This week has been pretty awesome, and we saw the release of the Mesa 21.2 graphics stack, which is great news for gamers, we were able to test drive Ubuntu’s new Desktop Installer written in Google’s Flutter SDK, we played The Silence & The Fury DLC for Total War: WARHAMMER II, and we installed Nitrux 1.5.1, Coreboot 6, and fwupd 1.6.2.
On top of that, I take a first look at Thunderbird 91’s new account setup wizard and the upcoming UnityX 10 desktop environment. You can enjoy these and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux and Open Source weekly roundup for August 8th, 2021, below!
We had a peaceful week in the world of Linux releases with Nitrux OS 2021.08.02 and Bluestar Linux 5.13.8.
We also had a look at Gardula Linux and a new Linux distro in the making called Manjaro Cutefish, a pre-release.
Things are looking perfectly normal. Size is nominal, diffstat looks pretty normal, and the changes are all in the usual places, with just under 60% being drivers, and the rest the usual mix of architecture updates, core kernel, networking, and some selftests.
The shortlog is appended for people who want to scan the details, but I can't think of anything in here that looks odd or noteworthy.
Which is just how it should be by rc5. Let's hope the trend continues,
Linus
If the Linux 5.14 cycle keeps playing out nicely, Linux 5.14 stable should be out before month's end rather than slipping into September.
See our Linux 5.14 feature overview to learn more more about all of the changes coming for this late summer 2021 kernel update.
The fifth 5.14 prepatch is out for testing. "Things are looking perfectly normal. Size is nominal, diffstat looks pretty normal, and the changes are all in the usual places"
AnyDesk is remote desktop application which allows to connect to remote desktop. It is platform independent and proprietary software which allow to connect Windows Server from Linux Desktop and vice-versa. Anydesk can be used specially in troubleshooting the remote systems. Apart from desktop sharing it can also be used for file transfer and VPN.
In this article, we will demonstrate how to install anydesk tool on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS system.
This is how you can enable the Minimize, Maximize window buttons in elementary OS.
Gzip is a popular file compression and decompression utility. It is supported by almost all the Linux distributions and it is available for most of the UNIX/Linux flavors.
The gzip file format is based on the Deflate algorithm, which is a variation of LZ77. The Deflate algorithm is a compression algorithm. It takes a block of data and compresses it. The compression is done by finding repeated strings of data and replacing them with a reference to the previous occurrence of the string.
Today we are looking at how to install the Openshot Video Editor 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!
In this video, we are looking at how to install Godot 3 on Linux Lite 5.4.
Depending on your Linux setup, you may perform administrative tasks using either the su command or sudo. It's easy to confuse these two commands since both of them have similar functions.
So, which command should you use? Let's find out.
Some people lament the fact that, even though the Steam Deck is the Switch Pro we’ve been waiting for, they can’t play the Nintendo exclusives on it, such as the Mario, Zelda, and Metroid series.
Well, ever heard of emulation? It is actually possible to play your favorite Nintendo games on PC, or your Steam Deck. Switch emulation is possible thanks to Yuzu and Ryujinx. Both emulators are open-source and available for Linux and Windows. While we have yet to see whether Switch games will emulate at a full 60 FPS or not on the Steam Deck, it’s certainly reasonable to conclude they’ll at least run at 30 FPS. (Anyone else looking forward to playing Metroid Dread on the Deck?)
Real-time strategy video game 0 A.D. released version Alpha 25 a day ago. Code name is “Yaunã”.
0 A.D. (pronounced “zero ey-dee”) is a free and open-source RTS game under development by Wildfire Games, that works on Windows, Linux, and MAC. It is a historically-based war/economy game that allows players to relive or rewrite the history of Western civilizations, focusing on the years between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D.
In hindsight it's difficult for me to imagine how my trial with SME Server could have gone worse. One might point out that at least the system installer worked, but even then the installer is unusually slow and a bit awkward to navigate compared to other dedicated server and NAS solutions currently available.
Things got off to a poor start with anti-virus processes consuming all available CPU and memory resources and got worse when it became apparent that the systemctl command would timeout while trying to shutdown the runaway services while systemd would restart the processes I terminated by other means.
The user account manager rejected passwords I tried to apply to new accounts and incorrectly reported accounts were locked, even after I had unlocked them from the command line. The web interface does not show feedback or show confirmation when action buttons are clicked. Most services cannot be managed through the web portal and new software could not be added to the system without turning to the command line.
To make matters worse, updating the system and taking the Reconfigure option the system keeps insisting is necessary corrupts the system and prevents it from booting.
Looking through the web interface prior to the system becoming unusable, there do not appear to be many tools for managing services or setting up tasks. It looks like most significant options need to be managed from the command line and there are very few tasks we can perform through the web portal that are not easier and faster from the console.
One aspect of SME Server that puzzles me a bit is its short support cycle. SME Server 10.0 is new (it came out earlier this year), but it's based on CentOS 7 which is about seven years into its ten year support cycle. Which means SME Server 10.0 only receives three years of support. As a result we are stuck running seven year old software packages, but will only benefit from three years of updates. It seems we'd be better off running a Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 clone with something like Webmin installed.
I encountered a lot of frustration from trying to use SME Server with virtually nothing to show from my efforts, but a lot of bugs. I think most other members of the Fedora/CentOS family would provide a smoother experience.
In the crowd of GNU/Linux and BSD users that throng our community, it’s easy to forget that those two families are not the only games in the open-source operating system town. One we’ve casually kept an eye on for years is ReactOS, the long-running open-source Windows-compatible operating system that is doing its best to reach a stable Windows XP-like experience. Their most recent update has a few significant advances mentioned in it that hold the promise of it moving from curiosity to contender, so is definitely worth a second look.
ReactOS has had 64-bit builds for a long time now, but it appears they’ve made some strides in both making them a lot more stable, and moving away from the MSVC compiler to GCC. Sadly this doesn’t seem to mean that this now does the job of a 64-bit Windows API, but it should at least take advantage internally of the 64-bit processors. In addition they have updated their support for the Intel APIC that is paving the way for ongoing work on multiprocessor support where their previous APIC driver couldn’t escape the single processor constraint of an original Intel 8259.
