audacity was purchased by MuseGroup, they have been making some very questionable decisions with their software. The most serious things have been the introduction of data collection (including IP addresses) and the fact that they now prohibit children from using their software.

      • RMS Says Stop Saying Adblock, BSD Style, Closed and More

        Recently someone sent me this article from the GNU website about a list of words that you should avoid saying because they're confusing, but the alternatives suggested by RMS and others are equally if not more confusing. Today we go over alternatives to Adblock, BSD Style, Closed and many more.

      • Linux Action News 196

        We try out Pop!_OS 21.04 and share our thoughts on the COSMIC desktop and our reaction to Audacity’s new troubling privacy policy.

        Plus the good, the bad, and the impressive in the new Linux 5.13 release.

      • Late Night Linux – Episode 132

        GitHub might put coders out of a job and piss them off in the process, Audacity’s owners cause more drama, IBM’s surprising management announcement, KDE Korner, and more.

    • Kernel Space

      • The new Linux Kernel supports Apple's M1 [Ed: When you release a kernel and they present or frame you in terms of your rival]

        The Linux community prides itself on the fact that Linux runs on anything from a mundane smart thermometer, Android smartphones, the smart system in your car, the server powering your favourite website or streaming platform and now we can add Apple’s M1 onto that extensive list. The latest kernel release version 5.13 comes with preliminary official M1 support.

        The Linux choice

        I don’t normally cover Linux Kernel releases because I consider them to be too nerdy for the ordinary casual reader but everyone is raving about how Apple’s M1 architecture is. You see when it comes to personal computing Linux is the odd one out. Unlike operating systems such as Windows and macOS that come preinstalled by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM), the bulk of Linux personal computer installations you see out there are a personal choice that is added after one has bought their computer.

      • Latest patches show Rust for Linux project making great strides towards the kernel [Ed: Linux is besieged by monopolies]

        Ojeda also mentioned that Microsoft's Linux Systems Group is contributing and hopes to submit "select Hyper-V drivers written in Rust." Arm is promising assistance with Rust for Linux on ARM-based systems. IBM has contributed Rust kernel support for its PowerPC processor.

      • ASUS Laptop dGPU Toggling, eGPU Handling, Panel Overdrive Patches For Linux - Phoronix

        A set of Linux kernel patches to the asus-wmi driver are pending that improve the support for newer ASUS gaming laptops.

        The ASUS WMI driver patches sent out today by independent developer Luke jones wire up support for panel overdrive, dGPU disabling/toggling, and eGPU enabling for relevant newer ASUS laptops.

        The panel overdrive support is for select ASUS laptops that allow driving the LCD panel slightly faster in order to eliminate/reduce ghosting artifacts.

      • [Old] Torvalds hopes future Linux 5.13 release candidates will ‘start shrinking’

        Linux creator Linus Torvalds has expressed mild concern over the size of kernel 5.13 following its fifth release candidate.

        “Hmm,” Torvalds opened his latest State of the Kernel post. “Things haven’t really started to calm down very much yet, but rc5 seems to be fairly average in size. I’m hoping things will start shrinking now.”

        In April, Torvalds warned that 5.13 would likely be “making up” for the smaller release of 5.12 – a position he maintained following the release of the first release candidate.

      • Graphics Stack

        • xorg-server 21.0.99.1
          This is the first development snapshot of the Xorg 21.1 release series.
          Being a development snapshot it may contain release-critical issues and
          may potentially change in backwards-incompatible ways until the final
          release candidates.
          
          

          Notable changes since 1.20 include:

          - The meson support is now fully mature. While autotools support will still be kept for this release, it will be dropped afterwards.

          - Glamor support for Xvfb.

          - Variable refresh rate support in the modesetting driver.

          - Modifier support is enabled on Xorg by default.

          - XInput 2.4 support which adds touchpad gestures.

          A large number of small features and various bug fixes.

