Leftovers

• Ruben Schade ☛ Seeing the 2024 Xmas trees around Sydney

  Clara and I took a train into the CBD earlier this week to tour all the decorations. It was much cooler than the summer heatwave we’d had a week earlier which was lovely… though we still saw two women in bikini tops and massive Santa hats. Because Australian summer!

• Science

  • Hackaday ☛ Pi’s Evil Twin Goes For Infinity

    Most people know about the numerical constant pi (or π, if you prefer). But did you know that pi has an evil twin represented by the symbol ϖ? As [John Carlos Baez] explains, it and its related functions are related to the lemniscate as pi relates to circles. What’s a lemniscate? That’s the proper name for the infinity sign (∞).

  • Science Alert ☛ 17,000 Year Old Remains Could Be Oldest Evidence of Blue Eyes

    That's not all the bones revealed.

  • Science Alert ☛ Scientists Destroy 99% of Cancer Cells in Lab Using Vibrating Molecules

    "A different way to treat cancer."

• Hardware

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Broadcom has no Interest in buying Intel: CEO says no one asked

    Hock Tan dismisses an idea to acquire Intel, as Broadcom still has to devour VMware.

  • Hackaday ☛ Going Digital: Teaching A TI-84 Handwriting Recognition

    You wouldn’t typically associate graphing calculators with artificial intelligence, but hacker [KermMartian] recently made it happen. The innovative project involved running a neural network directly on a TI-84 Plus CE to recognize handwritten digits. By using the MNIST dataset, a well-known collection of handwritten numbers, the calculator could identify digits in just 18 seconds. If you want to learn how, check out his full video on it here.

  • Hackaday ☛ Keeping Track Of Old Computer Manuals With The Manx Catalog

    An unfortunate reality of pre-1990s computer systems is that any manuals and documentation that came with them likely only existed on paper. That’s not to say there aren’t scanned-in (PDF) copies of those documents floating around, but with few of these scans being indexable by search engines like Google and Duck Duck Go, they can be rather tricky to find. That’s where the Manx catalog website seeks to make life easier. According to its stats, it knows about 22,060 manuals (9,992 online) across 61 websites, with a focus on minicomputers and mainframes.

  • Hackaday ☛ The Mystery Of The Messed-Up Hammond X5

    [Filip] got his hands on a sweet old Hammond X5 organ, but it had one crucial problem: only half of the keys worked. Each and every C#, D, D#, E, F, and F# would not play, up and down the keyboard, although the other notes in between sounded just fine.

  • Hackaday ☛ A Twenty-Segment Display, Artistically

    We all know and love the humble seven-segment display, right? And if you want to make characters as well as numbers, you can do an okay job with sixteen segments off the shelf. But if you want something more art-deco, you’ll probably want to roll your own. Or at least, [Ben] did, and you can find his designs up on GitHub.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Xerox buys Lexmark for $1.5 billion — printer biz consolidation deal requires approval from US and Chinese regulators

    Xerox is buying Lexmark for $1.5 billion, pending approval from regulators in China and the U.S.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ South Korea mulls creating 'KSMC' contract chipmaker to compete with TSMC, requires a $13.9 billion investment

    South Korea wants to replicate Taiwan's success by establishing KSMC, a government-funded chipmaker.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Rlang ☛ How well prepared are we to rapidly analyse a new influenza pandemic? A brief perspective on analysis conducted for UK government advisory groups during COVID-19

    With multiple reports of influenza H5N1 cases that have no clear animal exposure, it is useful to consider what kinds of analysis would be required, and how easily this could be performed.

  • New York Times ☛ The Golden Age of American Bakeries Is Upon Us. Here’s Why.

    A combination of economics, taste and the post-Covid restaurant landscape is making this a great time for craft carbs in America.

  • Pro Publica ☛ Thailand Bans Advertising for Toddler Milk

    New regulations in Thailand will force baby formula companies to stop advertising, giveaways and discounts for so-called toddler milk, which experts say can contribute to growing obesity and other health problems among the nation’s children.

    The action follows a ProPublica investigation that revealed how the U.S. worked to weaken Thailand’s last major attempt to ban formula advertising, in 2017.

  • Medevel ☛ Egypt’s New Medical Malpractice Law: A Flawed Approach to Accountability

    By a concerned medical professional

    The Egyptian government has recently introduced a controversial law aimed at addressing medical malpractice, intending to hold doctors accountable for their errors or negligence.