It’s been quite a busy week for Chrome OS and Google in general. Google kicked off the week by officially previewing the upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro smartphones. While that’s not Chrome OS news directly, the Google-made Tensor chip could have future implications for Chromebooks. In the middle of the week, Chrome OS 92 finally hit the stable channel, bringing a host of new features with it. AT&T also put up the LTE version of the Galaxy Chromebook Go for sale on their website.
In addition to all of the current news, there were also encouraging developments in upcoming Chrome OS features. Chromebooks will soon gain native Google Calendar support in the dock. Debian 11 ‘Bullseye’ is rolling out to Chromebooks soon, available on certain devices now. The guys over at Chrome Unboxed were also able to get Vulkan games working in Crostini on Chrome OS Canary 94. Let’s take a look at everything in more detail.
I tried implementing a text crdt in sql and in imp.
Doing this naively isn't particularly hard. The challenge here is to implement it as if writing a batch query, but in such a way that an incremental system like materialize or dida can efficiently update the result when new edits arrive. Not because this code would be particularly useful in itself, but because it helps discover the boundaries of what kinds of problems are possible to solve in this way.
The exercise is a little like GPU programming, in that avoiding sequential algorithms and shared mutable data-structures requires very carefully separating the actual essential data dependencies of the problem from those accidentally introduced by typical programming techniques.
In episode 2 of this series I noted that the languages in which I’m writing Postgres functions share a common type system. It took me a while to understand how types work in the context of Postgres functions that can return sets of records and can interact with tables and materialized views.
A long time ago, I studied research on what makes successful engineering teams. (Not programmers, other engineering fields). I don’t remember a lot of it, but one phrase stands out: “preserving ambiguity”. Successful teams don’t make decisions that aren’t needed, and they don’t get themselves locked in too early.
Do you have burning opinions about GitHub Copilot, the AI pair programmer that Microsoft introduced a few months ago? Are you worried about the future of free and open software? The Free Software Foundation is funding a call for white papers of 3,000 or fewer words that address either Copilot itself or the subjects of copyright, machine learning, or free software as a whole. If you need more background information first, check out [Maya Posch]’s excellent article on the subject of Copilot and our disappointing AI present. Submissions are due by 10AM EDT (14:00 UTC) on Monday, August 23rd.
All the ingredients are lying around in plain sight, but the effort required to combine them winds up being more trouble than it’s worth. And that’s for me, a skilled longtime scraper and transformer of web data. For you — even if you’re a scientist or a journalist! — that may not even be an option.
A few friends have recently asked about literature introducing Monad Transformers. The best introduction I have found was in Haskell Programming From First Principles. If you don't have, or want to purchase, this book, then here is a brief explanation with examples.
Lets start with the problem they solve.
Unicode evolves, of course, so maybe there will someday be a sequence of characters that’s friendlier to sparklines. Maybe there already is? If so please let me know, I’d love to use it.
Using the Sardinia Radio Telescope, a 64-m fully steerable radio telescope near San Basilio, Sardinia, Italy, an international team of astronomers has produced a detailed radio image of the Andromeda — the best-known large galaxy besides our own Milky Way — at the microwave frequency of 6.6 GHz.
The growth of commercial contract cheating services and essay mills is in part a symptom of our digital age, but technology has also helped to tackle misconduct itself, with the majority of institutions implementing edtech into their integrity frameworks.
These AI innovations can help to identify where potential misconduct, such as plagiarism and contract cheating, may have taken place.
However, the battle for academic integrity will not be won by technology or legislation alone. Open dialogue between students, academics and administrators is critical in ensuring a shared understanding of what constitutes cheating. Without this, AI and technology risk being seen as punitive measures, rather than supportive ones.
Google is planning yet another Silicon Valley campus, which will sit adjacent to a new center partly devoted to hardware, according to preliminary plans obtained by CNBC.
Beginning in 2018, Google spent more than $389 million on land in north San Jose, Calif., and the company has since filed detailed preliminary proposals showing a sneak peak of its plans for the space. The plans, which are filed as an "R&D" facility, show a center for hardware operations and a separate new tech campus that would be accessible to the public, sitting between its current headquarters in Mountain View and its recently approved mega mixed-use campus in San Jose.
Last week, Google announced it has developed its own custom-built chip to power the next generation of Pixel 6 smartphones that will arrive in the market later this year.
But with increasing vehemence, Trump Republicans are falling back on their old game of deflecting attention by blaming immigrants crossing the southern border.
As U.S. Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations soar—largely driven by the Delta variant and people's refusal to vaccinate—a leading U.S. health official on Sunday called for the implementation of more vaccine mandates to better combat the pandemic's surging fourth wave.
"For me, as a non-political person, as a physician, as a scientist, the compelling case for vaccines for everybody is right there in front of you."—NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins
Anyone who tests positive and stays home will get a full refund.
Needless to say, 2020 was a pretty horrible year for live music in Japan, shows big and small either had to make major alterations or just cancel altogether in order to help fight the spread of COVID-19. However, this situation can only continue for so long before the organizers reach a breaking point.
For example, after foregoing last year’s live event, this year the large-scale summer music event Fuji Rock Festival ’21 at Naeba Ski Resort in Niigata Prefecture declared that the show must go on, despite rapidly rising infection rates in the country.
Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an interchangeable biosimilar to insulin glargine, an approval notable because it is the first approved interchangeable biosimilar product. The product is Semglee (insulin glargine-yfgn), produced by Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and under this approval, it is interchangeable with Lantus (insulin glargine) made by Sanofi.
The approval was based on the provisions of the Biological Price Competition and Innovation Act of 2009 (BPCIA), enacted with the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as "Obamacare") codified at 42 U.S.C. ۤ 262 et seq. Subsection (k) relates to the standards for biosimilarity; the FDA (and the statute itself) distinguish between biosimilarity and interchangeability inter alia by applying a heightened standard for interchangeability. Specifically, the statute requires that an interchangeable product is biosimilar and can be expected to produce the same clinical result as the reference product in any given patient; and that for a biological product that is administered more than once to an individual, the risk in terms of safety or diminished efficacy of alternating or switching between use of the biological product and the reference product is not greater than the risk of using the reference product without such alternation or switch. 42 U.S.C. ۤۤ 262(I)(3) and 262(k)(4).
Reforms to the French early access processes will make reimbursement decisions more predictable and bring greater consistency into the medicinal product pathway says the French pharmaceutical industry body Leem. Others, though, say the system is too complicated and lacks clarity in a number of areas.
I never posted about it but at the end of April I disclosed a bug in an NXP chip as part of my work at Oxide. The short summary is there was an undisclosed hardware block in the LPC55S69 which allowed for modification of the ROM and breaking of various isolation boundries. Oops?
According to the Liberty Times, a total of 19,256 Chinese ICT products were found at the 2,596 government agencies and public schools around the country as of May. The top three brands — SZ DJI Technology Co., TP-Link, and Hikvision — supply products from unmanned aerial vehicles to computer networking products.
Screeching for freedom. Illustration by Jérémie Fontana.
The concern here obviously isn’t Apple’s mission to fight CSAM, it’s the tools that it’s using to do so—which critics fear represent a slippery slope. In an article published Thursday, the privacy-focused Electronic Frontier Foundation noted that scanning capabilities similar to Apple’s tools could eventually be repurposed to make its algorithms hunt for other kinds of images or text—which would basically mean a workaround for encrypted communications, one designed to police private interactions and personal content. According to the EFF:
Last weekend I made an Android phone my primary mobile communications device. That was a lot of work, and I'll have to pay for some apps and content again. There are antitrust issues concerning Android, which is why Epic Games's amended complaint is worth reading, particularly the part about "sideloading" (direct installation of apps) "drastically" limiting app developers' reach. But faced with the choice, I clearly prefer Android because Apple is too heavy-handed.
The Epic Games v. Apple antitrust ruling may come down anytime now in the Northern District of California, though I wouldn't be surprised if that huge case took the judge another month or more to distill into what will hopefully be a razor-sharp ruling. Even without a major antitrust trial or decision, more and more people can figure out that Apple's defenses of its App Store monopoly abuse are pretextual.
This weekend, I had a defining moment in which I realized that Apple is fooling the world's antitrust authorities and lawmakers to a greater extent than even the epic Epic trial in May exposed. The only Apple app I'm still using after my remigration to Android is Shazam. And just yesterday, Shazam for Android--I kid you not!--asked for GPS permission so it could later tell me where I was when I "discovered" a song.
Dr. Neal Krawetz, one of the leading experts in the area of computer forensics research, digital photo analysis, and related topics, has penned a blog post in which he takes apart Apple’s recent announcement and the technology behind it.
He actually has a lot of experience with the very problem Apple is trying to deal with, since he is the creator of FotoForensics, and files CSAM reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) every day. In fact, he files more reports than Apple, and knows all the ins and outs of all the technologies involved – including reverse-engineering Microsoft’s PhotoDNA, the perceptual hash algorithm NCMEC and Apple are using.
The reason he had to reverse-engineer PhotoDNA is that NCMEC refused to countersign the NDA’s they wanted Krawetz to sign, eventually not responding to his requests altogether. Krawetz is one of the more prolific reporters of CSAM material (number 40 out of 168 in total in 2020). According to him, PhotoDNA is not as sophisticated as Apple’s and Microsoft’s documentation and claims make it out to be.
Nearly 300 schoolgirls, most aged between 12 and 17, were abducted by Boko Haram in April 2014 from Chibok in northeast Nigeria, sparking an international outcry and the #BringBackOurGirls campaign for their release.
Over the years, many of the girls were released or found by the military, but more than 100 are still missing, Amnesty International said in April to mark the seven year anniversary of the abduction.
The office of the governor of Borno state in northern Nigeria, where almost 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in the town of Chibok seven years ago, announced Saturday that one of the girls is free and has been reunited with her family.
And last but not the least, it will revive terrorism once again especially in South Asia. Since 1990s, Taliban model served as the ‘role model’ for terrorism in South Asia. Since 1990s, countries including Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Maldives are facing homegrown terrorist problems. Sri Lanka is also facing threats at present. Most of them were influenced by Taliban and many terrorists were allegedly taken part in Taliban Training camps. Since then, these countries initiated countering terrorism and successfully reduced terrorism to minimum. But in current context, Bangladesh’s Jamiatul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Neo-JMB, India’s Lashkar-e-Taiba, Harkatul Mujahideen, Pakistan’s Jaish-e-Mohammad, Al Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban will once again find motivation from this Taliban victory and Chinese patronization. Moreover, apart from terrorist organizations, these relations will also once again motivate extremist political Islam organizations such as Bangladesh’s Jamat e lslam, Hefajat-e-Islam and Pakistan’s Tehrik-e-Labbaik. For these organizations, Taliban will serve as a success story in both establishing Sharia Law and achieving legitimacy in global arena, just like 1990s when extremists celebrated the Taliban as a ‘role model’. As a result, in coming days, fundamentalist will find more space in this region and will challenge ‘secularism’ to the core resulting in violent conflicts and communalism in practice.
The port town, from where the first Islamist attacks were staged in October 2017, has since last year become the de facto headquarters of the Islamic State-linked extremists, locally referred to as al-Shabab.
Mocimboa da Praia "was the last stronghold of the insurgents" and its recapture marks "the end of the first phase of counter-insurgency operations," Colonel Ronald Rwivanga, a spokesman for the joint military force, said in a text message.
The insurgents have snatched up five provincial capitals in Afghanistan since Friday in a lightning offensive that appears to have overwhelmed government forces.
Fighting in Afghanistan's long-running conflict has intensified since May, when foreign forces began the final stage of a withdrawal due to be completed later this month.