          Note that this development snapshot is nominally of whole X, there will most likely be no proper release. At least Xorg DDX is likely to go the same path as Xwayland.

          Regards, Povilas
        • X.Org Server 21.1 Development Snapshot Released - Phoronix

          There hasn't been a major X.Org Server release since v1.20 three years ago and not much interest in seeing a new release with more Linux distributions switching to Wayland-based desktops and XWayland recently seeing its own standalone releases. But now there is an X.Org Server 21.1 development release as the first step towards a possible new stable release in the future.

          X.Org Server 21.1 is the next version succeeding the 1.20 series. The X.Org Server 21.1 code what was formerly known as X.Org Server 1.21 while in development prior to the versioning change this year.

    • Applications

      • darktable 3.6 Brings Some Big Summer Updates

        The team announced the feature release of darktable 3.6. We round up the key new features and give you the download/upgrade directions.

      • Audacity open source audio editor has become spyware

        One of open source software’s biggest strengths is, naturally, its openness, which brings other benefits like freedom of use, security through scrutiny, flexibility, and more. That is mostly thanks to the open source-friendly licenses these programs use, but, from time to time, someone comes along and tries to make changes that infuriate the community of users and developers. Sometimes, those changes can even be illegal. Such seems to be the fate that has befallen Audacity, one of the open source world’s most popular pieces of software that now comes under a very invasive privacy policy.

      • Audacity is a poster child for what can be achieved with open-source software

        The quality of software the FOSS community has created is nothing short of amazing.

        Not only do we have a complete operating system capable of running on nearly any hardware money can buy, but we have some of the best document, photo, music, and video-editing software available on any platform.

        This embarrassment of riches didn't exist the first time I installed Yellow Dog Linux on an old PowerPC-based Mac. The amazing part is that, in an age when everyone is fighting over the cost of apps and app stores, the total cost of all these amazing tools we use is … nothing.

        I think that's remarkable. What's even more remarkable is that I seldom take the time to appreciate this everyday fact of open source. Most of the time I am focused on getting work done. But every now and then I open a piece of software like Darktable (its competitor ought to be embarrassed to charge the fees it does), or LibreOffice, or Kdenlive, and there's a moment where that "this is amazing" feeling comes through.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Install Fedora 34 Workstation [Step by Step]

        Fedora is a Linux based distribution which offers desktop and server flavors. It is a free and open-source Linux distribution sponsored by Red Hat and developed and contributed by the community. It works as an upstream distribution for Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Hence, with Fedora you get the latest Linux Kernel, packages with cutting edge features and applications.

        Fedora desktop edition offers almost all popular desktop environments. A quick list of desktop environment is below which has official Fedora flavor.

      • How to install ImageJ on a Chromebook

        Today we are looking at how to install ImageJ on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.

      • Cockpit Project: Setting up PCP and Grafana metrics with Cockpit

        Finding performance problems is a common troubleshooting activity. Monitoring the usage of CPU, memory, network, and other resources helps administrators to spot patterns when unusual resource usage occurs.

      • System Calls in Linux

        System calls are a special set of procedures that regular programs (user space processes) can submit to the Linux kernel for working with files, interacting with hardware, accessing internal OS functionality, implement all sorts of communication and process management and basically do anything else that’s sensitive or performance critical enough that OS kernel must enforce strict controls around it.

        Regular processes interface with the OS kernel by supplying a system call name and parameters, the kernel then verifies validity of a system call and executes it within kernel space, returning data and execution status back.

      • [Short Tip] Access system variables in Nushell

        Working with variables in Nushell works mostly like you would expect it. If you want to define a variable, you need the keyword let...

      • How to Install and Use GIMP on Ubuntu

        One thing that users really love about Linux is its open-source development culture. Even if you can't afford to splurge your money on high-end close-sourced software, you don't have to settle with substandard products. The open-source community ensures that by developing and releasing free apps.

