It’s August already, and this means that we’re getting new releases of Ubuntu and Debian GNU/Linux. But, until then, this past week brought us new releases of the PulseAudio sound server, KDE Plasma 5.22 desktop environment, as well as the Arch Linux and 4MLinux distributions.
On top of that, I published another awesome monthly roundup of Xfce app updates, and, if you have the time, you can test drive the upcoming releases of MX Linux 21 and Linux Lite 5.6 distributions. You can enjoy these and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for August 1st, 2021, below!
Welcome to this week's roundup of Linux Releases.
In this week, Amarok Linux 3.1.1, Artix Linux 20210726, Linux Lite 5.6 RC, MX Linux 21 Beta 1, Absolute Linux 20210730, and Freespire 7.7 have been released.
May you have a wonderful week and enjoy your summer!
Amazon Web Services has stolen a march on Microsoft's cloud desktop plans by adding browser access to its WorkSpaces desktop-as-a-service offering.
Browser access will only work for WorkSpaces running Windows. Linux users are out in the cold and AWS hasn't said when or if penguin-powered desktops will get to play. The service uses Amazon's WorkSpaces Streaming Protocol (WSP), which doesn't allow use of graphics-intensive instance types. AWS customers that run WorkSpaces from the Asia Pacific (Mumbai) and GovCloud (US-West) Regions also need not apply.
For the rest of us, the service means browsers are now approved clients for an AWS WorkSpace – but not without complications. WorkSpaces set up to stream over the PCoIP protocol will work in Chrome or Firefox. WSP WorkSpaces can use any Chromium-based browser.
Microsoft's next kernel patch fixes a long-standing Linux issue, we'll share the details. Plus ChromeOS's next power user feature you haven't heard of, and Valve's broader plans that came into focus this week.
Josh and Kurt talk about a story from Microsoft declaring Rust the future of safe programming, replacing C and C++. We discuss how tooling affects progress and why this isn’t always obvious when you’re in the middle of progress.
On this episode of This Week in Linux, we’ll cover the modular laptop that respects your Right to Repair called the Framework laptop. In the Distro News, we’ve got updates from Linux Mint and a very interesting potential plan for a Rolling Release edition of Pop!_OS from System76. We’re going to jump into an enterprise grade tool with Apache Cassandra 4.0. Then in the Linux Mobile News, we’ve got an interview with Rudi Timmermans of the WayDroid project which is looking to make it possible to run Android Apps on Linux Phones like Ubuntu Touch. We’ve also got news from NVIDIA, they’ve released new Drivers with a lot of great features and they’ve even Open Sourced some content. All that and so much more on episode 162 of This Week in Linux, recorded live on July 31, 2021. Your Weekly Source for Linux GNews!
Nothing to see here, entirely normal rc4. It's mostly a very nice and flat diffstat - so small spread out changes - with the exception of a couple of blips in selftests and the xfs fixes.
Mostly drivers, some arch updates, networking, plus tooling and selftests. Nothing odd stands out.
Shortlog appended for people who want to scan the details,
Linus
Linux 5.14-rc4 is available today as a rather smooth update with nothing too worrisome but just a decent amount of fixes and nothing that is causing Linux creator Linus Torvalds to be frustrated.
Linus briefly summed it up in the 5.14-rc4 announcement, "Nothing to see here, entirely normal rc4. It's mostly a very nice and flat diffstat - so small spread out changes - with the exception of a couple of blips in selftests and the xfs fixes. Mostly drivers, some arch updates, networking, plus tooling and selftests. Nothing odd stands out."
This is a series that offers a gentle introduction to Linux for newcomers.
Ubuntu has a very different file system compared to Windows. It’s organized in a completely different way designed to offer more security, but it’ll feel very unfamiliar if you’ve come exclusively from a Windows background.
It’s therefore worth devoting time to learning about the file system in Ubuntu.
On Windows, Microsoft provides a free cloud storage service in the form of OneDrive. It comes integrated with Windows and you get 5 GB of free storage with your Microsoft account.
This works great on Windows but like Google, Microsoft also does not provide a native client for OneDrive on Linux desktop.
You can access your OneDrive data through browser, of course. In addition to that, there are some other ways to access OneDrive on Linux.
As you may already know, Red Hat decided to abandon the vanilla CentOS 8 project, which will reach end-of-life on December 31, 2021, and shift its focus to CentOS Stream. This tutorial is going to show you how to migrate from CentOS 8 to Rocky Linux 8/Alma Linux 8.
qBittorrent is a cross-platform free and open-source BitTorrent client. qBittorrent is a native application written in C++ which uses Boost, Qt 5 toolkit, and libtorrent-rasterbar library and is extremely lightweight and fast. qBittorrent is very popular amongst torrent users as the main alternative to UTorrent.
MariaDB is a free and community-developed relational database system that is a compatible drop-in replacement for the hugely popular MySQL database management system.
It was forked from MySQL after the original developers of MySQL expressed their misgivings with the acquisition of MySQL by Oracle. Since then, MariaDB is guaranteed to remain free and open source under the GNU license.
Hello Linux Geeks, if you are looking for free command line backup tools on Linux systems then tar command is the solution for you. Tar command can create backup of your application, configurations files and folders of the system.
Tar stands for ‘tape archive’ and can archive multiple files and directories into a tar file. This tar can also be compressed using gzip and bzip2 compression utility. Once we have a tar backup ready then we can easily transfer it to remote backup server using scp or rsync commands.
In this post, we will demonstrate how to create backup with tar command in Linux.
KDE Plasma 5.22 with its tagline Stability, Usability, Flexibility released last June is the latest desktop technology of KDE and Free Software Community. It features new looks to the desktop, System Settings and many other improvements. Want it? If you would love to try it or further install it for daily use, here's how to.
VLC has a really neat feature which consists of time-stretching audio to allow users to speed up or slow video playback with the [ and ] keys without affecting the pitch of the sound. I recently switched to Kodi as my video player of choice and I was looking for the equivalent feature.
Hello and welcome to another article about Kubernetes. In this article we will go through the Kubermatic installation on Hetzner Cloud. But first of all let us go through a few questions:
Damn Vulnerable Web Application (DVWA) is a PHP and MySQL web application that is a free and open-source vulnerable web application. Its main goal is to aid security professionals in testing their skills and tools with various levels of difficulty to help web developers better understand the processes of securing web applications.
If your PC is running slow or you're having issues installing updates and software, there's a high chance you might be running out of disk space. The handy du command makes it convenient for Linux users to stay aware of their disk consumption and make an upgrade if required.
But how exactly do you issue this command on Linux? Let us find out.
MX Linux is an operating system based on the Debian stable. The system is generated from a cooperative venture between the AntiX and former MEPIS communities. This is a mid-weight Linux distro designed with a nice look, an efficient desktop with simple configuration, and greater solid performance.
It also has basic tools like a graphic installer that generally handles the computer’s UEFI, a GUI-based method to change a Linux kernel, and other core programs.
After that brief introduction of MX Linux, let us go through the system’s installation process on our VMware workstation. We will channel our concentration from the normal setup to installing the OS with the disk encryption option.
Note: You can diversify your MX Linux knowledge on its features since we also have another article that has covered all the MX Linux features. The latter will take you through a video guide of its features.
Today we are looking at how to install the WaterFox Browser on a Chromebook. Please follow the video/audio guide as a tutorial where we explain the process step by step and use the commands below.
If you have any questions, please contact us via a YouTube comment and we would be happy to assist you!
This tutorial will only work on Chromebooks with an Intel or AMD CPU (with Linux Apps Support) and not those with an ARM64 architecture CPU.
This article will cover the steps needed for you to update your Kali Linux system repo. The Kali Linux Operating system is Debian-Linux-based. The distribution comes with several advanced tools meant for streamlined utilities, accuracy boosting, quick and easy execution of pen-testing, and social engineering tools.
Like any other Linux distro, Kali supports audio play files, office, web browsers, programming software, and other software supported by either major OSs (Windows and macOS). Additionally, the OS comes with a Kali NetHunter App Store used in easing browsing, installation, and keeping your apps up to date.
Kali Linux comes with a large set of tested and pre-installed applications, making it simpler for use than other systems. The system was officially released into the market in 2013 as a complete re-branding of Backtrack Linux with a GNOME UI. Their developers ripped all the unwanted stuff off Backtrack by getting rid of junky utilities and updating the useful ones in the white-hat community.
To add on, the OS includes slightly over 600 completely free tools. It also has an open-source Git tree that is publicly available. It is a well-known OS among Cybersecurity professionals.
Fish Shell stands for friendly interactive shell which is fully-equipped, smart and user-friendly command-line shell that supports a lot of handy features unlike any other shell.
Features are Autosuggestion, Sane Scripting, Man Page Completions, Web-Based configuration and Glorious VGA Color.
Fish shell makes your command line more productive, useful & fun without remembering a bunch of Linux commands because of their handy features.
let’s go ahead and install it by following the below steps.
Ubuntu-based distros feature several package management systems for installing, upgrading, managing dependencies, and removing software. Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) is the default package manager for distros like Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, and POP!_OS.
APT works with the apt command in Ubuntu to provide access to over 60,000 software packages, dependencies, metadata, and instructions to install software applications in your system.
This article guides users on working with APT through the apt command, searching, installing, updating packages, upgrading a system, and adding extra repositories for additional software. It will also introduce other package managers like aptitude and dpkg.
ySQL is among the most popular database managers in the world. It contains many features that make it reliable, efficient, and robust. Its maximum reliability is achieved if it is rightly used. Creating users with limited permissions on the database is one of the easiest and reliable ways to increase MySQL security.
In this article, we are going to show you everything you need to know about Docker logs and how to work with them.
Life would be much simpler if applications running inside Docker containers always behaved correctly. When things inevitably start going wrong you need diagnostic information to figure out how and why.
If you are a system administrator and responsible for building and managing containerized applications, docker logging is one of the most important for you. Dealing with the logs are one of the best ways to help reveal errors, aid in debugging, and optimize your application’s performance.
Not only did Valve announce Steam Deck in July but the overall Linux gaming marketshare according to the Steam Survey also hit a multi-year high.
According to the Steam Survey numbers out today for July 2021, Steam on Linux hit a 1.0% marketshare, or a +0.14% increase over the month prior.
Welcome back. This is my last (or second to last) blog post for this year's Google Summer of Code with Xfce and Thunar. Unlike previous weeks this time I have only one new thing to talk to you about. Searching in Thunar.
ââ¬ÆMost of you might have noticed that Thunar has had a significnt deficiency for a while. Thunar has been missing a decent solution for searching for files in the filesystem. Users could search for files in the selected directory, but even that was a pretty mediocre experience, because results weren't being filtered while searching. Fortunately there is another program under the Xfce umbrella that makes searching for files a breeze. That program is, of course, Catfish. Unfortunately this status quo requires users to juggle between Thunar and Catfish even when searching for simple things.
ââ¬ÆIn the past two weeks I've been working on two things. First, making Catfish easier to use through Thunar. Second improving Thunar's built-in search features to make routine and/or simple searches possible without leaving Thunar. The first improvement is pretty straightforward. A new button has been added that allows the user to open catfish with the specified search query from inside Thunar. As far as the improving the built-in search features goes, I've implemented a basic depth-limited recursive search in Thunar that is accessed from the location bar, which can now be used as both a location bar and a search bar. As the user types his/her search query the view is updated with the results. For convenience in addition to the current directory and its subdirectories, Thunar searches the GTK-Recent database for eligible entries.