  • Medevel ☛ The Impact of Poor Hospital Design on Patient Satisfaction - Architects: Please Do not Repeat this Nightmare

    Visiting a hospital should not feel like navigating a maze, yet countless modern hospitals fail to deliver a user-friendly experience. Architectural flaws in hospital design do more than just frustrate visitors; they create logistical nightmares that undermine patient care and satisfaction.

  • ADF ☛ Heroin Abuse Fuels Public Health Crisis in Kenya

    ADF STAFF Five men entered a roofless, windowless concrete structure on the island of Lamu, just off the Kenyan coast. They sat on the building’s trash-strewn floor and used razors to cut heroin with marijuana, rolling it into a thin cigarette and smoking it.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China, Japan foreign ministers meet in Beijing, seafood trade on agenda

    Talks on seafood trade are expected to be on the agenda on Wednesday when Japan's foreign minister visits China, Japan's largest export market for aquatic products until Beijing placed a blanket ban in protest against Tokyo releasing treated radioactive wastewater into the ocean.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China and Japan expected to discuss seafood ban on Wednesday

    China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi will hold talks with his Japanese counterpart Takeshi Iwaya in Beijing on Wednesday, the Chinese foreign ministry said, when both men are expected to address China's ban on Japanese seafood imports.

  • Science Alert ☛ Five Simple Ways to Avoid 'Stress Eating' These Holidays

    How to enjoy festive foods in the healthiest possible way.

• Proprietary/Artificial Intelligence (AI)

  • Bleeping Computer ☛ Microsoft fixes bug behind random Office 365 deactivation errors

    ​Microsoft has rolled out a fix for a known issue that causes random “Product Deactivated” errors for customers using Microsoft 365 Office apps. The known issue arises when switching subscriptions from Office 365 E3 to Microsoft 365 E3 or when users are moved between licensing groups, including Azure Active Directory or synced on-premises security groups.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Love Your Blue Check Mark on X? It’s Nearly 40% More Expensive Now

    The platform formerly known as Twitter, X, has raised the price of its X Premium subscription by nearly 40% as it attempts to bolster creator payouts. The increase in the price of X Premium came on December 21, raising prices in the United States from $16 per month to $22.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Cloudbooklet ☛ Zelle Scams Lead to $870M Loss, Federal Lawsuit Filed

      Discover how Zelle scams lead to $870M loss, resulting in a major federal lawsuit for consumer protection.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Meduza ☛ Russian authorities reportedly weigh blocking messaging app calls — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Iran's Cyberspace Council Votes To Lift Ban On WhatsApp, Surveillance Giant Google Play

      Iran’s council on safeguarding the Internet has voted to lift bans on the WhatsApp messenger and the Surveillance Giant Google Play apps, state media reported.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Iran votes to lift bans on WhatsApp, Surveillance Giant Google Play and other foreign-owned apps

      Iran’s government has unblocked access to the WhatsApp messenger and Surveillance Giant Google Play store after previously banning them two years ago, state media reported.

    • The Strategist ☛ Editors’ picks for 2024: ‘Exclusive: Inside Beijing’s app collecting information from Belt and Road companies’

      Originally published on 27 September 2024.

• Defence/Aggression

  • Cloudbooklet ☛ Cops Warn of Fentanylware (TikTok) Hey Hi (AI) Scam Mimics Wellness Expert Dr. Noordin

    Cops Warn of Fentanylware (TikTok) Hey Hi (AI) Scam as scammers mimic Dr. Noordin's wellness tips. Find out how to protect yourself from fraudulent content.

  • RFERL ☛ Pakistan Launches Air Strikes On Militant Hideouts In Afghanistan

    Pakistani military jets on December 24 conducted air strikes inside Afghanistan, targeting suspected hideouts of the Islamist militant group Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean opposition pushes for Acting President’s impeachment

    This came after he snubbed its demand to promulgate special counsel Bills targeting Yoon and his wife.

  • The Straits Times ☛ South Korean opposition puts off plan to impeach acting president Han

    South Korea's main opposition party vowed on Tuesday to impeach acting president Han Duck-soo but reversed an earlier plan and decided to wait until later in the week, party officials said, as the risk of further political uncertainty heightened.

