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Links 6/12/2021: HowTos and Patents



  • GNU/Linux

    • 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: December 5th, 2021

      This week was all about new distro releases. We’ve got Nitrux 1.7.1, 4MLinux 38.0, NixOS 21.11, EndeavourOS Atlantis, and last but not least a new Arch Linux ISO release, the first to be powered by the Linux 5.15 LTS kernel series.

      On top of that, we got a major Blender release with dozens of goodies for 3D artists, new kernel patches for Ubuntu users, a new update for KDE Plasma fans, the apps roundup for Xfce users, a new app for Ubuntu gamers, and for application developers a new major Qt Creator IDE release.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How To Install phpBB on AlmaLinux 8 - idroot

        In this tutorial, we will show you how to install phpBB on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, phpBB is a free flat-forum bulletin board software written in PHP. It enables individuals and webmasters to set up community bulletin boards in minutes to stay in touch with groups of people or ideas. It also supports popular database engines (MySQL, Oracle Database, PostgreSQL, etc.), flat message structures, hierarchical sub-forums, user groups, full-text search, plugins, and email notifications.

        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 phpBB bulletin board on an AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, and Rocky Linux distributions.

      • How to configure a passwordless sudo in Linux Mint

        Sudo, also known as superuser do, enables a system administrator to assign permission to certain users to execute the commands. This command increases privileges temporarily, allowing users to conduct critical operations without logging in as the root user. As a result, you need to input your login credentials into the system for authentication, verifying that you have the rights to conduct operations.

        However, typing this information repeatedly is a time-consuming operation, but you can disable authentication in specific ways if you like to. So, this article will provide you with details on how you can configure a password-less sudo on Linux Mint. This is only recommended if you are a sole user on the system and no one else is using it except you; otherwise, the authentication feature should be enabled for security reasons.

      • How to configure Static IP Address on Linux Mint

        By default, your system is based on DHCP, a dynamic host control protocol, and its role is to provide you with the available IP address automatically. So, in DHCP, every device is given a unique number that allows it to interact with other networks, and as a result, your device’s IP address may vary from time to time.

        But sometimes, you need a static IP address, and it is required to maintain the same IP address for an extended period. For example, if you configure your system to make it a server, static IP is necessary for communication purposes. You need to make sure that your computer’s IP address never changes if you want people to download files from it. Also, static IP is necessary if you want to access any external shared device such as a printer.

      • How to configure LDAP client on Linux Mint

        The LDAP (acronym of Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) is an industry-standard application protocol to access and maintain Directory Information Services on IP networks. The directory information services map the information of network resources to respective IP addresses. One common example is DNS. The primary purpose of the LDAP clients is to store emails, usernames, and passwords in a central place, and then this data can be used by several applications to validate the users. In this article, LDAP client configuration is performed on Linux Mint.

        Before getting to the configurations, let’s have a look at the working of the LDAP client.

      • How to create a new Virtual Machine on Proxmox? - Unixcop the Unix / Linux the admins deams

        Hello friends. We continue with a series of posts about Proxmox. This is an introduction to allow us to make basic use of this great tool. In this post, you will learn how to create a new virtual machine on Proxmox. Then you will be able to start with the real work with this tool.

      • How do I Add Case to a MySQL Query?

        In MySQL, the CASE statement describes the ways of handling a loop to execute a certain set of conditions and return the case matched using IF-ELSE. It’s a control statement that validates a set of conditions. If there’s any case found TRUE, then it returns the value. If no case matches, it returns the ELSE value. If no ELSE value was defined, then it returns NULL.

        This guide will dive into the CASE statement in MySQL.

      • How to restart a network on Linux Mint

        There are various situations where you need to restart the network on Linux Mint, such as you are not able to connect, or the network speed is slower than usual. It might be that the network settings have been altered, or that the network connection isn’t operating correctly for no apparent reason. So, generally, whenever such a problem occurs, a common treatment is to restart your network. Restarting a network restores all network related settings. This guide is focussing on how you can restart your network on Linux mint.

