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Links 3/1/2022: KDE's 2022 Roadmap and Resignation of Solus Lead Developer



  • GNU/Linux

    • Audiocasts/Shows

    • Kernel Space

      • Intel releases patch for Alder Lake's Thread Director Linux support to increase performance and energy efficiency

        Website Phoronix reports that the current firmware in Linux uses an algorithm to plan which of the Performance or Efficiency cores utilized by the ITMT/Turbo Boost Max 3.0 driver are accessed at the time. In turn, due to the nature of Linux choosing to lean more towards higher performance, such as what is found in Golden Cove's clock speed, while at the same time lessening the utilization of the energy-efficient Gracemont cores.

        Enter the Intel Hardware Feedback Interface—a table created by the HFI to help provide information for both the performance and energy efficiency of the computer's processor. The HFI table, working together with the OS and the hardware, is constantly updated depending on any changes in the operating conditions or any actions from external factors at the time. An example of this process is the thermal limits reached by the operating system or changes made by the thermal design power.

    • Instructionals/Technical

      • How to Install EndeavourOS Step by Step with Screenshots

        EndeavourOS is a terminal-centric Arch-based Linux distribution that provides a cool and elegant desktop environment and prides itself in having a vibrant community of opensource developers. Like all rolling releases, it’s an evolving distribution that aims at provides the best and the latest software packages. If you fancy an Arch-based distribution with a beginner-friendly User Interface, then EndeavourOS is the go-to Linux flavor.

        In this guide, we will journey through a step-by-step installation of EndeavourOS with screenshots.

      • [Fixed] Host is not allowed to connect to this MySQL server

        Application developers may encounter difficulties connecting to a database hosted on a server other than the local server. In this article, we will resolve a common error that occurs when connecting to a MySQL database remotely from outside the network or from another host.

      • How to Install and Manage Podman Containers in RHEL Systems

        Most of us are familiar with Docker as a popular Container runtime for major Linux distributions. However, when it comes to the RHEL-based distributions such as CentOS, Rocky Linux, and AlmaLinux, Docker is not officially supported.

        This Linux system has instead found favor in a Podman-based Container management library called libpod. This library adapts to the same functional implementation as Kubernetes’ Container Pod concept. Therefore, it is the libpod project that provides the Podman tool making it viably easy to manage Containers, Container Images, and Pods.

        We can officially and uniquely define Podman as a library tool that does not need a Container daemon to manage Containers and Pods. The podman tool hosts created Containers and Pods as part of their child processes.

      • How to Install Maldet (Linux Malware Detect) on Debian 11 Bullseye - LinuxCapable

        Linux Malware Detect (LMD), also known as Maldet, is a malware scanner for Linux released under the GNU GPLv2 license. Maldet is quite popular amongst sysadmins and website devs due to its focus on the detection of PHP backdoors, dark mailers, and many other malicious files that can be uploaded on a compromised website using threat data from network edge intrusion detection systems to extract malware that is actively being used in attacks and generates signatures for detection.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install and use Maldet on Debian 11 Bullseye Desktop or Server.

      • How to Install OpenJDK 17 on Debian 11 Bullseye - LinuxCapable

        Java is a general-purpose, class-based, object-oriented multipurpose programming language that is popular due to the design of having lesser implementation dependencies, meaning that the compiled Java code can be run on all platforms that support Java without the need for recompilation. Java is also fast, secure, and reliable, therefore. It is widely used for developing Java applications in laptops, data centers, game consoles, scientific supercomputers, cell phones, etc.

        The tutorial will look at installing the OpenJDK version instead of the default Oracle JDK. The difference between these two is licensing. OpenJDK is an entirely free open-source Java with a GNU General Public License, and Oracle JDK requires a commercial license under the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement. Other differences are release schedules and other factors that come into play; however, performance is pretty much the same.

        In the following tutorial, you will learn how to install the latest OpenJDK 17 LTS on Debian 11 Bullseye.

      • How to Deploy Kubernetes Cluster on Linux With k0s

        K0s, pronounced kzeros, is a fully-fledged open-source Kubernetes distribution developed by team Lens – the Kubernetes IDE project. K0s is highly configurable and flexible to cover various Kubernetes uses like local and private data centers, IoT and public cloud clusters, and hybrid deployments. It is a simple, solid and certified Kubernetes distribution that can be deployed on any infrastructure. This means that K0s can run on any private or public cloud environment.

        k0s is distributed as a single binary with zero host OS dependencies besides the host OS kernel. It works with any operating system without additional software packages or configuration. Any security vulnerabilities or performance issues can be fixed directly in the k0s distribution.

      • Modern Linux Tools: Command-Line Help - Invidious

        A few of my favorite modern Unix tools: - TLDR: Show well-documented, useful examples of commands. - mcfly: better shell history reverse-search (ctrl-r).

      • How to Burn CD/DVD in Linux Using Brasero

        Frankly speaking, I cannot recall the last time I used a PC with a CD/DVD drive. This is thanks to the ever-evolving tech industry which has seen optical disks replaced by USB drives and other smaller and compact storage media that offer more storage space such as SD cards.

        However, that doesn’t mean that CDs and DVDs are no longer used. A fairly small percentage of users still run old PCs which still support DVD / DC drives. Some of them still deem it fit to burn their files on CDs or DVDs for their own reasons.

    • Desktop Environments/WMs

      • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

        • KDE Gets A 2022 Roadmap - Plasma Wayland To Shine, Updated Breeze Icons
        • KDE roadmap for 2022

          Another year, another roadmap! Last year’s was a smashing success, as we delivered on everything. So here’s what I think we can expect in 2022. As always, this is not an official planning document or a promise; it’s just me giving you a sneak peak of some things that are in progress or about to start, and that I think will be feasible to complete before the year’s end!