Recently, the group said it had captured more than half of Afghanistan's territory, including strategic border crossings.
That has driven thousands out of their homes to seek refuge, from both the fighting and the prospect of the hard-line Islamist regime that ruled the country before 2001 being reimposed.
As for this summer’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, it should be noted that the country was far from stable when it was handed over to the Biden administration — though it was certainly not so dire as to justify a hasty withdrawal of the remaining US troops. Indeed, far more concerning for America’s security is another development over the past decade, something rarely noted in the American media: that is, the discernible leadership change that has occurred within several countries of the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf States.
The great hope of the 1990s and 2000s was that the [Internet] would be a force for openness and freedom. As Stewart Brand, a pioneer of online communities, put it: “Information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time.” It was not to be. Bad information often drove out good. Authoritarian states co-opted the technologies that were supposed to loosen their grip. Information was wielded as a weapon of war. Amid this disappointment one development offers cause for fresh hope: the emerging era of open-source intelligence (OSINT).
Ahead of September's United Nations Food Systems Summit and this fall's U.N. Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, the Carbon Pricing Food Coalition is issuing an open letter calling on the heads of the U.N. member states with the highest meat consumption calling for the application of carbon pricing to meat and dairy products.
European lawmakers urged Brussels on Thursday to step up efforts to break the international deadlock over plans to protect large swathes of the Southern Ocean.
A team of scientists from universities and agencies in the US, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and India predict that societal pressures to abort female fetuses in some cultures will significantly skew entire countries’ population demographics off balance in the coming decades, Medical News Today reports. Based on current trends, there could be as many as 4.7 million “missing” female births in countries where it’s preferable to have a son by the year 2030, according to research published Monday in the journal BMJ Global Health. By the year 2100, that number could rise to 22 million.
An executive assistant to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo who last week filed a criminal complaint alleging he groped her came forward Sunday and publicly identified herself amid growing calls for the embattled Democrat's impeachment or resignation.
"I felt as though if I did something to insult him... it wasn't going to be him that was going to get fired or in trouble. It was going to be me."—Brittany Commisso
While the paper aligns with the "motivated reasoning" perspective, its focus goes deeper than the psychological mechanisms that produce and reproduce false information. These researchers are trying to elucidate the functions of those mechanisms, that is, to answer the question of why they evolved in the first place. I interviewed Petersen three years ago, about a previous paper, "A 'Need for Chaos' and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies," which was summarized on Twitter thusly: "Many status-obsessed, yet marginalized individuals experience a 'Need for Chaos' and want to 'watch the world burn.'" That paper provided crucial insight into prolific spreaders of misinformation and why they do what they do. But that individualist account was only part of the story. This new paper seeks to illuminates the evolutionary foundations and social processes involved in the spread of outright falsehoods. So I had another long conversation with Petersen, edited as usual for clarity and length.
When you buy something on Amazon, the e-commerce giant isn’t always the one making the sale; an estimated half of all products sold on Amazon come from third-party sellers. Amazon says it’s merely the conduit between buyer and seller, and doesn’t bear responsibility if a third-party product is defective (although some recent court cases have challenged that stance).
Third-party sellers aren’t supposed to be able to email Amazon customers directly outside of the platform, but a new report in The Wall Street Journal shows that some sellers can find ways to get in touch with buyers who leave negative product reviews, and some businesses even offer “email extraction” for buyers as a service to sellers.
For years, the United States has campaigned against child marriage around the world, from Guatemala to Zimbabwe. But we should listen to ourselves: Forty-five states here in America continue to allow girls and boys under 18 to wed.
Girls as young as 10 are occasionally married quite legally in the United States. Nine states have established no absolute minimum age for marriage.
A study this year found that nearly 300,000 children — meaning age 17 and under — were married in the United States from 2000 to 2018. An overwhelming majority were 16- or 17- year-old girls, on average marrying a man four years older. But more than 1,000 were 14 or younger, and five were only 10 years old. Some were wed to people far older.
This is the first study of the extent of child marriage in the U.S. that collected all available state data and used various estimation methods, based on high correlations identified between the available data and census data, to fill in the data gaps. (Unchained’s previous study of the extent of child marriage in the U.S. for the period 2000 to 2010 was based on available data from 38 states plus estimates for the other 12 states based only on state population [3]. PBS Frontline later extended that study to 2015 but did not attempt to fill in the many data gaps left by states that provided no data or only some data [4]).
Mukadam's death has drawn attention to the plight of women and girls in Pakistan, where violence against them is considered a "serious problem," according to a 2020 country report from Human Rights Watch.
Around 28% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 have experienced physical violence since the age of 15, Pakistan's Ministry of Human Rights said, citing the country's Demographic and Health Survey from 2017-2018.
Often, violence occurs within marriage and goes unreported, because it is considered a cultural norm in Pakistan's patriarchal society, according to a World Health Organization review of literature on domestic violence in Pakistan from 2008 to 2018.
The first time I met Rich Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO who suddenly died this past Thursday, was in early 2008. I had only been president of the Writers Guild of America, East, an AFL-CIO union, for a short time, and he was then the labor federation’s secretary-treasurer.
As the United States Senate on Saturday voted to advance a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure package, progressive lawmakers warned that they will not vote for the proposed legislation if lawmakers don't also adequately fund human needs such as healthcare, housing, and climate action.
"If the bipartisan bill isn't passed with a reconciliation package that has our popular priorities, we're not voting for it."—Rep. Pramila Jayapal
One of 20 children in a sharecropper’s Mississippi family, Hamer grew up in the 1920s and ‘30s no stranger to hunger. As a young child, she helped her parents pick cotton in the fields which ended her formal education at age 12. Often, she and her siblings had nothing for dinner besides a little four mixed with cooking grease. Lynchings of Black people were not uncommon in mid-20th century Mississippi, and it was not until Hamer was well into adulthood that she learned she had the right to vote. This knowledge changed her life. She became a voting rights activist. Getting her fellow African Americans to vote became her life’s work. To read this article, log in or or Subscribe. In order to read CP+ articles, your web browser must be set to accept cookies.
