Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Patent Distortion: Weekly Series About Failure of the Media to Properly Explain Patents and Generally Cover the News

Video download link | md5sum f107a69eb169cb963741255a76f1976a News is Noise in 2022 - Part I Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Video download link | md5sum b81f8359a9b7b23ce0c75b0e40423209 News is Noise in 2022 - Part II Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Today we resume last week's 'experimental' series in which we review patent 'news' along with related news, for the most part condemning the online sources (heavily gamed by special interests) for misinformation, disinformation, defamation (e.g. of judges) and basically lobbying activities/marketing campaigns wrapped up as "journalism" or "reporting"; it wasn't always so bad and in 2022 it has come to the point where over 90% of "coverage" is misleading, one-sided, sometimes even fabricated

SO last week we tried, probably for the first time*, a 3-hour video exploring the past week's "news" about patents, explaining that it had gone so rogue that it's hard to find actual journalism; instead, one receives lots of lies, lobbying, and deliberate distortion of facts by law firms. We've since decided to make this a weekly feature, seeing that many people accessed last week's video.



That's not to say that 0% of the "news" about patents is worthless or misleading (sometimes to mislead politicians). The other day, for instance, we saw this new report about Dr. Duda, whom we wrote about many times before, even a few years ago. Duda complains about well-connected technology giants looking to 'steal' and then patent his work; the latest 'heist' is blamed on Microsoft:

Microsoft last month received a US patent covering modifications to a data-encoding technique called rANS, one of several variants in the Asymmetric Numeral System (ANS) family that support data compression schemes used by leading technology companies and open source projects.

The creator of ANS, Jarosław Duda, assistant professor at Institute of Computer Science at Jagiellonian University in Poland, has been trying for years to keep ANS patent-free and available for public use. Back in 2018, Duda's lobbying helped convince Google to abandon its ANS-related patent claim in the US and Europe. And he raised the alarm last year when he learned Microsoft had applied for an rANS (range asymmetric number system) patent.

Now that Microsoft's patent application has been granted, he fears the utility of ANS will be diminished, as software developers try to steer clear of a potential infringement claim.

"I don't know what to do with it – [Microsoft's patent] looks like just the description of the standard algorithm," he told The Register in an email. The algorithm is used in JPEG XL and CRAM, as well as open source projects run by Facebook (Meta), Nvidia, and others.


We're quite certain patent examiners are aware of such problems; under pressure from management, given that Microsoft is a "big client", patents would often be erroneously granted, not only on maths/algorithms but also to the wrong person/s.

"It's about promotion of crime and cover-up of severe abuses, it's not about informing EPO stakeholders."In the video above, the first of several (we've sometimes split weekly series into several parts or few logical chunks), I've decided to trawl though some RSS feeds and focus on the degree of deception; putting aside Google 'News' (Gulag Noise), which is stacked or gamed or Googlebombed by litigation profiteers, there are so-called 'news' sites like Juve and Watchtroll, which are in the pocket of those same litigation profiteers. Even Patenty-O, which is run by a lecturer**, recently bragged (even repeatedly) that it was being sponsored by litigation profiteers that lobby for software patents. How is one expected to retrieve objective news about patents when litigation profiteers control just about every outlet? As for the EPO, its Web site became a constant propaganda mill that defies the EPC and instead glorifies Benoît Battistelli, António Campinos, illegal actions, and even European software patents. It's about promotion of crime and cover-up of severe abuses, it's not about informing EPO stakeholders***.

"At some stage we might make a one-page index for this current series."As I noted last week, both in text and in video, the reason it's likely better to respond in video is that it is faster, more expressive, and takes full advantage of increasing network capacities; at the moment we have no restrictions on space and traffic (SAN migration completed earlier this month), which we've hopefully secured for years to come. In case there's downtime in the main site, use the Gemini capsule or its Web proxy. They're part of our anti-censorship mechanisms and they can also outlive the World Wide Web, which probably won't be around at all several decades from now. The videos are, by default, encoded as WebM, but we can always format-shift these if that becomes necessary in the future. A full archive of our videos can be found here (we have 877 WebM files, 647 Ogg files, and 58 MP4 files). At some stage we might make a one-page index for this current series. _____ * We used to do weekly features about Novell and OpenSUSE about 15 years ago. These features targeted strategic areas at particular times (back then we explained that SUSE itself quite likely needed to be separated from Microsoft/Novell). ** Post-Jeremy IP Kat (it used to be controlled by a lecturer) was never the same after sanctions from the EPO. Now it's controlled by people who work for aggressive litigation firms and patent profiteers (e.g. AstraZeneca). *** Today's EPO management fails to understand that actual scientists should be the main/sole stakeholders. Instead, the politicians who run the EPO are led to think "licensing societies" matter the most and they're not even stakeholders but "users" or "clients" or "customers" (as if the EPO is a shop).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
 
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol