Linux 5.15 is positioned now to see a Management Component Transport Protocol (MCTP) implementation with the code now queued in net-next with this being a protocol for communication between management controllers and managed devices.
The code now collected by net-next ahead of the Linux 5.15 merge window in a few weeks is the core implementation of MCTP. The Management Component Transport Protocol is defined by the Distributed Management Task Force for communicating between relevant controllers and their devices. MCTP can work with buses such as PCI Express, USB, I2C, SMBus, and others while being relevant not only for servers but also embedded devices. Intel NICs have been among the devices supporting MCTP over PCI Express now for a number of years.
Rumor mill: AMD appears to be readying another APU (accelerated processing unit) according to driver code spotted in the Linux 5.15 release, although it appears to be using an RDNA1-based integrated GPU rather than the second generation going into newer products.
The graphics driver patches as reported by Phoronix on Friday appear to be referring to a processor with graphics codenamed "Cyan Sailfish." The APU might be targeted for consumer or embedded applications, although the usage of the first-generation RDNA architecture is perhaps the most unexpected aspect of this. The past few generations of these processors with onboard graphics (all the way up to Ryzen 5000 APUs on both mobile and desktop) have continued to use AMD's Vega architecture from 2017, albeit with various updates and refreshes over the years.
The table above shows our articles updated in July 2021.
For our entire collection, check out the categories below. This is the largest compilation of recommended software. The collection includes hundreds of articles, with comprehensive sections on internet, graphics, games, programming, science, office, utilities, and more. Almost all of the software is free and open source.
Online communications are not anymore limited to chatting and emailing. With high work efficiency, we need bufferless, smooth audio and video calling tools for client meetings, office gatherings, marketing, webinars, healthcare, and many more. Students, teachers, and all others professionals have been using Zoom as the primary communicating medium. Especially during the Covid Pandemic, the demand for Zoom video conference software has increased in almost every sector.
Zoom allows hosting video conferences with a hundred people in the basic plan. Zoom is a cross-platform video conference software, and it is available for Windows, Mac, Linux, and smartphones. On Linux and other host devices, you can record Zoom meetings, schedule meetings, share files, and maintain chat and video calling rooms.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Gulp.js on Debian 10. For those of you who didn’t know, Gulp.js is an open-source toolkit that helps developers automate the tasks in the development workflow. Gulp is useful to make automate processes and run repetitive tasks easily. It is a task runner built on Node.js and npm, used for automation of time-consuming and repetitive tasks involved in web development like minification, concatenation, cache busting, and many more.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Gulp.js on a Debian 10 (Buster).
as in VirtualBox, is it possible to create bigger virtual harddisks on smaller physical harddisks, by think provisioning qcow2 format (kvm default)
To list files on a computer with a graphical interface, you usually open a file manager (Files on Linux, Finder on MacOS, Windows Explorer on Windows), and look at the files.
To list files in a terminal, you use the ls command to list all files in the current directory. The pwd commands tells you what directory you're currently in.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Flatpak on AlmaLinux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, Flatpak is a universal system package, used for application virtualization, deployment, and mainly used for package management that almost works on all Linux environments.
This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Flatpak future of application distribution on AlmaLinux 8. You can follow the same instructions for Rocky Linux.
Want to get better performance when playing games in Linux? Try GameMode!
GameMode is a free open-source Linux project allows games to request a set of optimizations be temporarily applied to the host and/or game process.
The project was originally designed as a stop-gap solution to problems with Intel and AMD CPU powersave or ondemand governors. But now GameMode supports for optimizations including:
One of the most common questions I get is how can I find a Linux command path that I just installed on Linux using a package manager such as apt/dnf command. We have many new developers coming from the Windows world. Many are first-time Linux users. Some are using Linux from WSL, and others are directly dealing with cloud servers over ssh. Let us see some common commands to list or find a path for Linux commands.
One thing I always wanted to do when going on holiday is to track where I go, the places I’ve been, and see how much I’ve travelled around. This is true in particular when going to places where I walk around a lot (Japan stays at the top of the list, also for other reasons that are not related to this post). Something like viewing a map showing where you were, and where did you go, with optional export to KML or GPX to import into other programs like Marble.
To my knowledge, there are a number of proprietary solutions to this problem, but in this case I value these kind of data quite a lot, so they are out of the question from the start. And so, I began my search for something I could use.
I initially set up with Traccar but the sheer complexity of the program (not to mention that I relied on some features from a popular fork was off-putting. Also it did far more than what I wanted it to do, and the use case of the program was completely different from mine anyway. After a couple of unsuccessful tries, I left it to gather virtual dust on my server until I deleted it completely.
The Lutris 0.5.9 beta delivers on initial support for the Epic Games Store, support for DXVK-NVAPI and DLSS, FidelityFX Super Resolution is now an exposed option for compatible Wine versions, Valve's Gamescope Wayland game compositor is now an option, Esync usage is now enabled by default, the Dolphin emulator is now available as a game source, improved process monitoring, and other enhancements. It's quite a hearty update for this game manager.
July 2021 looks to have been another slow month for Xfce’s apps updates, but we did receive some important ones, starting with the Catfish file searching tool, which received not one but two releases that enabled the sidebar by default, added local source (pip) installation support, enabled support for searching compressed files, added full-text search in PDF documents, improved Wayland support, added support for message and troff mimetypes in full-text search, and added new persistent settings for searching file contents and thumbnail view.
In this one, we have Nvidia open sourcing more of their toolchain, Odoo proving that open source software can be not only profitable, but also successful, KDE connect expanding on Windows, and on iOS, and the Linux gaming landscape being quite redefined by the steam deck's announcement.
Last week’s large merge request added the ability for Kalendar to add, edit, view and delete todos alongside events. That MR was merged on Friday and you can now play around with it on Kalendar’s master branch!
