Our take on the Freenode exodus, Linux Apps going public in ChromeOS, and Red Hat's desktop hiring spree.
Plus the new Firefox security features in beta, great news for F-Droid, and Apple transfers CUPS to a new home.
On this episode of This Week in Linux, we got a ton of big news. We’ve got distro news from Red Hat for RHEL 8.4, SUSE made a lot of announcements at SUSECON, we’ve got a new release from GeckoLinux making some interesting changes. In App News, we’ll talk about the latest releases of the popular text editor, Sublime Text and Element’s new featured called Spaces and why I’m excited for it. Then we’ll just into the Hardware space with new laptops from Entroware and Tuxedo Computers plus a really cool hardware topic involving Space and Satellites. Later in the show, we’ve got a topic to cover that has quite a bit of Drama attached to it, that is the news regarding the situation around Freenode IRC network. All that and much more on Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!
I've known about OniVim 2 for quite a while but I've only just recently got around to actually testing it, and I'm really surprised by how good this gui vim client actually is, most of the ones I've tried I literally cannot see any purpose for.
What's NEW In Fedora 34? GNOME 40, Boosted Performance With ZSTD Compression, Smoother System with Systemd-OOMD. Linux Kernel 5.11, and an ABSOLUTELY NEW EXPERIENCE.
I'm announcing the release of the 5.12.6 kernel.
All users of the 5.12 kernel series must upgrade.
The updated 5.12.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-5.12.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: https://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-s...
thanks,
greg k-h
There continues a lot of work going into Virgl for 3D guest acceleration with the open-source Linux virtualization stack as well as most recently Vulkan driver activity. However, much of that work driven by Google these days is focused on Chrome OS with "Crosvm" rather than the venerable QEMU.
Linux developer Gerd Hoffmann provided an update on the state of VirtIO-GPU and QEMU graphics for 2021, his first update on the matter since November 2019.
It's sounding like a vendor is readying to publish a "big" new open-source driver, likely a GPU driver, for the Linux kernel.
It's looking like this driver will be from one of the vendors not jiving with the well established open-source ways and requirements of the upstream kernel processes... DRM co-maintainer Daniel Vetter has posted a meme on Friday in anticipation of this pending open-source code drop...
The open source Ardour Digital Audio Workstation for Linux, macOS and Windows has been updated to version 6.7. The new version comes with new workspace streamlined for recording.
Ardour is a free software hard disk recorder and Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application that runs on Linux, macOS, FreeBSD and Microsoft Windows. Ardour’s core user group are people who want to record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects.
It has the features you’d expect: multi-track high sample-rate recording, non-destructive editing (NDE) non-linear editing (NLE), VST/LV2 plug-in support for both FX and synths, MIDI and control surface support, and so on.
Ardour 6.7 comes about three months after Ardour 6.6 and introduces a dedicated "Recorder" tab or window that offers some advantages when recoding audio. For example, it provides a more compact view of the record and monitor status, a simplified timeline, support for renaming hardware inputs to match the studio connections, as well as a high-precision meter with peak-hold for every hardware input.
The new release also introduces a new "Streaming" preset option for the export feature that defines the right defaults, especially loudness levels, for popular audio streaming services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, SoundCloud, or YouTube, and allows you to import SMF (MIDI) cue markers as global markers.
Most (if not all) QNAP models come with an LCD display, in my model i got a 2 lines by 16 characters each. The tool to control the panel is:
/sbin/lcd_tool but sometimes it's a bit stubborn in executing the commands, so as mentioned here you may want to killall -9 lcdmond and then issue the command you want; this is the snippet i'm using:
# print a msg on the panel killall -9 lcdmond /sbin/lcd_tool -1 "$LINE1" -2 "$LINE2" sleep 5 # turn off screen light killall -9 lcdmond /sbin/lcd_tool -f it ain't pretty, but it gets the job done.
Debian 11 Bulleye is the upcoming Linux distro, thus if someone wants to test out its Command-line edition then Docker is the best way.
Whereas people, those don’t know about Docker, it is a platform to create and run the virtual container to install the various application using the Docker Images. You can create these images by yourself or use the pre-built ones available on the Docker Hub repository.
You may run into issues if you continue using Linux Mint in its default configuration. We have a list of the 15 things you must do after installing Linux Mint.
Shell builtins are, as the name suggests, commands that are built into the shell. This is because it's faster to run commonly used commands from RAM rather than looking them up on the hard drive. Shell developers figure that this is a good tradeoff as loading data from the memory is faster in comparison to disks.
A common example in many modern shells is the cd command to change directories. Because you'll use this command many times in a single session, it makes sense to load it in the memory for faster execution.
It is a common misconception that there are no viruses on Linux. The fact is: they do exist. Even though it's possible for you to check through your program files to find the infected file, it could take you months before you realize that your Linux system has been compromised.
