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02.11.16

Miembro del Parlamente Europe Resalta ¨Las Continuas Violaciones de los Fundamentales Derechos de los Empleados de la OEP¨

Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en Europe, Patents at 7:04 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

MEP Ana Gomes
By Foto-AG Gymnasium Melle, CC BY-SA 3.0

Sumario: Pregunta a la Comisión Europea de parte de la MEP Portuguesa Ana Gomes, publicado en el sitio del Parlamente Europeo.

Unos meses atrás, un lector nos informó que la Srta. Ana Maria Gomes resaltó la materia de los abusos de la OEP. Estos fueron mencionados frente a la Comisión Europea. Aquí esta lo que ella dijo y/o escribió al respecto (available en Inglés y Frances):

17 de Noviembre de 2015
E-014796-15
Pregunta para respuesta escrita a la Comisi
Rule 130
Ana Gomes (S&D)

Sujeto: Reestablecer derechos fundamentales en la Oficina Europea de Patentes

¿Ha preguntádo la Comisión a los Estados Miembros de la Oficina Europea de Patentes (OEP), y en particular a los 2 Estados Miembros donde la organización esta localizada, llamados los Países Bajos (La Hague) y Alemania (Munich), por una explicación de las continues violaciones de los fundamentales derechos de los empleados de la OEP?

Parecería que los Países Bajos están poniendo sus intereses económicos, i.e el hecho que la sede de la OEP esta localizada en su territorio por delante de los derechos de los empleados de la organización. La decisión del gobierno de los Países Bajos de apoyar a los empleados de la OEP en la apelación que trajo ante su Corte Suprema, simplemente confirma esto. ¿Qué punto de vista la Comisión tiene en esta materia?

Irrespectivaente de la decisión pasada por la Corte de Apelaciones de los Países Bajos, la OEP esta violando los derechos fundamentales de sus empleados, pero también principios básicos del gobierno de ley.

El argumente respecto a la immunidad de la OEP fue considerado y explícitamente rechazado por la Corte Suprema de Apelaciones de los Países Bajos. Al continuar invocando su immunidad, la OEP esta deliberadamente desobedeciendo una resolución de una corte de leyes.

¿Qué acción la Comisión planea tomar contra una organización internacional que deliveradamente se pone fuera de la ley internaciona y nacional y las viola?

Hay otras continuas acciones políticas que estamos enterados pero no publicando todavía (ya que podría interferir su progreso). La OEP esta en un problema grande. Battistelli esta asustado al pareces y tiene razón de estarlo. █

Links 11/2/2016: LibreOffice 5.1, HMRC and FOSS

Posted in News Roundup at 8:41 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • SourceForge Loses DevShare
  • SourceForge Acquisition and Future Plans

    Our first order of business was to terminate the “DevShare” program. As of last week, the DevShare program was completely eliminated. The DevShare program delivered installer bundles as part of the download for participating projects. We want to restore our reputation as a trusted home for open source software, and this was a clear first step towards that. We’re more interested in doing the right thing than making extra short-term profit. As we move forward, we will be focusing on the needs of our developers and visitors by building out site features and establishing community trust. Eliminating the DevShare program was just the first step of many more to come. Plans for the near future include full https support for both SourceForge and Slashdot, and a lot more changes we think developers and end-users will embrace.

  • Stealth Company Datawise Makes Contributions to Kubernetes

    This year is shaping up to be a big one for container technology, and the Container Summit conference is going on this week in New York. At the event, Datawise, a stealth company developing network and storage solutions for Linux containers, announced that its contributions for container networking and storage have been accepted for the upcoming release of Kubernetes. Kubernetes, of course, is the open source container management system pioneered by Google and now supported by many leading open source vendors.

    Here is more on what Datawise intends to bring to Kubernetes.

  • Google Releases ION OpenGL Open-Source Library

    Google engineers have open-sourced today a new suite of libraries and tools relating to OpenGL called ION.

    Details are limited thus far and without yet diving into the source code, ION is described as “a portable suite of libraries and tools for building client applications, especially graphical ones. It is small, fast, and robust, and is cross-platform across many platforms and devices, including desktops, mobile devices, browsers, and other embedded platforms.”

  • San Francisco prepares to open source its voting system software

    San Francisco, home of the tech startup, is trying to show its tech credentials by becoming the first city to use open source software for elections.

    The proposal to adopt a solution in time for the end of the current contract on January 1, 2017 reappeared at the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday when Supervisor Scott Wiener called for a hearing on how the city is progressing with the plan to use standard hardware and open-source software to carry out future balloting.

  • Open source demonstrates the future of work

    Open source communities and projects are examples of non-standard work structures that are successfully productive while existing outside typical paradigms for “work.” OpenSSL, for example, is an incredibly important software library that serves a large majority of websites across the web. The authors of the software, ranging from one time collaborators to continuous contributors, have collectively forged arguably the most important networking encryption library to date, and they’ve done it outside traditional business models. The software is a the result of effort from a diverse community of volunteers working on “their own time,” rather than on the rigid production model of a proprietary software development firm.

  • Open source in the enterprise brings opportunities and challenges

    The final challenge open source presents relates to staff skills. Simply put, open source requires a higher level of technical talent than traditional proprietary solutions, because there’s a world of difference between building a solution and operating someone else’s solution. The latter is the world of certifications and cookie-cutter solutions; the former requires creativity, self-reliance, and technical chops. Newly-hired technical employees tend to come with open source experience and an inclination toward self-generated solutions, while many long-term IT employees are much more comfortable with a vendor-centric world. However, most organizations can’t (and shouldn’t) do a wholesale replacement of personnel. So IT organizations face the task of reskilling existing employees, integrating new staff, all while architecting new systems and ripping out old ones.

  • UCLA researchers release open source code for powerful image detection algorithm

    A UCLA Engineering research group has made public the computer code for an algorithm that helps computers process images at high speeds and “see” them in ways that human eyes cannot. The researchers say the code could eventually be used in face, fingerprint and iris recognition for high-tech security, as well as in self-driving cars’ navigation systems or for inspecting industrial products.

    The algorithm performs a mathematical operation that identifies objects’ edges and then detects and extracts their features. It also can enhance images and recognize objects’ textures.

  • Events

    • My first travelling experience to Myanmar

      We were instructed to go very early at 8:30AM in the morning at the Myanmar ICT (MICT) Park to be able register our topics that we wish to talk for the BarCamp Yangon. Finally we arrived early as the hotel and venue is very closer and on the time of the event opening ceremony and everything were spoken in Burmese.

    • First timer’s guide to FOSS conferences

      I’ve been going to FOSS (free and open source) conferences since 2006. My first open source conference was FreedomHEC in Seattle, a little 30-person conference for Linux users to protest Microsoft’s WinHEC. My next open source conference was OSCON, which had over a thousand attendees. They were both very different conferences, and as a college student, I really didn’t know what to expect. Going to your first open source conference can be intimidating, so I’ve complied ten tips for people who are new to the conference circuit.

  • Web Browsers

    • Chrome

      • Chrome on Android communicates with smart devices around you

        Folks running Chrome on iOS have had a chance to tap into the Physical Web devices around them since last July, but Google’s finally opened that functionality up to its own ecosystem. To that end, Chrome 49 on Android will support the objects (like parking meters, for instance). The first time you encounter one there will be a push notification alerting you one is nearby, and future run-ins will populate a list of the gadgets nearby. It’s starting in the beta channel, a post on the Chromium Blog notes, with wider support rolling out soon. In case you’re curious of how it all looks in action, the GIF below should give you a good idea.

      • Google issues Chrome update to fix Windows, Mac, and Linux bugs

        Google issued a Chrome update to address Windows, Mac, and Linux vulnerabilities that, if exploited, would allow remote attackers to take control of affected systems.

    • Mozilla

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Why open source can save companies from drowning in the data lake

      The end goal of any big data initiative is to deliver key insights very quickly, if not in real-time. While the first step of gathering data is challenging, today’s technology is more than capable of this.

      What comes next – extracting accurate insights in real-time and gaining foresight from it – is something enterprises have yet to nail.

      When put to good use, data can provide endless opportunities for innovation and growth, saving money and time, while also expediting services. Despite the opportunity to yield big insights from big data, many businesses are struggling with one of two challenges: those unable to tap their big data reserves and those drowning in data overload.

    • OpenStack Keystone Q and A with the Boston University Distributed Systems Class Part 1
    • How Open Source is Driving New Innovations in Data Analytics

      It wasn’t long ago when open source software was on the fringe of cutting edge technology. The software then was rough, untested and insecure. No longer is this the case. From tiny startups to the largest Fortune 20 companies, open source technology is permeating every corner of the business world.

  • Cisco

  • LibreOffice

  • HMRC

  • Education

  • Apple/Openwashing

  • Funding

    • VCs who miss the point of open source shouldn’t fund it

      The errors highlighted here are not merely mistakes; rather, they reveal a worldview. People who believe that Apache is a competitor, OSI approves licenses that permit monopolization, Red Hat is a business that’s succeeded through artificial scarcity, and open source communities with diverse agendas are “broken” are not the people you want in your new open source business.

      They will try to persuade you to secure software patents so that they have an asset to trade when you fail; they will eject you from your own company when you try to hold true to software freedom principles; and they will treat your business as a failure if all it does is earn a decent living for you and your employees. You may want to grow your open source-based business another way.

  • BSD

  • Public Services/Government

    • U.S. Cyber Effort Targets Open Source Software

      A growing list of cyber attacks targeting U.S. government employees has prompted the Obama administration to launch a high-profile cyber security effort that among others things will target Internet “utilities” such as open source software.

      The Cybersecurity National Action Plan announced by the White House on Tuesday (Feb. 9) as part of its annual budget submission to Congress gives the Internet and its components equal status with other critical infrastructure. The initiative responds to massive data breaches such as last year’s hack of the Office of Personnel Management. The personal data of 21.5 million federal employers may have been stolen in the breach.

    • UNICEF Is Launching A Venture Fund For Open-Source Civic Technology

      From unmanned aerial vehicles to 3-D printing, new technology has a lot of potential to “flatten” the world and spread social good. And now, by launching its first venture capital-type fund for civic technology, the United Nations wants to accelerate the development of those ideas.

    • UNICEF innovation fund is looking for open source tech

      “We’ll be identifying opportunities from countries around the world including some that may not see a lot of capital investment in technology start-ups. We are hoping to identify communities of problem-solvers and help them develop simple solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing children,” says UNICEF Innovation co-lead, Christopher Fabian in a recent statement.

  • Licensing

    • Confused by license compatibility? A new article by Richard Stallman may help

      Richard Stallman has published a new guide on gnu.org titled License compatibility and relicensing. Gnu.org is home to a whole host of resources on free software licensing, including frequently asked questions about GNU licenses and our list of free software licenses. Our license list contains information on which licenses are compatible with the GNU General Public License as well as a brief description of what it means to be compatible. This latest article by Stallman provides a more in–depth explanation of what compatibility means and the different ways in which it is achieved.

    • The most important part of your project might not even be a line of code

      What is licensing? Why does it matter? Why should you care? There are many reasons that licensing is an important part of a project you are working on. You are taking the time to write code and share it with the world in an open way, such as publishing it on GitHub, Bitbucket, or any number of other code-hosting services. Anyone might stumble across your code and find it useful.

      Licensing is the way that you can control exactly how someone who finds your code can use it and in what ways.

    • Happy GPL Birthday VLC!

      The ever-popular VLC turned 15 a few days ago–that’s 15 years since the project was GPLed and released to the world. If we were pedants, we might point out that the project actually came into existence in 1996, but that was a different lifetime.

      VLC originally was a very different application. For one thing, it was a closed-source project, and its original purpose was to stream videos from a satellite receiver to a computer science lab.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • Unity Getting Native Cardboard Support, Design Lab App Going Open Source

    • Open Access/Content

      • SGA, MassPIRG work together on open source textbook initiative

        Members of the Student Government Association and MassPIRG are seeking further support from the University of Massachusetts Provost of Academic Affairs Katherine Newman for the W.E.B. Du Bois Library’s Open Education Initiative.

        The OEI, which has been operating for six years, provides UMass professors with $1,000 grants to write their own textbooks and syllabi using information which has an open copyright license.

        “Our goal this semester is to get 10 to 15 professors to sign onto Open Education,” said Chris Earls, the SGA’s secretary of University policy and a senior political science and economics major.

        Earls and Matthew Martin, coordinator of MassPIRG’s Affordable Textbooks Campaign, wrote an open letter to Newman in which they argued that open source textbooks were an affordable solution to the rising costs of college textbooks.

    • Open Hardware

      • Turning Open Source into a Multicore Standard

        Hoping to forestall potential compatibility issues, the Multicore Association is looking to build an API standard on the shoulders of open-source OpenAMP.

      • France Craft Pixel: an Open Source Electric Car

        The all-electric Chevy Bolt was the automotive star of the 2016 CES show, for sure- but there was more to the electric vehicle side of the Las Vegas show than just the efforts of Tesla and the Big Three. Meet the Pixel, a modular, “open source” electric hybrid vehicle designed by France Craft.

  • Programming

    • GitHub’s Atom 1.5 Hackable Text Editor Out Now, Atom 1.6 Enters Beta Testing

      On February 9, 2016, GitHub’s devs made some big announcements for its awesome and acclaimed Atom open-source hackable text editor, which reached stable version 1.5 for all supported operating systems.

    • Big? GitHub Enterprise 2.5 thinks massive

      Keeping up its push to be an enterprise presence, GitHub has announced the latest version of the for-pay, enterprise edition of its code-hosting platform.

      The company says GitHub Enterprise 2.5′s focus is “companies operating at massive scale” — enterprises with more than 10,000 developers and exponential year-over-year growth. The new toolset for GitHub Enterprise 2.5 helps large teams add new users, collaborate safely on large projects, and deal with GitHub-related performance issues that can crop up around such large projects.

Leftovers

  • Don’t Spam, Don’t Spy; Ask Permission and Satisfy – Musings on media, advertising and big data

    Zero point five-six percent. Just over one half of one percent? And this they think is good news? To borrow the phrase from Monty Python and the Holy Grail – “I fart in your general direction!” If you are doing under 1% reactions for your advertising on mobile, you are FAILING. Get out of the business. You are a waste. You are polluting the gene pool. Its exactly what I have preached forever in mobile: Don’t spam !!! Its spam !!! Don’t spam !! (Recently I’ve evolved that even further so now I say: Don’t spam, don’t spy; ask permission and satisfy!)

  • Here’s How Well Twitter’s Execs Use Twitter—Or, Um, Not

    The company has struggled to attract new tweeters to join its free-wheeling service, and its stock has spiraled to an all-time low this year. Despite Twitter’s efforts, many users continue to face abuse and harassment, and terrorists have disseminated propaganda on the service. In a somewhat self-conscious move, the company rolled out a set of new features this week ahead of its quarterly earnings report , including a new Trust & Safety Council as well as changes to how the Twitter feed works.

  • Science

    • Prominent scientist: “One-fifth of people will believe anything”

      Emeritus Professor Esko Valtaoja says the internet is like an endless ocean of knowledge – but there is plenty of rubbish to be found in the deep. In a television appearance Wednesday morning, the recently retired quasar researcher and award-winning writer encouraged everyone to take a month-long break from social media.

      [...]

      The information revolution has now made more data available in contemporary society than people have time to consume in a lifetime. Valtaoja says that for a long time, it was easy to believe that there were certain absolute truths, because information was much harder to find.

      There are still people who believe in absolutes, he says, but they are quickly becoming the minority.

      “We jump about rather nervously trying to ascertain the truth, even in this matter,” he says.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Flint e-mails: CDC voiced concerns over Legionnaires’ actions

      More than eight months before Gov. Rick Snyder disclosed a deadly Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in the Flint area, federal health officials worried a lack of cooperation in Michigan could be hampering the public health response.

      Thousands of pages of e-mails obtained by the Detroit Free Press through the Freedom of Information Act on Monday show increasing concern about the quality of the Flint’s drinking water as tensions grew over a lack of coordination to combat the waterborne disease.

      County health officials were warned for reaching out to federal experts for help while they struggled to persuade Flint city officials to provide needed information, the e-mails show. Others in e-mails wondered about ethical breaches and the possibility of a cover-up.

    • Dems accuse Mich. governor of ducking accountability in Flint

      House Democratic leaders are heaping new scorn on Gov. Rick Snyder, accusing the Michigan Republican of ducking his responsibilities to the victims of the Flint water crisis.

      “If you have it within your power to correct your mistake, to make it up to those whom you wronged, you have a moral obligation to do that,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who represents Flint, told reporters Wednesday. “He hasn’t done that. The governor of Michigan has treated this as … a public relations problem for him, not a public health crisis for 100,000 people.”

    • Too many Flints to count: America’s infrastructure is rotting — and poisoning our children

      “I know if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself if my kids’ health could be at risk,” said President Obama on a recent trip to Michigan. “Up there” was Flint, a rusting industrial city in the grip of a “water crisis” brought on by a government austerity scheme. To save a couple of million dollars, that city switched its source of water from Lake Huron to the Flint River, a long-time industrial dumping ground for the toxic industries that had once made their home along its banks. Now, the city is enveloped in a public health emergency, with elevated levels of lead in its water supply and in the blood of its children.

    • Flint fuels finger pointing, political maneuvering

      As the Flint water crisis evolves from ongoing public health crisis to the search for a costly solution, the situation also has taken on the air of a football game, a political football game, that is.

      “Some of the actions seem to be more about the people making the statements rather than helping the people of Flint,” said Lansing political consultant Tom Shields, of Marketing Resource Group. “It’s tough not to be cynical because it has become such a political football.”

      The crisis over lead-tainted water has become fodder for local, state and national politics where Democrats are assigning blame to the Republican-led administration of Gov. Rick Snyder and Republicans are pointing the finger at Democrats in Flint as well as the Environmental Protection Agency under the control of President Barack Obama.

    • Remember 11th February 2016. It’s the day Jeremy Hunt tried to kill the NHS

      We joke about Mr Hunt having shares in Australian emigration, but really this is no laughing matter. Record amounts are leaving the country – or the medical profession altogether

    • Jeremy Hunt imposes contract on junior doctors in brutal end to “damaging” pay row

      He was given the green light in a letter last night from NHS chief negotiator Sir David Dalton, after his 11th-hour “final offer” to doctors’ union the British Medical Association was rejected.

  • Security

  • Transparency Reporting

    • Government Lawyers Think Open Records Reform Proposal Hands Over Too Much Power To The People

      The state of Massachusetts has some of the worst open records laws in the nation, which have not been updated since the 1970s. The main problem is the statutes provide no deterrence for abusive behavior by government agencies and very little in the way of recourse for public records requesters.

      The laws — as they stand now — operate on the presumption of secrecy, which is completely antithetical to the purpose and spirit of the statutes. There’s really no reason the state’s public record laws should contain this much secretive bloat. Here’s Allison Manning of Boston.com detailing just one of the many problems with the laws.

    • Here’s how bad public records laws are in Massachusetts

      I spent the last five years as a police reporter in Columbus, Ohio, before moving back home to Boston a few months ago. What I’ve rediscovered about my home state: Our public records laws are abysmal, especially compared to those elsewhere.

    • Will Swedish prosecutors question Assange in London?

      A Swedish prosecutor still aims to question Wikileaks founder Julian Assange over a rape allegation in Sweden, despite a UN report condemning Sweden for his ‘arbitrary detention’.

    • The Continuing Saga of Julian Assange

      The Swedish prosecutor’s office says it is working on a renewed request to interview the Wikileaks founder at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London.

    • Lies about Assange and UN human rights jurists imperil us all

      The defence secretary, ‘comedians’ on BBC Radio’s News Quiz, and the entire media commentariat have ganged up this weekend up to pour mockery and poisonous lies over Julian Assange and the UN’s human rights jurists, writes Jonathan Cook. As they attempt to fight off the UN’s ‘guilty’ verdict against the British state, they are putting dissidents at risk everywhere.

    • Federal Judge Not Amused By State Department’s Continued Withholding Of Hillary Clinton’s Emails

      Contreras undersells the public interest — which has been high ever since it was discovered Clinton had been conducting official (and sensitive) business using a private email server. Now that Clinton is a presidential candidate, the release of the emails could adversely affect her campaign.

      I don’t believe the State Department has a personal stake in Clinton’s potential presidency, but it’s operating in a way that would encourage people to come to that conclusion. Instead, this is likely business as usual for the agency.

      For one, government agencies protect their own. Clinton’s use of a private server makes the State Department look bad because no one with the power to do so ever made an effort to shut her down. Released emails show Clinton dealt with classified material, something that should never have been routed to a private email account. The State Department’s lackadaisical handling of this matter would only be highlighted further by additional releases.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Fight

      Corruption has once again taken center stage in Indonesia, following the resignation in December of House Speaker Setya Novanto for being caught attempting to extort Indonesia’s largest taxpayer, U.S. mining giant Freeport McMoRan’s subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia, and mounting evidence that the devastating fires that negatively impacted the country late last year, to the tune of $30 billion, were fueled by local corruption. Political infighting has meant that Indonesia’s long-simmering, critically important fight against corruption has been in limbo for nearly a year, and soon President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo will face a decision whether or not to make fighting corruption the centerpoint of his administration, or its downfall.

      To the surprise of many, Indonesia actually improved in the recently released Corruption Perception Index, moving up from 107th last year to 88th this year, which the organization credited to improvements in the country’s bureaucracy and public services – initiatives pushed forward by Jokowi – but also partly to increasing corruption in other countries. However, the report noted that Indonesia could take a huge step forward if it empowered its once famous, internationally renowned anti-corruption agency.

      That would be Indonesia’s most trusted public institution, the Corruption Eradication Commission (Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi, KPK). The KPK has made a reputation for itself globally for thoroughly investigating, researching, and trying high-level targets, and, in its first 13 years, achieving an astounding 100% conviction rate.

    • Indonesian forest fires ‘most expensive disaster in 2015′

      The biggest economic disaster in 2015 was the Indonesian forest fires that cost $16.1bn, according to a report.

      The fires, caused mainly by illegal slash and burn clearing of forest areas for crops including palm oil, cost the country around 1.9% of its GDP, said Aon Benfield.

      In its annual catastrophe report the company said that while 2015 replaced 2014 as the warmest year on record, global economic losses from natural catastrophes stood at $123bn – 30% below the 15-year average of $175bn.

      The report said 300 separate global natural disasters occurred in 2015, above the 15-year average of 269 events.

    • 5 Realities Of Smog So Bad It Blots Out The Sun

      Beijing, we’re finding out, has the kind of pollution that makes it seem like you’re downwind from a freaking volcano eruption. But, a picture like that doesn’t get across the reality of life in a place where the air actively hates you. We sat down with an anonymous source who works as a magazine editor in Beijing, who told us …

    • Palm oil is in everything and it’s killing rain forests, endangered species and people. Here’s how.

      In September and October 2015, one of the worst environmental disasters of the 21st century happened in Indonesia. And despite its apocalyptic consequences, the story was largely ignored by the western media.

      In order to clear the Indonesian rain forest for a palm oil, it was lit completely on fire. A toxic cloud of haze resulted, hanging over Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for weeks. The haze killed people and endangered wildlife, and put the lives of millions of others at risk -– all for the benefit of a selected few.

  • Finance

    • Yanis Varoufakis: Europe is sliding back into the 1930s and we need a new movement

      Former Greek finance minister says Europe is disintegrating, run by a cartel and in dire need of reform.

    • First Report From Inside Germany’s New TAFTA/TTIP Reading Room Reveals Text’s Dirty Secret

      Last week we wrote about the only place that German politicians are currently allowed to view the latest texts of TAFTA/TTIP: a tiny room, guarded at all times, and involving all kinds of humiliating restrictions for visitors. Katja Kipping was one of the first to enter, and she has written up her experiences for lesser mortals like you and me, who are not permitted to besmirch this sacred place with our unworthy presence.

    • Labour furious as 83% of fund to ease council cuts will go to Conservative authorities

      Labour MPs have expressed their fury after Tory rebels dropped their objections to council cuts because of a new £300m government fund to ease funding difficulties in mostly wealthy Conservative-run areas.

      Greg Clark, the communities secretary, insisted the new cash was not a “political bung” to stop up to 30 Tories revolting against the local government settlement.

      However, several Tory MPs openly acknowledged they were persuaded to back the government only after the new “transitional relief” was announced, of which about 83% will go to Conservative councils.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • A map of the world according to Donald Trump
    • YIKES: We just found out what Hillary said in her Goldman Sachs speeches

      As both Democrat candidates like to portray themselves as an enemy of the financial industry, Bernie Sanders appears to have more leverage (to borrow a finance term). He’s blasted Hillary Clinton for taking over $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs in early debates, and has continued his criticism into the Democrat town hall debates.

      We don’t know exactly what was said in those speeches because Hillary refuses to release the transcripts, but the attendees at those speeches haven’t forgotten. They’re speaking out, and it doesn’t bode well for Hillary.

    • Is Britain full? Home truths about the population panic

      The northern ticket hall of King’s Cross St Pancras tube station is supposed to be a wonder of the London underground, with its expanses of gleaming floor and high-ceilinged walkways that would be wide enough for cars. In 2008, the tube’s then managing director, Tim O’Toole, assured the London Evening Standard that, with the new hall, which cost £395m, “the underground station complex will … be capable of handling all the extra demand predicted for years ahead”.

  • Censorship

    • Now, filmmakers turn to Youtube to beat censorship

      With censorship issues plaguing the film industry, filmmakers are now looking to release movies on Youtube and other internet sites that do not create hurdles to their creative freedom. In fact, as if to cock a snook at the issue of censorship, director Ram Gopal Varma has announced a film titled `Single X’, which would be dedicated to the censor board.

    • Ram Gopal Varma says goodbye to Telugu films
    • Index unveils 2016 Freedom of Expression Awards shortlist

      An Aleppo-based journalist training women to report on the crisis in war-torn Syria, an Indonesian comic who jokes about Islamic extremism and a 19-year-old campaigner against repression in Eritrea are among those shortlisted for the 2016 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards.

      Drawn from more than 400 crowdsourced nominations, the Index awards shortlist celebrates artists, writers, journalists and campaigners tackling censorship and fighting for freedom of expression. Many of the 20 shortlisted nominees are regularly targeted by authorities or by criminal and extremist groups for their work: some face regular death threats, others criminal prosecution.

    • Méxicoleaks recognized by the Index on Censorship for digital activism

      Méxicoleaks, a digital platform that accepts anonymous information from the public, has made the shortlist for the 2016 Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards in the category of digital activism.

      “In a country where, between drug cartels and the government, censorship and self-censorship is rife, Méxicoleaks is on the forefront of the fight against corruption,” said the Index on Censorship website.

    • Twitter’s Most Harmlessly Charming Account Was Mysteriously Suspended

      The account was so simple it’s kind of a miracle that it wasn’t done before. That reasoning, however, is the most probable explanation we have for why it got banned.

    • For Israeli bloggers, the rules are the same but different

      That changed last week when reports emerged indicating as many as 30 well-trafficked Israeli blogs and popular Facebook users would henceforth be required to submit copy to the military censor prior to publication. As the news spread, some of those affected by the new rules lashed out online, questioning whether the military – and, by extension, the state – was actively trying to limit freedom of expression. A few even vowed to circumvent censorship, though, given that the office of the military censor already possesses algorithmic technology to root out problematic web posts, this seems easier said than done.