This week, a lot of time was spent polishing that MR as well as adding a few additions to make it even nicer for you to use todos. A new MR has also been added this week which adds a convenient new feature to the incidence creation process.
Let’s go through what’s new!
The Kubuntu Focus Team announces the affordable Focus XE 14-inch laptop. This ultra-portable and energy-efficient system is a great choice for developers, creators, and those who are looking for the best out-of-the-box Linux experience but don't need the power, complexity, or expense of a dedicated GPU.
Hardware highlights include the fast and power-efficient Intel 11th generation CPUs with graphics that are 3 times faster than the prior generation. Numerous high-speed audio and data ports include Thunderbolt 4 and the capacity to attach multiple 4K displays. Customers can customize their XE with up to 64GB of high-speed 3200Mhz Dual-Channel RAM, and up to 2T of NVMe storage.
Travel during COVID-19 requires certificates proving your are vaccinated, (negatively) tested or have recovered from an infection in many places. Official apps for that are only available on the major proprietary platforms, so for Plasma Mobile we need to take care of this ourselves.
Technically those certificates are just QR codes, so an image viewer is all you would need. Once you are managing more than one such code, e.g. due to having had multiple tests or due to traveling with family, it becomes useful to also see the content in a human readable form.
Based on the KHealthCertificate library this has been added to KDE Itinerary, and a standalone health certificate wallet app for Plasma Mobile is also in the works. So far the DIVOC and EU DGC formats are supported, covering Europe and India.
KDE e.V., the non-profit organisation supporting the KDE community, is looking for a great person to run a project related to the environmental sustainability of our software. The position we are looking to fill immediately is that of a project lead who can also do some event management duties. Please see the job ad for the project lead for more details about this employment opportunity. We are looking forward to your application.
On the visuals department, this new release brings a refreshed icon by @jimmac, which looks fantastic and takes it closer to the modern art style in GNOME.
Regarding features, well, there’s quite a lot. The most noticeable one is the Trash folder.
New version of Lakka has been released!
We are happy to announce new and updated version of Lakka.
Today we are looking at Freespire 7.7. It comes with Linux Kernel 5.4, XFCE 4.16.2, and uses about 700MB of ram when idling. Enjoy!
In this video, we are looking at Freespire 7.7.
Once again, the Call for Code community has answered the call. We are so grateful to everyone who helped support the 2021 Global Challenge to address climate change and to all of you who participated in this year’s competition. The societal challenges brought on by climate change continue to be some of the most pressing issues of our time. The Call for Code team extends our sincere appreciation to all of you who have joined the fight and are helping apply technology solutions to make a lasting difference.
There are multiple ways you can continue to hone your skills and take on the greatest societal issues by contributing to our open source projects.
[...]
Join the Call for Code for Racial Justice community in Slack to gain access to experts and collaborators, and get started supporting these initiatives.
Red Hat and Nutanix announced a strategic partnership to enable a solution for building, scaling and managing cloud-native applications on-premises and in hybrid clouds. The collaboration brings together technologies, enabling installation, interoperability and management of Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux with Nutanix Cloud Platform, including Nutanix AOS and AHV.
The 7th monthly Sparky project and donate report of 2021:
– Linux kernel updated up to version 5.13.7 & 5.14-rc3 – Added to repos: Komorebi wallpapers manager, Nuclear audio player, Shortwave radio player, Enve 2D animation software, Viper web browser, Systemback – preperation to a new stable version of Spaky 6.0 “Po Tolo” is on the way
This month I didn't have any particular focus. I just worked on issues in my info bubble.
Edge Computer (752-9400/752-9401) is a device for Linux-savvy users that want an industrial grade computer to run Node RED, Grafana or edge applications, such as AWS IoT Greengrass. It comes with a Debian Linux operating system, a quad-core ATOM processor, 64 GB flash memory and either 4GB or 8GB RAM with memory able to be expanded via SSD HDD memory card. Control engineers and software developers can leverage the device’s openness to operate their edge of network applications.
Linux Mint is an awesome Linux distribution and there is no doubt about it.
There is also no doubt that its website looks like something that was made in the 2010s. This surely does not give a good first impression to people not familiar with the project.
I know, it’s the quality of the product that matters the most but a nice packaging is a positive addition to any product.
The good thing is that Linux Mint team has realized this. In the last few years, they have redesigned the Cinnamon Spice and the Linux Mint blog websites.
Everything you need to know about the software, formerly known as Raspbian, powering the world’s favourite tiny computer
Adobe Lightroom is a commercial enterprise-class image editing software for professionals photographers.
Adobe has packed it with dozens of features that enhance photographer's workflow and improve their productivity.
Although it has an affordable paid subscription per month, you should consider open-source and free alternatives.
Therefore, in this article, we collected the best open-source and free alternative for Adobe Lightroom. However, you should consider certain limitations and different workflow if you are an avid Lightroom user.
By using Vulkan, AMD and Intel users will see a massive performance upgrade, and not only this, but those who are using Intel’s integrated GPU will see a lot less graphical glitches. While those with NVIDIA may not see as big of a difference, according to the June 2021 progress report they will see “a small performance improvement in a few titles.”
Welcome to the latest monthly overview of events from the Apache community. Here's a summary of what happened in July...
Hello ReactOS followers! This report covers changes in the project during February-July 2021. And we definitely have some things to highlight!
ReactOS as the long-running open-source project striving for Windows ABI compatibility has been making some significant progress this summer on various endeavors.
ReactOS continues going strong after more than two decades for aspiring to be an open-source drop-in replacement to Windows. The open-source project today published their latest newsletter outlining many of their accomplishments so far this year.
The LibreOffice Quality Assurance ( QA ) Team is happy to announce LibreOffice 7.2 Release Candidate 2 is available for testing!
