09.14.11
Posted in Australia, Microsoft, Open XML, OpenDocument, OpenOffice at 10:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Encouraging new signs in Australia (an OpenOffice.org pilot) amid a major blunder for Microsoft, whose dirty OOXML secrets are leaking out years after the acts
THE Cablegate stash has made available key evidence which we have covered a lot since the beginning of this month. The OOXML-related exhibits (cables) have gotten quite far by now, with articles that were written not just in English. The importance is this is that it brings back to international awareness the fact that OOXML relied on corruption at all levels. We most collected evidence to show this in 2007 and in 2008. Cablegate is like a wormhole that takes us back in time and lets us see back room string-pulling this will hopefully affect this AGIMO review of document standards in Australia. “Last month,” claims this new report, “Department of Defence chief technology officer Matt Yannopoulos revealed that 100 corporate staff had been using OpenOffice in a year-old, “semi-formal” trial.”
This is good news. They will hopefully realise that their initial leaning towards OOXML was a mistake also due to public awareness that OOXML correlates with crime, as once shown using a bar chart, just after a vote on OOXML (corrupt countries were more likely to vote “Yes”).
Cablegate posts will resume shortly. It’s just a matter of dedicating free time to the task. There is enough in there to last for a long time and have considerable impact. █
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09.06.11
Posted in Australia, Patents at 5:37 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Public feedback required regarding the most important question (in our view)
TECHRIGHTS spent a lot of effort covering the subject of software patents in New Zealand and little attention was paid to what was going on in Australia. Now there’s a chance for Australians to say that — since they are not patent lawyers — they are against software patents. The question about this is asked specifically:
Should innovation patents be unavailable for computer software?
Australians who say “no” are most likely high-level executives in some very large company or some of their patent lawyers/lobbyists. Policy should stick to public interest, not special interest. The latter is better funded. █
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08.18.11
Posted in Australia, Microsoft at 1:15 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Microsoft grabs another big client away from Novell
SOME WEEKS ago it was reported that NSW Health had abandoned Novell’s GroupWise, following a trend we have been covering many times this year (with examples). Here are the details about the latest anecdote:
NSW Health has started preparing the consolidation of all its disparate email systems into one Microsoft Exchange environment for some 200,000 end-users across the state government department with the big loser being Novell’s GroupWise.
Microsoft is the death knell to its ‘partners’. █
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05.24.11
Posted in Australia, Europe, Microsoft, Patents at 3:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Amazon continues to pollute the world with its outrageous monopolies, including the patent on ’1-click’; Likewise pays for patents
THE USPTO is so utterly broken and those who benefit from it, including patent aggressor Amazon, spread the same broken patent culture to the other hemisphere. We tended to focus on what was done in New Zealand by the lobbyists of American multinationals and their overseas minions, but now we are told by the president of the FFII (EU) that:
Amazon One click shows that sw is patentable in AU: “As the specification clearly contained patentable subject matter” http://ur1.ca/49ic0
Here is the original report, which comes from patent lawyers in the UK:
This Kat, who enjoys the odd bit of online shopping, has been reading with interest the latest controversy over the Amazon ‘1-click’ ordering patent. Many readers will be aware that over the past decade there has been a long history of unsuccessful challenges to grants of the patent in the US, Canada and Europe. The most recent destination for battle has been Australia.
Amazon did this in Europe too, after it had absorbed many top-level executives from its neighbour, Microsoft (Amazon now pays Microsoft for Red Hat and the Linux inside Kindle).
This really needs to be stopped. Software patents are mostly being granted in the United States based on some of the latest news which includes [1, 2] (“Alarm Limit Calculation Patent Awarded to TiPS, Inc”), but when patents on mathematics go overseas, developers everywhere will lose their freedom to write code while customers all around the world will receive inferior and more expensive products. Check out the latest:
TiPS, Inc., developer of LogMate, the industry’s favorite user-oriented alarm management software, today announces patent approval of their industry-leading alarm activation point calculation.
How can “alarm management software” be patented? It is already copyrighted. Is it not enough?