    • Israel Censoring Bloggers

      Israel is like other fascist police states, wanting criticisms of its ruthless policies suppressed.

      Its new military censor, Col. Ariela Ben-Avraham, demanded bloggers and social media users submit their material for screening before posting.

      Failure will be considered a crime. Regime critics risk prosecution, censorship now elevated to a higher level.

      Israel wants control over pre-published material relating to its policies – vetted so anything it disapproves of gets trashed, the right of free expression abolished.

    • University of Calgary student art show cut short after censorship confusion

      A student took down their show after they weren’t happy with the University of Calgary’s treatment of the art show

    • Twitter launches Trust and Safety Council to help put end to trolling

      The Twitter Trust & Safety Council will initially be formed of around 40 bodies, including the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, EU Kids Online, ICT Watch, National Cyber Security Alliance, NetSafe, and Samaritans.

      These organisations, along with safety experts, academics and security researchers, will work to ensure a safe and secure platform for users to express themselves freely and without fear.

      The company said in a release that the Council’s main focus will be to protect minors, encourage ‘greater compassion and empathy on the internet,’ and promote efforts in media literacy and digital citizenship. It added that community groups will also participate to help prevent online ‘abuse, harassment, and bullying,’ as well as mental health problems and suicide.

    • Twitter forms anti-troll team to tackle online torment and threats

      MICROBLOGGING WEBSITE Twitter has put together an anti-troll squad to help protect users from abuse and threats.

    • Say Hello To Twitter’s Tweet Police

      Now Twitter is going to tell us all how to express ourselves by forming a ‘Trust and Safety Council.’ That’s not intimidating or anything.

    • Censorship incoming? Twitter partners with Islamists and radical feminists to create ‘safe space’

      Social media website Twitter is creating a “Trust & Safety Council” to stop and censor opinions that might upset Islamists and radical feminists such as Anita Sarkeesian.

    • Twitter forms safety council to help prevent abuse
    • Twitter’s latest social justice brainwave is to implement an Orwellian “Trust & Safety Council”

      The move by Twitter to further police speech which doesn’t agree with its social justice worldview doesn’t come as a surprise and follows on from the possible news earlier this week that they were planning to control what content appears in people’s timelines by implementing an algorithmic timeline, ostensibly to censor speech that they don’t want people to read.

    • EDITORIAL: Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council won’t halt cyberbullying

      Facebook allows users to report offensive posts and follows through on investigating and disabling hateful accounts. Instagram immediately takes down photos that violate its community guidelines, and it has sometimes even gotten carried away in doing so.

    • Twitter Unveils New ‘Trust and Safety Council’ Featuring Feminist Frequency

      Among the members are the Anti-Defamation League, Childnet International, Thorn, Family Online Safety Institute, the Dangerous Speech Project, and the University of California-Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.

    • Twitter Forms A “Trust and Safety Council” to Balance Abuse Vs Free Speech

      Twitter has taken the steps for balancing free speech without also handing a free pass to orchestrated harassment via its platform. According to the announcement, the company is establishing a “Trust & Safety Council”.

    • Twitter Announces Safety Panel Then Bans an Account Critical of Twitter Safety

      On the day Twitter announced a new “Trust and Safety Council,” the social network again suspended an account that calls attention to the plight of people who have been harassed on Twitter.

      My colleague Sarah Jeong followed the saga of Trusty Support, a Twitter Support parody account that has been, as she wrote, “lampooning the absurdities of the Report Abuse system” by tweeting about the network’s canned and automated responses to harassment and death threats.

    • Twitter announces ‘trust and safety’ panel to police content

      Twitter on Tuesday announced the formation of a new “Trust and Safety Council,” which will work to develop policies censoring speech on the site. The group will be comprised of more than 40 organizations from 13 regions around the world. “With hundreds of millions of tweets sent per day, the volume of content on Twitter is massive, which makes it extraordinarily complex to strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power,” Twitter said in a statement.

    • New ‘Trust and Safety Council’ Is Twitter Version of 1984’s Ministry of Truth

      In order for users to feel confident expressing themselves “freely and safely,” Twitter is debuting a new advisory group dubbed the “Trust & Safety Council.” But a quick glance at its membership roster suggests the council is almost as Orwellian as it sounds—and overwhelmingly biased in favor of speech suppression.

      If you thought Milo Yiannopoulos losing his blue checkmark was the opening salvo in the next great culture war (I tended to agree with Popehat’s Ken White that the controversy was overblown), then this might be your virtual invasion of Poland.

    • Twitter’s growth screeches to a halt

      Twitter’s growth stalled at the end of last year as the number of people using the service flatlined, raising yet more questions about the troubled service.

      The social network announced that monthly users had stubbornly remained at 320 million in the fourth quarter of 2015, the first time it has reported no growth in active members.

    • Jewish Group Lauds Twitter Council Established to Combat Extremism

      The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) applauds Jack Dorsey and Twitter for the company’s efforts to combat violent extremism, and we congratulate it on the formation of the Trust & Safety Council, an important step forward to strike the right balance between fighting abuse and hate, and protecting free speech.

    • Twitter Inc. forms Trust & Safety Council to fight hate speech and harassment

      The aim of the council is to be able to come up with specific conditions that would allow the company to filter more than hundreds of millions of posts every day to spot any kind of misconduct, and judge whether any of the content protrudes beyond ethical boundaries of free speech.

    • Honda Tried To Get Jalopnik To Dox Commenter, Delete Posts, Meets The Streisand Effect Instead

      Criticism is part of life, of course, and I tend to believe that people show their true selves most transparently when they show how they deal with criticism. Unfortunately, we’ve covered entirely too many stories involving people and companies responding to online criticism poorly here at Techdirt. Typically, these unfortunate responses amount to trying to censor the criticism, but it can more dangerously involve the attempted silencing of journalism as well as threats of legal action against those making the critical comments.

      Too many times, websites and web services cave to this sort of censorship. But not everyone. Gawker Media, about whom I could fill these pages with criticism, appears to be pushing back on once such attempt levied against its site Jalopnik. Apparently, car-maker Honda took a negative view of some comments made at the site, purportedly by a Honda employee. For some reason, Honda decided that this distinction meant that it could not only silence the comments, but that it should receive help from the site in outing the commenter. The whole thing starts off, as seems so often the case, with some rather mild criticism in the form of a comment.

    • These charities want to send your old USB sticks to North Korea

      Human Rights Foundation and Forum 280 seek to counter North Korean censorship with USB sticks full of banned content

    • Fighting Censorship With ‘Friends,’ ‘Desperate Housewives’

      Free speech advocates are fighting censorship in North Korea by illegally importing popular American TV shows. The goal: To undermine propaganda, give people a taste of freedom and eventually fuel the fall of the regime.

      Pyongyang’s government insists that its dictator Kim Jong-un is a heavenly superhero, Americans are evil, South Korea started the region’s civil war in the 1950s and that the rest of the world is not as free or prosperous as North Korea. In order to support these teachings, nearly all media from outside North Korea is banned and citizens are discouraged from questioning the government about problems such as famine or its use of slave labor.