LibreOffice 7.2 will be released as final in mid August, 2021 ( Check the Release Plan for more information ) being LibreOffice 7.2 RC2 the fourth pre-release since the development of version 7.2 started at the end of November, 2020. Since the previous release, LibreOffice 7.2 RC1, 90 commits have been submitted to the code repository and 55 bugs have been fixed. Check the release notes to find the new features included in LibreOffice 7.2.
LibreOffice 7.2 is preparing to ship this month while out today is LibreOffice 7.2 RC2 for facilitating last minute testing of this leading open-source office suite.
LibreOffice 7.2 brings a command pop-up / heads-up display (HUD), initial GTK4 toolkit support, the ability to compile to WebAssembly, font caching for faster rendering, Calc spreadsheet performance improvements, the usual assortment of import/filter export work, and dropping its OpenGL-based drawing code in favor of routing all the code through Skia.
I wrote a control panel in 2005 using PHP, without any framework. Who could have guessed it would still be in production now?
Of course, most people stumble in step 1 (e.g. by making a benchmark that is non-representative, like PHP 8's infamous JIT that helped 3x on the benchmark, but at most 3–5% on real code). And step 3 is naturally where all the magic happens. The cheapest wins often come out of a surprising profile, and the best wins often come from taking a step up and optimizing at a higher level. The most satisfying ideas are those that simplify code, so that you end up with just running less stuff and having things look more natural. (The worst ideas come when you skip step 2, because you end up optimizing what you think takes time, which is rarely the stuff that actually does.)
SDL 2.0.16 is being prepared for release as the successor to SDL 2.0.14. Particularly for Linux users this SDL 2.0.16 update is significant with some key enhancements for this library that is common to multi-platform games and part of the Steam runtime.
Exciting us the most with SDL 2.0.16 is that the Wayland support is "greatly improved" and additionally there is support for audio input/output using Pipewire. The native PipeWire support is great now that Fedora Workstation and others are beginning to ship it by default as an alternative to the likes of PulseAudio. 2021 is certainly the year PipeWire is beginning to see some healthy adoption and ready to take on Linux audio/video stream management. Among other Wayland improvements with SDL 2.0.16 is support for client-side decorations.
Kythera AI has released its AI middleware as free open-source software (FOSS), in partnership with the Linux Foundation’s new Open3D game engine (O3DE).
Previously only available to commercial clients, Kythera AI’s toolset is now packaged with O3DE, becoming the first middleware provider to make its advanced AI solution available to any developer at any level. To ensure fairness and continuity of Kythera AI’s development, there is royalty and upfront licensing available for commercial products over a certain threshold. Indie game developers will likely not hit this threshold and if they start making a lot of money from their project, they can pay a royalty fee.
Kythera AI consists of a broad range of AI tools that have been produced with veteran developers. Tools include a behaviour tree system and solutions for navigation of the ground and sky, which aims to solve the more time-consuming challenges for developers. Independent studios, who might previously have been limited by budget and resources, will now be able to develop games with AI as complex and engaging as that in AAA titles.
“We’re big fans of Kythera AI and their toolset, including behaviour trees, navigation, and automatic level markup,” says Lloyd Tullues, CTO of Silicon-Valley-backed game studio Carbonated Inc, who, like Kythera AI, are founder members of the Open 3D Foundation. “Knowing that Kythera will be available with O3DE from the start is super exciting: developers from all over the world will now be able to leverage the same tools we’ve relied upon to create absolutely amazing experiences for their players.”
This comes as a big development in the Scottish gaming and tech sector, with a Scottish company playing a major role in an international collaboration of high-profile tech organisations.
“We are delighted to see a case study showcased in Scotland’s AI Strategy involved directly in founding a potentially revolutionary group in the field of game design and simulation,” says Gillian Docherty OBE, Chair of the Scottish AI Alliance. “We’re proud to see a Scottish company with the growth potential of Kythera AI showing leadership in their sector on the global stage. This recent announcement of Kythera’s position as the default AI for the new Open 3D Engine will no doubt hasten the wider adoption across both gaming and other sectors.”
Matthew Jack, CEO of Kythera AI, says: “It was an exciting moment when we chose to join the O3DE Foundation as founder members and to supply the AI solution for the project. We have spent a long time developing a comprehensive toolset for game designers and AI developers to work with, and the idea of so many creatives getting access to those tools, regardless of their background, is an amazing thought. We can’t wait to see what incredible games come out of the community as a result of this access.”
After the first post, some more time was spent on building O3DE with Meson. This is the second and most likely last post on the subject. Currently the repository builds all of AzCore basic code and a notable chunk of its Qt code. Tests are not built and there are some caveats on the existing code, which will be discussed below. The rest of the conversion would most likely be just more of the same and would probably not provide all that much new things to tackle.
I'm always doing other things and then Sunday comes and I start thinking, "How much time do I have before it's midnight in London?"
When "The Perl Challenge" first started, I was happy to just ponder the problems. Then came the pandemic and I thought that I would use some of my then copious free time to contribute. Then time got not-so-copious. And more people started contributing to TWC, some people much more talented than me, it turns out.
So I'll take a stab at things when I can and I'll still try to write a stand-alone script the way (I wish) I would at work, but my threatened laxness in writing things up will be more of a promise: Light banter to cast a veneer of confidence on the correctness of my results, anything else is extra.
These are some answers to the Week 123 of the Perl Weekly Challenge organized by Mohammad S. Anwar.
In Python, a string is a sequence of Unicode characters. Though Python supports numerous functions for string manipulation, it doesn’t have an inbuilt function or method explicitly designed to reverse the string.
Enterprises can look for more transparency from software vendors after the Biden Administration’s recent mandate that software bills of materials be provided by companies attempting to do business with the federal government.
Software bills of materials, frequently abbreviated to SBOMs, aren’t a new concept. The idea comes from the manufacturing sector, where it’s often crucial for buyers to fully understand the components and materials that were used to make a particular piece of equipment.
Intel's Itanium lineup of 64-bit processors was an attempt at making non-x86 designs that were meant for server and enterprise workloads. As of July 29th, Intel has shipped its last batch of Itanium processors to customers and thus ended the era of this processor family.
Intel Itanium is a 64-bit processor family based on IA-64 Instruction Set Architecture (ISA). In a joint venture with Hewlett-Packard (HP), Intel decided to develop a new type of processor that would better suit the modern workloads and implement some new ideas in the processor architecture realm.
Support during the isolation of the pandemic was crucial for everyone but especially so for members of the Genesis Club, struggling with serious mental health issues yet unable to access the physical location they had come to rely on. For Genesis, it was especially vital that the organization come to a remote alternative for the sake of their members.
"The ransomware is provided for several different operating systems versions and architectures and is deliverable in a variety of formats, including a Windows variant with SafeMode support (EXE / Reflective DLL / PowerShell) and a Linux variant with NAS support: Synology, OpenMediaVault, FreeNAS (TrueNAS)," reported Recorded Future.
"According to BlackMatter, the Windows ransomware variant was successfully tested on Windows Server 2003+ x86/x64 and Windows 7+ x64 / x86. The Linux ransomware variant was successfully tested on ESXI 5+, Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOs. Supported file systems for Linux include VMFS, VFFS, NFS, VSAN."
On July 8, 2021, the CrowdSec team released CrowdSec v1.1.x - the latest version of their free and open-source cybersecurity solution designed to protect Linux servers, services, containers, or virtual machines exposed on the Internet with a server-side agent - with new packages and repositories, as well as improvements to to the CrowdSec agent itself. LinuxSecurity spoke with the CrowdSec team to provide readers with insight into what they can expect from this exciting release, and how they can get started with CrowdSec v1.1.x.
There are not many who know about Tor Browser and even fewer who actually use it in their daily lives. Tor Browser is known to be a notorious web browser that opens up the “Dark Web”, only used for buying or selling drugs. Also, the size of this Dark web is a hundred times more than the surface web. All of it is not true.
Tor Browser just provides a safer way to access the internet. It protects its users’ identities by encrypting and bouncing users’ traffic through different devices. Facebook, Wikipedia, and many other popular websites are also available as .onion so that users can browse these websites privately.
As with everything else, there are a few websites that do sell drugs but we can not call the entire network unsafe because of them. Bad actors are everywhere including the normal Internet we use through Google chrome or Firefox.
Quite a while ago, Arch Linux has turned on many binary security features via compilation flags (2016) or turned off options that are known to help exploit software (debugging symbols, RPATH). Now we have 2021 and Arch Linux made good experience with the additional security options.
Lawsuit filed over USPS surveillance. The nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is suing over a secretive social media surveillance program conducted by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).
As Reason noted in the August/September 2021 issue, USPS has been running an Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP), in which U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) agents are tasked with monitoring the likes of Facebook, Parler, Twitter, and Telegram for information about protests and more. Agents with iCOP "assume fake identities online, use sophisticated intelligence tools and employ facial recognition software," Yahoo News revealed last April.
Germany announced this week that it would reform its disaster warning system after deadly flooding. But why didn't this happen sooner?
As the largest developing country, China's air quality has always been a focus of research. Air pollution is formed by a complex set of mechanisms, and various factors have been demonstrated to have an impact on it, including meteorological conditions, socio–demographic characteristics, built environment factors, etc., among them the vehicle exhaust pollution paid more and more attention to. According to the pollutant analysis results released by Beijing, Jinan, Hangzhou, vehicle exhaust has surpassed coal as the main source of urban air pollution (especially PM2.5). By June 2020, the number of motor vehicles in China had reached 360 million, and traffic congestion had become the norm in many Chinese cities. As a result, the contribution rate of vehicle exhaust pollution to air quality will continuously increase1,2 (Liu et al. 2018; Huang et al. 2020a). Its contribution to PM2.5, volatile organic compounds (VOC), etc., were experimentally analyzed3,4,5,6,7,8 (Kazuo et al. 2019; Lin et al. 2020; Oish et al. 2019; Pathak et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2018;Watson et al. 2001). The influences of the traffic characteristics, traffic sources, traffic flow states, road grade, vehicle type, fuel, terrain, meteorological conditions, and spatial–temporal heterogeneity on exhaust emissions were studied9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17(Abdull et al. 2020; Bae et al. 2018; Beddows et al. 2020; Jeong et al. 2019; Huang et al. 2020b; Li et al. 2018; Lin et al. 2019; Liu et al. 2019; Pratama et al. 2019; Zhang et al. 2021). Traffic simulations, the OMG volume-source model, cellular automata, sensitivity analysis, and the fault tree model have also been used to study exhaust emissions, diffusion, and their influence on air pollution18,19,20,21,22,23 (Chen et al. 2020; Ibarra-Espinosa et al. 2020; Matzoros et al. 1992; Mdziel et al. 2020; Xu et al. 2020; Wang et al. 2019). Few studies were focus on the impacts of road network traffic characteristics (e.g., road density, intersection, and bus network density) on air quality, especially the road network traffic characteristics have the spatial heterogeneity, but there is spatial heterogeneity in air pollution and the processes of producing air pollution. It had been proved that GWR model considering the local effects of spatial objects (i.e., the spatial heterogeneity) was an effective tool to describe spatial heterogeneity24,25,26(Zhao et al. 2017; Fotheringham et al. 2017, 2019).
Rebecca, a 54-year-old retired nurse from Clearwater, Florida, said she was pressured to sign papers confirming she would pay extra rent - which she could not afford - to stay in her home after her landlord filed for an eviction in March.
She had left her part-time tourism job after facing harassment from customers upset over COVID-19 precautions and had fallen behind on her $1,200 monthly rent and utility bills to owe $9,200.
With the help of the Community Law Program, a local nonprofit, she eventually received rental assistance with federal coronavirus relief money, clearing her ledger and buying her time until at least October, she said over the phone.
"In the end, everything was fine," Rebecca, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy is accusing them of fudging on campaign finance disclosures. The group earlier in the week had indicated it would be filing complaints against Michigan lawmakers and yesterday made good on the claim. The CMD filed its complaints with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
The self-proclaimed political watchdog group claims Representative Hall was given access to a software system that can be used to help manage campaigns and constituent communications planning. It claims the use of that software should have been reported as a campaign contribution. The source of the software is claimed to be the American Legislative Exchange Council. Representatives Hall and Lilly are listed on the Council website as Michigan State co-directors.
Whitney joins Robbie Martin to discuss the new wave of hype surrounding ‘Domestic Terrorism’, how the ‘War on Terror’ was merely a prelude to a larger domestic crackdown on political dissidents and the extreme measures taken in times of ‘Continuity of Government’
The complaint, filed by 48 state attorneys general and led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, was dismissed in June, along with a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
The attorneys general alleged Facebook illegally maintained a social media monopoly by acquiring smaller competitors and preventing other platforms from operating with its software.
>At the European Patent Office (EPO), one of the first steps for assessing inventive step of a claim is to determine the closest prior art. For medical use claims, the closest prior art is typically held to be a document relating to the same medical use as that claimed – when selecting the closest prior art, the first consideration is that it should be directed to a similar purpose or effect as the invention (Guidelines for Examination at the EPO, G-VII, 5.1). Thus, where a claim is directed to 'X for use in treating disease Y', the closest prior art would normally be a document directed to the treatment of disease Y, which position bears out in the existing case law (e.g. T 2571/12). However, a recent decision – T 2443/18 – issued by a technical Board of Appeal of the EPO, did not follow this approach.
What happened?
In T 2443/18, the claim in question was directed to the known drug tapentadol for use in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Surprisingly, the Board of Appeal found that a document (D4) relating to tapentadol and confirming its efficacy in the treatment of visceral pain in animal models, was a suitable starting point giving a 'workable route' to the claimed invention. This was despite there being another prior art document (D3) on file directed to the use of a compound of the same functional class (another ü-opioid receptor agonist) in the treatment of IBS specifically (i.e. a document relating to the same purpose or effect as the invention). The Board noted that "if inventive step is to be denied, the choice of starting point needs no specific justification", before going on to find that the claimed subject-matter lacked inventive step starting from D4. It also seems that additional weight was given to the relevance of D4 based on experimental data and comments in the patent in suit which showed the benefits of tapentadol in the treatment of 'visceral hypersensitivity and referred pain' as 'major symptoms' of IBS.
Why did the Board diverge from the normal approach?
When trying to convince the Board that a document directed specifically to the treatment of IBS should be considered the closest prior art, the patentee argued that a drug developer would typically seek to provide a suitable drug for a given medical indication, rather than investigate new medical indications for a known drug. The latter approach was also alleged by the patentee to risk obscuring the proper assessment of inventive step by impermissible hindsight knowledge of the invention. However, the Board of Appeal did not find these arguments convincing. The Board instead found that:
If COVID-19 were a pandemic movie, we’d be very close to the end since we’ve identified several excellent vaccines; the conventional biomedical innovation narrative often ends with the product being fully developed. But we’ve still got a long way to go with COVID-19, and the biggest challenge is getting the vaccines to billions more people (and getting them to take the vaccines, but that’s a separate topic). Only 0.3% of global doses have been administered in low-income countries, many of which are confronting severe outbreaks. A staggering 1 million infections were reported in Africa in just one month, with few vaccines in sight. By some estimates, much of the world’s population won’t be vaccinated until well into 2023. Amid pledges of sharing vaccines, perhaps the most prominent policy debate today is about waiving intellectual property rights to COVID-19 technologies, including vaccines. In this post we explain what’s being proposed, what’s happening with the waiver negotiations, and what impact these negotiations might have.
What does TRIPS require at baseline?
Negotiations over the intellectual property rights supporting COVID-19 technologies are taking place against the backdrop of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The TRIPS Agreement creates obligations for WTO member states (with exceptions for least-developed countries). For example, member states must provide inventors with the opportunity to obtain patents that last for 20 years from the date of filing, and must provide for patent protection for pharmaceutical products, rather than processes alone.
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As we have explained, for COVID-19 vaccines, a waiver of patent rights alone would likely have little impact. Jorge Contreras has argued that “the main benefit of the waiver could be in the area of non-patent IP,” such as a country attempting to “mandate that foreign companies operating in the country disclose their proprietary manufacturing, storage, and testing information to local producers under a compulsory license.” To be clear, waiving trade secret laws related to COVID-19 vaccines would not automatically lead to sharing of manufacturing information, training of personnel, or access to scarce raw materials. These are significant barriers, as detailed by Christopher Rowland in his Washington Post account of Pfizer’s manufacturing troubles. Nor is it clear how a mandatory disclosure obligation would work against a recalcitrant manufacturer; there are few, if any, guides. As Contreras notes, mandatory trade secret transfer “would be unprecedented in the international arena.”
An IP waiver is not the only international proposal for expanding access to COVID-related technologies. The G20 has floated a voluntary IP licensing scheme. The EU has issued its own WTO proposal that focuses on limiting export restrictions, expanding domestic manufacturing production, and operationalizing the sharing of manufacturing information and licensing. Wealthy countries like the United States can also donate excess supply—and help purchase additional doses for the rest of the world (though some barriers exist). As we stated in August of last year: “[T]he economic and public health impact of COVID-19 counsels that whatever risk exists from payers overpaying for a patent-protected COVID-19 vaccine is a mere rounding error compared to the enormous harm—both economic and human—from the pandemic. If Pfizer stands to reap $2 billion to end a scourge that has already claimed 700,000 lives and stands to cost $82 trillion globally, it’ll be worth it.” Since then, the number of lives claimed has increased nearly six-fold, and vaccine distribution has become an international tragedy. Expanding global access to effective COVID-19 vaccines should be an urgent priority for policymakers in the United States and abroad—no matter which policies end up helping us get there.