You may have just now noticed that the GNOME developers documentation website has changed after 15 years. You may also have noticed that it contains drastically less content than it used to. Before you pick up torches and pitchforks, let me give you a short tl;dr of the changes:
Yes, this is entirely intentional Yes, I know that stuff has been moved Yes, I know that old URLs don’t work Yes, some redirections will be put in place No, we can’t go back
While reading the documentation, I came across a bug that was leading to broken links. After some debugging and testing, I was able to fix the bug. It was due to a missing configuration in the documentation engine.
Back in May I briefly talked about Arch Linux's User Repository (also known as the AUR). Arch Linux itself has a relatively small collection of official software packages and so many members of the Arch community (and those who use its derivative distributions) run packages from the AUR. The AUR contains scripts provided by third-parties which enable software to be installed using scripts. While installing software this way manually can be tedious, there are any number of helper programs which assist Arch users in building and installing software from the AUR scripts.
As a result, Arch Linux, which has a relatively small number of official packages (11,945 at the time of writing) can offer an additional 70,500 through the AUR collection. This puts the combined collection of Arch software in a similar range as Debian and Ubuntu. In the article from May we touched on a number of methods other distributions use to augment their official repositories with third-party software. These methods included Nix, Copr, Slackbuilds, and personal package archives (PPA).
One project which has come along since then is called Pacstall. The Pacstall project aims to provide Ubuntu users with a third-party repository similar in style to Arch's, along with a convenient command line tool to automate most of the work. "Pacstall will attempt to become the AUR Ubuntu wishes it had. It takes the AUR and puts a spin on it, making it easier to install programs without scouring GitHub repos and the likes."
Pacstall can be set up using a Deb package or a single-line shell command. I decided to take Pacstall for a spin on Ubuntu MATE 21.04 to see how it would perform. Reading the description of the project I was uncertain of where third-party software scripts would be coming from. For instance, I was unclear as to whether Pacstall would use (and possibly translate) existing AUR scripts or if it would be duplicating the work of the AUR in a new approach. I was unable to find documentation which explained where these scripts came from and how many there were.
With a little looking around I discovered Pacstall learns how to install packages from another repository specific to this program. Which means it is not connected to or learning from the AUR, simply providing a similar service. At the time of writing there are about five dozen recipes for building third-party software in the Pacstall repository. So how well does it work?
At the end of July, I had some days off and some more time to focus on some unreproducible packages in Arch Linux and get some of the issues resolved. This post goes through the resolved issues by category.
After a pedal-to-the-metal year of digital transformation, it may be tempting for leaders to ease up on the gas. However, it is only a matter of time before "life happens" and we experience the next major interruption, says Greg Bentham, vice president, cloud infrastructure services at Capgemini Americas. “Now that we are emerging out of the pandemic in many parts of the world, the biggest lesson learned is that companies that had a clear digital strategy have emerged even stronger than ever.”
"Companies that had a clear digital strategy have emerged even stronger than ever." COVID-19 also taught us that in expecting the unexpected, a solid technology strategy goes a long way. “Across our industries and through our boards, we’ve seen those advantages realized through both commercial productivity and an internal ease with business and employee retention,” says Jay Upchurch, CIO at SAS. "This puts more pressure on CIOs to drive digital transformation faster."
To open a directory on a computer with a graphical interface, you double-click on a folder. It opens, and you are now "in" that folder.
To open a directory in a terminal, you use the cd command to change your current directory. This essentially opens that folder and places you in it.
Red Hat OpenShift 4.8 brings many exciting new capabilities for developers. This article focuses on what’s new in the OpenShift console, including devfiles and certified Helm charts in the developer catalog, the ability to drag and drop Spring or Quarkus JARs directly from your desktop, a streamlined developer experience for building, deploying, and scaling cloud-native applications in hybrid-cloud environments, and much more. Developers will also find enhanced features for Red Hat OpenShift Serverless, Red Hat OpenShift Pipelines, Red Hat OpenShift GitOps, and more.
Debian 11 "Bullseye" is due to be released in about a week, so I thought, why not, update EasyOS from the Buster-series to the Bullseye-series. Built it, booted, and got a working desktop. Some issues though... NetworkManager isn't working, so used SNS to connect to the Internet. Bluealsad reports a failure due to problem with dbus. Some packages are missing, for example required by libreoffice.
There are many hardware platforms based on Raspberry Pi CM4 system-on-module, but in most instances, only the baseboard is provided, and you have to handle mounting and/or make an enclosure by yourself.
One of those boards was Seeed Studio’s “Dual Gigabit Ethernet Carrier Board for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4”, which as the name implies, offers two Gigabit Ethernet ports, as well as two USB 3.0 ports, and a micro HDMI port for video output. I say “was” because the company has now designed a PC/ABS case with an aluminum alloy cover acting as a heatsink to keep the RPi CM4 module cool.
While trying to think of his next project, Herwig Taveirne came up with the idea to craft some kind of levitating display that can showcase certain objects. Some of the criteria included completely magnetic levitation, stable floating, and overall safety since magnets can get quite hot when in use.
The floating globe case was constructed with a wooden lantern as its base, which helps everything look cleaner. The top of the lantern houses a large electromagnet that faces towards the bottom, along with a Hall-effect sensor that dangles below it to measure the distance between the globe and the magnet. An Arduino Nano is responsible for controlling the lifting magnet based on what the sensor reads in order to keep a stable position. There is also a set of six other coils at the base that get activated depending on the current rotation of the globe, and these provide small boosts to one side of the globe to keep it spinning smoothly.
Ferrofluid is an interesting substance that is attracted to a magnetic field. While manually playing with a flask of such goo is interesting for a few minutes, GreatScott! had other ideas. His 3D-printed rig arranges a half-dozen custom electromagnets on the side of the flask. This allows an Arduino Nano to control the magnetic field arrangement, and thus fluid movement, with the help of six MOSFETs.
Dav1d 0.9.1 was released on Sunday as the newest feature update to this leading open-source CPU-based AV1 video decoder.