          The Languages and Formats pages in System Settings have long been problematic because their scopes overlapped. Not for long! Han Young is working on merging them together into one new page that handles both, making it clear what applies when and making it harder or impossible to mess up your system by choosing incompatible settings. This is in progress and I expect it to be completed sometime in the first half of 2021.

    • Distributions

      • Solus Lead Dev Resigns, Joins Serpent OS and Plans to Fork Budgie Under a New Organization

        The co-lead of Solus Project has decided to leave and move on to work on something else, unhappy with the current state of Solus and lack of acknowledgement for the issues raised.

      • Debian Family

        • A custom Debian installer: v-i

          I’m doing a (custom) Debian installer (just a hobby, won’t be useful and reliable like the official one) for my Thinkpad X220 laptop. This has been brewing since August 2018, and is starting to get ready. I’d like no feedback on things people like/dislike in the official installer, as my installer resembles it not at all.

          I’ve currently installed Debian on my X220, with full disk encryption, and it seems to boot and allow me to log in via SSH. This implies that I’ll get something else to be stubborn about within a few months, and I’d like to let someone else make it work other people’s computers. Any volunteers are welcome, but I won’t promise I’ll have much energy to help.

          To be clear, my installer only works on my X220. Not your X220, and not on any other computer. But it’d probably be feasible to make it work on other PCs.

    • Devices/Embedded

    • Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

      • Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Cisco DNA Center

        Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational technology corporation that focuses on networking hardware and software. It has over 75,000 employees with its headquarters in San Jose, California.

        Cisco has been participating in open source development for almost 30 years including founding projects like OpenDaylight, FD.io, VPP, PNDA, SNAS, and OpenH264, and contributing to projects like OPNFV, Kubernetes, OpenStack, Ansible, Chef, Puppet, Maven, and many others.

        Cisco has also been a key contributor to the Linux kernel over the years, accounting for about 0.5% of total kernel commits, and is a Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation and Premium Sponsor of the Open Source Initiative.

        From a software perspective, Cisco’s main focus is developing proprietary programs. In this series we look at free and open source alternatives to their products.

      • 2021’s Top Ten: What You Read on FOSS Force

        1. A German State Is Saying Goodbye Windows, Hello Linux: The state parliament of Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany has already produced plans to make the state government almost 100% open source by the end of 2026.

  • Leftovers

    • Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

      • Industrialized Farming Has Unleashed an Insect Apocalypse
      • Doctors Are Urging Medicare to Deny Coverage for Controversial Alzheimer's Drug
      • Expect an 'Unprecedented Number of Social Disruptions' Amid Omicron Surge: Health Experts

        As the ultra-transmissible Omicron variant causes Covid-19 cases in the United States and around the world to explode at an unprecedented rate, public health experts are warning that the first month of 2022 is likely to be defined by more suffering and widespread disruptions of daily life.

        "Omicron is truly everywhere," Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University's School of Public Health, told CNN on Friday night. "What I am so worried about over the next month or so is that our economy is going to shut down, not because of policies from the federal government or from the state governments, but rather because so many of us are ill."

      • [Old] Bigger vehicles are directly resulting in more deaths of people walking

        To put it simply, pickup trucks and SUVs are two to three times more likely than smaller personal vehicles to kill people walking in the event of a crash. Recent research from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee found the share of pedestrian deaths involving trucks, vans, and SUVs has increased from 22 to 44 percent since the mid-1980s. More SUVs and trucks in the fleet = more pedestrian injuries becoming deaths instead.

        You don’t need a PhD to see why trucks and SUVs are more likely to kill people walking: They’re taller, have worse visibility, and are more likely to produce head/neck injuries than leg injuries.

      • [Old] America’s car crash epidemic

        Oslo, incredibly, virtually eliminated traffic deaths in 2019 by aggressively reducing speeds, banning cars from the city center, and building out a robust bike path network. Very slow speeds and car-free zones are becoming the norm in many European cities.

        Americans might imagine that Europeans are somehow naturally predisposed to dense development that deprioritizes cars, but that isn’t exactly true. Car-centric development came to Europe in the mid-20th century, just as it did to the US.

        The Netherlands’ car fatality rate was once higher than America’s; now it’s one-third of it. In the 1970s, a citizens movement called “Stop de Kindermoord,” or “Stop Murdering Children,” protested the country’s epidemic of death by cars. “They were just sick and tired of kids being killed in the streets,” says Jason Slaughter, a Canadian immigrant in Amsterdam who runs Not Just Bikes, an urban planning YouTube channel. Combined with the 1973 oil crisis, public outcry helped transform Dutch streets.

    • Integrity/Availability

      • Proprietary

        • Tesla recalls 475,000 vehicles due to camera and front trunk issues

          Two voluntary recall reports were filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with Tesla stores and service centers notified last week of the recalls.

          All Model 3 cars made between 2017 and 2020, a total of 356,309 vehicles, are being recalled due to a cable that, over time, may separate after wear and tear, blocking the rear-view camera feed.

        • Tesla recalls nearly half a million Model 3 and Model S cars

          According to documents submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are 475,318 vehicles subject to the recall, comprising 356,309 Model 3 vehicles and 119,109 Model S vehicles. Tesla estimates that only 1 percent of the Model 3 vehicles will actually display the defect, compared to 14 percent of the recalled Model S vehicles.

        • Tesla recalls nearly 500,000 cars to fix safety defects

          Both issues increase the chances of an accident. Tesla will inspect the recalled cars and make any needed repairs at no cost to owners.

    • Defence/Aggression

    • Environment

    • Finance

      • "Localization" Can Help Free the Planet From Neoliberal Globalization
      • Staten Island Amazon Workers Pause Unionization Battle, But the Fight Isn't Over
      • Review: Crashed by Adam Tooze

        The histories of the 2008 financial crisis that I have read focus almost exclusively on the United States. They also stop after the bank rescue and TARP or, if they press on into the aftermath, focus on the resulting damage to the US economy and the widespread pain of falling housing prices and foreclosure. Crashed does neither, instead arguing that 2008 was a crisis of European banks as much as American banks. It extends its history to cover the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, treating it as a continuation of the same crisis in a different guise. In the process, Tooze makes a compelling argument that one can draw a clear, if wandering, line from the moral revulsion at the propping up of the international banking system to Brexit and Trump.

        Qualifications first, since they are important for this type of comprehensive and, in places, surprising and counterintuitive history. Adam Tooze is Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University and the director of its European Institute. His previous books have won multiple awards, and Crashed won the Lionel Gelber Prize for non-fiction on foreign policy. That it won a prize in that topic, rather than history or economics, is a hint at Tooze's chosen lens.

        [...]

        The institution that saved the European banks was the United States Federal Reserve. This was an act of economic self-protection, not largesse; in the absence of dollar liquidity, the fire sale of dollar assets by European banks in a desperate attempt to cover their loans would have exacerbated the market crash. But it's remarkable in its extent, and in how deeply this contradicts the later public political position that 2008 was an American recession caused by American banks. 52% of the mortgage-backed securities purchased by the Federal Reserve in its quantitative easing policies (popularly known as QE1, QE2, and QE3) were sold by foreign banks. Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse unloaded more securities on the Fed than any American bank by a significant margin. And when that wasn't enough, the Fed went farther and extended swap lines to major national banks, providing them dollar liquidity that they could then pass along to their local institutions.

    • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Censorship/Free Speech

      • A Digital Manhunt: How Chinese Police Track Critics on Twitter and Facebook

        The contractor said he used the rankings to classify infractions on dossiers he submitted to his bosses in China’s security apparatus. In a sample document reviewed by The Times, he listed key details about each person he looked into, including personal and career information and professional and family connections to China, as well as a statistical analysis of the reach of the person’s account. His approach was corroborated by procurement documents and guides for online security workers.

        Over the past year, he said, he had been assigned to investigate a mix of Chinese undergraduates studying in the United States, a Chinese American policy analyst who is a U.S. citizen and journalists who previously worked in China.

        Those caught up in the dragnet are often baffled at how the authorities linked them to anonymous social media accounts on international platforms.

    • Civil Rights/Policing

      • Settler-Colonialism in a Cross-Cultural Perspective

        This is in diametrically opposed and tragic contrast to the Native American tribes of New England the seeds of whose destruction were sown beginning with intermittent contact with murderous, disease-ridden, and slave-trading European explorers and elevated to a foregone conclusion with the arrival of the Mayflower in November 1620 and the Great Puritan Migration that followed.

        This ignominious history is not only academic but also intensely personal, as I am both a permanent resident of Vietnam and a direct and collateral descendant of settler-colonizers, both saints and strangers, who arrived in their New World in 1610 and 1620. If they hadn’t been there at that fleeting moment in history, I wouldn’t be here in this unique genetic form. That said, it is a painful reality that gives me pause.

      • Fighting For You From Coast to Coast: 2021 In Review

        We helped win a huge victory in for all Californians this year, finally securing an historic $6 billion investment for broadband infrastructure for the state of California. Building on the work and community support we started building in 2020 for investment to close the digital divide, we were able to help bring those efforts across the finish line.

        EFF has vocally supported efforts to expand and improve broadband infrastructure to bring access to 21st-century broadband technology to every community. For years, internet service providers have carved up the state, neglecting low-income and rural communities. It's become abundantly clear that the market alone will not close the digital divide; that's why we need policy. The struggles many people had while learning and working remotely in the pandemic made it clearer than ever that California needed to change the status quo.

        California’s new broadband program approaches the problem on multiple fronts. It empowers local public entities, local private actors, and the state government itself to be the source of the solution. Through a combination of new construction, low-interest loans, and grants, this money will allow communities to have more input on where and how networks are built.

      • How Woody Harrelson (Unwittingly) Helped Nab A Shoplifter

        The photo manipulation can include sitcom-sounding practices, like the copying and pasting of random stock images of eyes and lips onto people's faces. Unsurprisingly, this may confuse the recognition algorithms, so the matches produced by these Frankenstein-ian aesthetic amalgamations may not always be 100% faithful. Also, we're no fancy big-city law folk or anything, but this sounds legally iffy.

    • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

      • Opinion | To Curb Facebook's Political Power, Take Away Its Section 230 Protection

        I have been engaging on Twitter recently on my ideas on repealing Section 230. Not surprisingly, I provoked a considerable response. While much of it was angry ad hominems, some of it involved thoughtful comments, especially those from Jeff Koseff and Mike Masnick, the latter of whom took the time to write a full€ column€ responding to my proposals on repeal.

    • Monopolies

      • Antitrust Law and the Right to Settle: The Case of Pay-for-Delay Settlements

        In the spring of 2021, pay-for-delay settlements took over the legal scene on the both sides of the Atlantic. In March, following the line of reasoning it had elaborated in Generics, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decided Lundbeck. It dismissed the appeals brought against the homonymous decision of the European Commission (EC), which had fined a number of patent settlements in which brand-name drug manufactures had paid generic drug producers to delay their entry in the market of citalopram-based antidepressant medications. A few weeks later, in the US, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decided Impax. It affirmed the decision of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which, in its first post-Actavis patent settlement case, had fined a generic drug producer for having accepted payments to delay the entry in the market of an opioid named oxymorphone. Meanwhile, some House representatives introduced a new bill on pay-for-delay settlements which has not yet passed. At first glance, one might be tempted to place these settlements at the heart of the interface between antitrust and patent law. The aforementioned rulings – which, in the United States and the European Union are not anomalous but follow a recent case law – have instead used the case of pay-for-delay settlements to establish when antitrust law should limit firms’ right to settle. The paper discusses such a shift in perspective.