The Federal Circuit, and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals before it, generally reviewed decisions by the Patent and Trademark Office under the same standard applied to district court decisions, whether the factual basis for the decision was "clearly erroneous" (questions of law were, and are, decided de novo), acting as a check on the administrative agency's interpretations of its precedent and Congress's statutory mandates. That changed when the Supreme Court decided, in Dickinson v. Zurko (1999), pursuant to the provisions of the Administrative Procedures Act (5 U.S.C. ۤۤ 551 et seq.) and specifically 5 U.S.C. ۤ 706, that factual determinations should be upheld if supported by substantial evidence. This change in standard of review became even more important after enactment of the post-grant review procedures in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, and in particular the inter partes review (IPR) provisions (35 U.S.C. ۤۤ 311 et seq.) with regard to obviousness determinations under 35 U.S.C. ۤ 103. This is because while obviousness is a legal determination, it is based on factual determinations that have been much more likely to pass muster under substantial evidence review and has led the Federal Circuit generally to affirm decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) on that basis. Not so in Chemours Company FC, LLC v. Darkin Industries, Ltd., decided last week, which showed perhaps the limits of deference the Court is willing to entertain in reviewing PTAB obviousness determinations.
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The Board found all claims in both patents to be obvious over the disclosure of U.S. Patent No 6,541,588. The basis for the determination was that the '588 patent teaches that cables can be insulated at speeds similar to the range recited in the '609 patent claims (in one example being 24 g/10 min, which is close to the lower limit of Chemour's range, 27 g/10 min). Significantly, the '588 patent also teaches that it is important to maintain "a very narrow molecular weight distribution" in the polymer (which in a footnote the Court explains means "[a] polymer with a narrower molecular weight distribution has more polymer chains that are of similar lengths, while a broad molecular weight distribution fluorinated ethylene propylene ("FEP") has more variation in polymer chain lengths"). The Board found that "a skilled artisan would have been motivated to increase the melt flow rate of [the '588 patent]'s preferred embodiment to within the claimed range in order to coat wires faster." Notwithstanding the narrow range teaching regarding polymer molecular weight in the '588 patent, the Board further found that "it is not clear on this fully developed record why the skilled artisan would have been motivated to maintain such a narrow molecular weight distribution when seeking to achieve even higher coating speeds" and that the '588 patent specification "lacked specificity" regarding the metes and bounds of "narrow" and "broad" molecular weight ranges. This was enough for the Board to opine that "this purported discovery would not have prevented the skilled artisan, at the time of the invention of the '609 patent, from considering other techniques—such as broadening the polymer's molecular weight distribution—to achieve higher coating speeds . . . ." Based on these factual determinations, the PTAB held the claims in the '609 and '431 patents were obvious, and Chemour appealed.
The 10th edition of the guide to preparing for the European qualifying examination (EQE) is now available online.
In addition to official sources, this edition draws on the experience of past candidates, as well as their tutors and supervisors. Further to the EQE going digital in March, it also features information about the e-EQE and gives candidates a head-start on how to prepare in general by providing...
The German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) dismissed two motions for interim measures against the German act approving the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA). The way is thus clear for German ratification, an essential milestone for the start of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the Unitary Patent System.
When this Kat started his tenure as a GuestKat two years ago, his first post was on the first anti-anti-suit injunction issued in Europe, by the Munich Regional Court. For his parting post, he returns to Germany and patent injunctions.
As readers may know, the German parliament recently adopted amendments of the German Patent Act (GPA) as the final step of a reform process that spanned nearly two years [final version (German) here, earlier Katpost here, news coverage here]. Though the amendment contains various reforms Рincluding an effort obtain quicker validity decisions to close the "injunction gap", see here Рprobably the most salient change is to ۤ139, on the patentee's entitlement to an injunction.
According to ۤ139 GPA, a person infringing a patent may "be sued by the aggrieved party for cessation and desistance", and the reform adds to this the following proviso...
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This Kat quite agrees that the significance of this reform, in Europe's biggest [here], most patentee-friendly [e.g. here] and perhaps most conservative jurisdiction, is clearly noteworthy. The amendment acknowledges that patent rights are not absolute and empowers German courts to mitigate hardship when the specifics of the case call for it. Their case law, in turn, may inspire other European patent courts to follow suit.
This introductory briefing sets out what a biological deposit is, why a biological deposit may be needed, and basic requirements for making a biological deposit and relying on it in a patent application, with a particular focus on practice before the European Patent Office (EPO). A complementary briefing goes on to consider strategic aspects relating to biological deposits, including how it might be possible to remedy certain deficiencies relating to them.
What is a biological deposit and why might it be required?
It is a fundamental requirement of patent law that, in exchange for a monopoly right, a patent must disclose the claimed invention in sufficient detail to allow a person skilled in the relevant technical field to reproduce the invention. This requirement is known as sufficiency of disclosure in European practice and enablement in the US.
Recently Beijing Oriental Yuhong Waterproof Technology Company Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the Oriental Yuhong) was granted an invention patent (Patent No.: EP3683284) by the European Patent Office (EPO), one of the core outcomes during its R&D of the HDPE products.
The recent decision by the European Patent Office (EPO)'s Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.04 in T 96/20 appears, at first glance, to have raised the bar for acknowledging the inventive step of medical use claims in a situation where the prior art discloses that the claimed therapeutic is undergoing clinical trials. However, a broader view suggests that a more nuanced approach is required.