Trust is a delicate thing, and you shouldn’t just give it away easily. Just because something has been provided on the internet does not mean that you can trust it. You need to take certain steps to safeguard your OS and yourself.
The security risks of negligence range from information theft and getting viruses, to having unauthorized user access to your Linux machine. Therefore, this article lists secure ways to download software on Linux.
There’s one thing that doesn’t work ideal in Mutt or NeoMutt; URLs in messages. While my terminal emulator URxvt supports URLs and I can copy and open URLs, it’s not an ideal workflow when there’s a bunch of URLs in a single message.
Thankfully, this is where urlscan comes in the picture and saves the day. urlscan is a piece of software that extract URLs from any message (or any text file) and then allow the user to select and open any URL in the default web browser.
I use the text based web browser Lynx to render HTML messages. It usually looks like this:
As you can see, there’s no visible URLs. They’re all grouped down at the bottom of the message, without any context. This can make it hard to figure out which URL I’m interested in, especially when they’re all annoying obfuscated tracking links.
This is where urlscan comes in. When I press Ctrl+B, it opens urlscan and presents me the URLs with some context:
And it looks like this is the end of the road for the Smach Z handheld project. We covered that project since the early days, and we have had a chance to test the various prototypes in hands a couple of times when they were presented in exhibitions like the Tokyo Games Show. It’s regrettable to see that they will not be going forward but the signs had been there for a while now (poor communication, unreliable commitments, very slow updates, and more and more early supporters asking for refunds).
[...]
While I do agree it certainly did not look like a scam (scammers would have disappeared with the money long ago, without bothering to deliver any prototype after the initial Kickstarter), the Smach Z team certainly lacked transparency and announced multiple times actual delivery dates, while keeping things in the dark and coming with lame excuses after the fact over and over again. This has definitely shed a bad light on whatever they were doing and progressively destroyed any trust in the project.
Smash blocks together and watch the fireworks in Petal Crash, a really fantastic action-arcade puzzler that's been far to overlook and now it's bigger than ever.
Worldwalker Games have confirmed recently that Wildermyth, an absolutely brilliant papercraft styled RPG will hit the big 1.0 on June 15 when it leaves Early Access.
For those who haven't played it. The game mixes in elements from board games, tabletop experiences like D&D along with some well-tuned turn-based XCOM style fantasy combat. It's a lot of fun and you can play through some fantastic stories on it right now. Now that a 1.0 release has a date they've confirmed the launch will come with another brand new full campaign, improved support for generic campaigns, Steam Achievements and "some other fun stuff".
Dubbed “Grup Yorum” and based on the Debian GNU/Linux 10 “Buster” operating system series, antiX 19.4 arrives about seven months after the antiX 19.3 release and introduces more installer options for those who want to fully customize their installations, such as frugal install support for encrypted partitions.
Furthermore, the new antiX release adds the SeaMonkey free and open-source Internet suite by default in the Full and Base editions, as well as the terminal-based ytfzf tool for opening and downloading YouTube videos as a drop-in replacement for mps-tube.
Still derived from the lightweight MX Linux distribution, version 19.3 “patito feo” to be more precise, the AV Linux 2021.05.22 release is now available for download with a bunch of interesting changes.
For example, the 64-bit version is now also available in a variant with the Openbox window manager alongside the variant with the full Xfce desktop environment, and includes various background helper scripts for Openbox. As expected, this version doesn’t feature Xfce’s window manager (xfwm), nor the xfdesktop package.
With FreeBSD 13.0, OpenBSD 6.9 and NetBSD 9.2 there are currently many exciting innovations for fans of the well-known classic Unix systems, some with significant performance gains. DragonflyBSD 6.0 has also been optimized. GhostBSD fixes annoying network errors when starting the system. There is good news and bad news from the successors to Sun’s OpenSolaris.
With CentOS Stream to be the upstream of Red Hat Enterprise Linux moving forward, a CentOS special interest group is being formed that is driven by Red Hat stakeholders in helping to ensure technically interesting CentOS Stream changes made by community members are evaluated and primed for inclusion into future Red Hat Enterprise Linux releases.
The CentOS Stream Feature Request SIG was publicly proposed this week and already voted on -- and approved -- by the CentOS board. This special interest group is all about making sure that interesting features by the community / non-Red-Hat members are evaluated and make it into the next RHEL releases with this SIG serving as the shim between CentOS Stream and Red Hat's internal processes and criteria for new feature handling.
Radxa has launched Rock Pi 4 Plus versions of its Model A and B SBCs that move to the 2GHz OP1 version of the RK3399. The Plus models also add eMMC without raising the price and pre-load the Armbian-based Twister OS.