Dav1d 0.9.1 principally benefits those on older CPUs such as processors supporting SSE2 and SSE4 but not the newer AVX-era Intel/AMD CPUs. There are 10-bit optimizations for SSE4, 10 and 12-bit SSSE3 optimizations, and a variety of other improvements to Dav1d's SSE2/SSE4 Assembly. There is also film grain Arm NEON support and other fixes.
PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter
This is to announce diffutils-3.8, a stable release.
There have been 47 commits by 5 people in the 2.6 years since 3.7.
See the NEWS below for a brief summary.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed! The following people contributed changes to this release:
Bruno Haible (2) Dave Odell (1) Jim Meyering (23) KO Myung-Hun (1) Paul Eggert (20)
Jim [on behalf of the diffutils maintainers]
The GNU C Library version 2.34 is now available. The GNU C Library is used as the C library in the GNU system and in GNU/Linux systems, as well as many other systems that use Linux as the kernel. The GNU C Library is primarily designed to be a portable and high performance C library. It follows all relevant standards including ISO C11 and POSIX.1-2017. It is also internationalized and has one of the most complete internationalization interfaces known.
Marketing authorisations (MA) and their legal status have become increasingly interesting for anyone working in the medicinal products area. The recent CJEU ruling on July 8th in the case C-178/20 Pharma Expressz (find here), is especially so. There, the CJEU brings further clarification to the provisions of the Medicines Directive 2001/83/EC (find here) in the context of MA.
A medicinal product not subject to medical prescription in one Member State may not be placed on the market in another Member State unless that Member State, too, has granted its marketing authorisation. In the absence of such an authorisation, it still may be possible to supply that medicinal product where its use meets special medical needs in accordance with EU law.
Pharma Expressz, a Hungarian company, attempted to place its medicinal products on the market in Hungary without complying with the requirements stipulated by Hungarian law, i.e. had not applied for an MA. Consequently, the Hungarian authorities ordered the company to stop its importation of the products.
Under Hungarian law, medicinal products without an MA, issued either by the Hungarian authorities or the European Commission, may be placed on the market only where their use for medical purposes is notified to those authorities by a medical practitioner prescribing medicinal products. In order to comply with the requirements, the medicinal practitioner needs to obtain from the competent governmental authorities a declaration concerning the specific use. This procedure was not followed in the case by Pharma Expressz since the medicinal products at hand were sold without prescription.
Pharma Expressz appealed the decision, refusing marketing authorisation, to the Fà âvárosi Törvényszék (Budapest High Court, Hungary). On appeal, Pharma Expressz claimed that the specific requirement of compliance with Hungarian law regulations was contrary to EU law because the medicinal products in question had previously been granted marketing authorisation in another Member State and the products were available without medical prescription.
In its ruling, the Court stated that the Medicines Directive (Articles 70-73) requires that an MA is granted by the competent authorities of that Member State, or under the centralized procedure established by the Commission, in order for a pharmaceutical product to be placed on the Hungarian market. Thus, a medicinal product placed on the Hungarian market needs either an MA by the Hungarian authorities, or an MA authorization through the centralized procedure of the European Medicines Agency. This requirement applies whether the medicinal product is sold under prescription or not.
The alternative procedure, namely that of mutual recognition, requires the application of strict conditions, such as the MA application for a given medicinal product in one Member State with the objective to recognize that specific MA in yet other Member States. The factual situation in the case at hand does not meet these requirements.
. The recall is being issued due to the potential presence of small plastic pieces in the product, officials say.
The patent explains how the technology will work, saying, “An optical imaging array is aligned with the aperture. Above the aperture, the display is arranged and/or configured for increased optical transmittance. For example, a region of the display above, or adjacent to, the imaging aperture can be formed with a lower pixel density than other regions of the display, thereby increasing inter-pixel distance (e.g., pitch) and increasing an area through which light can traverse the display to reach the optical imaging array.”
Railroads are finding it difficult to hire workers and their labor shortfall has prevented them from meeting transportation demand.
Sources criticise the current examination process in India and how it holds back interested parties during litigation and elsewhere
The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is an international agreement that is administered by the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) with the aim of streamlining the securing of patents in multiple jurisdictions. The patent offices of approximately 150 countries and multi-country regions, participate in the running of the PCT, including the Australian Patent Office (IP Australia) the European Patent Office, the US Patent and Trademark Office, The Chinese Intellectual Property Office, and the Japanese and Korean Patent Offices.
One of the features of the PCT is that after lodging an international patent application with the Applicant’s “Receiving Office” (usually the Patent Office in which the Applicant resides) the Applicant then receives an international search report (ISR), and written opinion on patentability (WO). Most commonly the Receiving Office (RO), the International Search Authority (ISA) and the International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) are a department (or departments) of the Applicant’s local Patent Office and so the ISR and WO issue from the same Patent Office. However, depending on the Receiving Office that the international application is filed with, it may be possible for the Applicant to choose between a number of ISA’s. Some example RO’s and their competent ISAs and IPEAs are set out in the table below:
Locally sourced items such as cutlery, marble and tweed could soon be given the same protection as cheese and wine, but could it work in practice?
In a 2016 study, 75% of German consumers said that design was more important to them than it had been five years earlier (study by Adobe, “State of Create”, 2016, p. 22). Nearly half of the consumers were willing to spend more money for a product with good design. In a time where the products with which we surround ourselves define who we are, product design is essential to our purchasing decisions. This also applies to fast-moving consumer goods. For that reason, product design has developed into one of the most important marketing tools and decisive competitive factors. Today, a successful brand is defined not only via the trademarks used, but also by unique and memorable designs.
Pfizer challenged the most ANDAs, Aurobindo filed the majority of applications and Williams & Connolly managed the most cases, according to new data
Seven months after the EU announced measures to raise IP awareness among SMEs, sources discuss their potential and where the bloc should focus next
Since the beginning of 2021, a new cost regime regarding the legal fees for lawyers and courts applies in Germany. Roughly estimated, this will lead to a fee increase of 10 %. This article provides an overview.