        One such app is GIMP, short for GNU Image Manipulation. With GIMP installed on your Ubuntu machine, you can handle all, if not most, of your tasks related to images—including everything from super easy stuff like capturing screenshots and cropping images to more heavy-duty things such as image creation, animation, scripting support, and more.

      • How to query packages information with the rpm package manager

        RPM is the recursive acronym for RPM Package Manager: it is the default low level package manager in some of the most famous and most used Linux distributions, such as Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, OpenSUSE and their derivatives. The software, as you can expect, is free and open source; when invoked with the -q option it can be used to query packages to retrieve specific information, such as dependencies, recommendations, files etc. In this tutorial we learn how to perform such queries.

      • How To Install Foreman on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Foreman on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Foreman is a free and open-source tool for automating the provisioning and configuration of Linux systems. Foreman gives system administrators the power to easily automate repetitive tasks, quickly deploy applications, and proactively manage servers, on-premise or in the cloud. Foreman also integrated with configuration management tools such as Ansible, Chef, Salt, and Puppet, available as plugins to deliver a complete infrastructure lifecycle management.

        This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Foreman on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for Rocky Linux.

      • How to Use seq to Generate a Sequence of Numbers in Linux

        On Linux, you can find several commands with unusual functionalities. One such command is seq, which outputs a sequence of numbers depending on the arguments specified.

        But what can you possibly do with a command-line utility that throws a bunch of digits at you? You'll find out in this guide.

        What Is the seq Command?

        As mentioned above, the seq command in Linux quickly generates a sequence of numeric characters. Users can pass arguments to the command to generate different combinations of numbers. For example, you can get an incremented list by simply passing an additional argument to seq.

        What's the practical use of the command though? While seq might not seem like a powerful tool in its entirety, you can benefit from the command by implementing it with other Linux utilities. You can also use seq in bash scripts to unveil its true power.

      • How to Comment Multiple Lines in Vim Editor - Make Tech Easier

        Vim is one of the most popular and influential command-line text editors. It comes packaged with a lot of functionality and features for any terminal geek. However, Vim can be discouraging to new users – not because it is complex to learn and master, but because it has an unconventional way of doing things. For example, Vim uses shortcuts, modes, and bindings that often take some getting used to, and you need a full article to show you how to exit Vim.

      • How to Install Apache Tomcat 10 on Debian 10

        Apache Tomcat is open-source and the most popular web application server used to host Java-based applications. It comes with Java Servlet, JavaServer Pages (JSP), Java EL, and provides an environment to run Java codes. Tomcat offers a rich set of features including, lightweight, highly flexible, well-documented, offers extra level of security, mature and more.

        In this tutorial, we will explain how to install Apache Tomcat 10 on a Debian 10 server.

      • Bash Shell Tricks - The brace extension

        When working with the Linux command line, there are situations where you need to type large paths. Even if you use the bash shell's autocomplete feature, this is a time-consuming process.

        But do you know that there are times when you can get away with entering a path only once (even if it has to be entered, say, twice)? In this tutorial, we'll briefly discuss how you can do that.

        But before that, it's worth mentioning that all the commands/examples/instructions mentioned here have been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

      • How to Install Magento on AlmaLinux 8 | RoseHosting

        Magento is an open-source e-commerce platform that allows you to create your own online stores within minutes. It is written in PHP and uses MySQL or MariaDB as a database backend. It is used by millions of people to sell and manage their products online.

        If you are looking for an open-source platform to sell your products then Magento is the best choice for you.

        In this post, we will show you how to install Magento on AlmaLinux 8.

      • Set Date and Time on CentOS 8 Desktop and Server

        It is very important that your installed operating system has the correct date and time. A lot of advantages while you properly maintain the time and date of your system. Many processes on your CentOS system, e.g. cronjobs, depend on the correct date and time settings.