        There are several techniques you can use to do that, that includes the GUI and the terminal. Follow the one that suits you most depending on your preferences.

      • How to install pgAdmin4 on Manjaro Linux

        The pgAdmin4 is a client for PostgreSQL databases whereas PostgreSQL is an advanced Object-Relational database management system. The pgAdmin4 eases the management of PostgreSQL by providing a visual interface. The notable use of the pgAdmin4 tool is to execute queries, read results, update data, and create databases.

        The pgAdmin4 tool can be obtained on Linux, macOS, and Windows from the project’s website. However, the available setup support cannot be used to install pgAdmin4 on Manjaro Linux. In this article, we have compiled an installation and usage guide of pgadmin4 on Manjaro.

      • How to install Google Drive on Manjaro

        Google Drive is a cloud storage platform that is used to save your data online and you can accessit from anywhere by just signing in to Google account. Google Drive allows you to store data and maintain it. Moreover, it comes with 15GB of space for free, but storage can be increased by switching to premium mode.

        It is a matter of concern that Google has not yet issued the official release for Linux-based systems. However, several clients can be obtained on Linux to use Google Drive’s services.

        Keeping the importance of Google Drive in mind, our today’s post is devised to get Google Chrome on Manjaro Linux.

      • How to install MySQL Workbench on Manjaro Linux

        MySQL Workbench is a multipurpose database management tool that integrates several SQL artifacts. It has a set of features to offer such as SQL development, data modeling, user administration, server configuration, database administration, and many more. The functionalities provided by MySQL Workbench are practiced by Database Administrators and MySQL developers of the organizations using MySQL database management.

      • How to fix SSH connection refused error in Manjaro Linux

        SSH (an acronym of “Secure Shell” or “Secure Socket Shell”) enables the system administrators to establish a secure connection between client and host machines. SSH is used for making a secure connection, no matter if the network is secure or not. The connection using SSH is quite tricky therefore it requires intense attention. And if you have not covered all the aspects of making a connection, you may encounter “connection refused” error while connecting computers using SSH.

      • How To Install Gambas 3 Programming Tools on Debian and Ubuntu

        This tutorial explains how one can setup a full Gambas 3 software development kit on Debian and Ubuntu GNU/Linux operating systems. Gambas is a visual programming language as easy as and similar to Visual Basic by the difference that Gambas is fully free software. With Gambas, anyone can make graphical computer applications by drag and drop and coding with its beginner-purpose BASIC language. Lastly, we at UbuntuBuzz want to enable as many people as possible to develop desktop applications on GNU/Linux by this tutorial. Now let's install it!

      • How to get started with BusyBox on Linux

        BusyBox is a handy utility tool that provides a collection of several stripped-down UNIX shell command-line tools and tiny Linux programs in a single executable file of approximately 2 MB. It runs in multiple environments such as Android, Linux, FreeBSD, and so many others. BusyBox was specifically created for embedded devices with very limited memory and storage space.

        BusyBox is dubbed a Swiss Army knife tool and provides minimalistic replacements for shell utilities that you would find in GNU shellutils, fileutils, and coreutils. It can also be found in Linux distributions with a small footprint such as Alpine Linux.

        In this guide, we will help you get started with Busybox on Linux. We will also learn how to install and use it effectively.

      • How to Install Config Server Firewall (CSF) on Debian/Ubuntu

        ConfigServer and Security Firewall, abbreviated as CSF, is an open-source and advanced firewall designed for Linux systems. It not only provides the basic functionality of a firewall but also offers a wide array of add-on features such as login/intrusion detection, exploit checks, ping of death protection and so much more.

      • Kubernetes Jsonpath with Examples

        When dealing with Kubernetes in a production setting, you will need to see information on hundreds of nodes and thousands of items like deployments, pods, replica sets, services, and secrets, among other things. To get this information, you will use the command kubectl CLI. However, in many cases, you will be required to filter information and get more facts beyond what the default output of kubectl provides.