This the second SEP news today. The first one was Nokia's vehicle-level license deal (as industry sources meanwhile agree) with a car maker. And again, a standard-essential patent (SEP) holder has scored a breakthrough victory: InterDigital against Lenovo and its Motorola Mobility handset division.
With all that's going on, a rational analyst can't help but be bullish about the near-term and mid-term outlook for SEP holders. Car-level licensing and royalty rates consistent with the Avanci pool rate are the inevitable outcome of the "automotive SEP wars." And while Apple may be able to avoid taking a global portfolio license from non-practicing entity Optis unless the deal is right, Apple is what it is: unique. I'm a big Apple critic, but there's nothing else quite like Apple. By contrast, Lenovo's Motorola Mobility has far less brand loyalty, there's no shortage of Android-powered substitutes, and you're not going to see the likes of Vodafone lobbying the UK government for an amendment to the country's patent or antitrust laws only to bail out Motorola. They're probably not even going to inconvenience themselves and buy Moto phones abroad. If Lenovo decided to leave the UK market, it would lose almost all of its UK sales.
Cavitation Technologies, Inc. (OTCQB: CVAT; Berlin: WTC) today announced a significant expansion of its global patent portfolio, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to innovation and leadership in cavitation systems and processes.
“From the beginning, we recognized the importance of developing and then protecting our technology,” said Roman Gordon, Global Technology Manager. “As a pioneer in cavitation, we know via our priority dates that we were and are ahead of the competition. To have our creativity recognized by patent offices around the globe (United States, Canada, Europe, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and others) is a source of pride for the entire CTI team and should be very comforting to our Customers, Partners and Investors.”
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In 2021 the company received four additional patents including one issued by European Patent Office (EPO).
Through a splintered set of opinions, the Supreme Court of the United States held that appointment of administrative patent judges (APJs) serving on the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) violated the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, and the proper remedy was to vest the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Director (Director) with discretion to overturn the PTAB’s decisions. United States v. Arthrex, Inc., Case Nos. 19–1434; –1452; –1458 (June 21, 2021). Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the opinion of the Court, with opinions by Justice Neil Gorsuch (concurring in part and dissenting in part), Justice Stephen Breyer (concurring in part in the judgment and dissenting in part) and Justice Clarence Thomas (dissenting).
Since 2018 the EPO has not reported the numbers of patents opposed but based on information in the "Bulletin Search" database that number decreased in 2020. However, the number was still consistent with a general level of patents opposed which is around 25% higher than the more or less uniform level which prevailed from 2011 to 2016. The increased level of patents opposed each year followed, but has by no means kept pace with, increases in the numbers of patents granted.
In 2006, Phoenix Services and Mark Fisher (collectively, Phoenix) acquired a company called Heat On-The-Fly and its patent to protect a purported proprietary fracking process. Heat-On-The-Fly, and later Phoenix, sought to enforce the patent against numerous parties. During the patent application process, however, Heat On-The-Fly had failed to disclose numerous public uses of the fracking process prior to the application filing. In 2018, in an unrelated case, Energy Heating, LLC v. Heat On-The-Fly, the Federal Circuit, held that “failure to disclose prior uses of the fracking process rendered the . . . patent unenforceable due to inequitable conduct.” The plaintiffs in the case at hand, Ronald Chandler, Chandler MFG., Newco Enterprises and Supertherm Heating Services (collectively, Chandler), alleged that Phoenix’s continued enforcement of the patent violated Walker Process pursuant to €§ 2 of the Sherman Act.
In light of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the EPO has decided to further extend the pilot project for conducting opposition hearings by VICO until 31 January 2022.
The Decision of the President of the EPO, dated 14 May 2021, states that where there are serious reasons preventing the use of videoconferencing for oral proceedings in opposition, oral proceedings will be postponed until after that date. To read the EPO's announcement in full, click here.
Most patents involve two or more joint inventors who all claim to have contributed significantly to the invention. Conception of the invention is typically seen as the critical legal determinant of invention and some courts have written that each joint inventor must have contributed substantially to the conception of the invention.* Conception is typically referred to as a mental act. The MPEP, for example, includes a statement in all-caps that “CONCEPTION MUST BE DONE IN THE MIND OF THE INVENTOR.” MPEP 2138.04(I). The basic rule is that the inventor must have a “definite and permanent idea of the complete and operable invention.”
The mind-of-the-inventor doctrines have several problems, today I’m thinking about one relating to joint inventorship. As far as I know, the definitional cases regarding conception refer to “the inventor” as if inventorship is a solo process. But 75% of new patents list two or more inventors who are unlikely to have experienced joint or simultaneous conception. It turns out though that simultaneous conception is not required. Rather, this is how it works.
Inventor Gilbert Hyatt and the American Association for Equitable Treatment (AAET) contended that patent applicants should not have to comply with certain PTO rules, alleging that the rules violated the PRA, which Congress passed to reduce the burden imposed on the public when responding to federal agencies’ requests for information from private individuals. The PRA requires federal agencies engaged in “collections of information” to first submit them to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for approval and an assignment of a control number. Collections of things other than “information” do not need to receive OMB approval, and the PRA applies only to “collections” seeking information through identical questions or requirements imposed on 10 or more people. Thus, the PRA and its regulations expressly exclude individualized communications from PRA applicability.
Sensormatic asserted U.S. Patents 7,730,534, 7,936,370, 7,954,129, 8,208,019, and 8,610,772 against Wyze in the District of Delaware, alleging infringement. Wyze moved the District Court to dismiss under Rule 12(c), on the grounds that the claims are directed to ineligible subject matter. The motion was granted. Sensormatic appealed.
In Alice v. CLS Bank, the Supreme Court set forth a two-part test to determine whether claims are directed to patent-eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101. One must first decide whether the claim at hand involves a judicially-excluded law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea. If so, then one must further decide whether any element or combination of elements in the claim is sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the judicial exclusion. But elements or combinations of elements that are well-understood, routine, and conventional will not lift the claim over the ۤ 101 hurdle. While this inquiry is generally carried out as a matter of law, factual issues can come into play when determining whether something is well-understood, routine, and conventional.