        In this tutorial, we will explore the two different ways to set the date and time in CentOS 8.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • Mariam Fahmy GSoC’21 Week 2, 3 and 4: Finalizing learn decimals activities

          In this activity, a decimal number is displayed. the bar with the arrow represents a full unit, and each square in it represents one tenth of this unit, the kid has to drag the arrow to select a part of the bar, and drop the selected part into the empty area so that the number of dropped bars corresponds to the displayed decimal number.

          For every dropped bar, all bars are organized after 1 second from the drop action such that the kid can see the reorganization of bars, as a result we add a place for a 6th bar to have at most 5 full bars.

          The activity provides instruction tutorials on how to play with it, both vertical and horizontal layout are supported.

        • KDE Documentation & New Job at Nextcloud

          It also means I’m leaving my current part-time job at the KDE e.V. working on the documentation tooling. This was shorter than initially planned (a bit more than one month instead of three), but even though I didn’t finish doing everything I wanted to do, I still did a few things during this short time.

          First, I continued my previous work on develop.kde.org, making it possible for the translators to translate the content. For now, only the Kirigami tutorial is translated, but more should be available by simply toggling some switches.

          Another thing I worked on was phasing out docs.plasma-mobile.org. This website was created before develop.k.o was created and develop.k.o is nowadays a better place to add the plasma mobile developer documentation, next to the Kirigami and Plasma tutorials. The small bits of user documentation is getting moved to the plasma-mobile website.

          And also made some small improvements to KApiDox. I fixed the sorting of products to always include the KDE Frameworks and KDE PIM on top made the navbar consistent with develop.kde.org and a made a few other minor tweaks.

          Aside from that I also made many small patches to the API documentation itself in Ki ri ga mi, KGuiAddons, Plasma Workspace and a few other places.

          I will still be around and you can still ping me on Matrix for documentation tooling related questions :)

          Thanks a lot to the KDE e.V. for entrusting me with this responsibility. If you want to help supports others and make KDE software better, consider donating to the KDE e.V.. The donation is tax-deductible in Germany (and maybe in other EU countries too).

      • GNOME Desktop/GTK

        • Christian Hergert: GtkSourceView Searching with PCRE2

          Last year I did some work to make GtkSourceView use PCRE2 for syntax highlighting. The primary motivation there was to improve syntax highlighting performance by using PCRE2’s JIT capability.

          However, that left us in an odd place with how GtkSourceSearchContext works for regex-enabled search. It was using GRegex which itself uses PCRE (1). It’s pretty clear that the goal is to completely deprecate GRegex in GLib and it’s days are numbered. In particular, there is a lot we can’t do to control the execution environment and protect against things like stack overflows. Worsening things, PCRE doesn’t appear to be maintained these days.

        • Maximiliano Sandoval: GSoC 2021 and GNOME Design tools

          This Google School of Code, I decided to work with Bilal Elmoussaoui as a mentor, the goal being updating some GNOME design tools to GTK 4, specifically Icon Library and App Icon Preview. Both apps are written in Rust and make use of the gtk-rs bindings for gtk.

    • Distributions

      • BSD

        • Following NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD Now Has "COVID"

          There is now covid going around the BSDs... DragonFlyBSD has ported it from NetBSD.

          Yes, COVID as in COVID-19 / SARS-CoV-2 but this is actually an open-source package containing the SARS-CoV-2 genome and a manual (man page) encouraging vaccination and other steps to help prevent the spread of COVID.

          DragonFlyBSD lead developer Matthew Dillon ported the covid utility from NetBSD. Following that commit this weekend was a follow-up patch for this covid utility now living in DragonFlyBSD world.

      • Screenshots/Screencasts

      • Debian Family

        • Bálint Réczey: Hello zstd compressed .debs in Ubuntu!

          When Julian Andres Klode and I added initial Zstandard compression support to Ubuntu’s APT and dpkg in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS we planned getting the changes accepted to Debian quickly and making Ubuntu 18.10 the first release where the new compression could speed up package installations and upgrades. Well, it took slightly longer than that.