Cost issues in patent infringement and patent nullity proceedings
Unlike many other foreign legal systems, Germany has a costs regime that is guided by the principle that the losing party in a legal dispute should bear the costs of the legal dispute. As a consequence, the losing party must pay both court costs and opposing attorneys' fees. There is a legal framework for this with tables that show how much these costs to be paid by the losing party are in detail. If the party has not reached a different agreement with its own attorney and/or patent attorney, these statutory rules may also determine which fee is to be paid to these own attorneys / patent attorneys - irrespective of the outcome of the proceedings.
In this paper I investigate the role of private information in a patent race. Since firms often do their research in secrecy, the common assumption in patent race literature that firms know each other’s position in the race is questionable. I analyze how the dynamics of the game changes when a firm’s progress is its private information, and I address the question whether revealing it might be to a firm’s advantage. I find that a firm has an incentive to reveal its breakthrough only if its rival has not done so, and only if the research is costly.
On May 5, 2021, the Biden Administration announced its support for waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. Understandably, the news made headlines and stirred passionate reactions from the medical community and IP holders alike. But actually bringing about that waiver will be a complicated process, and one that depends on many countries and parties besides the United States.
The text of the Administration’s announcement shows that waiving international IP protections will be easier said than done:
The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines. We will actively participate in text-based negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) needed to make that happen. Those negotiations will take time given the consensus-based nature of the institution and the complexity of the issues involved.
In other words, it is the WTO as a whole that must effectuate an IP waiver. And given that WTO decisions are made by unanimous agreement of its 164-country membership without any formal vote, that process will require far more than support from the United States, as dissent from any one country on the terms of a waiver would block the initiative.
In a decision released by the Intellectual Tribunal of China’s Supreme People’s Court (SPC) on July 23, 2021, the SPC explained that a granted utility model patent may be unenforceable when a corresponding invention patent application was rejected during substantive examination. The plaintiff had filed both utility model and invention patent applications on the same day for the same invention. While the utility model granted, the invention patent application was rejected in substantive examination for lacking novelty and inventiveness.
Tesla has obtained today a design patent for the Cybertruck, and the patent application references several interesting prior designs that could have influenced Tesla’s unique design.
Today, Tesla was granted three design patents for the Model Y, Roadster, and the Cybertruck.
The latter is interesting because it features a radical design that has been controversial.
Some praise it, while others think it looks like garbage.
An Ohio-based company is suing Apple for selling smart water bottles that connect to smartwatches like an Apple Watch, allegedly infringing on two patents covering similar technology.
The plaintiff in the case is non-practicing entity Xennial IP LLC, which owns U.S. Patent No. 7,792,409 and U.S. Patent No 10,664,571. Both properties cover a "communicative sports water bottle" that can connect to a smart device and track health metrics like water intake.
As readers familiar with the telecoms sector will be well aware, Barcelona hosts every February the Mobile World Congress (“MWC”), the most important international trade fair in this field. Due to the pandemic, last year the organizers decided to cancel the show scheduled for February 2020. This year, a downsized version of the MWC was held between 28 June and 1 July 2021.
To help resolve in an expeditious way intellectual property disputes that may arise during the MWC, 7 years ago, the Commercial Judges of Barcelona decided to approve a Protocol that seeks to guarantee that cases are resolved within extremely short time frames. This year, on 5 May 2021, the Commercial Judges of Barcelona held a meeting with the Commercial Judges of Alicante, who have competence to hear cases dealing with EU trademarks and designs, and agreed the following measures: a) to give priority handling of intellectual property and unfair competition cases relating to products to be exhibited at the fair; b) to resolve preliminary injunction applications conducted “ex parte” within 48 hours and those conducted “inter partes” within 10 days, provided that a protective letter had been filed; c) to decide on the admissibility of protective letters within 24 hours; d) to hold hearings via remote connection; and e) that the Barcelona Commercial Courts would immediately enforce any preliminary injunctions and/or other urgent measures approved by the Alicante Commercial Courts in cases involving EU trademarks and/or designs.
In this decision of the Patents Court, Meade J dismissed an infringement claim brought by Promptu against Sky, on grounds that Promptu’s patent lacked inventive step. The decision is interesting as it grapples with issues of infringement where some steps of a claimed method are performed outside the UK. The decision also provides helpful guidance on the instruction of experts in cases involving lengthy prior art documents.
D30 is an orange goo that you can wrap around your hands and then, if you whack with a mallet, you will notice that nothing happens to your hand. The first D3O material was developed by Philip Green and Richard Palmer, two inventors who were finalists of the European Inventor Award 2019, organized by the European Patent Office (EPO).
There are two key reasons for which cases with overlapping issues get consolidated in the U.S. (if necessary, this may even involve a venue transfer). The first one is that divergent decisions are highly undesirable. The second is efficiency (for the court and the parties). Not so in Germany, where each patent is litigated separately unless two or more patents are from the same patent family. Inconsistent rulings by German courts are possible for another reason: judges aren't bound by precedent (no stare decisis etc.).
With respect to standard-essential patents (SEPs), there was a period of a few months during which one patent litigation division of the Mannheim Regional Court--the Second Civil Chamber under Presiding Judge Dr. Holger Kircher--applied EU case law (Huawei v. ZTE) differently from the other--the Seventh Civil Chamber under Presiding Judge Dr. Peter Tochtermann. I declared myself in agreement with the latter, but then came the first of two Sisvel v. Haier decisions by the Federal Court of Justice, and Judge Kircher as well as his colleagues in Munich "won."
In our latest webinar, Unified's Chief IP Counsel, Jonathan Stroud, was joined by Joseph Matal, Partner at Haynes and Boone, LLP, to discuss reform proposals for improving the quality of issued U.S. patents.
