08.13.19
Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft at 8:59 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Not just the Open Source Summit, either
Summary: The distortion of the term Open Source and promotion of proprietary software such as GitHub shows that the foundation called after “Linux” is actually more of a front group of hostile corporations — large brands and rich people to whom Open Source represents a threat that needs to be controlled
THE events that are called “open” something aren’t necessarily what they’re called. This isn’t unusual and it isn’t limited to technology. There are various other domains where events get called the opposite of what they are. That serves a purpose, especially for sponsors, e.g. events on patents being called “innovation” something and dogs of war calling their events “defense” something.
“Consider the event called (or so-called) ‘open source’ summit; it’s mostly used for openwashing of proprietary software firms, or OaaS (openwashing as a service).”Staying focused on the subject of Open Source, and using the Open Source Summit as an example, look at the speeches and sponsors (more or less the same as keynote slots are nowadays blatantly sold to sponsors). Also look at VMworld, which is not about “VM” but about VMware. It is “hosted by VMware,” as Wikipedia clarifies, so it is about proprietary software, which the Linux Foundation is happy to openwash for a fee. How about GitHub? Or the above “open” cloud event (“summit”), which Zemlin did with Microsoft in Tel Aviv less than a year ago? Sadly, this is what we’ve come to expect from his foundation and based on their own brochures, this is very much deliberate. Consider the event called (or so-called) ‘open source’ summit; it’s mostly used for openwashing of proprietary software firms, or OaaS (openwashing as a service). Look who steers this event. Here’s an example press release published earlier this week. The company called itself — right there in the press release — “SaaS” (“SaaS-managed hybrid cloud”), spicing that up with the "Serverless" lunacy/lie. Here they go:
Platform9 (https://platform9.com/), the leader in SaaS-managed hybrid cloud, today announced it will present three sessions at Open Source Summit North America. The company is also sponsoring VMworld 2019 US, and will present at a live webinar from VMworld about Kubernetes and cloud native for Enterprise IT.
Read VMworld as VMware.
They have a classic proprietary services-leaning Web site, but it would be unfair to single it out. Many others in Open Source Summit North America are equally bad if not much worse. Platform9 is ‘special’ in the sense that corporate media keeps openwashing it (lots of examples so far this month) or associating it with “Linux” for “good measure”. Such media is perhaps not checking or not even caring about facts. Just like Zemlin’s Linux Foundation doesn’t seem to care who joins as long as they offer money. As someone said in a comment last night, “Reminder: Microsoft already acquired The Linux Foundation, in 2016, as a Platinum member.”
“…the term “Open Source” no longer seems to mean anything. And yes, that’s a very big problem.”That may help explain Jim Zemlin's "Open Source loves Microsoft" moment (captured above by a manager from Microsoft and then uploaded by him to the Web). That’s how they could appease regulators — a push into approving the GitHub takeover at the time.
As someone put it hours ago in a response to something I had said: “Microsoft makes a ‘open source’ code editor under the MIT license. But when you download it, it’s under a proprietary license from Microsoft. The app is Visual Studio Code and you can install the MIT version, so compiled from the actual public available code, from Flathub, called Code OSS. Typical open washing here. Nobody knows if they add any more code.”