People should really do more to abolish software patents. Given enough backlash, change does come about. After anger from program developers and users of their programs Apple had a major PR gaffe in its hands and contrary to its belief that software patents are a fine thing, Apple decided to step up and actually do something [1, 2, 3, 4]. It took Apple ‘only’ one week of backlash to do this.
In other news, Microsoft APIs booster Likewise [1, 2, 3, 4] has just had to pay for patents:
Likewise Software Inc. on Monday agreed to settle a suit brought by Quest Software Inc., accepting a Utah court’s injunction to not infringe a patent for server software technology.
This only helps verify that Microsoft APIs lead to patent problems. █
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02.18.11
Posted in Australia, FSF, OIN, Patents at 1:58 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Melbourne at night
Summary: Churchill Club Great Debate on software patents ends; Rackspace joins the OIN; Australian reviews patentable subject matter and New Zealand wrestles with the “embedded” software loophole
As expected, a public debate took place to discuss the patentability of software and the FSF was there. No matter where we check [1, 2, 3], a video of this debate is not published yet. Paul Krill of InfoWorld has a new report about it, which he summarised as follows:
Free Software Foundation argues that software patents infringe on individual expression and present a roadblock to innovation
Meanwhile, the OIN keeps growing (Rackspace has just joined), so there is at least some reassurance that patent attacks on GNU/Linux will have a deterrent.
Further down, in the southern hemisphere, there is also some interesting progress regarding patents. There is an Australian “Review of Patentable Subject Matter” and “sadly,” explains Glyn Moody, this “doesn’t do anything about software patents, gene patents.” Recently, gene patents were questioned in Australia. There is also this from New Zealand:
The NZ Open Source Society has given what it calls “qualified support” to the draft IPONZ guideline on the patentability of inventions containing embedded computer programs.
“There is a fog of misinformation around software patents and the IPONZ guideline,” says Don Christie, NZOSS government liaison officer, in a statement.
The vast majority of the patents in New Zealand (also alleged software patents in New Zealand) are not owned by companies from New Zealand but by large companies mostly from the United States. So clearly the benefit of this type of patent system is not New Zealand’s benefit. There is this new article that quotes different statistics from the United States:
You hear it all the time from our political and economic leaders – small business is the engine of the U.S. economy. Of the nation’s 26.8 million businesses, some 99.9 percent of them have fewer than 500 employees, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
In addition to driving the economy, small business is the source of a big share of the nation’s innovation. For example, 98 percent of telecommunications patents and 97 percent of software patents are issued to companies of 500 or fewer companies, according to a U.S. Small Business Administration study.
The innovation cannot be measured and enumerated in terms of patents, but the point the author is trying to make is that small businesses need government protection. As we know too well, patents are beneficial to large companies that can always counter-sue small companies (bar patent trolls); the same can apply to nations by saying that only large countries with a ton of patents (and some filed overseas) would likely benefit from the collective, worldwide patent system, which is a system of exclusion and protectionism (protecting those already in power, under the umbrella of WIPO and WTO). The US Chamber Of Commerce — like the ICC (lobby for large multinationals) — has released a 2011 IP Policy Agenda just now (amid huge scandals that are covered widely, such as spying on family members of Chamber Of Commerce critics so as to scare and silence them). The fight against patents excess is often a fight against sheer greed, as demonstrated even in the days of Edison — a now-glorified businessman who bullied people using patents he did not deserve. █
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02.15.11
Posted in Australia, Microsoft, Security, Windows at 12:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Australian emergency services had their own emergency (a downtime of over a day) due to Windows viruses; a lot more evidence from the news shows the uniqueness of Windows as far as insecurity goes
OVER the years we have gathered examples where Microsoft’s shoddy security cost lives, e.g. [1, 2, 3]. At one point we called it “Death by Microsoft Windows” and it appears to be happening again in Australia, whose government has shared a bed with Microsoft for many years (the OOXML fiasco is an example of that, but it is a month old by now [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]). According to IDG:
Computers which co-ordinate NSW’s ambulances are back online in three of the state’s regions after a major virus forced staff to shut them down for more than 24 hours.