    • [Far right site] San Francisco Federal Judge Who Rules For Government Censorship Should Be Impeached

      This is also the clown who ruled against investigative reporting in the case of The National Abortion Federation versus the Center for Medical Progress by issuing a preliminary injunction barring the anti-abortion group from releasing undercover videos taken at annual conferences of the National Abortion Federation.

    • China’s ‘black box’ of mutinous secrets

      Also mentioned as plotters in the scheme were General Xu Caihou, vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission who was expelled from the party and was being investigated for corruption when he died of cancer in March 2015; and Su Rong, a longtime regional chief who was accused of corruption as party chief in Jiangxi province. Su was also blamed for showing “blatant disregard for party political rules” and having “poisoned the local political environment.”

    • China Communist Party Elder Speaks Out Against Censorship

      Censorship has gone too far, contends Zhou Ruijin, 76, in an essay published in China in January and on Phoenix TV’s ifeng.com early this month. “To be frank, some leaders in the party’s propaganda department were managing the press like how they would manage a train schedule, directly intervening in the approach and procedure of news reporting,” he wrote.

      Zhou, a leading liberal writer in the 1990s, attacked today’s propaganda chiefs for taking down offending websites and deleting postings, calling these actions contrary to the concept that the Communist Party govern the country according to law. Moreover, he condemned “waves of campaigns, strict clampdowns, and public shaming,” the last a reference to the parading of people making Cultural Revolution-style confessions on television.

    • Criteria behind censorship

      Is there any logic or coherence in the way the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has tried to block objectionable online content? The short answer is ‘no’. Last month, the PTA had provided internet service providers with a list of over 400,000 domains that needed to be blocked for pornographic content. According to the PTA, it had been asked by the Supreme Court to “take remedial steps to quantify the nefarious phenomenon of obscenity and pornography that has an imminent role to corrupt and vitiate the youth of Pakistan”. It has now emerged that among the hundreds of thousands of websites on the list provided by the PTA, there are countless websites whose content cannot be considered obscene by any stretch of the imagination. Among these is the microblogging website ‘Tumblr’ as well as websites for photography, ecommerce, blogging and business.

    • Facebook Prude-Patrol Nixes Another Work Of Art By A Feminist, Entirely Proving Her Decades-Old Point

      We’re still fresh on the heels of Facebook’s overly broad and prudish decency rules resulting in the takedown of a bronze piece of artwork in the form of a mermaid statue that features bare metal breasts. Womens’ breasts, as we all know, are shameful things to be hidden from view, lest they corrupt the minds of the young children that were so nourished by them in their youth. Sigh.

      Still, as dumb as that story was, and as indicative as it was of the problem of overly broad censorship guidelines employed in the name of decency, at least there were breasts. Metallic breasts, but breasts nonetheless. I have no idea how Facebook keeps this recent story from looking even more silly, in which it takes down a piece of artwork shared by Philidelphia Museum of Art that was constructed specifically to show how objectified women were in the 1960s.

    • Enough censorship by the majority

      I would further question the supposed centrality of free speech and intellectual discourse in combatting oppression and bigotry. Too often, “debate” is merely smokescreen. For example, there exists an overwhelming consensus among climate scientists and the international community that climate change is caused by humans. Despite this general agreement, the U.S. continues to “debate” (really, deny) this fact. This is not a debate in which all sides are seeking to move towards the truth. This is a debate constructed because massive corporate interests will cling onto the idea that climate change isn’t real for as long as possible. The debate is merely for show. On the individual level, the problem with bigots who use slurs (or commit other acts of oppression) isn’t that they haven’t heard a good argument about why using slurs is wrong. The problem is, in spite of hearing those arguments and the continuous requests of marginalized groups, they don’t care. And if people don’t care whether or not they’re a bigot, what’s the point in arguing with them?

  • Privacy

  • Civil Rights

    • Donald Trump Praises Sean Hannity For Their Indistinguishable Views on Torture
    • CIA Director Freaks Out After Senator Wyden Points Out How The CIA Spied On The Senate

      If you’re a CIA Director, one would assume that you know how to be cool under fire, right? Apparently that’s not the case for current CIA Director John Brennan who seemed to completely freak out when Senator Ron Wyden started asking questions about the CIA’s infamous decision to spy on the network and computers of Senate Intelligence Committee staffers who were compiling a report on the CIA’s torture program. The details are a bit complex, but the short version is that the Intelligence Committee, which has oversight powers over the CIA, had been set up in a CIA building, with special access to CIA documents, and a special search tool. Apparently, at some point, that search tool returned a document which the CIA had never intended to share with the intelligence committee staffers. That document, called “the Panetta Review” was a draft document that then-CIA chief Leon Panetta had tasked people internal at the CIA to prepare on what the Senate Intelligence Committee staffers were likely to find as they went through the documents.

    • Drug Dogs Don’t Even Have To Be Right Half The Time To Be Considered ‘Reliable’ By The Courts

      All in all, this motion to suppress evidence worked out for the plaintiff, but it does little to address concerns that drug dogs are basically blank permission slips for inquisitive cops.

      The defendant — Emile Martin — was in a vehicle driven by another person (simply referred to as “Montgomery” in the opinion). This vehicle crossed the centerline multiple times and was pulled over by Deputy Brandon Williams. The driver could not produce registration or proof of insurance, which led to the issuance of a citation… eventually. But the citation process was unnecessarily prolonged to provide the deputy with a chance to have a K9 unit brought in to sniff the car for drugs.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Google Decides To Kill Flash Ads, Goes 100% HTML5

      Google today told the world that its ad service is ditching the notorious Flash for HTML5 in upcoming months. The company will stop accepting ads based on this security nightmare, starting on June 30, 2016, and will complete drop them on January 2, 2017.

    • Congressmen Upton, Walden Latest To Insist Nobody Needs Faster Broadband

      A little over a year ago, the FCC voted to raise the minimum definition of broadband from 4 Mbps downstream, 1 Mbps upstream — to 25 Mbps downstream, 3 Mbps upstream. The standard better reflects household usage in the gigabit connection and Netflix binge watching era. However, the broadband industry has been whining like a petulant child ever since, largely because the change highlights how a lack of competition and the resulting failure to upgrade networks means a huge swath of the country doesn’t technically have broadband.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • President Obama Sends Two WIPO Copyright Treaties To US Senate For Ratification

      Today, United States President Barack Obama sent two signed multilateral copyright treaties negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization to the US Senate for ratification.

      The treaties are the 2012 Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances and the 2013 Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired.

    • Trademarks

    • Copyrights

      • “Happy Birthday” is public domain, former owner Warner/Chapell to pay $14M

        Music publisher Warner/Chappell will no longer be allowed to collect licensing royalties on those who sing “Happy Birthday” in public and will pay back $14 million to those who have paid for licensing in the past, according to court settlement papers filed late Monday night.