But does that matter? As we’ll explain in the next post, the term “Open Source” no longer seems to mean anything. And yes, that’s a very big problem. █
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07.30.19
Posted in Deception, Marketing, Microsoft, Novell, VMware at 3:02 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
SAP openwashing (image from Swapnil’s Web site)
Summary: The price of deception is high and some companies with billion-dollar marketing budgets are willing to pay that price for corporate reputation laundering; among the facilitators we unfortunately — and increasingly so nowadays — have the Linux Foundation
THIS has gotten almost depressing. The group which presents itself as the home of Linux turns out to be one of its greatest foes or threats. Its biggest Web site, LINUX DOT COM (Linux.com), contains anti-Linux FUD (poorly-selected news picks) and its sole editor, Swapnil, maintains Microsoft focus in the site’s front page. Here’s an example from several hours ago; he modified the original’s headline from “Microsoft buys a start-up whose software limits access to sensitive data” to “Microsoft Buys Open Source Data Privacy Company” (so desperate to keep openwashing Microsoft, which is still suing Linux using patents). He did the same for VMware (another prominent violator of the GPL) on the Foundation’s payroll in its Web site that offers “creative services” (PR). In the article he cites right now the term open source isn’t even mentioned until the third paragraph and it involves twisting the facts (pure Microsoft marketing); the acquired company has some .com Web site and is generally proprietary. But never let facts get in the way…
“Journalists are not the same as ‘journalists’ (the ‘corporate’ types) and we’ve noticed that some so-called ‘journalists’ conflate “having corporate access” with “success”. Having amicability from/with corporate high-ups means you’re a sellout, you’re PR.”Amid the SUSE-SAP tie-up Swapnil (SAPnil?) also did some more openwashing, for yet another proprietary software giant (see the image at the top) and yesterday these people wrote: “why not invest a coffee or tea break in listening to my discussion with Swapnil Bhatia [sic] of TFIR from this year’s SUSECON.”
More openwashing of SAP ‘aka’ SUSE (they’re increasingly the same). Journalists are not the same as ‘journalists’ (the ‘corporate’ types) and we’ve noticed that some so-called ‘journalists’ conflate “having corporate access” with “success”. Having amicability from/with corporate high-ups means you’re a sellout, you’re PR. Not journalism. These corporations fear people who are actually objective and inquisitive. Unlike those who just print what PR departments ask them to. Guess who’s paid by them. And the Foundation is a facilitator of these ‘transactions’.
“Having reviewed its IRS forms (the finer details) last weekend, the Foundation clearly doesn’t care about the image of Linux (spendings less than 2% of its revenue) but about the image of its sponsors, i.e. companies like Microsoft, VMware and so on.”We’ve long taken note of this Linux Foundation obsession — an obsession with calling proprietary software giants “Open Source”, rending the term “Open Source” increasingly void if not meaningless (everyone calling oneself “open”, itself a shallow and unenforced term). Recently we saw SAP throwing some code out there — similar to what Salesforce had done weeks prior. They then reled on shallow ‘reporting’ calling them “Open”; it’s the business model of deceptive PR. We have not forgotten Jono Bacon's openwashing of Microsoft, either. He too is on the payroll, this self-described champion of FOSS and “community”; yesterday he did this puff piece that boils down to PR. He’s like a PR agent for hire, still not finding his place in this world. It’s the business model is reputation laundering; some sort of “I’ll get you positive press for some cash”…
It’s sad to see that the Foundation is immersing itself in this underworld of PR tactics, borderline AstroTurfing. Having reviewed its IRS forms (the finer details) last weekend, the Foundation clearly doesn’t care about the image of Linux (spendings less than 2% of its revenue) but about the image of its sponsors, i.e. companies like Microsoft, VMware and so on. This is a problem.
The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) for the Linux Foundation was, according to the Foundation, “Director of Public Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and General (Ret.) James Clapper.” We mentioned this in passing before (back in May). “If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good,” Bill Gates (in)famously said. The Foundation manages to take some of the most ‘difficult’ organisations and make them sound fun, just like "puppies". Is Clapper too a “puppy”? Would she say so, based on his physical apperance? Her colleague Angela Brown, who manages LF events, had only the following things to say about Microsoft (which Jim Zemlin compared to a puppy):
In 3 years that’s all she had to say about Microsoft. It’s all about Microsoft giving money (slush funds) to her employer. These "thank you" services (literally paying for thanks) wouldn't be unprecedented. █
“After Novell sold out the community, the Linux Foundation wants another Microsoft partner to join up and participate in groups working on legal topics?” –Pamela Jones, Groklaw
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07.23.19
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft, Windows at 11:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft loves Microsoft lovers (and apologists who facilitate entryism)
Summary: Microsoft is fully engaged in “brand dilution” tactics*, associating itself and Windows with “Linux” even though GNU/Linux is its (and Windows’) rival
SO, this morning I search for “Linux” news… and then I find this site called Linux.com (“The source for Linux information,” according to its title/byline) linking to Microsoft’s unofficial PR reps. It’s linking directly to Microsoft PR reps from a tabloid of corporate media Microsoft is funding (CBS), with headlines like “Microsoft looks to ‘do for data sharing what open source did for code’“ (well, at least Swapnil is consistent).