Radxa has upgraded its open-spec, community-backed Rock Pi 4A and 4B SBCs with eMMC storage and an 11 percent faster version of the Rockchip RK3399. Better yet, the price remains the same, although only Allnet.China is currently matching Radxa’s recommended pricing.
I'm no longer looking for a new browser.
After my previous post, a chap from my local Linux Users Group tipped me off to uBlock Origin (Legacy), which is an alternative script blocker. I've been using it for the last three weeks on PaleMoon 29.2.0, and it works well, though not as easy to configure as NoScript.
Suppose that you give me two ASCII strings having the same number of characters. I wish to compute efficiently the number of matching characters (same position, same character). E.g., the strings ‘012c’ and ‘021c’ have two matching characters (‘0’ and ‘c’).
The issue started around 12.15 a.m. Friday during planned work but continued into Friday morning and daytime, meaning new ID-cards, residence permit cards and digital IDs could not be issued at Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) offices in the morning, though this problem was ironed out a little after 11.15 a.m., BNS reports, meaning issuing ID cards and digital IDs can go ahead now.
SMART ID and Mobile ID are two of the three major ways of online ID verification used in Estonia, along with the national ID card. The solutions are used for a range of different day-to-day activities, including accessing online banking and online medical data.
While these services were working for existing users, new certificates could not be issued, meaning those wanting to obtain an account via either solution could not do so.
In today’s society, reality is fiction and people substitute their own ignorance for the facts and call it “equal”.
As America wakes up slowly from its long slumber to the national COVID-19 nightmare, with perhaps a million dead so far, about 22% of the population, including some in my own family, say they’ll refuse to take any vaccine.
Unfortunately, as the REO Speedwagon song started out “Heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from another.”, and this is concisely and exactly the problem we’re dealing with on outlets like Facebook in regards to antivax movements.
The folks who bash vaccines and fluoridated water are not innocent or well-meaning people who are concerned with your health. Frequently, they want to pitch dangerous herbs and snake oil concoctions that you really ought to hope do nothing except cost money.
A total of 125,900 schoolteachers had been suspended as of Saturday, said the official of the teachers' federation, who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals. He is on the junta's wanted list on charges of inciting disaffection.
Myanmar had 430,000 schoolteachers according to the most recent data, from two years ago.
It would have made sense in a different era when information was expensive and inaccessible to memorise facts with the hope of using it some time in life. We live in an Information Age, and everything is available at our fingertips. I remember my maths teacher harassing me to learn the multiplication table. Calculators were a novelty then, but I dared to ask her why I should know the multiplication table when we all would be having calculators soon. The answer she gave is still fresh in my memory even after 40 years. “Do you think you will have a calculator with you every time?” Yes, teacher.
Mexico's GMO corn ban presents an opportunity for U.S. farmers to supply non-GMO corn south of the border.
Almost 50 years ago, a woman showed up in the emergency room of a hospital in Maryland. She said she had been raped. A doctor examined her and wrote a report. Dr. Rudiger Breitenecker can recite the words of the report from memory nearly half a century later: “I examined this woman. She said she was raped. She was.”
Breitenecker, a forensic pathologist, worked at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center, a hospital just outside the Baltimore city limits, and as an expert in courtrooms across the country.
[Attackers] infiltrated the servers of Air India Ltd. and gained access to personal data of 4.5 million fliers, the nation’s flag carrier said.
Personal data of passengers registered between August 2011 and February 2021 were compromised in the attack, the carrier said in a note to fliers that was shared via Twitter. The details included credit card and contact information and frequent flier data.
https://www.voanews.com/silicon-valley-technology/ransomware-moves-economic-nuisance-national-security-threat
[...]
While Blount, the Colonial Pipeline CEO, defended his decision to pay a ransom as “the right thing to do for the country,” law enforcement officials and cybersecurity experts say such hefty payments embolden cyber criminals to carrying out more attacks.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that the same group of online extortionists blamed for striking the Irish health system last week have also hit at least 16 U.S. medical and first response networks in the past year.
In an alert made public Thursday by the American Hospital Association, the FBI said the cybercriminals using the malicious software dubbed ‘Conti’ have targeted law enforcement, emergency medical services, dispatch centers, and municipalities.
The alert did not name the victims or go into detail about the nature or severity of the breaches, saying only that they were among more than 400 organizations worldwide targeted by “Conti actors.”
Even NPR commented on Microsoft getting ready to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 10, but I thought I’d chime in and mention that you can do that today if you want to.
Microsoft Edge has a thing called Internet Explorer Mode that can reload a site using the Trident engine from Internet Explorer.
Due to the architecture of Internet Explorer, Trident is an embeddable component and Internet Explorer is just a small shell around that component. Internet Explorer Mode does not require the “Internet Explorer 11” feature to be turned on, so you can “remove” Internet Explorer and this Mode will still work in Microsoft Edge, should you turn it on.