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In other words, an invention that is a concrete and tangible machine, and claimed as such, can be found to be "abstract" if the claimed subject matter is otherwise abstract. While this makes sense to a point, it ultimately requires that the finder of fact (or of law -- patent eligibility is a strange amalgam of both) decide whether certain claim elements can be ignored for purposes of the ۤ 101 inquiry. Putting a power this subjective in the hands of even a federal judge, much less an examiner or a PTAB judge, can be problematic.
Indeed, the Court's statement quoted above may be in response to the recent case of Yu v. Apple, a controversial split decision that found a digital camera with a particular hardware arrangement performing particular functions to be ineligible. While the Court may have made this statement for explanatory reasons, it is likely to be taken as a warning shot. Whatever the Court is trying to say, patentees are likely to hear, "All Your Devices Belong to Us!" This is a reminder that the term "abstract" is not meant to be taken literally, and any statutory category of claims can be abstract (even if you can drop it on your foot).
The patent granted last week to a law professor based in Britain was, in most respects, not unusual. It was for interlocking food containers that are easy for robots to grasp and stack, and the creator is listed as Dabus. The difference is that Dabus is not human.
Today a second country has confirmed that DABUS, an artificial intelligence system, can be named as the inventor in a patent and that Dr Stephen Thaler as the rightful owner of the DABUS inventions.
Following from patent applications filed by Williams Powell, first in the United Kingdom and at the European Patent Office, then by way of an international (PCT) application, the Australian Federal Court in its judgement in Thaler v Commissioner of Patents [2021] FCA 879, handed down today 30th July 2021, has confirmed the patentability of inventions made by AI systems, specifically the DABUS inventions.
As has been extensively chronicled, the applications seeking patent protection for them have been rejected at the EPO, the UK IP Office...
J.E.M. involved the question of utility patent protection for sexually reproducing plants, including crops and flowering plants, under 35 U.S.C. €§ 101. Plants had historically been protected under the Plant Variety Protection Act (PVPA), 7 U.S.C. €§ 2321, and the Plant Patent Act (PPA, enacted in 1930), 35 U.S.C. €§€§ 161-164. The Supreme Court rejected the argument that the PVPA and the PPA were exclusive means for plant protection. Justice Clarence Thomas, the author of the majority opinion, noted that Congress plainly contemplated that patent laws be given wide scope, citing Chakrabarty. The Court stated, “As in Chakrabarty, we decline to narrow the reach of Section 101 where Congress has given us no indication that it intends this result.” The Court explained the subject matter provisions of the patent law have been cast in broad terms, to fulfill the constitutional goal of “promoting the Progress of Science and the useful Arts, with all that means for the social and economic benefit envisioned by [Thomas] Jefferson.” As further stated, Section 101 is a “dynamic provision designed to encompass new and unforeseen inventions.” The Court concluded that absent a clear intent to the contrary, they would not interpret a statutory change as an affirmative decision by Congress to deny protection under Section 101.
An artificial intelligence system is capable of being an “inventor” under Australian patent law, the federal court has ruled, in a decision that could have wider intellectual property implications.
University of Surrey professor Ryan Abbott has launched more than a dozen patent applications across the globe, including in the UK, US, New Zealand and Australia, on behalf of US-based Dr Stephen Thaler. They seek to have Thaler’s artificial intelligence device known as Dabus (a device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience) listed as the inventor.
The applications claimed Dabus, which is made up of artificial neural networks, invented an emergency warning light and a type of food container, among other inventions.
Several countries, including Australia, had rejected the applications, stating a human must be named the inventor. The decision by the Australian deputy commissioner of patents in February this year found that although “inventor” was not defined in the Patents Act when it was written in 1991 it would have been understood to mean natural persons – with machines being tools that could be used by inventors.
South African’s patent office, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, issued a patent that lists an artificial intelligence (AI) as the inventor on Wednesday. The patent is the first in the world to list AI as the inventor.
The AI, known as DABUS (device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience), was developed by Stephen Thaler and used by Professor Ryan Abbott and his team at the University of Surrey. DABUS received the patent for a food container based on fractal geometry that improves grip and heat transfer.
Recently, SpaceX Inc, the space exploration company founded by Elon Musk, has performed a couple of its dedicated rideshare missions. A rideshare mission is where a transporter rocket carries a payload of multiple satellites which need deploying into orbit. By splitting the rocket’s payload capacity among multiple customers, the cost per customer of launching their satellite is significantly reduced. This is particularly beneficial to smaller companies which may have previously found getting their satellite into orbit prohibitively expensive.
On 24 January 2021, a new record was set. This first dedicated rideshare mission mounted 143 satellites onto one of its Falcon 9 rockets and deployed all of these satellites into orbit during an 18 minute period. This rideshare mission also deployed 10 Starlink satellites, which are the first to include communication lasers. These Starlink satellites will eventually enter a polar orbit to bring high speed internet to the polar regions. On 30 June 2021, the second rideshare mission deployed 85 satellites. As usual, this launch and deployment was streamed on SpaceX’s website.
The Opinions clarifies that the CNIPA will provide support to public security organs in terms of trademarks, patents, geographical indication information and legal status. It is mainly reflected in the fact that if the public security organ needs to verify the trademark registration certificate and priority certificate, trademark change, transfer, renewal certificate and other certification documents in the process of handling the case, it can do so through the CNIPA trademark registration certificate publicity system. At the same time, considering that there may be incomplete and lagging information in the publicity system, the public security organ may send a letter to the Trademark Office of the CNIPA to verify the information that cannot be verified from the publicity system or that the information is disputed.