The virus crept into the Ambulance Service of NSW’s dispatch system at 1pm (AEDT) on Saturday, prompting staff to co-ordinate paramedics by telephone and handwritten notes.
“Major virus,” eh? What do they mean by “major”? Viruses in this context are not physical beings. Surely a better term would be “Windows virus,” not “major virus,” right? “Windows, presumably,” writes Glyn Moody, “is this so wise when lives depend on it?”
The EFF points out that, based on Bruce Schneier’s analysis, the Microsoft updates are a potential flaw and there is a mention of “SCADA” too (covered in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).
We know the market pressure approach can work. Once Microsoft saw that the market would (at least threaten to) make purchasing decisions on the basis of security, we suddenly got the Secure Windows Initiative and Trustworthy Computing. A key security technique is keeping the heat on vendors.
There is also an operational problem. To get a handle on the state of security of important infrastructure, try a Google search for [ scada security ]. It turns up alarming reports of basic security problems in some of our nation’s most important systems. (“SCADA” stands for “supervisory control and data acquisition”, and is used generally to refer to industrial control systems for things like water purification, electricity, manufacturing, and so on.)
Somewhat related to this is the shocking news that the very notorious HBGary created Windows rootkits like “MAGENTA”, based on some new leaks:
In the new emails released by Anonymous we discover that HBGary Inc. may have been working on the development of a new type of Windows rootkit that was undetectable and almost impossible to remove.
There is also more about Stuxnet, which we last mentioned last night.
The Stuxnet worm repeatedly attacked five industrial plants inside Iran over a 10-month period, according to new data collected by researchers from antivirus firm Symantec.
Three of the undisclosed organizations were targeted once, one was hit twice and one was targeted three times, members of Symantec’s Security Response Team wrote in the report (PDF), which updates findings first released in September. The attacks took place in 12,000 separate infections in 2009 and 2010 and weren’t discovered until July.
Also in the news right now:
A report issued today warns IT professionals that cybercriminals are changing their tactics and, as a result, predicts there will be fresh banking trojans arriving in the wild.
The bi-annual report from M86 Security says that IT managers need to redouble their efforts to patch their IT systems, as next-generation malware is now on the way.
These new types of malware, says the company behind the report, are likely to include application code that takes advantage of social networking service users.
Notice the avoidance of words like “Microsoft” and “Windows”. It suits them well, it does not inform the readers though. Microsoft is one of the major causes of SPAM, owing to the number of botnets that get created by capitalising on Microsoft flaws. Nonetheless, the culprit from Redmond does some new marketing around E-mail ‘surveys’ that are probably intended to exploit Valentine’s Day. Business as usual, right? █
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01.28.11
Posted in America, Australia, Europe, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 3:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Reports on the continued attempts by Microsoft et al. to spread software patents to every corner of this planet
“Patents Roundup”-themed posts have become rather extinct recently, but since we view software patents as by far the greatest threat to software freedom (and over time more people agree with us), this post will provide a quick summary of news of relevance. Special gratitude goes to the likes of the FFII and Digital Majority, who help collect reports and research of interest.
United States
Let us start with the United States because this is the country where software patents are bred and spread to other countries.
“NYTECH.org Examines Software and Financial Patents” says this new report. Here are some scary numbers, especially if one assumes that an inventor must be aware of existing patents, as well as be familiar with academic publications in his/her field (this is a problem I personally face):
In 2009, out of a total of 295,219 patents granted, only a small number were for software, databases and financial methods. This is because patenting software or a business process is open to more variables than a new invention for a machine or physical manufacturing process. At last week’s New York Technology Council panel on technology patents, speakers tried to ascertain why these types of inventions have come under question since the advent of the computer, and why obtaining a patent for them is so costly, complicated and uncertain. Their reasoning was that that in general, it’s not totally clear what the exact difference is between a concrete idea and an abstract idea.
That’s why lines are being drawn, but how? And who does it serve? A limitless patent system is exceptionally good for patent lawyers, who thrive in a landscape that invites litigation and rewards applications.