  • Hong Kong offers bounties for 6 more democracy activists

    The government announced HK$1 million rewards for each of the democracy campaigners

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Hong Kong national security police issue HK$1 million bounties for 6 ‘fugitives’

    Hong Kong national security police have issued a fresh round of arrest warrants for six people living overseas, including self-exiled activists, a former pollster and an ex-actor. A reward of HK$1 million has been offered for information leading to their arrests.

  • JURIST ☛ Hong Kong Police announce bounties targeting exiled pro-democracy activists

    Hong Kong police announced a HK$1 million reward for information leading to the arrest of six pro-democracy activists now residing in the UK and Canada on Monday. The bounties were issued for alleged violations of the 2020 National Security Law.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ Driver who rammed car into crowd outside central China primary school handed suspended death sentence

    A man who ploughed his car into a crowd of mostly school children in central China last month was handed a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve, state media reported Monday. In November, the attacker, named as Huang Wen, repeatedly rammed his car into a crowd outside a primary school in Hunan province, state […]

  • CS Monitor ☛ Trump’s expansionist overtures stir pushback from Greenland, Panama

    President-elect Trump has revived calls for the United States to buy Greenland and complains of high fees at the Panama Canal. Some experts say his words hark back to an aggressive style he used in business.

  • France24 ☛ Germany: far-right AfD holds march in city hit by Christmas market attack

    Germany's far-right AfD party on Monday held what it called a "memorial" rally for victims of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market that has newly inflamed debate on migrant and security policy. Details by FRANCE 24 correspondent in Berlin, Jörd Taszman.

  • North Korean military raises enlistment age limit from 23 to 25

    Residents fear it means more of their sons will be sent to Russia to fight Ukraine.

  • US missile deployment in the Philippines is legitimate: Manila

    The Philippines rejects China’s opposition to its acquisition of the Typhon missile system.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Philippines defends U.S. missile system deployment, seeks to acquire its own

    MANILA - The Philippines' defence minister on Tuesday justified the country's deployment of a U.S. medium-range missile system and plans to acquire its own, despite opposition from China, a longstanding rival in the South China Sea.

  • Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

    • Atlantic Council ☛ How might Germany’s coming election shape future support for Ukraine?

      There is a good chance Germany’s snap elections in February 2025 will result in increased support for Ukraine but Kyiv will be hoping the campaign does not send signals of Western disunity to Moscow, write Stuart Jones and Katherine Spencer.

    • LRT ☛ The guardian ‘grandmothers’ who helped wounded Ukrainian soldiers

      Yevhenia was making the dangerous trek home near the front line when she first spotted the gravely wounded Ukrainian soldier who was part of a unit attempting to liberate her village from Russian occupation.

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Attack On Kryviy Rih Kills 1 Amid Intense Clashes And Russian Push Toward Pokrovsk

      One person was killed and 11 were wounded by a ballistic missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Kryviy Rih, local officials said on December 24 as clashes were reported along much of the front line in eastern Ukraine.

    • Meduza ☛ Ukraine receives first $1 billion of loan funded by frozen Russian assets — Meduza

    • Meduza ☛ ‘A provocation orchestrated from above’: Russian soldier-turned-mayor accuses officials of retaliation for corruption probe after being ordered back to the front in Ukraine — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Russian Cargo Ship Under U.S. And EU Sanctions Sinks In Mediterranean Sea

      A Russian cargo ship sank in the Mediterranean Sea, leaving two members of its crew missing, Russian and Spanish authorities said on December 24.

    • Meduza ☛ Russian cargo ship long used to supply Syria operations sinks in Mediterranean — Meduza

    • RFERL ☛ Deadly Fire In Russia's Tatarstan Highlights Conditions For Migrant Workers

      Six people died in a fire at a migrant workers’ temporary residence in the Russian republic of Tatarstan, highlighting the increasingly difficult conditions faced by those coming to Russia seeking work.

    • RFERL ☛ Moldova's Pro-Western President Sworn In For Second Term

      Final preliminary results show Moldova's pro-Western president, Maia Sandu, has won a second term, a critical milestone for the integration of one of Europe's poorest countries into the European Union that U.S. President Joe Biden said was proof that Russian interference "failed."

    • ADF ☛ Fall Of Syria Could Be Major Blow to Russia’s Strategy in Africa

      ADF STAFF After years of propping up Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad with a combination of military and mercenary might, Russia ultimately could not protect him from a rebel offensive that quickly toppled the government in December.