“The LF is poo. Corporate toadies all about money, with no understanding of Linux and FOSS.”
–Carla Schroder
Former Linux.com writerI searched for “Ubuntu” some hours ago and got results like this one; this became very typical in recent months. Some readers tell us that most news they stumble upon when searching for Linux is actually Microsoft, not Linux.
“What saddens us is the degree to which Zemlin and his PAC actively participate in all this.”The above pattern has sadly become rather common. It’s the type of puff pieces Microsoft Peter did in another tabloid, where he hijacked the “Open Source” section to post nothing except Microsoft propaganda. Yes, their entire “Open Source” section is still just Microsoft lies! Even 2 months after Microsoft Peter was arrested (he had been raping children while Microsoft used him as a courier, for nearly one decade).
What saddens us is the degree to which Zemlin and his PAC actively participate in all this. Carla Schroder, who wrote for Linux.com, said yesterday that “[t]he LF (Linux Foundation) is poo. Corporate toadies all about money, with no understanding of Linux and FOSS.” █
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* As per one example: “Brand dilution is when a company’s brand equity diminishes due to an unsuccessful brand extension, which is a new product the company develops in an industry that they don’t have any market share in, like Reese’s Puff Cereal or Gerber’s baby clothes.”
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07.13.19
Posted in Deception, Marketing at 10:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Just a bubble in the sky, a fictional ‘Heaven’ that’s actually pure Hell
Summary: Buzzwords. Confronted.
What does smart, IoT, AI and cloud even mean? And does “serverless” mean that no servers are necessary any longer? Of course not. But the marketing industry or marketing departments (of companies large enough to be able to afford such in-house departments) are busy hijacking the narratives, replacing technical terms with marketing buzzwords that intentionally misinform and mislead. We no longer have “sysadmins”, now we have “ops”; “servers” become “clouds”; surveillance is “big data” and spies are “data scientists”. The list goes on and on.
We no longer have “sysadmins”, now we have “ops”; “servers” become “clouds”; surveillance is “big data” and spies are “data scientists”. The list goes on and on.Techrights has long rejected these lies and buzzwords, but corporate media works hard to popularise these to the point where people have to rewrite their CVs and sometimes their articles. Novelty is often deduced from one’s use of fashionable lingo, not substance. Patent maximalists are doing the same thing, motivated by patent offices’ embrace of such buzzwords. They’re building up a bubble which courts will later burst, seeing that behind all these seemingly ‘sophisticated’ terms there’s nothing but hype or old ideas/concepts rebranded. Pop! █
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07.06.19
Posted in GNU/Linux, GPL, Kernel, Marketing, VMware at 8:52 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Is the Foundation a ‘nonprofit’ PR agency?
Dirk Hohndel and Linus Torvalds speaking at the LinuxCon Europe 2014 in Düsseldorf, 15 October 2014, by Krd
Summary: Dirk Hohndel (formerly Intel, now VMware) has become the master spinner of an infamous violator of the GPL, a proprietary software company with NSA back doors (evidence shown in Edward Snowden’s cache/trove of leaks)
THE PEOPLE who proclaim to be the voice of “Linux” often aren’t even GNU/Linux users. They just talk about GNU/Linux (calling it “Linux”) and they think it’s absolutely fantastic when “Linux” becomes a platform of blobs and DRM. What is the point then? Why even promote “Linux” if it becomes yet another closed, nonfree system? That’s like swapping Windows for MacOS (or Microsoft for Apple), in effect defecting from one brand to another rather than shifting paradigm or freeing oneself from vendor lock-in.