Asia
The new article “China: A Country of Imitation to Innovation?” helps remind us that decreasingly will the US maintain its dominance over rising China using all sorts of intellectual monopolies, so what’s the point of them? It’s a huge, colossal, massive bubble.
The enforcement system in China is still new and developing, but the country is dramatically increasing the number of patent filings it wants to receive (up from 300,000 in 2009 to an estimated 2 million in 2015) and adding patent examiners at an astounding pace. China will enforce intellectual property rights as soon as doing so is in its national interest. That day will come sooner than most people expect.
For American companies, they must grasp the reality that patents are local—there is no worldwide patent. Companies that view the Chinese market as important must build intellectual property portfolios in China, not just the U.S., because Chinese companies are dramatically increasing their domestic (Chinese) patent filings at a rate far outpacing the patent filings of U.S. companies.
Compare China’s 300,000 patent filings to 295,219 patents granted in the US in 2009. It’s very revealing what goes on here.
Over in Vietnam, Doan Hong Son (from IPMAX Law Firm, i.e. lawyers) writes about all sorts of issues like TRIPS [1, 2, 3, 4] and the patent system in the EU. Doan Hong Son — like most lawyers in this position — is trying to promote the idea of software patenting in Vietnam. The title is telling because the phrase “patent protection” gets used (“protectionism” or “monopoly” would be better terms). From the article:
For instance, the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), an international agreement administered by the World Trade Organisation, provides that “computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention”, which is the convention for copyright protection.
TRIPS does not, however, specifically exclude software from the allowable subject matter of patents.
A patent grants a limited monopoly, usually a term of 20 years, to the patent holder on an invention or idea, e.g., a new device or process that involves an inventive step that is not obvious to others skilled in the same field. While copyright protects the original expression of an idea (such as the source code or object code), patent protects the embodiment of the idea, the functional aspect of the software, independent of the form in which it is expressed. In this context, patent offers stronger protection than copyright because it may prevent others from using software embodying the same concepts, even if the software is independently developed and there is no copying of code.
[...]
In the European Union, meanwhile the European Patent Convention excludes computer software “as such” from patentable subject matters. However, that does not mean that patent protection is not available to computer software that meets the conditions of an invention, i.e., being new, having a potential industrial application, and involving an inventive step.
[...]A reading of Viet Nam’s Law on Intellectual Property would suggest that only copyright protection is available to software. Article 14 includes “computer software” as one of the “forms of copyright-protected works”, while Article 59 specifically excludes “computer software” from “subject matters” eligible for patent protection.
However, similar to other countries, some computer-related patent applications may still be granted so long as they are presented as a process (implemented via computer software); the process includes a machine, computer or other equipment; and a physical transformation takes place or some tangible/visible results are obtained. In fact, the National Office of Intellectual Property has granted a number of software-related patents, including a patent for “a system for payment by electronic means” and a patent for a software-related system for generating and facilitating the display of high-quality images in a web browser.
Europe has just loopholes, but on paper at least, software patents still have a mountain to climb.
New Zealand and Australia
It is the same in New Zealand (as in Europe) and over in Australia people are setting up new initiatives to drive software patents away. From the latest such effort: [via Dr. Glyn Moody]
Following on from the success of the letter to Kim Carr, signatures are now being collected on a paper petition to the Australian House of Representatives. This petition formalises our request to the parliament. Parliamentary rules require original signatures on paper.
Please sign the petition at an event such as Richard Stallman’s speeches in Australia or Software Freedom Day. Please download and print a copy of the petition and help collect signatures at your workplace or other local events.
Europe
The loopholes which exist in New Zealand and in Europe need to be closed, but there has been something rather rotten (general distrust) in the Commission recently. The Establishment press in the US rightly gives the Commission some scrutiny over the issue while the EPO keeps celebrating a sharp rise in patent applications (which may mean very much the opposite of innovation and rise of protectionists instead). This class partisanship in no way can be viewed as beneficial to the market at large. The European Parliament is meanwhile “fast-track[ing] vote on EU patent” according to a report which echoes what we wrote earlier this month:
The European Parliament will tomorrow (27 January) give its first green light to 23-country enhanced cooperation for the European patent, confirming a fast-track approach chosen by the European Commission despite a number of unresolved controversial issues.