    • Atlantic Council ☛ Putin faces antisemitism accusations following attack on ‘ethnic Jews’

      Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing fresh antisemitism accusations after claiming that “ethnic Jews” are seeking to “tear apart” the Russian Orthodox Church, writes Joshua Stein

    • RFERL ☛ Rights Watchdog Calls For Accountability For 'Brutal' Violence Against Georgian Protesters

      Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for Georgian security forces to be investigated for the “brutal police violence” against largely peaceful protesters who have taken to the streets for anti-government demonstrations.

    • Meduza ☛ Moscow court sentences U.S. citizen to 15 years in prison for espionage — Meduza

• Transparency/Investigative Reporting

  • New York Times ☛ Judge Strikes Down Portions of Arkansas Law That Threatened Librarians

    Republicans passed the law in 2023, joining other conservative states and counties that have sought to restrict the availability of certain books.

• Environment

  • The Straits Times ☛ Aceh hopeful as Indonesia beefs up warning system 20 years after tsunami

    No sirens were heard in Aceh when a tsunami struck on Dec 26, 2004.

  • Energy/Transportation

    • The Straits Times ☛ Bandar Malaysia’s revival in good hands with new owner, say analysts, but critics question deal

      The stalled megaproject was originally intended to be the terminus for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore High Speed Rail.

    • YLE ☛ Electrical link down between Estonia and Finland

      Electricity between Finland and Estonia through the Estlink 2 connection is currently halted, according to Finnish grid operator Fingrid.

      In a statement, Fingrid revealed that the cause of the fault is under investigation.

      "The possibility of sabotage cannot be ruled out. However, we are examining the situation as a whole and will provide further information once the cause is identified," said Arto Pahkin, Fingrid's Operations Manager.

      The transmission line experienced an outage on Wednesday, Christmas Day, at 12:26pm. At the time, the power transfer from Finland to Estonia was 658 megawatts, Fingrid reported.

    • BBC ☛ [Old] Damaged cables appear to be accident, Finland says

      Finland's transport agency says that fibre-optic cables connecting Finland and Sweden appear to have been cut accidentally.

      "Both cables appear to have been cut during construction work," Traficom said, adding that the cables had been repaired.

      The Swedish government earlier said it suspected an act of "sabotage" on the cable, which links the two countries, but Finnish police said they did not have reason to suspect criminal activity.

      Nordic telecoms group GlobalConnect told the BBC at least one of the breaks had been caused by excavation work.

    • Meduza ☛ Azerbaijan Airlines plane with 69 onboard crashes in Kazakhstan, over 20 survivors reported — Meduza

  • Wildlife/Nature

    • Goodbye, Sam

      A eulogy for the greatest dog of all, and a friend I will never forget.

• Finance

  • New York Times ☛ How a Consulting Firm and Trump’s I.R.S. Pick Pushed a Problematic Tax Credit

    Billy Long worked with Lifetime Advisors, a company that solicited clients to claim a pandemic-era tax credit that the I.R.S. said became a magnet for fraud.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China to raise deficit in effort to boost spending next year amid sluggish economy

    China will raise its deficit in order to boost spending next year, its finance minister said Tuesday according to state media, as Beijing looks to prop up its struggling economy. The world’s second-largest economy has for years battled sluggish domestic consumption, a persistent crisis in the property sector and soaring government debt.

  • JURIST ☛ Malaysia investment fund 1MDB sues Amicorp Group for alleged fraud

    Malaysia’s state investment fund 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) filed on Monday a lawsuit against corporate services provider Amicorp Group and its Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Toine Knipping, for allegedly facilitating the money laundering of over $7 billion in misappropriated funds, local media reported.

• AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • JURIST ☛ Bangladesh formally requests extradition of former PM from India

    Bangladesh informed media on Monday that it had requested India to extradite former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been living in exile since fleeing the country in August 2024, following widespread protests that led to her removal from office as Prime Minister.

  • Misinformation/Disinformation/Propaganda

    • ACLU ☛ Attempts at a Technological Solution to Disinformation Will Do More Harm Than Good

      There is widespread concern today about the use of generative Hey Hi (AI) and deepfakes to create fake videos that can manipulate and deceive people. Many are asking, is there any way that technology can help solve this problem by allowing us to confidently establish whether an image or video has been altered? It is not an easy task, but a number of techniques for doing so have been proposed. They include – most prominently — a system of “content authentication” supported by a number of big tech firms, and which was discussed by the Bipartisan House Task Force Report on AI released this month. The ACLU has doubts about whether these techniques will be effective and serious concerns about potential harmful effects

      There are a variety of interesting techniques for detecting altered images, including frames from videos, such as statistical analyses of discontinuities in the brightness, tone, and other elements of pixels. The problem is that any tool that is smart enough to identify features of a video that are characteristic of fakes can probably also be used to erase those features and make a better fake. The result is an arms race between fakers and fake detectors that makes it hard to know if an image has been maliciously tampered with. Some have predicted that efforts to identify AI-generated material by analyzing the content of that material are doomed. This has to led to a number of efforts to use another approach to proving the authenticity of digital media: cryptography. In particular, many of these concepts are based on a concept called “digital signatures.”