Over the decades (sigh) I’ve been involved in various capacities in cases where practitioners have missed deadlines. Sometimes, the client’s partly to blame. For example, imagine a client at the last minute dumping a lot of information they expect to be included in an application or any claim is barred (say by a prior publication). At other times, the lawyer misses the date. For example, imagine key docketing personnel leave and that leaves a knowledge gap, or an unanswered email box, allowing a deadline to pass by.
Obviously, having dual docketing systems is important. Ensuring dates are entered correctly is important. Ensuring that there is a person responsible for the deadline, likewise important. And, of course, much of this is now automated.
Intellectual property is a corner stone in the long-term strategy of many companies, this is especially true for those in the life sciences space. Covid-19 was a hammer blow to the global economy and many life sciences firms were forced to reconsider their strategies, including with regard to acquisitions, research and development, and intellectual property. In 2019, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies spent $306 billion on IP-related activities, compared to only $140 billion in 2020, a 54% decrease (Lexology). Although this slump might be alarming to some, with last year’s losses creating over $1.4 trillion in excess funds, 2021 is set to be a memorable year for intellectual property as the life sciences sector recovers.
Life sciences have been tremendously impacted by artificial intelligence; it could be argued that life sciences companies are slowly transitioning into biotech firms. As the implementation of AI on inventions, intellectual property teams are at crossroads in terms of how to protect their inventions, which range from biopharma to intelligent treatments, and image recognition for diagnosis just to name a few. In the meantime, in-house intellectual property teams can resort to either patents or trade secrets.
Fifteen prestigious universities have agreed to jointly license the patents they own in three physical sciences fields, aiming to become a one-stop shop where large tech companies can negotiate agreements to use their intellectual property.
The University Technology Licensing Program (UTLP) began operations in September 2020, when the University of California’s Los Angeles and Berkeley campuses signed on. They were joined by Caltech and Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Northwestern, Princeton, and Yale Universities along with SUNY Binghamton and the Universities of Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Southern California.
In the context of protecting trademark rights, an opposition is an underestimated tool to stop infringing activities from the beginning – even before infringing products and services appear on the market. The negotiation leverage for an amicable solution is much higher than in trademark litigation and the cost risk for the trademark owner is significantly lower.
Significant differences are seen in opposition systems around the globe. This chapter looks at the German, European and US systems with regard to formalities, proceedings, remedies, costs and recommend appropriate strategies from the opponent’s perspective. A good strategy and necessary preparations are key to success.
Amarin Pharma, Inc. v. Hikma Pharmaceuticals USA Inc., Docket No. 21-02024 (Fed. Cir. 2021) is up on appeal again. The district court found Amarin’s asserted patent claims obvious and the Federal Circuit affirmed that holding in a R.36 affirmance without opinion.
Following the Federal Circuit’s decision, an ad-hoc group of doctors, patients, and Amarin stock holders (collectively known as EPA Drug Initiative II) moved to intervene in the lawsuit and asked the court to vacate its judgment based upon “multiple fatal statistical errors in analyzing and interpreting the prior art.”
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One reason that I expect EPADI to lose is that it had requested permission to file an amicus brief in the original appeal as had the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). The Federal Circuit denied EPADI’s request but permitted BIO’s.
I’m writing about Judge O’Malley because she has announced her plans to retire on March 11, 2022. These future-retirement announcements are designed to provide President Biden time to name a successor. Barring other changes, this will be Biden’s second nominee following Judge Cunningham’s recent Senate confirmation.
IPR proceedings have two major decision points. Institution: After IPR petition is filed, the PTO Director determines whether or not to institute the IPR. The statute provides the director with discretionary authority on whether or not to institute the IPR, but does create a threshold — requiring that the petition show at least “a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail.” 35 U.S.C. 314. Also, the PTO Director has delegated their institution authority to the PTAB, and so a PTAB panel actually makes the decision. Final Decision: If the IPR is instituted then the PTAB is charged with holding a trial and reaching a final decision “with respect to the patentability of any patent claim challenged.” On the other hand, if institution is denied, the case is over and no appeal is permitted. “The determination by the Director whether to institute an inter partes review under this section shall be final and nonappealable.” 35 U.S.C. 314(d). Note here that “nonappealable” has been generally interpreted as ordinarily not appealable. See Cuozzo Speed Technologies, LLC v. Lee, 136 S. Ct. 2131 (2016) and Thryv, Inc. v. Click-To-Call Technologies, LP, 140 S. Ct. 1367 (2020).
With NHK-Fintiv, PTAB panels are able to use their discretionary authority to deny institution in situations involving parallel litigation guided by a six-factor test that generally dance around the overarching question of whether “instituting a trial would be an inefficient use of Board resources.”
Utility Doctrine does not get much use in patent prosecution. Still, examiners do reject claims on utility grounds. The following are three recent PTAB decisions that all reverse examiner utility rejections. In Horne, focus is whether a partially-built tool has any utility; In Zauderer, the question is whether a theoretical rocket ship design has any credible utility; and in Grajcar the question focuses on whether data was provided to support a sex-selection method.
Ex parte Horne, APPEAL 2020-004000, 2021 WL 2788193 (2021)
Applicant claimed a saw blade blank without cutting teeth and the examiner rejected the claims as lacking utility since it was just a work-in-process. On appeal, the PTAB reversed — finding that creation of the blank is a useful step in the blade manufacture process. “Contrary to the Examiner’s suggestion, the utility requirement of €§ 101 does not require an invention to be a ‘final product’ made to sell to end users.”
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Grajcar’s application claims a method of sex-selection of tilapia using 440-460 nm wavelength light (this is blue/violet). The examiner rejected the inventio as lacking utility since the patentee provided no experimental data proving that it actually works. On appeal, the PTAB reversed — finding that the specification did include a sample of 12 larvae treated with 450 nm light and resulted in 9 males, 1 intersex, and 2 female. The particular claim is directed to “selecting sex”, which is seemingly more general than selecting males in particular. In the appeal the PTAB interpreted the claim as selecting males, thus resolving the dispute.