I’ve been trying out opening sites in IE Mode in Edge, and it’s pretty clear that Trident has aged quite badly and the only reason why you’d ever do this is if you ended up with some crap web application that nobody is going to fix anytime soon. Like the beneficiary enrollment page on One Walmart.
A developer of the popular Bittorrent protocol client “QBittorrent” closed the “Won’t run on macOS Catalina” bug (due to Apple’s fake security scam of software signing+notarization) by closing the issue.
After a discussion, it wasn’t even about the $100 a year it would cost to get to get an Apple developer account so they could give a program away for free, or wondering if they could even get Apple to sign off on a Bittorrent app if they did, but that the infrastructure that you have to put in place to build, sign, and notarize Mac apps is daunting and not worth the pitiful amount of Mac users that it would bring in.
So, the way to make it run is still turn off Gatekeeper, at least for however long Apple allows it.
It’s not really your computer anyway. It ain’t done til GNU/Linux won’t run…. Oh wait, this too has happened.
Now, the world’s most popular photo sharing app is itself being sued.
Two users on Wednesday sued Instagram, claiming its embed feature is designed to flout copyright laws to make money for its parent, Facebook.
“Instagram misled the public to believe that anyone was free to get on Instagram and embed copyrighted works from any Instagram account, like eating for free at a buffet table of photos by virtue of simply using the Instagram embedding tool,” writes attorney Solomon Cera in the complaint, which is embedded below.
According to TorrentFreak, Facebook and their subsidiary, Instagram, reveal the tools they use to take down your videos (usually a birthday party or a trip to the zoo with background music, as “infringing content”.
I keep telling my spouse that it doesn’t do any good to take videos of us to post to Facebook as they’ll mute them anyway due to music playing in the background.
The only amusing thing about Facebook is that they’re sweating bullets that Apple’s new tool that gives the user some control over how Facebook abuses them might run their stock price into the ground.
They still, technically, have Android phones to plunder at will, but those of us who have a Facebook and are well aware that the Android app is spyware, can grab a shim app for Facebook out of F-Droid, which doesn’t give it any access to our phone.
[...]
When they started watching the security cameras, they figured out who was stealing company time, and the people who were goofing around on their phones also tended to steal sodas and other small items from the front of the store. No telling what they were doing on their phones, but “Social” Media would be a good guess. Long story short, they fired about 1/6th of all workers in the department without affecting overall productivity too much.
You probably aren’t hiring a mass murderer just because they don’t have a Facebook account, but if you hire someone with an iPhone and Facebook, you stand an excellent chance of getting a time clock thief who rips you off for Pepsi and stuff.
Beyond this, since Facebook is filled with Dark Triad personality types, why would you want to spend much time there?
The pontiff met Thursday with Henrik Fisker and Geeta Gupta-Fisker, founders of the California-based electric car startup Fisker, who provided him with renderings of the vehicle they plan to deliver during the fourth quarter of next year. It will be based on the Fisker Ocean SUV the company plans to put in production in 2022.
Cryptocurrencies that seemed to be defying gravity just weeks ago came back down to earth with a bump on Wednesday after a roller-coaster ride which could undermine their potential as mainstream investments.
The two main digital currencies, bitcoin and ether, pared back their losses in early afternoon trading after two of their biggest backers — Tesla Inc. chief Elon Musk and Ark Invest's chief executive officer Cathie Wood — reiterated their support for bitcoin.
Interest in cryptocurrencies has surged over the past year, and policymakers are scrambling to catch up. Investors have rushed into major digital currencies such as bitcoin and a growing industry of financial products tied to them, prompting regulators to lay out new rules for a rapidly growing world.
Financial regulators appointed by President Biden have recently pledged to crack down on any manipulation or abuse within the cryptocurrency industry, while advocates for the industry insist the government must lay out clear, consistent rules for all to follow.
Staffing shortages at the agency are so severe that guards often work overtime day after day or are forced to work mandatory double shifts. Violence leads to regular lockdowns at federal prison compounds across the U.S. And a congressional report released in 2019 found that "bad behaviour is ignored or covered up on a regular basis."
Inside Facebook, the campaign is being treated very seriously and has been categorized as an SEV1, which stands for “severity 1,” a descriptor used internally when there is a major issue with the website, according to screenshots of internal message boards reviewed by NBC News. An SEV1 is the second-highest priority site event after SEV0, which is used when the website is down.
Biden in late March released a $2.25 trillion infrastructure proposal, called the American Jobs Plan, that he mainly proposes to pay for through higher taxes on corporations. Republicans are interested in a smaller bill, and are strongly opposed to Biden’s proposed corporate tax increases.