        Going through thousands of these resources to find such exact information would be a daunting task. As a result, kubectl includes the Jsonpath option, which makes filtering data across big data sets a breeze.

        The kubectl command interacts with the Kubernetes API every time you run it. The Kube-apiserver then sends a JSON-formatted response. kubectl translates it to a human-readable format and displays it on the screen. To make an output understandable, a lot of information from the answer is buried during this procedure, leaving only the relevant fields visible. We can use the -o wide option to get more of it, but this isn’t all of it. There are many more details that aren’t presented.

        You will need to install Ubuntu 20.04 on your Linux operating system to run the instructions in Kubernetes. Additionally, you must install the Minikube cluster on your machine in order to run Kubernetes on Linux. Minikube provides an extraordinarily seamless experience by allowing you to test commands and applications in a methodical manner. As a result, it provides the greatest learning environment for Kubernetes newbies.

        The first step is to begin the Minikube cluster. Then, navigate to the command line terminal in Ubuntu 20.04, which you have installed. You can do so by pressing the Ctrl+Alt+T shortcut key or typing “Terminal” into the Ubuntu 20.04 system’s search box. Either of the aforementioned techniques will launch the entire terminal. The Minikube will thereafter be started. Enter the command “minikube start” in the terminal to start the Minikube. The Kubernetes cluster will be started, and a virtual machine capable of running a single node cluster will be created. It will also work on the kubectl installation. This too will interact with the cluster.

  • Leftovers

    • eBay accidentally suspended ‘a small number’ of users

      Although eBay has acknowledged the issue, we still don’t know how many users were accidentally suspended, as well as why this occurred. However, we can speculate that the mass suspensions might’ve been caused by some kind of error with eBay’s algorithm.

    • Education

      • Universities are not immune to the toxin of stupidity

        Stupidity is the fatal combination of mediocrity and arrogance. I'm not so worried about mediocrity because everyone has a talent: the trick is to identify, develop and apply that talent, to achieve your moments of glory. And although we prefer humility, we tolerate a certain dose of arrogance in a talented person. At high concentrations, however, it becomes neurotoxic, affecting intelligence.

    • Integrity/Availability

    • Defence/Aggression

      • Conspiracy Theories and Tragedy in Douma, Syria

        On April 7, 2018, two Syrian Air Force Mi-8 Helicopters were spotted departing from Dumayr airbase towards the besieged Damascus suburb of Douma, which was in the final days of a years-long conflict between the Assad regime and various rebel groups, most prominently the Saudi-backed extremist faction Jaysh Al Islam. The group was known colloquially for Zahran Alloush, the despised warlord who ruled Douma and Eastern Ghouta with an iron fist until his assassination in a 2015 airstrike. The impoverished suburbs of Damascus had been among the first to rebel against the regime of Bashar al Assad when the Arab Spring protests spread from Tunisia and Egypt to Syria in 2011. By 2012 the Syrian regime had been ejected or withdrawn from much of Damascus, Aleppo, Daraa, Homs, Afrin, and Idlib.

    • Environment

      • Energy

        • Blockchain-based consensus systems are an energy-waste ratchet

          A lot has already been written about different aspects of why most distributed blockchain-based consensus systems are just… bad. And yet we are still able to find new such reasons. At least I think this is a new one. I have not seen it mentioned anywhere so far.

          Distributed blockchain-based consensus systems, as they are currently implemented, are an energy-waste ratchet.

      • Wildlife/Nature

        • A philosopher of science explains how birds perceive time and space differently than humans

          This is not the only way that birds have an unusual relationship with space. While humans only live in the two dimensions offered by the horizontal world, birds have a wide range of vertical options. This would influence a bird's sense of its own body relevant to the rest of the world it inhabits, and also open it up to a universe of sensory experiences based on atmospheric pressures. Humans only experience the atmosphere (for the most part) from the bottom layers, and as something to be inhabited statically. Birds can move up and down layers of the atmosphere with the relative ease of a jogger wandering through types of different terrain.