          Since then many other packages have been updated to support zstd compressed packages and read-only compression has been back-ported to the 16.04 Xenial LTS release, too, on Ubuntu’s side. In Debian, zstd support is available now in APT, debootstrap and reprepro (thanks Dimitri!). It is still under review for inclusion in Debian’s dpkg (BTS bug 892664).

        • Ubuntu 21.10 Compressing Debian Packages With Zstd

          It's coming three years later than originally planned but with Ubuntu 21.10 this autumn the Debian packages will now be compressed via Zstd for offering speedier decompression speeds.

        • Petter Reinholdtsen: Six complete translations of The Debian Administrator's Handbook for Buster

          I am happy observe that the The Debian Administrator's Handbook is available in six languages now.

        • Michael Prokop: Debian bullseye: changes in util-linux #newinbullseye

          Continuing with #newinbullseye. One package that isn’t new but its tools are used by many of us is util-linux, providing many essential system utilities. There is util-linux v2.33.1 in Debian/buster and util-linux v2.36.1 in Debian/bullseye, and as usual there are many new features and options available.

      • Canonical/Ubuntu Family

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • FOSS4G 2022 to be held in Italy

        The 16th annual Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) congress of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) will be held in Florence, Italy, from August 22 to 27, 2022.

        This will be the first time OSGeo’s international congress will have been held in Italy. OSGeo is a non-profit organisation that supports and promotes the collaborative development of free and open source geographic technologies and open geospatial data.

      • FSF

        • Licensing/Legal

          • GitHub Copilot receives criticism from copyright enthusiasts [Ed: Microsoft propaganda sites describe #copyleft like this]

            Last month, Microsoft’s GitHub announced Copilot, a new AI assistance service for software development. GitHub Copilot supports a variety of languages and frameworks and can offer suggestions for whole lines or entire functions right inside an IDE. GitHub Copilot is powered by OpenAI Codex, and it is trained on billions of lines of open source code. Ever since the announcement was made last week, some copyright enthusiasts have criticized GitHub. Some even claimed that Copilot scraps open source code to deliver a paid AI service for developers.

      • Programming/Development

  • Leftovers

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Microsoft suspends SQL Server on Windows Containers Beta, recommends Linux instead [Ed: This just means Microsoft admits that Windows sucks, it doesn't mean it "loves Linux" as Microsoft propaganda sites like to claim]

          Back in 2017, Microsoft announced the SQL Server on Windows Containers Beta program, enabling developers to connect to SQL Server instances from inside the same container or outside it. The benefits included facilitation of setting up and maximizing density of instances for development and test purposes, and to isolate and govern applications in a multi-tenant environment.

        • Security

          • How Developers Can Protect Linux From Vulnerabilities [Ed: Sometimes it feels like the site "Linux Security" is mostly an amplifier of FUD in pursuit of sales (of products you do not really need and are connected to the site's owner)]

            Many of the kernel bugs present in the Linux system are potential security flaws. Hackers use the vulnerabilities inherent in the Linux kernel to gain privilege escalation or to create denial-of-service attack vectors.

          • REvil's Ransomware Success Formula: Constant Innovation [Ed: Windows TCO]

            On Friday, remote management software provider Kaseya was the latest victim to come to light, as REvil's ransomware disrupted operations for its 36,000 customers worldwide, leading U.S. President Joe Biden to order the launch of a full-scale federal investigation.

    • Finance

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Shepardizing Patents

          In a world where patents play an increasingly important role in the technology development and innovation landscape, it is critical that reliable information about the status and history of patents be made available to the public. The USPTO has made a public commitment to the “discoverability, accessibility, and usability of public patent and trademark data”, and as such it can help to collect, organize and display contextual patent data in a simple and user-friendly fashion. A uniform “Shepardization” system for patents, which clearly flags issues for potential licensees, defendants and innovators and alerts the public to the potential investment and threat value of individual patents, would help to make the markets in which patents exist more transparent and efficient.