There seems to be a rift or a split between the GNU/Linux crowd and the “Linux” fans; the former speak of freedom as in Free software, whereas the latter focus on “Open Source” (as in, some code may be available). It’s not hard to see what side most corporations have taken.
I’ve come to the conclusion Steve Ballmer was to Microsoft and to Bill Gates what Donald Trump is to “the Establishment” and to robber barons. Their ugly policies, which they don’t regret, they blame on a person (distraction from a bigger picture). That’s not to say that the person isn’t objectionable; but it helps other, somewhat less objectionable people deflect and personify the problems, which they then want us to believe they ‘resolve’ by merely removing the person. Microsoft after Ballmer has the exact same policy, albeit a slightly different strategy (or marketing/PR) with a new CEO, still largely the same leadership in the Board, notably Gates. Ballmer too attempted to infiltrate FOSS and Linux (and to a certain degree he did), but he just wasn’t so successful at it. He wasn’t a sufficiently good pretender. He was too crude. When we wrote earlier today about Azure we explained that it is all about controlling GNU/Linux rather than loving it. It helps when they tell lies like “Microsoft loves Linux…” (“we come in peace…”)
“Ballmer too attempted to infiltrate FOSS and Linux (and to a certain degree he did), but he just wasn’t so successful at it.”The danger isn’t limited to the operating systems space. As we habitually point out in our daily links, PyCon more or less got ‘sold’ to Microsoft (with the goal of Python entryism). Microsoft also bought itself some powerful seats in other tenets or pillars of Python, e.g. by virtue of buying companies such as LinkedIn and GitHub (but that’s a subject for another day). We should note that Microsoft has also given cash to EuroPython (just about to start [1]) but unlike PyCon they’re not actively advertising Microsoft for it. Attendees can and do support the event so that they don’t end up selling the event to Microsoft (like sellouts who organise PyCon did).
This post is actually a rant about not one but three new videos [2-4] (published as recently as early this morning). One of these [2] was entitled “Developers Don’t Know The Code They Run In Their Applications” (so said the man who receives massive salaries from a serial GPL violator).
Why is he amplified here? Because VMware pays Zemlin’s PAC, which in turn pays and arranges this PR opportunity (the interviewer is professionally connected to Zemlin’s PAC and had all expenses covered by it).
“This interview (or set of clips) serves as a sort of megaphone for Zemlin’s sponsors, including GPL violators.”So Zemlin’s PAC (the Linux Foundation) has turned to something like PR operations for Microsoft and similar companies, including GPL violators such as VMware. With Microsoft there have been various GPL violations (they got caught red-handed!) that we covered in past years, e.g. Hyper-V. This event isn’t a sole example and the interviewer recently advertised himself as a PR service. Has media become “traveling [PR] salesmen”?
If they did some fluff and puff pieces, that’s one thing. Instead, what we have here is company that’s also a serial GPL violator. It badmouths FOSS licences (Hohndel “says that developers don’t even know about the code that’s running in their applications”) and security of FOSS; it’s also downplaying competition to virtual machines (containers), the ‘bread and butter’ of this declining giant. This interview (or set of clips) serves as a sort of megaphone for Zemlin’s sponsors, including GPL violators. Companies such as Microsoft and VMware are not allies of Linux. Surely that’s not too hard to understand, but money talks (they cover the person’s expenses to come to their VMware/Microsoft-sponsored events, he then records the “people of interest” on his “Mac”-branded PC). So now we have a “Chief Open Source [sic] Officer & VP at VMware” lecturing us on FOSS. Yes, a proprietary software company with NSA back doors (see EMC/RSA material from Snowden leaks circa 2013 and 2014) is the ‘authority’ on this subject.