      Using Cryptography to Prove Authenticity

      If you take a digital file — a photograph, video, book, or other piece of data — and digitally process or “sign” it with a secret cryptographic “key,” the output is a very large number that represents a digital signature. If you change a single bit in the file, the digital signature is invalidated. That is a powerful technique, because it lets you prove that two documents are identical — or not — down to every last one or zero, even in a file that has billions of bits, like a video.

      Under what is known as public key cryptography, the secret “signing key” used to sign the file has a mathematically linked “verification key” that the manufacturer publishes. That verification key only matches with signatures that have been made with the corresponding signing key, so if the signature is valid, the verifier knows with ironclad mathematical certainty that the file was signed with the camera manufacturer’s signing key, and that not a single bit has been changed.

      Given these techniques, many people have thought that if you can just digitally sign a photo or video when it’s taken (ideally in the camera itself) and store that digital signature somewhere where it can’t be lost or erased, like a blockchain, then later on you can prove that the imagery hasn’t been tampered with since it was created. Proponents want to extend these systems to cover editing as well as cameras, so that if someone adjusts an image using a photo or video editor the file’s provenance is retained along with a record of whatever changes were made to the original, provided “secure” software was used to make those changes.

      For example, suppose you are standing on a corner and you see a police officer using force against someone. You take out your camera and begin recording. When the video is complete, the file is digitally signed using the secret signing key embedded deep within your camera’s chips by its manufacturer. You then go home and, before posting it online, use software to edit out a part of the video that identifies you. The manufacturer of the video editing software likewise has an embedded secret key that it uses to record the editing steps that you made, embed them in the file, and digitally sign the new file. Later, according to the concept, someone who sees your video online can use the manufacturers’ public verification keys to prove that your video came straight from the camera, and wasn’t altered in any way except for the editing steps you made. If the digital signatures were posted in a non-modifiable place like a blockchain, you might also be able to prove that the file was created at least as long ago as the signatures were placed in the public record.

• Censorship/Free Speech

  • Digital Music News ☛ Megan Thee Stallion Faces Aggressive Dismissal Motion in Defamation Legal Battle: ‘These Statements Are Not Susceptible to a Defamatory Meaning in the Mind of a Reasonable Person’

    It’s time for the court to toss Megan Thee Stallion’s defamation lawsuit against social control media commentator Milagro Cooper – at least according to the defendant, who’s fired off a no-holds-barred dismissal motion.

  • EFF ☛ EFF Continued to Champion Users’ Online Speech and Fought Efforts to Curtail It: 2024 in Review

    Despite the central role these online services play in our digital lives, lawmakers and courts spent the last year trying to undermine a key U.S. law, Section 230, that enables services to host our speech. EFF was there to fight back on behalf of all internet users.

    Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230) is not an accident. Congress passed the law in 1996 because it recognized that for users’ speech to flourish online, services that hosted their speech needed to be protected from legal claims based on any particular user’s speech. The law embodies the principle that everyone, including the services themselves, should be responsible for their own speech, but not the speech of others. This critical but limited legal protection reflects a careful balance by Congress, which at the time recognized that promoting more user speech outweighed the harm caused by any individual’s unlawful speech.

    Members of Congress introduced a bill in May this year that would have repealed Section 230 in 18 months, on the theory that the deadline would motivate lawmakers to come up with a different legal framework in the meantime. Yet the lawmakers behind the effort provided no concrete alternatives to Section 230, nor did they identify any specific parts of the law they believed needed to be changed. Instead, the lawmakers were motivated by their and the public’s justifiable dissatisfaction with the largest online services.

  • EFF ☛ The U.S. Supreme Court Continues its Foray into Free Speech and Tech: 2024 Year in Review

    All five pending cases at the end of last year, covering three issues, were decided this year, with varying degrees of First Amendment guidance for internet users and online platforms. We posted some takeaways from these recent cases.