    • Finance

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

      • January 6 Shows Why Corporate Political Spending Is Bad for Democracy
      • Opinion | Thoughts On the Left's Response to Capitalism's Global Death Spiral

        For those whose personal and political identities are virtually indistinguishable, these are especially vexing times. Specifically, during this historical stage of capitalism it's challenging to abide by Gramsci's optimism of the will and heart and not acquiesce to pessimism of the mind, to the intellect's awareness of certain recalcitrant realities in our world. And residing in the belly of the global beast also compounds one's sense of personal responsibility.€ 

      • Twitter says it mistakenly suspended accounts after 'coordinated and malicious reports' following new privacy policy

        Twitter spokesman Trenton Kennedy said in a statement Friday that the social media giant mistakenly suspended accounts after a “significant amount [of] coordinated and malicious reports” targeted accounts, The Washington Post reported.

        The high volume of reports caused enforcement teams at Twitter to make “several errors.”

      • Trump social media startup receives commitment of $1 billion from unidentified 'diverse group' of investors

        Former President Trump’s social media group, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (TMTG), and its blank-check company announced on Saturday it had received a commitment of $1 billion from an unidentified “diverse group of institutional investors.”

        TMTG and blank-check company Digital World Acquisition Corp. said that "subscription agreements for $1 billion in committed capital" would be received from an unknown group of investors once TMTG and Digital World are combined.

      • Twitter reportedly suspended accounts by mistake after extremists abused new private media policy

        The platform has since launched an internal review of the matter and has made the necessary corrections, The Post notes. Twitter’s new policy, which allows individuals to request takedowns of photos or videos that contain them, has become the target of far-right activists who seek to remove pictures of them taken at hate rallies. The platform originally said that the rule was put in place to “curb the misuse of media to harass, intimate, and reveal the identities of private individuals,” which Twitter says disproportionately affects “women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.”



    • Misinformation/Disinformation

      • Social Media Ad Market to Overtake TV In 2022, Zenith Forecasts

        Zenith also highlighted the growth spurt of social media, fueled by the rise of TikTok, Instagram and others, forecasting that it will reach $177 billion in 2022 to overtake television, which will account for $174 billion. “Social media ad spend will rise to $225 billion by 2024, when it will account for 26.5 percent of all advertising, followed by paid search at 22.5 percent and television at 21.0 percent,” the agency said.

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • Many parents may not hear Nazi echos in their school censorship calls. But they’re there.

        Few, if any, of the parents currently involved in the argument over the direction of their children’s education know about the history of their cause. None are goose-stepping, brown-shirted National Socialists. But they are forcing us to decide whether education should be a window to the future or a door to the past. While the future is uncertain, we know too well where the past led.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Sit-Down Strikes Renewed Labor. Workers Today Could Benefit From That Lesson.
      • Opinion | Belgium Is on the Right Track, But Europe Has Failed Palestine

        The Belgian government's decision on November 25 to label products made in illegal Israeli Jewish settlements is welcome, although it will ultimately prove ineffectual.

      • Opinion | Why We Must Revise the UN Charter to Create a Truly Democratic World

        The nation-state certainly is not the last word in human socio-political development. At least it should not be if a planetary human civilization is to survive long-term. The failure of the Westphalian system in managing and providing global common goods to the benefit of humanity and future generations by now should be obvious for all to see. Insofar, it is right, as Paul Raskin, Zhao Tingyang, and others have done, to describe the current order as a failed state. But the problem runs deeper: there is no global state to start with that could fail.

      • Opinion | Critical Exposés Abound But American Fascism Marches On

        Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1938 message to Congress warned that when private power becomes stronger than the democratic state itself, we have Fascism. There are many ways to witness the intensifying domination toward a corporate state. One way is to compare exposé books in the 1960s and the present.