        The settlement is a result of a lawsuit originally filed in 2013 by filmmaker Jennifer Nelson, who challenged the “Happy Birthday” copyright. “Happy Birthday” has the same melody as “Good Morning to You,” a children’s song dating to the 19th Century. But despite the song’s murky early history, music publisher Warner/Chappell has stuck to its story that the song was copyrighted in 1935, and a royalty had to be paid for any public use of it—until now.

      • Warner Pays $14 Million For Illegitimate “Happy Birthday” Claims

        After raking in dozens of millions in licensing fees, Warner/Chappell has admitted that it doesn’t own the rights to the song “Happy Birthday”. The music company has agreed to set aside a $14 million settlement fund for people who paid to use Happy Birthday in public. In addition, the court has been asked to enter the song into the public domain.

      • MPAA May Like Donuts, but They Shouldn’t Be the (Copyright) Police

        The companies and organizations that run the Internet’s domain name system shouldn’t be in the business of policing the contents of websites, or enforcing laws that can impinge on free speech. The staff of ICANN, the organization that oversees that system, agrees. That’s why it’s not surprising that the Motion Picture Association of America, which has consistently sought power to edit the Internet, is now bypassing ICANN and making private deals with domain name registries.

      • Inside MPAA’s Piracy Deal With the Donuts Domain Registry

        The MPAA and the Donuts domain registry have announced a new partnership aimed at curtailing movie and TV show piracy. Donuts controls the .movie gTLD so the arrangement is symbolic for the MPAA, but how will it work in practice? TF has obtained details of the deal which could act as a blueprint for future voluntary agreements.

      • Kenyan Musicians Escalate Fight For Royalties

        The battle for music royalties in Kenya has spurred musicians and artists to demand transparency and accountability in the Music Copyright Society of Kenya (MCSK), the body that collects and distributes the fees.

      • Artist Sues Wu-Tang Clan Member, Martin Shkreli, Vice Magazine For Copyright Infringement

        In the continually developing saga that is the Wu-Tang Clan’s unexpected entanglement with the embodiment of everything that’s wrong with the pharmaceutical industry, it is now apparently time for the bogus lawsuits to begin.

        Artist Jason Koza, a Wu-Tang Clan fan, is suing Tarik Azzougarh, a rapper, producer and manager “associated” with the group, along with one of its members (RZA) and pharma supervillain Martin Shkreli, last seen pleading the smirk in front of a Congressional hearing.

      • Kim Dotcom’s Extradition Appeal Set For August

        The United States government will have to wait another six months for the appeal in the Kim Dotcom extradition case to be heard. A judge in the High Court in Auckland has just denied US requests for Dotcom’s appeal to be fast-tracked, instead setting a date for this coming August.

      • Canada Is a Hotbed for Online Piracy, Rightsholders Claim

        The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups are unhappy with how the Canadian Government is approaching the problem of online piracy. The country remains very appealing to pirate sites, they claim, while ISPs often fail to warn infringing subscribers effectively.

      • NHL Streaming Service Descends Into Blackout Hell; NHL Threatens Anyone Trying To Circumvent Blackouts

        While we have written quite a bit about major professional sports leagues marching towards expanded streaming options for viewers, and while each league is making progress in that direction, not all of the leagues are equal in how they’re going about it. The NHL has been by far the least progressive in this arena, which is somewhat strange given how much more progressive it has been on other issues of modernity. On streaming, however, there seems to be some flip-flopping, with the league banning the use of services like Periscope by journalists, but then seeking to piggyback on baseball’s fantastic MLB Advanced Media product to get better streaming to its viewers. The entire point of increased streaming options is to get the product out to as many people as possible, grow the fanbase, and ultimately rake in more money via increased viewership.

02.10.16

Microsoft Continues to Use Software Patents to Extort/Blackmail Even More Companies That Use Linux, Forcing/Coercing Them Into Preinstalling Microsoft

Posted in GNU/Linux, Google, Microsoft, Patents at 9:05 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The ‘new’ Microsoft is more like a new Mafia, albeit with much better marketing/veneer for secret patent deals

Patent deal spin
How Microsoft announces patent deals now (covering Android and Linux), sparingly using newspeak and euphemisms (“Agreements” actually means patent settlements)

Summary: Acer is the latest large OEM to have become a victim of Microsoft’s witch-hunt against Android/Linux preloaders, whom Microsoft is coercing into becoming Microsoft’s carriers (or face litigation over software patents, with high legal fees if not injunctions or high damages upon secret settlements)

THIS article covers a subject I have been writing about for at least a decade, often in a dedicated manner (especially when it involved Novell’s patent deal with Microsoft, which put the whole of GNU/Linux in jeopardy).

“The frequently-repeated (usually by Microsoft advocacy sites) claims that “Microsoft loves Linux” are of course baloney. Everyone who has followed the news for more than a year or two surely knows this.”This article will no doubt upset some people at Microsoft, which has already been trying to silence this site in various ways (they even contacted my employer). In this article I intend not to be alarmist but merely to explain the latest embrace, extend, extinguish (E.E.E.) strategy of Microsoft, especially against the market leader (exceeding Windows in terms of market share), Android. It’s everything to do with patents, or to be even more specific, software patents. The EPO‘s dubious practices which Microsoft caused (by pressuring officials) to become the 'norm' also relate to this, but we shall leave that angle aside for another day (we already write a lot about the EPO, not only regarding software patents in Europe).

More Microsoft patent extortion has just been revealed. Microsoft is still fighting against Linux (which nowadays is mostly embodied in relatively closed systems such as Android) using patents as a weapon by which to impose spyware on everyone. Once again, software patents or monopolies on software algorithms are being used for extraordinary leverage and Microsoft puts a misleading label on patent deals, much like corporations bribe politicians but disguise the under-the-table payments as speech engagements or campaign contributions, among other semantic loopholes. The frequently-repeated (usually by Microsoft advocacy sites) claims that “Microsoft loves Linux” are of course baloney. Everyone who has followed the news for more than a year or two surely knows this. We wrote some articles about this last year, for example:

“He is basically a successor to the likes of Joachim Kempin, who not only illegally shot animals (and got arrested for it) but also famously said “I’m thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. [...] they should do a delicate dance”.”The above discuss and link to articles about 5 large companies which Microsoft extorted (even quite explicitly) using patents in very much the same way that Microsoft now does Acer, a relatively fine supporter of GNU/Linux, even on some desktops. Is Microsoft really threatening to sue? Yes, see what it did to Samsung. It reached a settlement almost exactly one year ago, whereupon Samsung agreed to become Microsoft's vassal (this was confirmed later). It’s not hard to see what’s happening here; even a Microsoft booster like Mary Jo Foley acknowledges the role of patent blackmail, using unnamed software patents which Microsoft has been using to hunt down OEMs all around the world, even where software patents are not at all valid. The Microsoft booster wrote this just a few hours ago, citing Nick Parker (Corporate Vice President, Original Equipment Manufacturer Division, Microsoft). He is basically a successor to the likes of Joachim Kempin, who not only illegally shot animals (and got arrested for it) but also famously said “I’m thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with anti-Linux. [...] they should do a delicate dance”. Based on Microsoft’s current OEM Chief, in the words of Mary Jo Foley:

As of last May, there were 31 OEMs agreeing to preload Microsoft apps and services on their Android tablets and phones. Some of the other bigger names on the list include Samsung, Dell and Pegatron. As of today, there are now 74 hardware partners in 25 countries on the list. (I’ve asked Microsoft for an updated roster of those Android device makers who are part of the group.)