      • Patents

        • With emergence of the Omicron, Canada must finally waive COVID-19 vaccine patents: Singh [Ed: Patents are killing millions of people at the moment]

          NDP leader Jagmeet Singh says the emergence of the Omicron variant means the Liberal government must finally back international calls to waive patents on COVID-19 vaccines.

          “With what we’re seeing in the Omicron variant, is that unless and until we do our part in tackling the global pandemic, meaning we help people around the world, we will not be able to beat this pandemic,” Singh told reporters on Parliament Hill Tuesday.

          [...]

          The WTO said in a press release Monday that “members expressed unanimous support for maintaining the momentum of the discussions on a common intellectual property (IP) response to COVID-19.” That includes the proposal by India and South Africa asking for a patent waiver.

          It said delegations are “committed to continue engaging in various configurations in the coming weeks to try and harvest any outcome that may still be possible.”

          Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said in the spring that he supports a temporary suspension to intellectual property rules, as dozens of MPs from all parties, including Liberals, signed an open letter calling on the government to support the waiver.

          “Opponents of the waiver proposal argue that patent monopolies are necessary to allow firms to recover their investments in research and development. However, given that COVID-19 vaccine development was primarily financed through public investment and advanced market commitments, we strongly believe this justification does not apply,” the letter said.

          Asked how much of a difference he believes Canada’s voice could make on this issue, given that it’s an international decision, Singh said “it’s a part of our fight. It’s a part of what Canada can do.”

        • Research on Healthcare Innovations in India: Before, During and Beyond COVID-19 [Ed: Just put aside patents and do actual research with life-saving, not money, as motivator]

          The healthcare sector is one of the fastest-growing sectors globally as well as in India, with innovations being one of the key drivers of this growth, especially during this novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. Given its importance for the present and future, healthcare innovations have emerged as an important area of research and practice. The Indian innovation ecosystem is a vibrant space and India has emerged as the world’s third-largest startup economy. However, there has been no systematic collation and understanding of the literature on healthcare innovations in the Indian context. This study aims to fill this gap and help understand the existing scope and nature of research on healthcare innovations in India to identify research gaps for future studies.

          A scoping review of published peer-reviewed literature from the Scopus database was performed on healthcare innovations in India in the last 26 years (1996-2021). The selected studies were analysed using multidimensional criteria and an iterative inductive approach, followed by a narrative synthesis to present the findings using a multiparadigmatic framework.

          The review found that the concept of healthcare innovation was not uniform across these studies. Theory building studies and studies on the healthcare innovation ecosystem and policies have been limited. The studies identified changes in design, services, products, technology, organization, system interaction and conceptual elements as innovations. Healthcare innovations are important in public health, clinical practice, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and Indigenous System of Medicine (ISM), but are affected by the international and national policies affecting the ecosystem. The need for inclusive and convergent innovation as a driver for equity and increasing the translational rate of healthcare technologies also emerges from the analysis. The review identified research gaps and proposed key areas for future research across different domains of healthcare innovation.

        • Patent Enforcement and Subsequent Innovation ][Ed: On mythology of litigation as key to innovation]

          How does patent enforcement affect subsequent innovation? I exploit patent infringement litigation in the United States to analyze the effect of patent enforcement on cumulative innovation. The results imply that subsequent innovation increase after a case is filed in a court. While there is a strong increase during the litigation period, the relative effect size decreases in the years following the closure of the case. Further results imply that signals about the value of the patent and reductions in asymmetric information are particular driver of the increase in follow-on innovation. Although there is a general positive effect, subsequent innovation show a low degree of novelty and are close to the litigated patents in terms of technological proximity and general similarity.

        • Court says Intel can contest parts of Qualcomm mobile patents [Ed: Why devices are so expensive (lots and lots of patent thickets including many on software)]

          Intel Corp got a new chance to challenge two Qualcomm Inc smartphone patents on Tuesday, when a U.S. appeals court held that a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office tribunal had wrongly rejected Intel's arguments that parts of the patents were invalid.

          The two rulings by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit also said Qualcomm's 2019 global settlement of a related patent dispute with Apple Inc over iPhones, iPads and other devices using Intel modem chips didn't prevent the court from hearing Intel's appeals.

          Qualcomm sued Apple for allegedly infringing several patents in 2017, and Intel challenged the validity of the two patents at issue at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in 2018. One of the patents relates to receiving data transmissions, the other to data processing.

          The PTAB invalidated some parts of both patents in 2020, but found others valid. Intel appealed the board's decisions on the surviving parts of the patents.

        • Fighting For A More Open, Balanced Patent System: 2021 in Review

          But there’s reason for hope. Patent trolls have finally been seen as the problem they are, and both courts and Congress seem to be moving away from simplistic misconceptions like believing they can create more innovation just by handing out more patents.€ 

          This year, EFF fought hard for increased transparency in the patent system that will allow us to call out the worst actors, and ultimately get a more balanced patent system. We also worked to defend and strengthen patent review systems that allow the worst patents to be kicked out of the system more efficiently.€ 

          Patent cases in particular suffer from a problem of overzealous secrecy. In 2019, EFF intervened in a court case called Uniloc v. Apple to defend the public’s right to know the details of what’s going on in patent cases. This case was an egregious one, in which a patent troll that had sued hundreds of companies was sealing up court records showing whether it even had the right to sue at all.€ 

        • Apple sued for $7.5M over alleged LED, mini LED patent infringement

          Apple has become the target of another patent infringement lawsuit, this time by an LED producer claiming Apple infringes on patents relating to LED packaging and mini LED technology with its iPad Pro.

          Filed at the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court of Taiwan, the lawsuit by New Century Optoelectronics accuses Apple of infringing on a total of nine LED patents. The patents relate to both LED and Mini LED, largely in the context of packaging, referring to how chips and wires are encased and protected.

        • What to watch for in patent law in 2022 [Ed: Patent maximalists on patent law in media owned by billionaires who rely on state-enforced monopolies]

          This year could bring big shifts in patent law, with a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case about patent eligibility, a new U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director, and significant changes to the PTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board all potentially in store.