Here, the CAFC has vacated a PTAB IPR decision based upon a sua sponte claim construction. The court found that the agency did not provide the notice and opportunity to respond required by the Administrative Procedures Act (APA).
The UK High Court has held that an insulin pump product owned by Roche Diabetes Care does not infringe a patent of US medical device company Insulet (case no: HP-2020-000026). It also found the patent invalid for added matter, obviousness and novelty. Insulet launched proceedings against competitor Roche in 2018, seeking an injunction after the latter launched its own insulin pump product.
An insulin pump targets type one diabetics, who are typically unable to produce insulin from the pancreas following a rise in blood glucose concentration. Left untreated, high glucose levels can lead to hyperglycaemia, which can have toxic effects. Insulin pumps are a relatively recent invention, with the majority of diabetics using self-administration injector pens at regular intervals throughout the day.
However, the pump offers a continuous insulin delivery to the patient, as well as moderating insulin flows if necessary. They are gaining in popularity in the UK, especially among children and those with more limited physical capacity.
There's a big "See I told ya so" waiting for you toward the end of this post as far as patent licensing to car makers is concerned, but let's look at this news in a logical sequence of steps:
Nokia just sent out its earnings release for the second quarter (and the first half) of 2021. Irrespectively of how strongly I've sometimes disagreed with their positions in litigation, I always read their statements and have an active subscription to their news releases.
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It's not just highly unlikely but even unthinkable that Nokia, despite getting its way in the largest-scale and highest-profile automotive SEP dispute ever, would have changed course and granted an exhaustive and otherwise unrestricted license to an automotive supplier. The most plausible scenario is that after Daimler's defeat someone else decided that hold-out was just going to cost a ton of legal fees, for nothing.
You can't argue with success. Or, as investors often say, the trend is your friend.
If it were up to me, I'd prefer Avanci and all of its members (as some do) to offer an exhaustive component-level license at the chipset, network access device (NAD), and telecommunications control unit (TCU) level. But I don't get to decide. Marconi, the company behind Avanci, can do only what its members are able to agree upon. Apart from a few hold-outs, car-level patent licensing is now uncontroversial. It's a fact of life.
Unified’s Portal now includes Ex Parte Re-examinations. Users now can find up-to-date information on any given case, and search by case by number, patent number, or by party.
On July 27, 2021, just three weeks after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the USPTO granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 8,103,213. Formerly owned by the Nokia Corporation, the ‘213 patent is currently owned by WSOU Investments, LLC and has been asserted against NEC in the Western District of Texas.
Intellectual property (IP) officials in South Africa have made history in a landmark decision to award a patent that names an artificial intelligence (AI) as the inventor.
The patent—which was filed by an international team of lawyers and researchers led by the University of Surrey's, Professor of Law and Health Sciences, Ryan Abbott —is for a food container based on fractal geometry. This container was designed and created by an AI called DABUS ("device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience").
Historically, an "inventor" of a patent had to be a human being, although the ownership of that patent is commonly given to the company that employs the inventor. While patent law in many jurisdictions is very specific in how it defines an inventor, the DABUS team is arguing that the status quo is not fit for purpose in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
In the world's first intellectual property (IP), officials in South Africa awarded a patent to an invention made by an artificial intelligence (AI) system - creating a landmark decision that could steer the course of IP laws everywhere.
The AI system did not file the groundbreaking patent, but by an international team of lawyers and researchers led by Ryan Abbott, Professor of Law and Health Sciences at the University of Surrey in England. South African IP officers awarded the patent for a food container design based on fractal geometry, the design of which was designed and developed by an AI system called DABUS, or "Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience).
The patent office in South Africa on Wednesday issued the world's first patent for an invention created by artificial intelligence, furthering a fight over recognition for such patents in other countries.
The Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, an agency under the country's Department of Trade, Industry and Competition, issued the patent to Stephen Thaler, who runs a company called Imagination Engines in Missouri and who is behind another invention, called a device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience, or DABUS.
In this article written by Intellectual Property Magazine, Mathys & Squire partner Jeremy Smith provides his commentary in response to the recent news that the South African patent office (Companies and Intellectual Property Commission Department of Trade and Industry (CIPC)) has issued the world’s first patent for an invention that lists an artificial intelligence (AI) as the inventor and the AI’s owner as the owner of the patent.
The overturned ruling bucks the trend we've previously seen in the US and UK.
In a landmark decision, an Australian court has set a groundbreaking precedent, deciding artificial intelligence (AI) systems can be legally recognised as an inventor in patent applications.
That might not sound like a big deal, but it challenges a fundamental assumption in the law: that only human beings can be inventors.
The AI machine called DABUS is an "artificial neural system" and its designs have set off a string of debates and court battles across the globe.
The patent—which was filed by an international team of lawyers and researchers led by the University of Surrey's, Professor of Law and Health Sciences, Ryan Abbott —is for a food container based on fractal geometry. This container was designed and created by an AI called DABUS ("device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience").
Historically, an "inventor" of a patent had to be a human being, although the ownership of that patent is commonly given to the company that employs the inventor. While patent law in many jurisdictions is very specific in how it defines an inventor, the DABUS team is arguing that the status quo is not fit for purpose in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
A potentially important product design trademark case is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court involving those chocolate covered bready-sticks. Ezaki Glico Kabushiki Kaisha v. Lotte International America Corp., Docket No. 20-1817 (Supreme Court 2021).
Glico’s Pocky product has been sold since 1966 and are apparently popular. Lotte’s Pepero’s are a knock-off version. Glico sued for trademark infringement, asserting Glico’s trademark rights in the product design of chocolate-covered elongated rod biscuits. Glico registered this particular mark back in 1989. Reg. No. 1,527,208.