      • Opinion | Biden Is Upholding Trump's Hateful Vision for the Border

        The immense horrors of the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program are well-documented: the murder, rape, torturing, and kidnapping of asylum seekers forced to wait for their U.S. immigration court dates in Mexico border towns that rank among the world’s most violent.

      • Ilhan Omar Calls Kevin McCarthy 'A Liar and a Coward' for Refusing to Condemn Boebert's Islamophobia

        Congresswoman Ilhan Omar castigated House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Sunday morning, calling the Republican leader both "a liar and a coward" for refusing to condemn recent Islamophobic comments and behavior by Rep. Lauren Boebert, a freshman Republican from Colorado.

        "Words matter. And words can cause violence. And [Boebert] knows that the language she's using—the audience that she's using it for—is going to incite violence against myself and my community."

      • Opinion | California Halted Executions, Now It Should End the Death Penalty Once and for All

        It has been five years since California voters approved Proposition 66, a measure that ostensibly was going to speed up the time between handing down a death sentence and an execution. But as a practical matter, nothing has really changed. In fact, it has been 15 years since California last executed someone, leaving us with a Death Row population of nearly 700 people, none of whom face execution in the foreseeable future.

      • Sanders Calls on Congress to End Filibuster If Needed to Protect Abortion Rights
      • The South's Last Three Abortion-Safe States Are Bracing for a Post-Roe Future
      • Opinion | Racist Travel Bans on African Nations Puts Political Blackface on Omicron Variant

        South African and Botswanan doctors and scientists are being punished for their vigilance and expertise. A host of other southern African nations are being scapegoated just for being in the vicinity. This is the global reward for these predominantly Black nations identifying the Omicron variant of the coronavirus.

      • Millennials: The Generation in Waiting

        But those reformers’ unenviable fate—watching helpless and horrified as the world morphs into something disfigured almost beyond recognition—is what my generation, the millennials, is suffering today. Yes, those millennials, over whom so much ink has been spilled in condescending attempts at psychoanalysis penned by septuagenarian op-ed columnists.

        Ordinarily, I’m skeptical about making age-based generalizations: culturally and politically conservative millennials rarely get attention because they don’t fit the stereotype. And I’m very sympathetic to the idea that generational politics is a “socialism of fools” which misidentifies age as the essential political fault line rather than class. Age and class overlap, but class structure underlies our economy’s woes. Plenty of leftists above thirty-five possess a millennial ethos despite not technically being millennials. This isn’t a case of “don’t trust anyone over thirty.”

      • [Crackers] Are Spamming Businesses’ Receipt Printers With ‘Antiwork’ Manifestos

        But Andrew Morris, the founder of GreyNoise, a cybersecurity firm that monitors the internet, told Motherboard that his firm has seen actual network traffic going to insecure receipt printers, and that it seems someone or multiple people are sending these printing jobs all over the internet indiscriminately, as if spraying or blasting them all over. Morris has a history of catching [crackers] exploiting insecure printers.

        “Someone is using a similar technique as ‘mass scanning’ to massively blast raw TCP data directly to printer services across the internet,” Morris told Motherboard in an online chat. “Basically to every single device that has port TCP 9100 open and print a pre-written document that references /r/antiwork with some workers rights/counter capitalist messaging.”

    • Monopolies

      • Patents

        • Timely trials: are UK patent proceedings becoming easier to expedite? [Ed: This does not help innovation in any way, but patent law firms never cares about it anyway]

          A recent spate of expedition applications raises questions as to whether the speeding up of patent proceedings is becoming more frequent and easier to achieve

          [...]

          The courts have previously said that expedition can only be justified if there is objective urgency and pressing reasons justifying prioritisation being given to one case over the other cases in the court's list. However, although expedition decisions are highly fact specific, recent judgments from the Patents Court suggest that expedition applications are being made more frequently and with a high degree of success.

          These decisions suggest that in addition to the merits of expediting a particular trial, external practical issues such as the general state of the Patents Court list and whether expedition will actively displace other listed trials can be important in tipping the balance in favour of or against expedition. Given the success of recent expedition applications, it seems likely that more requests that are similar will be made in the future.