          Will the Supreme Court or U.S. lawmakers take up patent eligibility?

          American Axle and Manufacturing Inc v. Neapco is the biggest chance in years for the Supreme Court to take up the contentious question of when an invention can be patented. The case, involving an invention related to quieting noisy driveshafts, produced an even split at the Federal Circuit, and all of its judges have asked the high court to weigh in.

          The confusion around patent eligibility could also inspire Congress to take action – a bipartisan group of U.S. senators said in a March letter that it was "past time that Congress act to address this issue."

        • Moderna Drops After Losing Appeal Over Drug-Delivery Patents [Ed: No sympathy for these monopolisers and grifters who storm the media, turning news into marketing with misinformation and hate speech]

          Moderna Inc. shares plunged after the pharmaceutical company lost an appeal of a patent ruling involving a rival’s drug-delivery technology, which could make its Covid-19 vaccine vulnerable to infringement suits.

          A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Wednesday affirmed decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on two Arbutus Biopharma Corp. patents. The court said Moderna had no standing to appeal the ruling on one patent because it hadn’t developed its Covid vaccine until after it filed the appeal -- the pandemic hadn’t yet begun. The panel also affirmed the board’s finding that Moderna hadn’t proven the second patent covers an obvious invention.

        • Who Invented Covid-19 Vaccines? Drugmakers Battle Over Patents [Ed: Nobody invented them, but some robber barons monopolise them using patents, acquired on the backs of taxpayers]

          A high-stakes legal battle is taking shape over lucrative patent rights for Covid-19 vaccines, with drug companies pitted against each other and government and academic scientists over who invented what.

        • Can natural disasters affect innovation? Evidence from Hurricane Katrina

          Studies of the geography of innovation have focused on how spatial proximity to human and material resources and institutions affect collaboration, knowledge flows, the demand and competition for invention, and the economic value of invention. I study a different source of the geographical determinants of innovation: exposure to large shocks. I conduct an inductive assessment, theoretically grounded on recent evidence that large exogenous shocks produce enduring fluctuations in risk aversion, to explain why Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. could have changed innovation outcomes. The difference-in-difference estimates show that, after an immediate fall, affected counties exhibit substantial increases in the growth rate of patenting and the quality of innovation compared to counterfactual counties. This correlation persists 10 years after the shock and is robust to measures of agglomeration and urbanization, firm resources, wealth, actual and expected income, education, external assistance, public policy, business cycles, and other county- and state-level factors. To account for the confounds of selective migration and network affiliation, I use narrowly georeferenced information to construct histories of inventors between 1999 and 2015 that allow me to follow the “Katrina effect” across geographies. The estimates imply that shock-affected individuals not only were more likely to patent, but became more skewed toward high-technology sectors.

        • U.S. government must face patent case over armored vehicles [Ed: Even the military builds up patent monopolies that taxpayers needs to pay for, in spite of the taxpayers subsiding these companies]

          The U.S. government and defense contractors Oshkosh Corp and General Dynamics shouldn't have been allowed to escape claims that they infringed another contractor's patents for an armored vehicle, a U.S. appeals court said Friday.

          A unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit revived Ideal Innovations Inc's case at a lower court, finding factual questions about its research agreement with the U.S. Army justified a trial.

          The U.S. Department of Justice, Oshkosh, and General Dynamics declined to comment. Ideal Innovations and its attorney Ahmed Davis of Fish & Richardson didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

        • USPTO announces PPH pilot program with the National Institute of Industrial Property of France [Ed: USPTO liaising with deeply corrupt INPI to promote litigation agenda at the expense of science]

          USPTO announces PPH pilot program with the National Institute of Industrial Property of France The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will commence a Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot program with the National Institute of Industrial Property of France (INPI) on December 1, 2021. Under the pilot, a PPH request may be submitted to the USPTO based on a patent application that was filed in the INPI on or after May 22, 2020.

        • Biden's PTO pick calls for clarity on patent-eligibility controversy [Ed: Biden is propping up a Microsofter who is promoting software patents]

          Winston & Strawn partner Kathi Vidal said in a Wednesday hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee that she would focus on "strengthening the value of IP" if confirmed to head the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and addressed questions about divisive issues such as patent eligibility and PTO patent-challenge procedures from senators on both sides of the aisle.

          "We can work together to build an intellectual property system that is more predictable, reliable and transparent," Vidal said.

          Patent attorneys have said Vidal, who leads Winston & Strawn's Silicon Valley office, is "eminently qualified" and a "safe pick" for the role. She has extensive experience as a patent litigator, and has represented companies including Microsoft Corp, Tesla Inc, Intel Corp, Dell Corp and Spotify Technologies SA.

        • [Older] India to push for patent waiver for COVID-19 vaccines at WTO [Ed: Everybody should speak about these mad and unjust patents on vaccines; the patent monopolies kill far more people than so-called 'unvaccinated' people do]

          India will lead demands for an intellectual property rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines and supplies at a World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting next week, two government officials said.

          A year after India and South Africa introduced a proposal https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-wto/india-and-south-africa-ask-wto-to-waive-rules-to-aid-covid-19-drug-production-idUSKBN26P0H1 to temporarily waive intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies at the WTO, negotiations are deadlocked in the face of opposition from some developed countries.

        • After winning $1 bln in Apple case, Caltech sues Samsung over same patents

          The California Institute of Technology has made Samsung its latest target for allegedly infringing its Wi-Fi patents following its $1.1 billion win against Apple and Broadcom last year, according to a complaint filed in East Texas federal court Friday.

          Caltech said in the new lawsuit that Samsung's Galaxy phones, tablets, and watches use Wi-Fi chips that infringe five of its data-transmission patents, in addition to other Wi-Fi-enabled Samsung products including televisions and refrigerators.