Recent research indicates that the eco-cosmetics segment in Poland grew by 39% between July 2019 and June 2020 while the product range of this product group grew by almost 50% over the year. Despite the pandemic, the market for organic food also grew by about 20%, i.e. 3.5 times more than the average for the entire food basket. The media and the advertising industry have to keep up with the change in consumer behaviour. Eco-campaigns, apart from the products themselves, additionally refer to values such as care for the environment, ecology or healthy lifestyle. The opposite of natural media is the so-called "greenwashing", which is unjustified building of an ecological image and misleading consumers about the origin or characteristics of products.
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On January 1st, 2022, the new Regulation 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council will come into force, which will apply in the European Union, including Poland. It will also affect the amendment of the Polish Organic Farming Act. The regulation defines the rules regarding organic production and the related certification, the use of labels referring to organic production such as BIO (biological) and EKO (ecological) in labelling and advertising materials.
Counsel say broad trademark specifications are back on the cards but that brands should still be cautious
In-house and private practice sources say the latest ruling in Sky v SkyKick, which limits the ability to invalidate broad trademarks based on bad faith, accounts for the difficulty brands face when trying to predict future product launches.
In a decision handed down on Monday, July 26, the England and Wales Court of Appeal reversed a High Court decision that had said some trademark specifications of media company Sky were too broad and had been filed in bad faith.
However, the finding that cloud management company SkyKick infringed Sky’s trademarks still stands, as does the High Court’s rejection of Sky’s passing off claims.
The 63% increase in filings, largely being driven by Chinese applicants, has forced brand owners to double down on organisation and due diligence
The Fashion Law Blog published a follow-up concerning the Puma vs Nike battle over Nike’s trade mark application for ‘footware’. After having opposed the Nike’s application in the US for being generic and descriptive, Puma has now withdrawn its opposition. Nike’s application for registration is also pending in several other countries, including Canada, Australia, and India.
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The recent decision of the German Constitutional Court concerning the constitutionality of the UPC has attracted wide commentary in the the patent blogosphere [see, e.g., IPKat posts here and earlier here]. Juve Patent has now featured an opinion piece concerning the (uncertain) future of the UPC.
Puma and Nike appear as though they may have come to a resolution in their battle over “footware,” the trademark that Nike has been angling to register in the U.S. and beyond. On the heels of a win for Nike in May when a court in the United Kingdom dismissed Puma’s appeal (after a UK Intellectual Property Office hearing officer rejected its bid to block the registration of Nike’s mark), thereby, paving the way for Nike’s application for the “footware” mark to proceed in the registration process, counsel for Puma alerted a domestic trademark body that it was withdrawing its challenge against Nike’s “footware” mark in the U.S.
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In addition to its genericness claim, Puma argued that Nike’s mark is also ineligible for registration because the Nike is far from the only party in the business of selling products that “combine footwear, hardware and/or software technologies.” In fact, Puma claims that it started “manufacturing and selling footwear incorporating computer technology at least as early as 1986,” while other companies, such as Under Armour, Altra, and Samsung, are similarly offering up tech-centric footwear products.
The CJEU’s conclusion may or may not be factually (and legally) correct, but given the worldwide attention to soccer and soccer players perhaps it may be a plausible “inference” and justifies a finding that MESSI and MASSI are not confusingly similar. Yet, it really seemed an exceptional decision, quite unlikely to be extended or applied to other cases, especially for identical names.
Well, we were all wrong. Because, of course, with the decision Tââ¬â368/20 of 16 June 2021, the General Court set the same standard for Ronaldo’s own trademark.
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Case Tââ¬â368/20 did not deal with Ronaldo, but rather with Ms Miley Cyrus, who may perhaps be a talented musician, but certainly is neither Messi, nor Ronaldo.
In short, MILEY CYRUS was filed for various goods and services in classes lasses 9, 16, 28 and 41 and got an opposition based on a stylized mark CYRUS in classes 20 and 41.
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As also (and regrettably in vain) argued by EUIPO, since neither ‘miley’ nor ‘cyrus’ is a common first name or surname, this implies that the relevant public who will identify the mark applied for, MILEY CYRUS, as referring to a famous singer, is also likely to perceive the surname alone as the short version of the full name, thus identifying the same person, i.e. a classic case of reverse confusion.
The refence to the earlier BARBARA BECKER judgment (C-51/09 P) in para. 33 of the MILEY CIRUS judgment is unconvincing, precisely because “Becker” is an extremely common last name, while “Cyrus” clearly isn’t.
The first case (4 Ob 40/21t – in German) relates to the operation of an online video recording device. The defendant was offering an internet protocol television (“IPTV”) service to business clients (e.g., network operators, hotels and stadiums). The IPTV service included two relevant features: (1) an online videorecorder allowing the clients’ customers to record individual programs; and (2) a replay function allowing the customers to watch television programs for up to seven days on demand, if they chose to activate this function for an individual television channel. The IPTV service included TV programs created and broadcasted by the Claimant.
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The first question seeks to distinguish this case from C-265/16 VCAST/RTI (Katpost here) and the second question from C-527/15 Stichting Brein (Filmspeler) (Katpost here). After legal analysis, the referring court indicated that it is inclined to find in favor of the copyright holder on both questions (ie, that the operation of the online video recorder constitutes a communication to the public and thus copyright infringement under the InfoSoc Directive). However, the court was of the view that the case law lacks sufficient clarity to enable it to answer the questions without referral to the CJEU.
The second case (4 Ob 44/21f – in German) relates to an online streaming platform aimed at émigrés from the territory of former Yugoslavia. The defendant operated the platform based on license agreements with TV channel operators. Under these agreements, the defendant was obliged to block the streaming signal for certain shows in certain territories. The claimant is the owner of the copyright in several TV shows broadcast on the relevant TV channels. It claims that circumventing the defendant’s geo-blocking measures is relatively easy, the defendant is aware of customers using its service outside the licensed territory, and it fails to prevent such illicit use.