On the other hand, this feels uncomfortable close to pushing email further toward a closed system in practice, where only large existing senders of email can get their email accepted and other people are frozen out. Setting up a broad based block of any sort (whether a gTLD or a large network (IP) area) makes it incrementally harder for people to send email from new, not well established hosts, and anecdotally that's already hard.
Trade secret law is seen as the most inclusive IP regime for protecting inventions and proprietary business information. Keep it secret, the wisdom goes, and you can protect it under trade secret law even if patent and copyright law are unavailable. But keeping information secret does not magically transform it into a trade secret. The holder of the secret also must derive actual or potential economic value from concealing the information from others. This elusive and under- studied statutory requirement—called “independent economic value”—is a vestige of the common law, under which trade secrets had to impart a “competitive advantage.”
Today, the conventional view is that courts generally ignore independent economic value or give it a rubber stamp. However, this article reveals that, while most courts apply a comparatively low bar, a surprisingly large number find the standard is not met. This casts doubt on the assumption that independent economic value is a toothless, check-the-box requirement.
Along with this descriptive account, the article provides a much-needed explanation of the nature and function of independent economic value in trade secret law. At first glance, a legal requirement of economic value appears redundant. After all, if information had no economic value, why would anyone bother to keep it secret, and why would the parties litigate over the right to use it? By drawing on insights from patent law’s surprisingly analogous requirement of “utility,” the article reveals that—far from being toothless or self-enforcing—trade secret law’s independent economic value requirement plays a central role in establishing the contours of trade secrecy. When properly construed, it controls not just the amount of value that qualifies, but also the type of value that qualifies and the timeframe during which a trade secret can be protected. Most subtly, independent economic value ensures the information’s asserted value is caused specifically by its secrecy. This raises the bar on what can be protected and simultaneously fortifies the secrecy requirement itself.
The article has a clear message for courts. In any given trade secret case, a party may fail to meet the independent economic value requirement; a litigant's cost-benefit analysis about whether to pursue a lawsuit will not necessarily screen out trade secrets that do not have independent economic value. Courts and commentators who ignore or trivialize independent economic value are wrong to do so.
In August 2021, an alliance of African faith leaders delivered a powerful message to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: Stop promoting failing and harmful high-input Green Revolution€ programs, such as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA).
As the weekend draws to a close, there's no better time to look ahead to new IP-related events and opportunities.
One may recall the scene in Macbeth where he encounters the ghost of his former friend Banquo and exclaims in disbelief. I am sure many would have exclaimed with similar sentiment after reading the suggestions of the recent Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on Review of IPR regime in India, which suggests re-institution of IPAB. At the outset, let me clarify, I am in no way against the idea of having a dedicated IP court, which will ensure timely disposal of highly technical IP disputes. However time and time again we have addressed the problems with the institution we had, and often have suggested ways to overcome these obstacles to get the institution we need (see here). In this post, I shall address the suggestions of the Parliamentary Committee pertaining to IPAB and will try to pitch in my two cents on it. Readers can find an earlier post from today by Prof. Arul Scaria on broader issues related to this report here.
As is well known now, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce tabled its Report on the IPR regime in India last week. In about 150 pages the Report suggests a major reevaluation of the IP framework in the country. In an approach that seems to focus on the bigger picture while suggesting fairly pointed reforms, the Report misses both the trees and the forest. Some of the conspicuous issues with the Report have been covered by Dr. Scaria (here), Praharsh (here), and Adyasha (here).
The Report focuses on reviewing the working of the Patents Act since its 2005 amendment that brought the Indian legislation in compliance with the TRIPS Agreement. A significant portion of the Report is dedicated to suggesting changes to the Patents Act, albeit without much justification on why these changes are needed. The singular focus of these recommendations is on increasing patent filing in the country. These recommendations aim to water down several substantial restrictions in the Act to increase the scope of patentability and also reduce procedural restrictions to induce some flexibility. In this 2-part post, in part I, I will be analyzing the suggested amendments to Section 3 of the Patents Act (the substantial provisions) and part II will cover the suggested amendments to some of the procedural provisions of the Act.
The recommendations on making procedural norms of patent filing less stringent are noteworthy. Minor procedural/timeline issues should not be the determining factor for the validity of a patent application. Easing such norms makes the process more accessible.
With respect to shortening the time period for patent application examination, it would be interesting to see what changes are undertaken to ensure compliance with newer and shortened timelines. As has generally been the case with legislations prescribing timelines for actions to be taken, the prescriptions do not necessarily translate into a speedier process. Further, as is with the case of most government offices, the patent office also faces several structural issues including being overburdened with their workload, having inadequate personnel capacity, and other issues which have been extensively covered on the blog here. The ongoing discussion in the comment section of this post also highlights some serious issues faced by patent examiners. The current recommendation also does not pay any heed to the quality of patent applications being passed by the Office. Once again, solely focusing on speed and numbers would mean the creation of a pseudo quota-fulfilling system and it would be easier to allow a bad patent than to spend time justifying/giving reasons as to why a patent must be denied. If a legislative change is brought in with a focus on speedier process instead of addressing the other structural issues that plague the process of patent examinations, then it is doubtful that it would lead to any fruitful change.
What is quite glaringly missing in the Report is its lack of focus on Research & Development (R&D) spending/capacity-building for improving the patent regime in the country. While the focus on improving the process of filing patent applications and making it accessible is important, it is hard to see how these changes would encourage innovation when only 0.65% of the GDP is being spent on R&D (also see posts here and here). The incentive provided by patent protection is only one part of an ecosystem that is required to foster innovation. It is also an aspect that figures mostly at the end of the innovation cycle and not at the beginning. In that, without R&D capacity, there would simply be a lack of an environment that helps explore gaps in technology and create subsequent socially beneficial inventions.