          Samsung didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Caltech or its attorney Daniel Shih of Susman Godfrey.

        • Apple quietly filed 2 patents, and it may hint that the giant has a drone in the works

          A patent application published last month suggests Apple may be working to develop a drone.

          The giant had previously filed two other patent applications, indicating some effort had been made to keep the project quiet.

          9to5Mac explained that there are two ways a company can try and conceal patent applications.

          It can delay the date that a patent application is made public, and it can submit the application in another country.

          It appears that Apple did both these things.

        • NTRB Stock Alert: The Patent News Sending Nutriband Soaring

          Nutriband (NASDAQ:NTRB) stock is soaring 170% in mid-morning trading after the company announced today that it was granted a patent for “abuse deterrent” technology, called Aversa. The patent was granted by South Korea’s Korean Intellectual Property Office, or KIPO.

      • Trademarks

        • Trademark application filed in bad faith - Commentary - Lexology

          This article discusses a controversy that emerged between the members of a company regarding a sign that was used by the company. One member of the company filed a trademark application covering the sign with the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO), which registered the mark in that member's favour. The company requested a review of the HIPO's decision, alleging that the member had filed the application in bad faith.

        • Virtual battles

          The reality around us is moving more and more to the virtual world.

        • Trademark procedures and strategies: Germany [Ed: "worldtrademarkreview" is nowadays composed by litigation firms like Team UPC/COHAUSZ & FLORACK (basically chronic liars) instead of actual journalists ]

          The following are enforceable in Germany: German trademarks, EU trademarks, German trademarks based on international registrations, names and non-registered trade designations. German trademarks are governed by the Trademark Act, which implements the EU Trademark Directive (89/104/EEC) and the Regulation on Trademark-Related Administrative Proceedings.

        • 2021 Wrap up – EUTMs in Luxembourg

          2021 has yet again been a busy year for the General Court when it comes to decisions dealing with EU trademarks. It would also have been busy for the Court of Justice; however, alas, also in 2021 the CJEU has not allowed a single appeal in EUTM matters to proceed, rejecting 47 appeals as not being “significant with respect to the unity, consistency or development of EU law”, including in the MONOPOLY case (order of 1 December 2021, C-373/21 P). This is a shame as this practice deprives the IP community of necessary guidance on essential questions of EU IP laws. After all, the case law of the GC is far from consistent.

          There is, however, a shimmer of hope: in Community design law, the CJEU has only just allowed the first appeal to proceed (10 December 2021, C-382/21-P). This is the appeal brought by the EUIPO in The KaiKai Company, where the GC had stated that priority for a Community design could be claimed from an earlier patent, and that the priority period depended on the nature of the right from which priority was claimed, allowing therefore 12 months for the priority claim rather than 6 months. That decision contains so many fundamental(ly wrong) statements that it is a relief that the EUIPO’s appeal has finally taken the hurdle of admission. More on this case in 2022!

          Back to EU trademarks. Of the reported General Court decisions from 2021 – and this analysis is based solely on the cases reported on eSearch Case Law, the EUIPO’s case law database – 130 concerned relative grounds, half that number absolute grounds. 15 cases dealt with procedural issues, and 17 each focused on issues of genuine use of trade marks or bad faith. Quite a number of cases were closed without judgment.

        • Champagne, lipstick, energy drinks: the five most-read Legal Updates of the year
        • Around the IP Blogs

          Lise Charles (WTR) provides an overview of the most-read posts on Word Trademark Review (WTR) on European trade mark case law over the past year, including analyses of cases dealing with issues such as unconventional signs (i.e., colour marks and 3D marks) (MHCS v EUIPO | Case T-274/20 and Guerlain v EUIPO | Case T-488/20), the risks of using a mark in a manner other than that registered (Fashioneast Sàrl v EUIPO | Case T-297/20) and taking unfair advantage of the reputation of a well-known mark (Asolo Ltd. v EUIPO | Case T-509/19) and the importance of presenting valid arguments for the existence of a link between the marks - even in the case of marks with an exceptional reputation (Puma v EUIPO | Case T-71/20).

        • The Future of Trademark Exhaustion is Still Unclear for Brands Post-Brexit

          The United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union has brought with it an array of legal and procedural developments – and still-impending changes – that stand to have a significant impact on the workings of fashion brands and luxury goods groups. Among the critical legal tenets whose new post-Brexit reality is still being decided by lawmakers in the UK is the issue of trademark exhaustion – or in other words, the limitation of a trademark holder’s ability to exercise control over a trademark-bearing product once it releases – or authorizes the release of – that product into the market.

          Hardly an uncommon issue, trademark exhaustion (better known as the First Sale Doctrine in the U.S.) has been argued in an array of fashion and luxury-centric cases, particularly in light of the relatively recent rise of the $30 billion-plus secondary market. Earlier this year, for instance, reseller Crepslocker pushed back in the since-settled trademark case that Chanel filed against it, arguing that Chanel lacked “any proper basis” for its objections to Crepslocker’s sale of authentic Chanel goods and use of the Chanel trademarks, as its “rights in the goods have been exhausted by the consented sale from its authorized outlets in the UK or the EU.” The issue was also raised in an interesting case over Ferrari’s Testarossa trademark, and a number of cases centering on the distribution of high-end cosmetics and fragrances in the EU. (In the U.S., the First Sale doctrine has been recently raised as a defense to trademark cases waged by Chanel, Nike, and iPhone accessories maker OtterBox, among others.)

        • DOUBLE STANDARD ON REPUTATION. CAN ANYONE GUESS WHY? - Kluwer Trademark Blog

          With Messi (see cases C-449/18P and C-474/18P MESSI) and Miley Cyrus (case T‑368/20 MILEY CYRUS), we learnt that reputation or renown of (personal) names is a factor which should be taken in consideration when comparing marks and which may ultimately exclude confusion with an earlier similar mark. However, two recent cases seem to indicate that a different standard applies for (corporate) names. Why is anyone’s guess.