“Another GPL violator, VMware, recently bought Bitnami and a founding person then moved to Microsoft (it happened about a month ago).”It’s like the company pays this PAC to serve as a PR front and control the narrative. Hijacking the story… for a fee. A GPL violator that’s attacking and misusing the GPL coming up with spin. No wonder Bruce Perens called the Linux Foundation a GPL “infringers club”. So Microsoft the serial GPL violator is buying GitHub (well, technically it’s proprietary software, but Microsoft uses it for openwashing purposes anyway). Another GPL violator, VMware, recently bought Bitnami and a founding person then moved to Microsoft (it happened about a month ago). It’s a troublesome trend. They’re trying to just ‘buy out’ FOSS. They target the repositories. They want to control everything, not just in the “business intelligence” (BI) sense but also distribution.
People who sometimes turn out to be turncoats and sellouts aren’t too uncommon; I’ve come across several over the years. Career-climbing opportunists, seduced by money and allured by the cash associated with defection to Microsoft’s lie campaigns (like “Microsoft Loves Linux”) and sometimes Microsoft job offers. Silence on these matters is no longer an option. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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EuroPython 2019 will start on Monday. Again we will have more than a thousand attendees signed up and we’re looking forward to an exciting conference packed with more than 130 sessions from Monday – Sunday, July 8 – 14.
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It’s a clip from our longer interview with Hohndel that you can watch on TFiR. The interview was recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, Barcelona.
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As a result of this awareness, Hohndel is noticing some positive changes. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) recently announced a new SIG around security which will be conducting reviews of CNCF projects.
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Dirk Hohndel, Chief Open Source [sic] Officer & VP at VMware talks about a disturbing pattern he is witnessing in the cloud-native space. He says that developers don’t even know about the code that’s running in their applications.
It’s a clip from our longer interview with Hohndel that you can watch on TFiR. The interview was recorded at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, Barcelona.
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06.30.19
Posted in Deception, GNU/Linux, Marketing, Microsoft at 7:32 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Recent: Bill Gates Said He Was on a “Jihad” Against GNU/Linux, But GNU/Linux Users/Developers Engaged in Self-Defense Are Foul-Mouthed ‘Microsoft Haters’?
“This is WAR, and in that regard, I believe we should design Janus such that if this multiboot partition (has a unique partition number (11)) is found, we should warn the user a foreign OS has been detected, give them a chance to exit and read the docs and possibly make a backup, and then repartition the disk, removing the multiboot partition. This way, we disable OS/2 2.0 in *all* cases.”
–Microsoft internal mail
Summary: The corporate media is completely failing to inform the public, instead telling the public what Microsoft agents wish the public to believe
IT is convenient to think that Microsoft “surrendered” or “gave up” or “decided to play nice”. It’s convenient for some to believe that Microsoft now “loves Linux” and that there’s a “new Microsoft”. We’ve repeatedly shown examples, not only old but also very recent, by which to demonstrate the real character of Microsoft. Readers keep sending us more material about the matters that were covered here yesterday, urging us not to let go and let the topic slide.