        • Indivior UK Ltd. v. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories S.A. (Fed. Cir. 2021)

          The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act prescribed two very different post-grant review proceedings in U.S. patent law. The first, post-grant review (PGR), had some analogies with European opposition practice, in that petitions for PGR could be filed no later than nine months after the patent had granted and any ground of patentability was available as the basis for challenge (see 35 U.S.C. ۤ 321 et seq.). The other proceeding, inter partes review (IPR), was available throughout an unexpired patent term but the subject matter of challenge was limited to anticipation under 35 U.S.C. ۤ 102 and obviousness under 35 U.S.C. ۤ 103 (see 35 U.S.C. ۤ 311 et seq.). However, Section 112 issues can be considered in an IPR as a part of construing the claims when questions of priority are raised, and this was the basis for the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to find invalid all but one of the challenged claims in Indivior UK Ltd. v. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories S.A.

          Dr. Reddy's petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of U.S. Patent No. 9,687,454 on the grounds that all claims were anticipated by U.S. Patent Publication 2011/0033541 to Myers. The claims are directed to therapeutic agent-containing films that can be orally dissolved as an administration route for various medicines. The '454 patent is the latest in a series of related applications, the earliest (U.S. Patent Application 12/537,571) dating to 2009. At issue in this IPR was whether the challenged claims were entitled to this earliest filing date, which antedated the publication of the '541 application asserted by Dr. Reddy's for anticipation.

        • Why in-house need specialist and generalist patent litigators [Ed: Patent litigation/blackmail agenda for companies that choose to just sue instead of create things]

          In part two of our generalist-specialist series, counsel at five companies including Sanofi say it’s vital for litigation teams to have deep experts and all-rounders

        • The road to Waco: Alan Albright on his rise to fame and infamy [Ed: Patrick Wingrove is a willing megaphone of a notorious judge who is just the hack of patent trolls, corrupting his court for profit's sake as if courts are corporations; Managing IP does reputation laundering for corrupt courts while trying to corrupt Europe's courts too, e.g. with the UPC]

          The Western District of Texas de-facto patent judge talks about what Trump’s 2016 win meant for him, the supposed patent friendliness of his court, and more

        • Albright picks IP litigator Derek Gilliland as new magistrate judge [Ed: Patrick Wingrove still megaphone of the patent trolls' very own kangaroo court]

          Gilliland, a partner at Sorey & Gilliland in Texas, will start his new role at the District Court for the Western District of Texas on April 1

        • HPE IP chief on why making green patents free is ‘force for good’ [Ed: More greenwashing of patent monopolies; no such patents ought to be permitted in the first place; they steal from the Commons, then pretend to generously give back]

          Brett Alten at HPE tells Managing IP about recruiting companies to join the low-carbon patent pledge and what he wants from outside counsel

        • Top Shareholders of Pfizer and Moderna Made Over $10 Billion After Omicron Arose
        • 'Utterly Obscene': Just 8 Pfizer and Moderna Investors Became $10 Billion Richer After Omicron Emerged

          In the first week that the Omicron variant sparked global fears of a new wave of infections, a small handful of investors and executives with Pfizer and Moderna—currently the world's preeminent makers of Covid-19 vaccines—saw over $10 billion in new wealth, with the Moderna's CEO alone adding over $800 million to his personal fortune.

          "When is a new covid variant good news? When you're a pharma shareholder, obviously."

        • Software Patents

          • Dallas Invents: 127 Patents Granted for Week of Nov. 16 [Ed: Bogus software patents in large quantities]
          • A piece of patent history has been made concerning patentability of computer software inventions [Ed: These patents are not legal, but they keep renaming the category and interjecting their for-profit (litigation) agenda; for a very long time the EPO's Enlarged Board of Appeal has not been functioning at all]

            In March 2021 the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office answered questions concerning patentability of computer software simulations in case G1/19. A Technical Board of Appeal has now applied the answers to the particular patent application and found nothing allowable. Useful guidance about how to protect simulation technologies was given.