With respect to the recommendations on Section 104, while the idea of specialized IPR mediation or arbitration centers seems very attractive on paper, it is hard to see how or why these centers would not share the fate of the IPAB. Issues of executive interference, vacancies, and mismatched expertise of adjudicating members had long plagued the IPAB, a specialized IP forum. Further, even if ADR is promoted for dispute resolution, there is no guarantee that it would achieve the objective of ‘speedy justice’. Arbitration has been noted to be expensive and time-consuming and with mediation (unless court-mandated) not being binding on parties, it is hard to see why parties would not approach courts anyway to try their luck at obtaining results that favor them. If such specialized forums are being proposed, then it would have been prudent for the proposing body to first focus on lessons from the shortcomings of the IPAB and also to think through safeguards in the ADR process to ensure finality in their dispute resolution. So simply creating more institutional bodies to deal specifically with IP matters does not resolve any existing issues with respect to delays in IP dispute management as much as it just creates multiple forums that parties can approach.
I’m happy to announce, and hope to attend in-person, the CLE described below in Salt Lake City. While virtual CLEs have their benefits, I miss seeing and interacting with folks, and hope we can get close to normal soon. But, it’s also available virtually and looks to be a good mix of practical and conceptual work! Here’s their announcement...
The USPTO rejected requests for director review of two Patent Trial and Appeal Board rulings on Monday, August 2.
These requests were the first to be considered after the Supreme Court decisionUS v Arthrexon June 21.It set out that the appointment of administrative patent judges at the PTAB was unconstitutional, but that this problem could be fixed by giving the USPTO director more power to overturn the board’s decisions.
The patentoffice announced on June 29 that it had implemented an interim procedure where the USPTO director could initiate reviews of PTAB rulings.
One of the requests that was rejected on Monday came from a patent owner: non-practising entity Solas had asked the office to review a ruling that its claims were unpatentable.
The other came from a patent challenger, Google,which had requested that the office review a decision that certain claims in Hammond Development’s patent were patentable.
Drew Hirshfeld, commissioner of patents who is currently performing the functions and duties of the USPTO director, did not give many details on why he denied both requests.
In both cases he wrote: “It is ordered that the request for director review is denied; and furtherordered that the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s final written decision in this case is the final decision of the agency.”
Lawyers spearheading the patent applications for DABUS spoke to Managing IP about what recent legal wins mean for artificial intelligence inventorship.
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Justice Jonathan Beach of the Federal Court of Australia said in his ruling that because other terms in patent law such as “manner of manufacture” have evolved over the past two centuries to include novel methods of scientific invention, he sees no reason why the term “inventor” should not also evolve to reflect new methods of discovery.
On July 28, the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission of South Africa granted the world's first patent on an invention created by an artificial intelligence (“AI”) inventor. This development marks an important milestone in what will certainly be a significant battle for legal recognition of such inventions in the United States and other countries.
For the first time ever, Canada will be granting patent term adjustments beginning in January. That’s welcome news for the biopharmaceutical and med-tech industries, and it’s long overdue, Jeffrey Morton, a partner at Snell & Wilmer LLP, told BioWorld.
This is an appellate procedure case focused on the timing of the notice of appeal. The statute creates a hard 30-day deadline for filing a Notice of Appeal (NOA). 28 U.S.C. €§ 2107(a). One difficulty though is that the statutory scheme muddies the water in terms of when to start counting. The courts have previously figured out how it works for ordinary appeals — you get 30-days from the final judgment. But, there is a special statute that allows interlocutory appeals in patent infringement lawsuits that creates a right to appeal in cases that are “final except for an accounting.” 28 U.S.C. €§ 1292(c). With that provision, it would seem that the notice of appeal should be filed within 30 days of the court action that triggers the final-except-for-an-accounting status. But, there is another level of complication that comes from the NOA tolling provision found in Fed. R. App. Proc. 4(a)(4). Rule 4(a)(4) focuses on post-verdict situation where a party files several motions for Judgment as a Matter of Law (JMOL) or New Trial. In that situation, the Rule states that “the time to file an appeal runs … from the entry of the order disposing of the last such remaining motion.” Rule 4(a) then goes on to particularly state that the notice of appeal is due 30 days after the last JMOL/NewTrial motion is decided.
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Lets back up: At the trial court, a jury with the patentee and concluded that LG was willfully infringing the Mondis/Hitachi U.S. Patent No. 7,475,180. Post-verdict, the district court denied LG’s motions for JMOL on infringement and validity and then later granted a new trial on damages and willfulness.
This was the sentiment expressed by Beach J in the Federal Court's recent finding that artificial intelligence (AI) can be an inventor under Australian law in Thaler v Commissioner of Patents [2021] FCA 879. This is the first decision by a court worldwide to embrace the concept of AI as an inventor. The Australian patent application at issue, AU 2019363177 (the AU Application), was filed by Davies Collison Cave on behalf of Dr Thaler.
In Thaler v. Commissioner of Patents, case number VID 108 of 2021, in the Federal Court of Australia, an Australian Federal Judge became the first known jurist to rule that inventions developed by artificial intelligence can qualify for patent protection.
Data from both Unified Patents and RPX suggests that recent climbs in district court patent cases in the US are set to continue, as is the decline in PTAB filings
One of the topics to be discussed at tomorrow’s PPAC meeting is USPTO operations following the Supreme Court’s 2021 Arthrex decision. In Arthrex, the Supreme Court created an additional layer of review by the PTO Director in Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings following a PTAB final written decision. PTO Acting Director Drew Hirshfeld has considered the first two request for Director Review, and denied both requests. (IPR2020-00081 and IPR2020-00320). It appears that the Director personally considered both cases rather than delegating the decision back to the PTAB or another Official. Neither decision reach the merits but rather perfunctorily state...
In an important pharma decision, the Federal Circuit has doubled-down on its prior ruling that Teva’s sales of the drug carvedilol induced infringement of a GSK method-of-treatment patent, even though Teva’s product is approved and labeled only for non-infringing uses (as required by statute). In the new decision, however, the court makes clear that the inducement liability is due to Teva’s additional marketing activity that encouraged others to infringe.