        • We're All Pirates [sic] Now: Making Do in a Precarious IP Ecosystem

          Fifteen years after the Piracy Paradox explained how most anti-copying protection is unnecessary for a thriving fashion industry, we face another piracy paradox: with broader and stronger IP laws and a digital economy in which IP enforcement is more draconian than ever, what explains the ubiquity of everyday copying, sharing, re-making and re-mixing practices that are the life blood of the internet's expressive and innovative ecosystems? Drawing on empirical data from a decade of research, this short essay provides two examples of this "new piracy paradox": a legal regime that ostensibly punishes piracy in a culture in which it is unavoidable. The examples show how everyday creators and innovators negotiate the necessity of copying others' work with the desire for control over their own work in ways largely orthogonal to IP law. I describe these "adaptations" that combine a narrower scope of rights and qualitative metrics for protection alongside attribution norms, with references to interview data. Both "adaptations" broaden the public domain while building resiliency within creative and innovative communities. Neither lack controversy or contestation, but together they explain how everyday creators and innovators make their way in an IP system that largely fails to adapt or reflect their own values or practices in the Internet age.

        • The U.S. Supreme Court Limits Patent Law’s Assignor Estoppel Doctrine

          Patent law’s assignor estoppel doctrine bars the inventor and those in privity with him or her from challenging the validity during infringement litigation of a patent s/he had assigned. In Minerva Surgical, Inc. v. Hologic, Inc., et al., the Supreme Court limited the doctrine, holding it “applies when, but only when, the assignor’s claim of invalidity contradicts explicit or implicit representations he made in assigning the patent.” The case has implications for those administering a company’s patent protection procedures and in technology company M&A transactions; it also creates issues for the lower courts to resolve in determining whether the doctrine will apply.

          [...]

          The Court rejected both of those positions, holding that “[t]he doctrine applies when, but only when, the assignor’s claim of invalidity contradicts explicit or implicit representations he made in assigning the patent.” As described more below, the Court gives examples of when a claim of invalidity would not contradict such representations.

          The Court reasoned that assignor estoppel should apply “only when its underlying principle of fair dealing comes into play. That principle … demands consistency in representations about a patent’s validity: What creates the unfairness is contradiction. When an assignor warrants that a patent is valid, his later denial of validity breaches norms of equitable dealing.” The “warranty need not be express … the assignment of specific patent claims carries with it an implied assurance” via the inventor’s oath that s/he is “the original inventor” of the “claimed invention,” and the duty to disclose information known to be material to patentability. That is, “[an] inventor presenting an application to the PTO thus states his good-faith belief that his claims … will result in a valid patent … [and] effectively incorporates that assurance” when assigning to another. Conversely, “when the assignor has made neither explicit nor implicit representations in conflict with an invalidity defense, then there is no unfairness in its assertion. And so there is no ground for applying assignor estoppel.”

        • China’s patent law now permits adjustments, extensions of patent terms [Ed: China just grants millions of low-quality patents to game the system]

          Patent protection in China has been a point of concern for device makers for some time, but so has patent piracy. The Peoples Republic of China has issued some amendments to its patent law that allow for adjustments and extensions to the term of a patent, changes that are a welcome bit of news for companies in the life sciences.

        • Texas' busiest patent judge shows no signs of slowing down [Ed: Texas has turned courts into corporations; as a result, patent law has turned into a joke there and it's all about getting "business"]

          U.S. District Judge Alan Albright studied political science in college, perhaps an unexpected major for such a prominent figure in the patent world, which is dominated by lawyers with hard-science and engineering degrees.

          But Albright, the sole permanent judge for the Waco division of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, says his background gives him a different perspective than many in the field and allows him to relate better to juries, which has served him well during his career, both as a patent litigator and as a judge in one of America's busiest and most prominent patent courts.

          For example, Albright said when he was practicing, he once convinced a jury to invalidate a patent based on a book in the "... for Dummies" series.

          [...]