The FFII cheerfully states:
Euractiv quotes #FFII procedural objections to the Unitary Patent http://bit.ly/i0E1DY
For those who are interested, the full text of FFII’s press release is available in their site, starting with:
The European Union advances on a super-fast track on the “enhanced cooperation” for unitary patent protection among a coalition of the willing after an envisaged Community Patent has once again failed to reach consensus in the Council, attributed to the linguistic divide.
Miscellany
The FFII’s president shares some more news links, such as “Secretive Company Sues The Cable Industry, Claiming It Owns Patents On VOD”; “Patents: Nokia GmbH and Others v IPCom GmbH & Co. [2011] EWCA Civ 6 (20 Jan 2011)” and “Judge says Apple, RIM not violating Kodak patent”. “Kodak loses initial patent battle against Apple and RIM,” says one report on this latter subject, which is not so much about software patents but is relevant for other reasons.
CAMERA MANUFACTURER Kodak has lost the first round in a patent infringement complaint it lodged against Apple and Research In Motion (RIM) almost a year ago.
Way back in February of last year the US International Trade Commission (ITC) launched an investigation into mobile phone digital camera components from Apple and RIM that bear a striking resemblance to Kodak’s. But after nearly a year’s deliberation the ITC has ruled against Kodak’s patent violation case.
Kodak is the classic example of a company that chose patent litigation over innovation. We covered this a month ago and generally watched the company in [1, 2, 3, 4].
The bottom line is, patents are a protectionist’s tool for ever-demising companies to extort their competitors when they win. Lawyers are just the cost of doing ‘business’ like that (Microsoft is choosing such a strategy right now) and when anti-patents companies/startups like Twitter get “sued over ‘community’ patent”, it is clear that software patents are not for the ‘small inventor’, they are for the software oligarchs (IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and so on). Software patents are not just a nuisance, they are one of the biggest threats to software development in general, be it free/libre or proprietary. █
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01.22.11
Posted in Australia, Microsoft, Open XML at 2:28 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Man behind decision favouring Microsoft lock-in (OOXML) has history working with Microsoft in Australia; he hits the escape button now that he’s exposed
IN IRC logs which we shall post tomorrow it came up — via an Australia reader — that government entryism may provide a simpler explanation (however partial) for the bizarre decision made in Australia, regarding document formats [1, 2, 3].
Brett Winterford, who carried water for OOXML after Microsoft had given him free trips abroad [1, 2], has this update regarding the situation. He says that “a select few of AGIMO’s choices rang alarm bells – no more so that the choice of the ECMA376 version of Microsoft’s OOXML as a standard word processing format.
“The iTnews report highlighting this part of the policy has attracted international attention.
“AGIMO first assistant secretary John Sheridan was surprised by the reaction. He said the draft of the policy document had been produced on AGIMO’s blog in July 2010 – missed by the staff at iTnews – and had subsequently received zero submissions.”
This does not say anything about John Sheridan, who is now “First Assistant Secretary Agency Services at Australian Government Information Management Office”. Brandon shows us his LinkedIn page and says “this explains the OOXML in Australia” as between August 2008 and December 2008 (5 months) Sheridan was “ICT Coordinated Procurement Contracting Arrangements (Microsoft Volume Sourcing Agreement)” (that was right after ISO had rubber-stamped OOXML).
The Australian government did nothing to ensure people were informed until a report came from an investigative journalist. Sheridan does some damage control now and Brandon concludes by saying: “if you don’t want OOXML in Australia now is your chance”
As regular readers may know, we gave many examples of people who work in governments while having vested interests that promote Microsoft. Here is one recent example. Those who have followed the OOXML corruption train since 2006 will know that the above is the norm rather than the exception and as a preview of an exposé to come we’ll just show the following screenshot (of a man who is AstroTurfing under pseudonyms and then hides, once exposed). There will be an article about that soon. █
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