The IT ministry said the World Health Organization (WHO) listed the variant as B.1.617 and any reference to "Indian" was false.
Geographical terms have been used to describe a number of other variants, including the UK and Brazil.
India's government has faced criticism over its handling of Covid-19.
It also drew anger last month after it ordered Twitter to remove posts critical of some of its actions during the pandemic.
"This is further€ shameful evidence that the Big Lie is becoming state policy," said attorney Marc Elias.
Under a new law in South Carolina, a person facing the death penalty is made to choose between a firing squad and the electric chair as a means of execution.
Emily Wilder had thought she’d hit it big. After interning at the Arizona Republic, she earned a newsroom assistant job at the Phoenix bureau of the Associated Press, starting May 3. It wouldn’t last long.€
The top political leader of Tibet's government in exile said on Friday that there is an urgent threat of "cultural genocide" in Tibet, and the international community must stand up to China ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
Penpa Tsering, who was this month elected president of the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), said that they are committed to a peaceful resolution with China, but Beijing's current policies threaten the future of Tibetan culture.
"Time is running out," said Tsering, speaking from Dharamshala in India. "Once it is eliminated, it doesn't make sense to fight for anything," he said.
Three former cops said Ronald Greene’s 2019 death after an arrest in which he was stunned, punched and dragged by Louisiana state troopers is among the worst cases of excessive force they’ve seen and the latest example of filmed brutality eroding public confidence in law enforcement.
The video of Greene, 49, a Black man from Monroe, Louisiana, being tased by white troopers, dragged face first, choked and left without medical assistance for about nine minutes first became public this week, two years after the arrest. The Associated Press released the body-camera footage of the May 10, 2019, arrest, which happened after Greene led troopers on a high-speed chase that topped 100 mph.
It was only during the trial that Williams heard for the first time audio of his desperate plea to 911 the day of Floyd's death.
In a recording of the emergency call, Williams could be heard yelling at the officers, "Y'all is murderers, bro!"
He testified that he had "called the police on the police" after Floyd was taken away in an ambulance and told the 911 dispatcher that he believed he'd witnessed a murder.
It’s important for companies to police the cannabis sector, both to protect young consumers and to keep the industry open for themselves, say counsel
Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 336. From April 22, 2021. "Here I interview the great Stephan Kinsella and discuss whether or not patents and intellectual property are actually a good thing. We get into philosophy, practical advice, and more." Related links: C4SIF.org Resources A Selection of my Best Articles and Speeches on IP Do Business Without Intellectual Property
Per NPR, the first day of testimony in Epic’s lawsuit against Apple did not go well for CEO Tim Cook.
It seems that the judge was the most skeptical of Cook’s arguments that the program that reduces “commissions” to Apple for small developers were sufficient, or that consumers had sufficient choice in the In-App Payments market because Android phones exist.
Of course, that argument is ridiculous. Google’s commissions are exactly the same. The issue here is that the commissions themselves are too high and raise prices for the user. When Epic put it’s own in-app payment system into Fortnite, it passed some of the savings to the user. It cost 20% less than paying through Apple or Google.
Jamie Zawinski had previously complained that Apple deliberately did things to discourage developers from giving away apps for iOS that are really free. For example, Google charges $25 once to get a Google developer account, and Apple charges $100 a year. Apple pressures people to make money so that they can take 30% of it.
NPR goes on to mention the fact that iPhone sales have been stagnant for years. This is true, and there has not been a “next product” because Apple isn’t an innovative company. If they lose the in-app purchase revenue, money they are effectively stealing from their user (since the developer isn’t just absorbing it), they hit the skids.
Today, Tim Cook (“Tim Apple” as Trump called him), testifies on Apple’s App Store monopoly.
Of course, people should know that they’re going to try to excuse their behavior on creating a “good experience” for users and to “keep things safe” from malware, and from a child that may not use the computer correctly.
The problem with this model is that Apple has been using their monopoly to profit from doing essentially nothing except imposing ridiculous rules on app developers, censoring apps, and taking nearly a third of gross sales for providing a distribution service.
Apple’s model makes the user lose on numerous fronts, and it makes software more expensive and costs jobs in the economy.
They also can’t guarantee it’s secure. At issue is Fortnite adding its own payment method to bypass Apple’s store siphoning off their revenues.
How did it get past app review? The code was set to do nothing for a while, so that it would get through the review and then activate later.
If a payment mechanism can do that, so can malware, and once malware runs on a device it’s too late. It can gain more permissions by exploiting bugs in the firmware, and become a rootkit. At that point, it would be difficult for Apple to even get rid of it.