“The media just isn’t in tune with public opinion; instead of telling us what the public thinks it is trying to tell the public what to think.”Sadly, much of the media isn’t covering these things, not critically at least. PR/marketing talking points are repeatedly pasted into the texts; research doesn’t seem necessary to these people. But that’s fine in a sense. If they are not eager to actually analyse, fact-check and verify mere claims, we shall fill the vacuum. We have a lot of material in the pipeline and what we’ve generally found, e.g. when covering Linux Foundation affairs, is that almost everyone agrees with it, not just regular readers. The media just isn’t in tune with public opinion; instead of telling us what the public thinks it is trying to tell the public what to think. It’s too busy cooperating with PR agencies, including Microsoft’s. █
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06.23.19
Posted in Europe, Marketing, Patents at 12:49 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
EPO as a marketing agency
Summary: The EPO’s practice of elevating some patents over the other patents (European Patents) is perhaps more of a societal liability than the EPO cares to realise
Last year, after European Inventor Award 2018, we took a closer look at the winner Andane Remmal (3 parts [1, 2, 3]). Battistelli and his colleagues/friends in France made a fortune from that event and it was far from the first scandal associated with these events, which were typically hosted in France when Battistelli was President.
“They’ve just awarded Frenchman and check what for.”European Patent Office (EPO) President António Campinos wants us to think that he does life-saving work that helps the environment, helps Europe etc. In the EPO’s own words (warning: epo.org link), these are “exceptional inventors” (actually patents do not always imply invention and these two terms are intentionally conflated by patent maximalists). As Law Professor Sarah Burstein (specialising in design patents) put it some hours ago in response to a video from EUIPO (former Campinos employer): “Because everyone knows human creativity & innovation did not exist until patents were invented in the 15th century [extreme sarcasm font]”
“This is some next-level propaganda,” she later added. The EUIPO is managing to outclass even itself.
The next comment said: “Accounts like that make me feel sick whenever I see an username with the word #EU in it, or the #EuropeanUnion flag as their avatar. Congratulations: You lobbyists managed to turn the EU into a symbol of tyranny and repression!”
“So not only does he have a monopoly on it; now it’s a glorified (“award-winning”) patent monopoly. On an algorithm.”Kris Joseph wrote: “I read the film as an example of what you get when all IP is locked down and everything looks the same because nobody can create anything new without getting sued. The title for my version is “DisneyTopia.””
And on it goes.
We’ve meanwhile noticed the EPO retweeting INPI a lot throughout this event (or the event’s day), which quite frankly (or Franc-ly) happens a lot when almost all the Presidents are French.
They’ve just awarded a Frenchman and check what for. Shades of Elizabeth Holmes using patents for false marketing of a fraud?
It seems like a European software patent (I myself worked in this area of diagnostics, so I should know). In the EPO’s own words: “The French immunologist’s diagnostic tool assesses the risk of relapse in cancer patients. It uses digital images of tumour samples and advanced software to measure immune response. Galon’s invention is already in use at clinics around the world to improve the accuracy of prognosis for patients with colorectal cancer.”
So not only does he have a monopoly on it; now it’s a glorified (“award-winning”) patent monopoly. On an algorithm. We’ve already covered why patents on cancer treatment may actually harm cancer patients, e.g. in [1, 2, 3].
When the jury includes a nontechnical Frenchman like Battistelli no wonder winners are of questionable eligibility/merit. █
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06.20.19
Posted in Deception, Europe, Marketing, Patents at 2:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
It’s just a big buzzwords salad
Summary: Lies, buzzwords and hype waves is all that the patent bubble in Europe boils down to these days; loads of bogus patents get granted only for European judges to smack these down (if one can afford the court battle)
European Patent Office (EPO) President António Campinos and others were in Austria today. They tell us that the EPO has budgetary woes (it's a lie); but at the same time they blow several millions of euros per hour on a stupid, wasteful ceremony that’s a slap across the face to patent neutrality.
“The EPO has offered bribes to both media and academia in recent years, trying to get both on its side (that also means not covering EPO corruption).”We promised ourselves that this year we wouldn’t give this ceremony any publicity (even negative) because it’s mostly a distraction from bigger issues. We can certainly note that it seems plausible that the EPO now pays Euronews for PR, meaning that this publisher is as corruptible as Les Echos (which this year/week too has produced puff pieces and eliminated all the negatives). The EPO has offered bribes to both media and academia in recent years, trying to get both on its side (that also means not covering EPO corruption). Some publications that covered this festival in the early afternoon literally copied and pasted the EPO’s press release and in the late afternoon the EPO’s site had a rather dull statement. Thankfully, none of the winners had software patents; finalists with such patents won nothing. Does that mean that the EPO will quit granting bogus patents? Of course not. Maybe it won’t glorify these, but it’s still granting them by the bucket-loads.