          Albright, a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio and the University of Texas School of Law, said he became "fascinated by every aspect" of patent cases as a magistrate judge in Austin from 1992 to 1999, where he began picking up patent disputes that other judges didn't want to hear as a way to get more time in the courtroom.

          Following that stint on the bench, Albright practiced patent law at firms in Austin including Fish & Richardson and the firm then known as Gray Cary, as well as Bracewell.

          Albright, who was born in Hershey, Pennsylvania and grew up in San Antonio, didn't know Waco well before joining the bench there and was concerned about being perceived as a "carpetbagger," but has tried to endear himself to the community by, among other things, hiring at least one clerk every year from Waco's Baylor Law School.

        • The key data on EPO oppositions in 2020 [Ed: Things worsen at the EPO; its mouthpiece IAM reveals that in addition to sharp decreases in patent quality the pandemic meant less challenge/s to questionable patent grants]

          There was a dip in opposition proceedings last year at the EPO, almost certainly thanks to the covid pandemic. Notably, life sciences patents attracted a high proportion of those that were filed. James Ward of Haseltine Lake Kempner LLP looks at some of the key data points

        • 4 Intellectual Property Myths About Designs [Ed: Well, "Intellectual Property" itself is a myth. It's also a misnomer and deliberately misused propaganda term of litigation fanatics/profiteers (fanatic about money, not science)]

          There's a lot to think about when launching a new product - co-ordinating manufacturers, finding stockists and of course marketing. Intellectual property is, perhaps understandably, not front of mind at such a time. Frequently we see young, creative companies failing to take the right steps to protect their IP at the crucial moment and living to regret it later when lookalike products appear in the marketplace.

        • CVC Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 2 to Deny Priority Benefit [Ed: Imagine patent litigation zealots so greedy that they are cheering for monopolies -- in the patent sense -- on life itself]

          On May 20th, Junior Party the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna; and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, "CVC") filed its Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 2 in Interference No. 106,127 (which names ToolGen as Senior Party), asking the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to deny ToolGen benefit of priority to U.S. provisional application No. 16/717,324, filed October 23, 2012, pursuant to 37 C.F.R. ۤۤ 41.121(a)(1)(ii) and 41.208(a)(3) and Standing Order ۦ 208.4.1. The significance of the Board granting this motion would be that CVC would be Senior Party, with all the presumptions benefiting from Senior Party status.

          [...]

          CVC concedes that, in fact, codon optimization was known in the art as of the '324 application's filing date. But ToolGen's admissions should preclude this fact from overcoming the estoppel-creating admissions, CVC tells the Board in their brief. The legal basis for CVC's argument is based on judicial estoppel (citing Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489 (2006)), and the effect of party admissions on positions taken in a later proceeding before the Board. Citing Springs Window Fashions LP v. Novo Industries, L.P., 323 F.3d 989, 995 (Fed. Cir. 2003), CVC argues that "[t]he public notice function of a patent and its prosecution history requires that a patentee be held to what he declares during the prosecution of his patent" (emphasis in brief); accord, Louis v. Okada, 59 U.S.P.Q.2d 1073, 1075 (B.P.A.I. 2001) (precedential), wherein the Board denied a motion to amend the Count to "better align with [a party's] best proofs" because the party had relied on the element in question to overcome a prior art-based rejection. In addition to Zedner, CVC cites New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 742 (2001), in support of the application of the "equitable doctrine of judicial estoppel" here, and Wilson v. Martin, 789 Fed. Appx. 861, 872 (Fed. Cir. 2019), for the Board having the authority to apply the doctrine. CVC bases its argument on the inconsistency of a finding that there is any basis of support in the '324 for providing a constructive reduction to practice in this interference in the absence of disclosure of codon-optimized CAS9-encoding nucleic acid with ToolGen's consistent position to the contrary during prosecution (as evidenced by citations to the prosecution history throughout the brief). And ToolGen would receive an unfair advantage should the Board rule to the contrary, CVC asserts (that advantage including ToolGen being Senior Party instead of CVC in this interference).