Epic mustered its own arguments: people can still choose to keep their phones locked down, and they might want to access stores with even more carefully curated apps or even better privacy controls. It’s previously accused Apple of hypocrisy, pointing out anecdotal failures to catch specific apps (like a game called Ganja Farmer: Weed Empire) that violate App Store guidelines. “It’s not 100 percent. It’s not perfect. You will find mistakes being made,” Cook said when Apple’s counsel asked about those incidents. “But if you back up and look at it in the scheme of things, with 1.8 million or so apps on the store, we do a really good job.”
Apple says its control over the App Store promises security and reliability for users. Epic says it stifles competition.
No, I don't want to gloat, but it's mind-boggling what happened yesterday in that Oakland courtroom at the end of the main part (they're done apart from closing arguments on Monday) of the Epic Games v. Apple App Store antitrust trial. It's fair to say that at this point the question is most likely about remedies. Epic is on the winning track with respect to liability as Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California laid bare the bankruptcy of Apple's defenses. Being an App Store complainant myself (though I tried what I could to work things out), that's what I had hoped, but the hurdle was and remains high.
After my final pretrial post and Twitter thread, I didn't comment on the trial itself or on the issues in it. I just noted some suspicious Twitter activity.
I dialed in only for opening statements (followed by Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney's testimony, which was almost inaudible) and for Apple CEO Tim Cook's testimony yesterday. In between, I just read other people's tweets (mostly not even in real time), particularly the ones by Protocol's Nick Statt (here's his report on how the judge "saved her best for last") and The Verge's Adi Robertson (here's his article, which contains a partial transcript of how Judge YGR grilled Tim Cook), but also others.
After the first couple of days, I was profoundly worried. The judge had tough questions for Epic, and some of the answers might have been tactically suboptimal. The inflection point in the early phase of the trial was the testimony of Lori Wright, a Microsoft Xbox exec. As far as I could see on Twitter, it was just perfect and definitely eye-opening.
Electric Vehicles (EVs) have grown in popularity in recent years, with governments and industry queuing up to announce bold green commitments and new product launches. Over the past decade, we’ve seen EVs arrive from manufacturers like Tesla and Nissan. However, 2021 will see scores of new entrants from big brands and new start-ups will appear.
[...]
Moreover, a recent report from the European Patent Office (EPO)[2], which analysed the trends and innovations in battery storage patent filings, shows that while patent filings for battery recycling have increased, they remain significantly low, at just 436 in total between 2000 and 2018. These figures indicate that there is an urgent need for further investment, and research into developing new methods so that recycling rates can keep up with the surge in EVs and avoid further environmental damage. This is needed more than ever, as industry analysts predict that by 2030 the world will generate 2 million metric tons of used Li-ion batteries per year[3].
On 29 April 2021, the EU Commission announced that the initiative to update the EU rules on design protection is now open for public consultation until 22 July 2021. The proposal for a new directive is planned for the second quarter of 2022 and will be an important step towards more sustainability as one of the main reasons for revision is to ensure that the design protection regime better supports the transition to the digital and green economy.
This initiative should be seen as part of the broader EU Action Plan for IP, which, among other things, aims to align EU intellectual property (P) rights with Europe’s global green leadership.
Here, we tackle several (proposed or expected) legislative initiatives following this EU Action Plan for IP aiming towards a green IP.
The UK High Court has made a first judgment in a case concerning EP (UK) 19 20 764, which covers indications for the drug travoprost. Alcon, a subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, owns the patent. Travoprost is used for treating ocular hypertension and the common eye condition glaucoma, where fluid build-up at the front of the eye damages the optic nerve.
In the decision, the High Court determined that EP 764 is valid. By doing so, the court threw out the defendants arguments that the patent was invalid for lack of novelty over EP 06 03 800, obviousness and insufficiency.
[...]
The judge examined novelty in the context of EP 764’s anticipation over EP 800, the latter of which covers prostaglandin combinations in glaucoma therapy. Alcon also owns this patent. However, an anticipation attack put forward by the defendants failed.
According to the court, this was because of the specificity of Example E in EP 800. Defendants Actavis and Accord argued that a person skilled in the art “would not see the reference to the isopropyl ester form of fluprostenol being disclosed only in combination with the other components.”
In its latest guidelines, the European Patent Office (EPO) addresses alignment between the description of a patent and amended claims, in line with article 84 of the European Patent Convention (EPC), related to clarity.
The Federal Circuit continues its recent run of decisions extending the reach of the enablement requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112(a) to invalidate patents in Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. v. Oxford Nanopore Technologies, Inc. (albeit in this case, affirming denial of motion for JMOL in the face of a jury verdict of non-enablement).