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GSK sued for inducing infringement and the jury sided with GSK and awarded $200 million in damages. The district court rejected the jury verdict and instead found insufficient evidence to show causation — that insufficient evidence Teva’s actions caused the underlying infringement. Then on appeal the Federal Circuit flipped again and reinstated the jury verdict in its October 2020 decision.
The problem with the Oct 2020 decision is that it included an indication that a Generic could be held liable for inducement by simply selling a generic version of a drug and noting the therapeutic equivalence with the branded drug — without ever mentioning the patented use. The Federal Circuit has now released a new decision clarifying that such a straight use of the Skinny-Label could not justify inducement liability. In this case, however, the court found sufficient evidence that Teva went further — labelling its drug in a way that encouraged the patented use.
An important element of this decision: the FDA’s Skinny-Label Carveout approval process does not create a genuine safe-harbor for the generic launch.
Golf is a game of precision. You start by hitting a powerful shot to try to get the ball close to the green. At the moment of the first shot (the ‘drive’), the hole flag is still quite far away and sometimes can barely be seen. You do not expect to put the ball in the hole and it is fine to get closer to stay in the game. Then, you hit a second shot (the ‘approach’), a more precise one, to have the ball arrive nearer to the pin. Finally, you target the hole and put the ball in the cup (the ‘putt shot’). On a par-3 hole, a player may hit the pin in three shots.
Once you decide to file a patent, you must navigate the filing process. This guide outlines key considerations for a patent filing strategy, helping start-ups to gain knowledge, focus their efforts and save money.
The Unitary Patent (UP) and Unified Patent Court (UPC) will fundamentally change the way patents are granted and enforced in Europe. Currently, patentees must maintain their patents in each European country - or at least in their key national markets.
On May 28th, Junior Party the Broad Institute, Harvard University and MIT (collectively, "Broad") filed its Contingent Preliminary Motion No. 2 in CRISPR Interference No. 106,126 (where ToolGen is the Senior Party), pursuant to 37 C.F.R. ۤۤ 41.121(a)(1)(i) and 41.208(a)(2) and Standing Order ("SO") 203.2. This motion is contingent on the Board's grant of Broad's Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 1. In that motion, Broad asked the Board to substitute (in part) a new Count No. 2 in place of Count 1 in the '126 Interference as instituted (see "Broad Files Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 1 in CRISPR Interference").
In this motion, Broad asks the Board to add their U.S. Application Nos. 15/160,710 (having allowable claims 1, 40, and 41) and 15/430,260 (allowable claims 74, 94, and 95) to the Interference and designate the allowable claims as corresponding to Proposed Count 2. Consistent with their arguments in Motion No. 1, Broad contends that these claims recite "generic" limitations with regard to the RNA components of CRISPR, i.e., both dual-molecule and single-molecule guide RNA. In the alternative (i.e., should the Board deny Broad's Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 1), Broad in this motion asks the Board to designate claim 1 of the '710 application and claim 95 of the '260 application as corresponding to current Count 1.
At first glance, a recently granted South African patent relating to a “food container based on fractal geometry” seems fairly mundane. The innovation in question involves interlocking food containers that are easy for robots to grasp and stack.
On closer inspection, the patent is anything but mundane. That's because the inventor is not a human being – it is an artificial intelligence (AI) system called DABUS.
DABUS (which stands for “device for the autonomous bootstrapping of unified sentience”) is an AI system created by Stephen Thaler, a pioneer in the field of AI and programming. The system simulates human brainstorming and creates new inventions. DABUS is a particular type of AI, often referred to as “creativity machines” because they are capable of independent and complex functioning. This differs from everyday AI like Siri, the “voice” of Apple's iPhones.
As previously reported, Amgen sought leave to appeal a decision of the Federal Court of Appeal (2020 FCA 188) affirming Justice Southcott’s decision that the relevant claims of its filgrastim (NEUPOGEN) patent were invalid for obviousness. On July 9, 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada denied leave to Amgen (Docket No. 39530).
Amgen has discontinued its pending patent infringement actions under the PMNOC Regulations against biosimilar manufacturers Mylan (FULPHILA), Purdue Pharma (PELMEG), and Sandoz (ZIEXTENZO).
Apple Inc lost its bid to escape patent infringement claims over its Apple Watch technology brought by a University of Michigan professor's biomedical laser company at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday.
The employment agreement between professor Mohammed Islam and the university didn't automatically assign his patents to it, and Apple couldn't escape the case based on a lack of standing by his company Omni MedSci Inc, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Linn said for a divided three-judge panel.
Circuit Judge Pauline Newman dissented, arguing the majority "overturns decades of unchallenged understanding and implementation of the University's employment agreement and policy documents."
Apple in a counter complaint filed in California on Thursday seeks to nullify a new assertion from patent holdings firm Traxcell, which is suing the tech giant in Texas for alleged infringement of intellectual property covering navigation systems.
Traxcell, a non-practicing entity, sued Apple in January on claims that the company's Maps product infringes on U.S. Patent Nos. 9,918,196 and 9,549,388. The IP covers locating and providing directional assistance to devices on a mobile network and hardware that facilitates such capabilities.
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Interestingly, Traxcell followed an identical pattern in a separate case involving Google. The NPE filed suit against the search giant in Texas using the '196 and '388 patents only to later serve contentions and a draft complaint related to the '147 patent. As in the Apple action, Traxcell sent communication to Google's Mountain View headquarters in California.
The Schiedmayer family has been making and selling pianos since the 1700s, although the current version of the company makes only Celestas and Glockenspiels, not the 88 key Piano Forte that is popular in the US. The last Schiedmayer family pianos were apparently built and sold back in 1980. For a few years the Japanese company Kawai also sold some Schiedmayer branded pianos (apparently without license).