          The first case T-353/20, decided on 10 November 2021, concerns Associazione Calcio Milan Spa (AC MILAN), one of the most famous football clubs in Europe and perhaps in the world, which filed an EUTM application for the following figurative mark in Class 16.

          [...]

          Inditex argued that consumers would associate ZARA with the name of the famous retailer specialized in fast fashion, and that therefore, the conceptual difference with the earlier marks counteracted the visual and phonetic similarities. However, also in this case, the GC stated that the reputation of the contested mark was irrelevant, and that reputation was relevant only in respect of the earlier mark (ۤ 145).

          There is little doubt that the AC MILAN name and team probably rivals Lionel Messi in renown in the area of football. Also ZARA’s renown in the fashion world likely outclasses the (arguable) renown of Miley Cyrus. The double standard therefore appears inexplicable as the only difference between MESSI and MILEY CYRUS on the one hand and AC MILAN and ZARA on the other is not the degree of fame, but rather that the latter two are not celebrities’ (personal) names. However, the reasons why the reputation of the contested mark should be relevant in case of celebrities, but not in case of companies’ names (be they a soccer team or a store chain) are unfathomable.

        • Around the IP Blogs

          The Kluwer Trademark Blog posted an article questioning the understanding of reputation for trade marks based on the standards of reputation or renown of personal names and reputation of corporate names.

      • Copyrights

        • Practice points on licence agreements | IP Draughts

          wordle licenceOver the last few days, IP solicitor @Ellen_Lambrix has been writing an interesting set of articles on IP licensing, on LinkedIn. This has prompted IP Draughts to try to catalogue some of the articles on this blog on licensing over the last decade. Here’s a very quick and dirty set of links. IP Draughts has probably missed a fair few articles of relevance. Try doing word searches in the search box of this blog – near the bottom of the right hand column.

        • The interface between NFTs and the public domain

          2021 has been the year of the NFT here at Llama Towers. It seems like there’s no shortage of stories coming out of the NFT scene, so to avoid having to rename the blog to “NFT Weekly News” I haven’t been reacting to the latest occurrence with the same enthusiasm as earlier in the year. But there are a few developments that fall squarely in Yours Truly’s expertise and research interests, and require further analysis. The latest debate to catch my eye has been the growing discussion of what exactly is an NFT for from a copyright perspective, and whether they are actually being used to free up works.

          A very good example of the interface between NFTs and public domain was done by photographer Cath Simard. In 2017 she took the photo shown above of a road in Hawaii and she posted it on her Instagram account. The picture was an instant hit, and started getting shared all over the internet, often without any attribution. After years of having her picture infringed online, Simard decided to try something different, she created a website called #FreeHawaiiPhoto where she offered the picture as an NFT with a reserve price of Ξ100 ETH. If someone bought the picture at a minimum of the reserved price, Simard promised to make the picture available to download for free for everyone in the world. The price was met and the NFT purchased by a collector, making this the first public domain image powered by an NFT… until you look at the small print.

        • EU copyright law round up – fourth trimester of 2021 [Ed: Copyrights in Europe do not serve the public, the system is "captured" by special interests, including foreign ones that control the likes of FSFE]

          Welcome to the fourth and final trimester of 2021 round up of EU copyright law!

          We started this rubric in the beginning of 2021. In this series, we update readers every three months on developments in EU copyright law. This includes Court of Justice (CJEU) and General Court judgments, Advocate Generals’ (AG) opinions, and important policy developments. You can read the first, second and third trimester round ups here, here and here.

          The end of 2021 has been particularly busy. This becomes quite evident when one looks at the number of institutional policy reports that have been issued in the past three months.

        • The 5 Worst Copyright Decisions of 2021 - Copyright Lately

          Remembering another frustrating year with a countdown of 2021’s most unsatisfying copyright rulings.

          I don’t know about you, but my 2021 actually made 2020 look pretty, prettay, prettaay good by comparison. This was the year we actually had to try to pretend everything was back to normal when, frankly, it was anything but. So, forget all the “best of” lists that I’m sure are clogging up your feeds right now. Here are my personal picks for the copyright opinions from 2021 that, much like the year itself, leave a little something to be desired.

          [...]

          In a July 2021 order in Nicklen v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., Southern District of New York Judge Jed Rakoff denied a motion to dismiss filed by Sinclair in a dispute over Paul Nicklen’s video of a starving polar bear. Relying on the server test, Sinclair unsuccessfully argued that it and its affiliates didn’t infringe the copyright in Nicklen’s video because they only embedded it on their websites from Instagram or Facebook, as opposed to maintaining a copy of the video on a Sinclair-controlled server.

          Judge Rakoff held that the fact that Sinclair didn’t actually possess a copy of Nicklen’s video didn’t mean that Sinclair wasn’t responsible for displaying it. With the decision, Rakoff became the second SDNY judge to reject the server test, joining a view shared by then-judge Katherine Forrest in 2018’s Goldman v. Breitbart News Network. Battle lines have been firmly drawn between the Ninth Circuit, which has explicitly adopted the server test, and a growing number of district court judges within the Second Circuit (although the appellate court itself hasn’t yet weighed in).

          Regardless of what you may think about the server test generally, the court’s opinion in Nicklen doesn’t sufficiently focus on or evaluate what’s actually going on behind the scenes when a website uses embed code to instruct a visitor’s web browser to fetch the contents of a post directly from Instagram’s own servers. The court also gave short shrift to arguments about what would happen if the server test were abolished, merely noting that the “speculations” offered by Sinclair “seem farfetched.” Finally, the court failed to fully recognize a key distinction between Goldman, which involved a photograph that appeared the moment the defendant’s website was loaded, and the video at issue in Nicklen, which required a viewer to take the volitional act of affirmatively clicking on the video within the embedded social media post in order to play it.