With respect to the '611 patent, the Commission affirmed the ID's finding that the MacRocker and Mulberry Bounce chairs do not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. In particular, the Commission declined to endorse GCI's "novel legal framework for analyzing equivalence" in which, rather than addressing the substantiality of the differences between the structure in the accused chairs and the "fulcrum point" limitation of the asserted claims, GCI instead argued that the bending motion of compliant members in the accused chairs could be approximated with simplified models ("pseudo-rigid-body models" or "PRBMs") based on rigid bars connected by pivoting joints. The Commission affirmed the ID's rejection of this theory based on GCI's expert's failure to provide necessary information about the PRBMs to show that they accurately modeled the compliant members of the accused chairs, and further noted that GCI's approach "lacks support in the law."
Can someone help me understand what’s going on with the rise in withdrawn patents? (FYI – since 2000 the numbers have been growing substantially faster than the rate of new patent issues).
Although second medical use protection has had limited importance in the treatment of COVID-19, it has put in the spotlight the overall need for quick reactions to new diseases, which is one of the many factors justifying such protection, according to Jochen Bühling, partner of the German law firm of Krieger Mes & Graf v. der Groeben and editor of ‘Patent Protection for Second Medical Uses’. Kluwer IP Law interviewed Bühling on the occasion of the publication of the second edition of the book.
Last month, the Federal Circuit affirmed an exclusion order imposed by the International Trade Commission against Bio-Rad for importing infringing microfluidic systems and components used for gene sequencing or related analyses, in Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. v. Int'l. Trade Comm.
The ITC's decision followed a complaint by 10X Genomics, an intervenor in this appeal, for infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,689,024, 9,695,468, and 9,856,530. An ITC Administrative Law Judge found importation of the accused articles infringed claims in each of the asserted patents, that Bio-Rad had not established that the patents were invalid, and that 10X Genomics practiced the claims (and thus satisfied the "domestic industry" requirement of the Tariff Act of 1930, 19 U.S.C. ۤ 1337(a)(2)).
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Bio-Rad turned this argument on its head in contending that 10X Genomics' product did not practice the invention claimed in the asserted claims of the '530 patent and thus did not satisfy the domestic industry requirement in the statute for relief from the ITC under Section 1337(a)(2). But because "[t]he test for satisfying the 'technical prong' of the [domestic] industry requirement is essentially [the] same as that for infringement, i.e., a comparison of domestic products to the asserted claims," Alloc, Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 342 F.3d 1361, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2003), the Federal Circuit also rejected this challenge to the Commission's determination. According to the opinion, Bio-Rad failed to show the Commission's determination was not supported by substantial evidence, being based on documentary evidence and expert testimony.
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The Court assessed these assertions under California law as matters of contract interpretation; under that law interpretation of a contract is a matter of law subject to de novo review according to the opinion. The opinion comes directly to the point: "Bio-Rad has furnished no persuasive basis for disturbing the Commission's conclusion that the assignment provisions do not apply to a signatory's ideas developed during the employment (with Bio-Rad or QuantaLife) solely because the ideas ended up contributing to a post-employment patentable invention in a way that supports co-inventorship of that eventual invention." Specifically, the panel appreciated that the employment contracts by their terms were limited to intellectual property that arose in the course of employment at the time the inventors were employed by Bio-Rad's predecessor-in-interest, QuantaLife (i.e., "before the termination of employment"). Under these circumstances, the Court noted that "Bio-Rad does not argue, much less demonstrate, that a person's work, just because it might one day turn out to contribute significantly to a later patentable invention and make the person a co-inventor, is itself protectible intellectual property before the patentable invention is made." For a patent, "the pertinent intellectual property does not exist until at least conception of that invention" the opinion states, citing, inter alia, Burroughs Wellcome Co. v. Barr Labs., Inc., 40 F.3d 1223, 1227–28 (Fed. Cir. 1994). None of the precedent Bio-Rad advanced in support of its co-ownership argument was to the contrary (and remarkably did not support its argument in the Court's opinion), in particular Bd. of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior Univ. v. Roche Molecular Sys., Inc., 583 F.3d 832, 837 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Finally, the panel understood California law to "recognize[] significant policy constraints on employer agreements that restrain former employees in the practice of their profession, including agreements that require assignment of rights in post-employment inventions" insofar as "[s]uch an agreement might deter a former employee from pursuing future work related to the subject matter and might deter a future employer from hiring that individual to work in the area." And the panel did not find any reversible error by the Commission in deciding, on the merits, that nothing the inventors had done during the course of their employment had sufficient specificity to support Bio-Rad's claims of an ownership interest in any of the asserted patents.
At 12:01 a.m., this past Tuesday, the USPTO issued its newest batch of patents. 6549 utility patents; 13 reissues; and 699 design patents.
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On point, March 1971, the NYTimes published an article suggesting that the USPTO would pause printing that summer for a 12-week period due to printing cost increases associated “the inauguration of printing by computer.” The times reported that “or several months it has been impossible to buy copies on the issue date.” For those weeks, the patents “issued” on time, but were not really available until later.