            On 26th November 2021 the patent applicant presented oral arguments to the Technical Board of Appeal. The procedure was open to the public as observers. The applicant had submitted several sets of patent claims (referred to as auxiliary requests) to be considered in numerical order. There were 11 requests in total.

            [...]

            It is unfortunate there were not any substantial discussions regarding the technicality of the outputs included into AR10 and AR11, as including features which described directly controlling or influencing real world entities could be deemed to have a far better chance of being considered technical over the whole claim scope compared to the use of inputs in AR7-AR9. A divisional application has been filed but we will need to wait until it is published to see if it corresponds to AR10 and AR11.

            Importantly, applicants are encouraged to take into account the COMVIK approach as closely as possible when drafting applications involving computer implemented processes.

            At the end of the proceedings, it was noted by the attorney that the application in question was drafted before the COMVIK decision and as such was not drafted with the three hurdle approach in mind. This is in contrast to other applications referred to during proceedings (T1892/17 and T0438/14) which were successful, that may have been drafted with the COMVIK approach in mind.

            The decision marked another important chapter in a case that has been alive for over 19 years. A (very relieved looking) attorney was thanked by the Board for promoting healthy discussions about the patentability of simulation related inventions and for making a valuable contribution to the case law.

          • Clearview AI is closer to getting a US patent for its facial recognition technology [Ed: Illegal software patents for company that does something illegal?

            Clearview AI is on track to receive a US patent for its facial recognition technology, according to a report from Politico. The company was reportedly sent a “notice of allowance” by the US Patent and Trademark Office, which means that once it pays the required administration fees, its patent will be officially approved.

            Clearview AI builds its facial recognition database using images of people that it scrapes across social media (and the internet in general), a practice that has the company steeped in controversy. The company’s patent application details its use of a “web crawler” to acquire images, even noting that “online photos associated with a person’s account may help to create additional records of facial recognition data points,” which its machine learning algorithm can then use to find and identify matches.

      • Trademarks

      • Copyrights

        • Spotify removes popular comedians’ content over royalties dispute

          The comics’ efforts are backed by global rights administration company, Spoken Giants, which works to ensure that entertainers are properly compensated for spoken-word content. As the WSJ notes, comedians are typically paid by their label or distributor — along with digital performance rights organization SoundExchange — when a digital service plays their content. However, they’re technically not compensated for writing that content, something that Spoken Giants hopes to change.

        • Hong Kong - Public Consultation on Updating Copyright Regime

          The Government of Hong Kong has released a public consultation paper on updating Hong Kong’s copyright regime on 24 November 2021. Members of the public are invited to provide their views by 23 February 2022.

          [...]

          Unless there are strong public views to introduce changes to the four new issues mentioned above, it would appear that the new amendment bill based on the current consultation would be more or less similar to the 2014 Bill. The amendments relating to online service providers are particularly important.

          Having said that, are these amendments sufficient to keep Hong Kong up-to-date with the developments in other jurisdictions? AI is currently the “hot topic” around the globe. Readers may be aware that the UKIPO has recently called for reviews on AI and IP (as reported here) and the European Commission has also recently addressed AI-related challenges in a draft Artificial Intelligence Regulation (as reported here). The fact that the consultation paper refers AI as a “possible” topic for further discussion shows that there will be an ongoing need to update Hong Kong’s copyright protection regime to keep up with modern developments. In the meantime, as the saying goes, changes always come in baby steps.

        • Google Features YTS and 123movies as "Best Movie Websites"

          Google's algorithms have made life a lot more convenient for many people, but they sometimes lead to peculiar results. When searching for the best movie websites, the search engine features pirate sites including YTS and 123movies in related searches. These and other not-so-legal sites also appear in one of Google's "best movie website" lists.



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Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day