    We additionally filed an amicus brief in a new case before the Supreme Court challenging the Texas age verification law.

    Cases: O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier and Lindke v. Freed – DECIDED

• Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

  • China trains African journalists as part of drive to boost influence

    The move is part of a bid to ensure the Chinese Communist Party line is clearly heard on the continent.

  • China goes after celebrity live-streamers for missing taxes

    The clampdown means cash-strapped local governments are seeking to claw back revenue from digital platforms.

  • Press Gazette ☛ Estates Gazette magazine saved by Mark Allen Group bid

    Digital information side of business will be sold separately.

  • France24 ☛ FRANCE 24 journalist's identity stolen by Iranian hackers

    Iran may look increasingly isolated on the international stage, but cybersecurity companies say its extensive network of hackers is working hard to pursue the government’s strategic interests. One person who’s being used as a pawn in a massive cyber campaign is FRANCE 24's technology editor Peter O’Brien.

• Civil Rights/Policing

  • The Straits Times ☛ Canada condemns China's steps against Canadian institutions over Uyghurs, Tibet

    The Canadian government condemned China on Tuesday for taking steps against two Canadian institutions and 20 people involved in human rights issues concerning the Uyghurs and Tibet.

Monopolies/Monopsonies

• Silicon Angle ☛ Apple asks to participate in Google’s upcoming antitrust trial

  Apple Inc. has asked to participate in an upcoming antitrust trial that will focus on Surveillance Giant Google LLC’s practices in the search market. Reuters reported the request today, citing a court document filed on Monday.

• Patents

  • Kluwer Patent Blog ☛ Dutch District Court upholds BMS’s apixaban patent

    On 30 October 2024, the District Court of the Hague handed down two merits decisions on the widely litigated apixaban patent monopoly of Bristol-Myers Squibb (see here and here – Dutch language versions).

  • Unified Patents ☛ $2,000 for Morris Routing network patent monopoly prior art

    Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 12,058,042, owned by Morris Routing Technologies, LLC, an NPE. The ‘042 patent monopoly relates to routing methods, systems, and computer program products to improve network path protocol address identification and management.

  • JUVE ☛ JUVE Patent’s Ones to Watch 2024 – the full overview [Ed: Just patent marketing spam from a publisher that gets paid by the companies it is "endorsing" as litigation opportunists]

    This year, eight of the 17 Ones to Watch candidates that JUVE Patent identified as up-and-coming talents with an interesting career path are women. This indicates that more female partners are coming to the fore in European patent monopoly litigation practices.

  • Software Patents

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Netflix files suit against Broadcom over VMware virtual machine patents

      Video streaming giant DRM spreader Netflix Inc. is suing Broadcom Inc. over virtual machine patents owned by the company’s subsidiary VMware Inc. According to the lawsuit filed with a California federal court by DRM spreader Netflix Monday, the company said VMware’s cloud software infringes on five patents related to virtual machines.

• Trademarks

  • TTAB Blog ☛ TTABlog Test: Is CERTIFIED SUGAR DADDY Merely Descriptive of Dating Software and Services?

    The USPTO refused to register the proposed mark CERTIFIED SUGAR DADDY, finding it merely descriptive of social introduction and dating software and services, under Section 2(e)(1). Applicant argued that SUGAR DADDY is a colloquial phrase that has no defined meaning, and that applicant does not certify any customer information, but instead verifies certain information, including income, for some its consumers. How do you think this appeal, argued on December 10th, came out? In re SuccessfulMatch.com, Inc., Serial No. 97354248 (December 20, 2024) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge George C. Pologeorgis).

• Copyrights

  • Michael Geist ☛ The Year in Review: Top Ten Law Bytes Podcast Episodes

    The final Law Bytes podcast of 2024 released last week took a look back at the year in digital policy. With the podcast on a holiday break, this post looks back at the ten most popular episodes of the year. Topping the charts this year was a debate with Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, who graciously agreed to come on the podcast to defend her Bill S-210.

  • Digital Music News ☛ Anthropic Moves to Counter Music Publishers’ Preliminary Injunction Push, Pointing to a ‘Broad Array of Safeguards’ for Protected Content

    Anthropic is doubling down on its opposition to a preliminary injunction push from major music publishers, which say the Hey Hi (AI) giant’s Claude chatbot has infringed on their protected works.