        • Guidance on patenting diagnostics in Australia: Ariosa Diagnostics v Sequenom: The Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia has now confirmed that a non-invasive diagnostic test for prenatal conditions is patentable subject matter in Australia. [Ed: Imagine a system so insane that it treats life and nature as "inventions" and then gives some people monopolies on both]

          Sequenom surprisingly found cell free foetal DNA (cffDNA) in the blood plasma and serum of pregnant women. This discovery allowed: (a) genomic testing of a foetus without invasive testing such as inserting a needle through a mother’s abdomen or cervix (which increases the risk of miscarriage); and (b) more reliable quantitative or qualitative diagnostic testing of a foetus (improving existing methods that may give significant false positive or negative rates). O

        • SCOTUS assignor estoppel edict will inflict ‘administrative pain’

          The US Supreme Court’s ruling in Minerva v Hologic might force R&D businesses to rethink their assignment policies and litigation strategies

        • [Guest post] How much is that SEP in the window? 5 Themes from the IPKat/LSE Nokia v Daimler seminar

          Remember April? We had not yet experienced the torrential rains of May or the Dominic Cummings revenge tour. We also still had a referral pending at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in Nokia v Daimler. The IPKat also hosted its joint-panel with LSE with stakeholders on all sides and at all levels of the issues then before the CJEU aimed at cutting through the noise to get to the heart of the commercial origins of the dispute and what may be the commercial solutions. But then, of course, in a statement published on 1 June, the two companies said they have signed an agreement under which Nokia will license mobile telecoms technology to Daimler. meaning no answers from the CJEU. The social media posts that morning were of course riddled with congratulatory messages greeting the settlement, with some seizing the moment to declare that the settlement meant the end of component-level licensing arguments, while others pointed to the contrary, not least because no one knows the terms of the settlement. Settlement, after all, means both parties have to make compromises and with a cloak of confidentiality, the questions and issues remain and we will have to wait a bit longer for clarity on questions relating to licensing of standard essential patents (SEPs). Continental still has its complaint against Nokia pending with the European Commission that may address these questions and provide greater guidance for companies using connected technologies, or that similar questions will be addressed in other pending cases. So, while we wait, what can we learn from the IPKat/LSE discussion back in April to find a solution.

        • Brexit and patents [Ed: The more corrupt element of Europe -- the EPO -- hasn't been tackled in any way by Brexit. Instead the EU came under attack, ignoring the corrupt elephant in the Munich/Haar hunger room]

          As the European patent regime is not an instrument of the European Union ("EU"), it has remained largely unaffected by Brexit.

        • Software Patents

          • Apple seeks to halt latest VoIP-Pal patent infringement litigation [Ed: Well, see [1, 2, 3] about VoIP-Pal]

            Responding to a recently lodged VoIP-Pal patent lawsuit, Apple in a complaint filed Thursday says it does not infringe on the non-practicing entity's intellectual property and contends that the patents-in-suit are invalid.

            Last week, VoIP-Pal, a firm that exists solely to leverage voice over IP patents against larger technology firms in court, lodged a fresh lawsuit against Apple in the Western District of Texas, claiming the iPhone maker's iMessage and FaceTime products infringe owned intellectual property. The complaint is one in a long line of legal actions VoIP-Pal has taken against Apple over the past five years.

            In its filing with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California today, Apple argues that its services do not infringe on VoIP-Pal IP. Further, the patent troll's clutch of patents, including the pair most recently asserted in Western Texas, are invalid. VoIP-Pal's legal strategy follows a familiar, if not effective, pattern that dates back to at least 2016, Apple suggests.

            [...]

            There are a number of outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved, including motions to dismiss past lawsuits and intradistrict case assignments, but Apple maintains that its products do not infringe on VoIP-Pal's patents. With this latest request for declaratory judgment, Apple seeks to halt VoIP-Pal's newest salvo before it muddies already murky waters.



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