        • MetaBirkins Creator Says He Received a Cease & Desist from Hermès, Claims Fair Use

          Hermès appears to have made good on its claims about non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”) that were marketed as MetaBirkins without its authorization. Creator Mason Rothschild revealed in an open letter to Hermès that he posted on his Instagram account on December 22 that he received a cease-and-desist letter from the French luxury goods brand. In a separate open letter to OpenSea, Rothschild confirmed that the MetaBirkins have been removed from the NFT platform, potentially as a result of trademark-centric takedown requests lodged by Hermès, which said in a statement earlier this month that it views the one hundred MetaBirkins NFTs as “infring[ing] upon [its] trademark rights, and an example of fake Hermès products in the metaverse.” In his letter to Hermès, Rothschild argues that the MetaBirkins NFTs are shielded from Hermès’ trademark claims, asserting that “the First Amendment gives me every right to create art based on my interpretations of the world around me.” Additionally, he claims that the MetaBirkins – which currently boast a trade volume of $1.1 million, according to the MetaBirkins Rarible page – are “also a commentary on fashion’s history of animal cruelty, and its current embrace of fur-free initiatives and alternative textiles.”

        • Volvo Settles Copyright Lawsuit After Reposting Photos for Instagram Ad Campaign [Ed: Robber barons do not respect copyright law, either; they rely on selective enforcement and misuse of words like "pirate"]

          Volvo has settled a copyright-centric lawsuit after being sued in a California federal court last year for using another party’s photos for an alleged Instagram ad campaign. Photographer Jack Schroeder and model Britni Sumida accused the Swedish automaker of copyright infringement for using photos that Schroeder had taken of Sumida posing alongside a Volvo S60 as part of “a global advertising campaign” on Instagram without their authorization. After unsuccessfully attempting to get Volvo to cease its use of the images, Schroeder and Sumida filed suit in June 2020, setting out claims of copyright infringement, unfair competition, and misappropriation of likeness, with the latter resulting from Volvo’s unauthorized use of images featuring Sumida. In response to the lawsuit, Volvo filed an unsuccessful motion to dismiss in August, arguing that Schroeder and Sumida are actually the ones who were in the wrong due to their use of the Volvo “brand, image, reputation and substantial social media reach of a venerable automotive company to promote themselves professionally.” Volvo asserted that the plaintiffs’ claims that it “impermissibly shared [the] photographs and misappropriated Sumida’s image rights as part of an unauthorized ‘global advertising campaign’ are false and disingenuous,” as there was “no such advertising campaign.” Instead, Volvo claimed that it “simply used basic social media sharing/publishing platform features to re-post” Schroeder’s images of its S60 sedan “after Schroeder and others had already published (and tagged Volvo in) the photos on their own public social media accounts.” The crux of Volvo’s argument was that by posting the photos on Instagram in the first place, Schroeder granted it an implied license to re-post the photos in accordance with Instagram’s licensing terms.

          [...]

          This case may be on the brink of coming to a close, but it, nonetheless, raises one of a number of questions that have come hand-in-hand with allegedly unauthorized use of imagery first posted on Instagram and other social media platforms. The overarching issue centers on Instagram’s terms and whether they provide users with a license that could shield them from copyright infringement liability should they use images first shared on its platform without the copyright holder’s consent. This has seen brands like Volvo come under fire for resharing copyright-protected imagery to their own accounts, but maybe more commonly, cases have come about in connection with publications’ practice of embedding imagery into online articles using social media sharing tools without the copyright holders’ authorization, prompting claims of copyright infringement. In terms of embedded imagery, this issue has been at the center of an array of cases in furtherance of what Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz PC’s Craig Whitney recently called “one of the most hotly litigated issues in copyright law over the past two-plus years.” In one noteworthy case, Nicklen v. Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., a New York federal district court found that the unauthorized re-posting of copyright protected content online could run afoul of copyright law by infringing the copyright holder’s exclusive right to display the work regardless of whether a copy was created and stored on the alleged infringer’s own server – or whether the image was re-posted by using Instagram’s API.

        • The European Audiovisual Observatory publishes the Mapping report on national remedies against online piracy of sports content [Ed: European Audiovisual Observatory is uses propaganda term "piracy", which reveals whose pockets it is in; when your drug regulator is controlled by Big Pharma and the copyright cartels do 'studies' in Federal clothing you become disillusioned about this whole concept of regulation]

          The European Audiovisual Observatory (“EAO”) has recently published the Mapping report on national remedies against online piracy of sports content (“Report”), conducted at the request of the European Commission.

          Through a comparative perspective, the Report examines the scope of protection of audiovisual sports content in the national framework of the 27 EU member states and the UK.

          In particular, the Report relies on an extensive review of the EU law, Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”) decisions and case law concerning remedies against online piracy, starting from the results of a questionnaire submitted to international experts from relevant institutions, universities and law firms.

          [...]

          Regarding the entitlement to the rights, the recording and broadcast of a sports event are protected by related rights, which are respectively granted to producers of audiovisual works for the first fixation of the film and to broadcasting organisations for the transmission of broadcast signals for public reception.

          On the other hand, in some countries, domiciliary rights (also called “house rights”) are held by the sports event organisers. With regard to the entitlement to take action, the differences between countries show that in some the sports clubs can take legal action on the basis of the domiciliary rights in the case of unauthorised recordings made within the premises of the venue or the place of the event; in others, federations and leagues can act on the same basis in the case of illegal broadcasting or streaming of the event.

        • YouTube's Innovative Content ID is No Substitute For Humankind's Greatest Gift

          YouTube has made massive strides towards solving millions of copyright claims that plague its platform. The automated Content ID system is by no means perfect but does provide a way for rightsholders and alleged infringers to amicably settle their differences. What it doesn't have is the human ability to spot opportunities for cooperation and innovation. Sadly, humans can struggle with that too.



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