Piano Factory’s director noted around 2001 that nobody was making Schiedmayer brand pianos any longer and assumed the mark must have been abandoned. So, Piano Factory began branding labelling unbranded pianos with the Schiedmayer brand and selling them to the public. The following is Piano Factory’s explanation of its own operation:
Bad faith pursuant to Article 59(1)(b) of the EU Trade Mark Regulation (EUTMR), presupposes the presence of a dishonest state of mind or intention (Koton Maßazacilik Tekstil Sanayi ve Ticaret v EUIPO (Cââ¬â104/18 P)). In an interesting decision from June this year, the General Court considered that, even if the intervener’s filing of the EUTM application in question had taken place after the applicant had presented its modernization plan, this was not sufficient to establish that there had been any bad faith on their side.
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Thirdly, the General Court did not consider that the cease-and -desist letter was a relevant factor in the assessment of bad faith, since such a request fell within the scope of the rights attaching to the registration of a mark.
Finally, the General Court did not accept other arguments put forward by the applicant to establish a dishonest intention on part of the intervener: it was true that the intervener’s filing of the EUTM application had taken place after the applicant presented the modernization plan for its airport to the intervener. However, when the applicant took the initiative to contact the intervener, it did not state that the underlying reason to that contact was to seek consent to use the sign Riviera Airport, nor that there was a link between its airport modernization plan and the use of the intervener’s sign. The consent that was sought from the intervener showed rather that the applicant was aware that it would be difficult for it to use that sign. The mere fact that the intervener was aware of the applicant’s new airport plan the day before it filed the application to register the contested mark was not in itself sufficient for that application to be declared invalid on the ground of bad faith, particularly as it appeared that the application for EUTM registration formed part of the intervener’s overall strategy.
Sources assess where the land lies with bad-faith trademarks in the EU following court cases on ‘evergreening’ and broad filings
As a member state of the EU, trademark protection in Bulgaria is often achieved through the registration of an European Union Trademark. However, an EUTM may not always be feasible or advantageous. Let's explore some reasons for registering a national Bulgarian trademark.
As most readers must be aware by now, the Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on India’s IP [sic] regime has revealed a problematic, maximalist approach to IP [sic] protection, showing no more than a tokenistic appreciation of public interest considerations. Some of the glaring issues with the Report have been highlighted by Prof Scaria (here) and Praharsh (here). In the 6 odd pages devoted to the reform of the Copyright regime, a grand total of 5 statutory issues have been highlighted despite the fact that the last Copyright Amendment is nearly a decade old and comments for a new amendment had been sought fairly recently (see here, here, and here). In this post, I will be analysing the recommendations relating to copyright exceptions and the other reforms suggested.
Dr Elena Cooper of CREATe (University of Glasgow) considered what might be revealed about copyright history from the story one of James McNeill Whistler's paintings, 'Portrait of Lady Eden'.
This month sees the opening of a major new exhibition of the work of the artist James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) at the Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, which holds one of the largest Whistler collections in the world: Whistler: Art and Legacy (9 July-31 October 2021). In this blog, I reflect on how one painting by Whistler in the Hunterian collection (not part of the exhibition) can help us think again about the relationship between art and copyright: Brown and Gold: Portrait of Lady Eden (1894-5). Portrait of Lady Eden was the subject of a legal case decided by the Paris Court of Appeal: Eden v Whistler (1897) and that case is known today for its role in the development of the right of divulgation (or disclosure) under French law. In this blog, I uncover a different perspective: Portrait of Lady Eden helps us to understand quite different ideas about UK copyright in the nineteenth century.
What story lies behind Whistler’s Portrait of Lady Eden? In 1892, Sir William Eden, a wealthy baronet, expressed that he would like Whistler to paint his wife Lady Eden. Whistler initially said he would charge 500 guineas, which William Eden thought to be too much. Later Whistler changed his mind and said he would agree to paint Lady Eden for between 100 to 150 pounds. Lady Eden sat for the portrait in Paris in January 1894. In February 1894, Eden saw the painting in Whistler’s studio and, as he was completely satisfied with the painting, he sent a cheque to Whistler for 100 guineas. Whistler accepted the cheque but kept the painting. Eden then travelled to India, and while he was overseas, Whistler sent the painting to an exhibition in Paris, at the National Society for Fine Arts.
Last week saw the long-awaited publication of Advocate General Saugmangsgaard ÃËe’s opinion on the Polish request for annulments of parts of Article 17 of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive) before the European Court of Justice (Case C-401/19). While Bernd Justin Jütte and Giulia Priora have already analyzed the opinion’s most important elements in this blog, our contribution addresses the complex interaction between the ongoing court case and the implementation of Article 17 into the national laws of Member States. As it stands, although the implementation deadline for the DSM Directive has passed, only six Member States have implemented Article 17 into their national laws: the Netherlands, France, Germany, Hungary, Denmark and Malta. With the vast majority of Member States still grappling with how to transpose the complex provision into their respective copyright law systems, the AG opinion serves as an important point of reference to inform their strategies.
Had the Advocate General recommended the annulment of Article 17, the recommendation for Member States would have been simply to put all implementation efforts on hold until the Court delivered its judgment, to avoid passing a law that would immediately conflict with the fundamental rights under the Charter. Similarly, had the Advocate General found that there was no interference of Article 17 with the right to freedom of expression, Member States could have proceeded with their implementation efforts as they saw fit.
For the first time ever in India, the copyright office has recognised an artificial intelligence tool – RAGHAV Artificial Intelligence Painting App – as the co-author of a copyright-protected artistic work.
Ankit Sahni, an IP lawyer who owns the AI-based app, is the other author and is registered as the copyright owner. He commissioned the painting in question, ‘Suryast’ (see image below), and even believes that India might be the first country to have acknowledged AI-authorship in a copyrighted work.
Ukrainian TV channel TRK has sent a rather bizarre takedown request to Google. The company's anti-piracy partner Vindex asked the search engine to remove a search result that points to 127.0.0.1. Tech-savvy people will immediately recognize that the anti-piracy company apparently found copyright-infringing content on its own server.