The EPO held its PATLIB2021 online conference on 18/19 May, with over 1 200 registered participants and some of the leading technology transfer experts in Europe participating as speakers. The event marked the launch of the EPO's PATLIB 2.0 project, which aims to enhance the network of over 300 patent information centres ("PATLIB centres") spread across Europe.
We are among the few Indian firms equipped for providing services related to patent protection and enforcement in India and across multiple jurisdictions including SAARC, ASEAN, EU, USA, Japan, and South Korea.
The Japanese patent authority has granted Enzymatica's patent for the cod enzyme that is a key component of Enzymatica's cold spray ColdZyme€® for the Japanese market. The patent is valid until 2036. Corresponding patent was granted by the European Patent Office, EPO, in the spring of 2020.
On 23 March 2021, the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) published the outcome of its consultation last year on artificial intelligence (AI) and intellectual property (IP) (the Response). The Response highlights the UK’s ambition to “be a leader in AI technology” by developing and adapting IP legislation in light of developments in AI technology, notwithstanding the fact that such developments may, post-Brexit, result in a divergence between the approach taken in the UK and the EU.
Since the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, the UK has clearly indicated that it will take its own path to encourage AI innovation while protecting IP rights to solidify its position as a leader in AI innovation. The UK has been active in its attempt to secure this position. The Response follows the AI Council’s publication of an AI Roadmap in January this year and the House of Lords Liaison Committee’s publication of AI in the UK: No Room for Complacency in December last year, two reports that recognise the importance of good governance and regulation for public trust while specifying that flexible regulation is critical. The Response is an example of one of the actions recommended by the House of Lords’ Liaison Committee for sector-specific regulators (such as the IPO) to identify gaps in regulation (such as IP legislation) to address issues raised by AI.
On May 13, 2021, the USPTO granted Unified's request for ex parte reexamination, finding substantial new questions of patentability on all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,207,924, owned by Aprese Systems Texas, LLC. The ‘924 patent relates generally to management of applications and/or services based on contextual information. It has been asserted against Toyota.
The anonymous graffiti artist known as Banksy is no stranger to trade mark wrangling, with this week’s cancellation decision by the European Union Intellectual Property Office’s Cancellation Division following hot on the heels of similar proceedings last September, concerning the work 'Flower Thrower' (covered by the IPKat here).
The latest decisionconcerns his famous – indeed, “arguably the most famous and iconic of his works” (p. 3 of the decision) – ‘Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge’, which depicts a monkey wearing a sandwich board adorned with the titular slogan.
What’s becoming increasingly clear on the modern web is that corporate rule prevails with information being deleted out from under our feet by the billions of links per year. Now, with companies like Microsoft GitHub, entire software programs risk being lost forever.
The DMCA was passed to prevent and curtail piracy and, as a “compromise”, included provisions that would discourage abuse. Two of these were that the person complained about could respond to the complaint and there would be an investigation into what was really happening performed by the service provider, and that sending a DMCA notice that was faulty could be a criminal offense. However, to this date, and with millions of DMCA letters sent over the past two decades, nobody has gone to prison.
Corporations often set up DMCA complaint mills where law firms robosign complaints and send them directly to companies like Google and Microsoft, often without any human involvement.
The notifications themselves are usually even automated, sometimes in an unbelievably sloppy manner….only about 17% are even valid according to TorrentFreak, citing WordPress.), knowing that these companies that recive them almost never put up any fight.
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While they’re both bad, Microsoft complies with the DMCA 99.5% of the time, even though 83% of the requests are invalid in some way.
If that’s their policy on Bing, what do you think your odds are on GitHub?
Less appreciated is how developments in reproduction and distribution affect the very contents being created. Consider the impact of the playlist, as described in an article that appeared in the April 24th issue of The Economist (“And the winner is… who cares?”), here. The challenge for a producer of music is to reach a potential consumer; that of the consumer is to discover new music. With fragmentation in how music is distributed, enter the playlist.
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There are a variety of observations packed into this passage, but what undergirds all of them is that the music being created is fashioned to meet the characteristics of the computer-generated playlist. Thus, the track is likely to begin with a “pre-chorus” interlude, which would not have likely been adopted in the pre-playlist world. As well, the song will likely be shorter, in order to increase in the aggregate the number of streams for which the artist is entitled to payment.
Anti-piracy group BREIN has shut down Discoverthisplace, a pirate site offering tens of thousands of movies, TV shows, music albums, eBooks and magazines. Homing in on an administrator and two major uploaders, BREIN went to court and convinced a judge that the matter was significantly urgent to warrant an ex parte injunction. Following service from a bailiff, the site was taken offline.