Looking instead at the situation of the staff, there’s no word from SUEPO. They just dump a few links every now and then, but since the strike ballot was postponed (we assume it’ll come sooner or later) not much has been said. On the patent quality front, it’s all buzzwords. It has become so incredibly childish and pathetic. Law firms and EPO management are acting like marketing firms, not like patent professionals. Let us explain using this week’s examples (from the news).
Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick’s Alyssa Telfer wrote about how to keep monopolies in positions of perpetual monopoly — using the fiction of “AYE PEE” (IP) leveraged by their corporate lawyers. Those who still refer to patents as “IP” merely perpetuate misleading propaganda. The words in the acronym are a misfit, both technically and legally.
“The challenge of obtaining patent protection for artificial intelligence (AI) inventions from IP offices across the globe dominated discussion,” said this new article. Having eliminated some writers, WIPR (World Intellectual Property Review) now participates in illegal agenda of promoting invalid, abstract software patents by calling them "HEY HI" (AI). WIPR, which no longer covers EPO scandals, has become an utter marketer; PR rather than news and lobby rather than a publication; it’s funded by the patent microcosm and composed by relatively clueless buzzword aficionados, picking headlines with both “AYE PEE” (a lie) and “HEY HI” (fiction). Here’s another new example, entitled “Is it time for IP monopoly to come to an end in AI datasets space?”
Databases (or datasets) created by algorithms are not “HEY HI” databases; they’re computer-generated data. And there’s no “AYE PEE” on these, there might be copyright applicable somewhere and one wonders who it’s assigned to (the machine?).
Francis Gurry, the ‘other Battistelli‘ (he almosy became WIPO’s chief and might retry in the future), also props up the “HEY HI” hype so as to allow illegal, invalid software patents. We covered this in past months. This new article/preview shows him talking mostly about ‘owning’ what gets generated by some algorithms and obviously they call it “HEY HI” (the headline is “Preview: WIPO director general predicts AI liability changes”).
The director general of WIPO says that questions of liability for artificial intelligence should be linked to IP ownership as technological developments begin to change established laws.
So they justify change to laws based on hype waves? Here’s that very same front group of the patent and copyright lawyers (MIP) promoting “HEY HI” (AI) hype, or “artificial intelligence”. “In-house counsel at Getty, Expedia and the BBC tell Managing IP about the opportunities and threats posed by artificial intelligence, and call for clarification over Brexit,” said the next article. The majority of their articles in recent days are about “HEY HI”. Talk about hype…
Meanwhile, another cabal of patent lawyers lobbies for patent monopolies on life and nature. In their own words:
Coverage of the morning sessions of CDR’s Life Sciences Litigation Symposium held this week, including highlights from keynote speaker Michael Prior of the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office.
While Britain’s exit from the European Union was not a topic the Intellectual Property Office’s (IPO) Michael Prior could discuss in an official capacity, he did say that unanswered questions around when and how that exit happens “has been the biggest challenge for the IPO” in a number of years.
Prior, who serves as deputy director of patents policy, focused his keynote address on three areas: policy, filing trends and working together.
For those who have not given any thought to it, those patents help few oligarchs claim to ‘own’ the whole world; what a sham…
Thankfully the European courts continue to reject patents on life, nature, and maths. There’s no sign that these courts will be overridden. Some more UPC spin has come from Bristows (it was mentioned briefly earlier today) and Team UPC is happy to cite that as ‘proof’ of ‘progress’. But when one looks for underlying substance it turns out there’s none. It’s all marketing. █
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