Though Microsoft officials don’t explicitly say that these preinstallation deals are tied to the company’s ongoing patent campaign via which Microsoft has stepped up its collection of patent royalties from Android device makers, today’s blog post does mention that “IP alignment is an important feature” of these agreements.

Last October, Microsoft’s deal with ASUS combined Office app licensing with an Android patent deal.

This isn’t even Microsoft software being put on these devices. Microsoft does not really make software anymore, it just makes malware/spyware like Vista 10 (the NSA’s dream come true, an always-on keylogger) or Skype (always-on wiretapping), with inability to opt of secret ‘updates’ [1] or even disable the mass surveillance on the desktop [2], based on new articles (see below).

“Microsoft’s latest strategy against Linux — as I foresaw it way back in the Novell days — is “do as we tell you or we shall sue you with patents.””Remember that Android distributors don’t include Microsoft malware by default/out of the box because they want to. Microsoft threatens to sue. Microsoft’s latest strategy against Linux — as I foresaw it way back in the Novell days — is “do as we tell you or we shall sue you with patents.”

Where’s the RICO Act when it needs to actually be enforced?

Microsoft’s love of Linux is the love of a python for a sheep. It just loves sheep. It’s delicious. It’s about devouring. When I said this in Twitter one person responded by saying “this industry has short memories; we’re at the “embrace” stage of embrace, extend, extinguish” (E.E.E.). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Microsoft quits giving us the silent treatment on Windows 10 updates

    After effectively giving everyone the silent treatment on changes to its operating system, Microsoft has created a webpage that briefly lists stuff inside the software updates as they are released. It’s not so much bowing to pressure from users as tossing a ball over a pier and hoping you’ll all chase after it and then the whole fuss will just go away.

    “After listening to feedback regarding the level of disclosure for Windows 10 updates, we decided to implement a new system for communicating updates to the operating system,” a spokeswoman for Redmond told us earlier.

  2. Windows 10 spies on you despite disabling tracking options or installing anti-spying app

    Analyst reveals that Windows 10 is amassing huge amount user data despite of user disabling the three tracking options

    We all know that Windows 10 spies on users. We had reported spying issues associated with Windows 10 even as Microsoft had released the Windows 10 Technical Preview Version in August, 2014. After almost a year after when Windows 10 Final Build was released, Microsoft confirmed that Windows 10 spied on users in November 2015. It had added at that time that even it cant stop Windows 10’s telemetry program used for spying on users.

EPO Brain Drain (Even Directors Fed Up With Team Battistelli) and Rumours About Battistelli Becoming President of the UPC

Posted in Europe, Patents, Rumour at 9:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Blue grapes

Summary: Words heard through the grapevine of the European Patent Office (EPO), where staff is overwhelmingly against the managers and some people, including high-profile staff, add to the exodus

TECHRIGHTS has repeatedly advised readers to contact their national delegates regarding EPO abuses. We also suggest speaking to European politicians, “but the question is whether the Ministers are going to do anything about it,” one reader of ours said. Well, some of them are increasingly vocal on these matters (we gave an example earlier today) and there are also interventions behind the scenes (which we are aware of).

“Minnoye, who´s regarded as a totally incompetent VP, is hated by the directors, too…”
      –AnonymousThis site’s involvement in these matters began a long time ago, but mostly focused on software patents in Europe. Half a decade ago I wrote to EBoA on the subject. Software patents are part of a broader issue which we often call patent maximalism. This includes GMO/seed monopolies (e.g. patents on plants), artificially high pricing on life-saving medicine (where research is often funded by taxpayers anyway) and other such issues that brought a lot of EPO critics to this kind of campaigning in the first place.

Abuses by the EPO against applicants and against EPO staff is something we only became better aware of in recent years. Staff unions too have been critical of patent maximalism; maybe that’s why (amongst other reasons) the patent maximalists cannot tolerate them and Battistelli is trying to crush them. “I cannot believe he´s going to finish his term,” one reader told us about him. This reader works for Battistelli. We learned that “the rumour about his leaving was spread even by one of the directors [...] if Battistelli falls, the whole bunch will fall [...] Minnoye, who´s regarded as a totally incompetent VP, is hated by the directors, too [...] If you could read the Gazette you would see how many people are voting with their feet [...] a lot of staff retire before time and it´s not only examiners but also directors and a PD (principal director) [...] even the Brussels man has retired although he was relatively young” (we've mentioned the opening here).

“I can´t believe they employed somebody like Topic, with his skeletons in the cupboard…”
      –AnonymousThis reader added that “we started employing people with Afghanistan experience now [...] there was also a UK guy with Afghanistan experience [...] in his CV he wrote he spoke: Serbien, Croatian and Bosnian [...] which is rubbish [as] there is no Bosnian language [...] I can´t believe they employed somebody like Topic, with his skeletons in the cupboard [...] they´ll go down all together [as Battistelli] cannot survive years of negative publicity [...] there are too many rumours about him [...] that he will prolong here, that he will move to Paris as president of the UPC [...] the first thing the press should write is about the secret contract [as] it appears that the AC is signing the budget without knowing his bonus and only Kongstad [Chairman] knows about it [...] he should be forced to publish his bonus (allegedly over 1 million – 1.4, 1.5) [...] it´s enough for the newspapers to continue writing each time that his contract is secret.”

So much for ‘public’ body… neither public nor European. █

More Than 20 Years in the Line: European Patent Office and Claims of European Convention on Human Rights Infringement Against Applicants/Stakeholders

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

While large corporations get prioritised and enjoy a fast lane

Fence

Summary: Gross incompetence and potentially an infringement of the European Convention on Human Rights at the European Patent Office (EPO), this time impacting an applicant (one of many in a similar position)

ONE source of ours, a European SME, seriously thought about suing the EPO for mishandling or misconduct, having waited for 6 years without being granted a patent which had already been, in principle, secured, based on a hearing.

Yesterday we found this new article titled “EPO prosecution delays and the European Convention on Human Rights” and it said:

A recent case decided by the EPO’s Board of Appeal has tackled the issue of delays in prosecution and noted that, for the application in issue, the duration of the first instance proceedings (12 years) amounted to an excessive delay. Reference was made in the reasons of the decision to other cases in which the Applicant’s rights under Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights have been infringed.

The decision in case T 0823/11 appeared shortly before Christmas last year and relates to European patent application number 96915827.8 which was filed as a PCT application way back in May 1995. The application entered the regional phase in December 1997 and the supplementary European search report issued in February 1999. A delay of nearly 5 and a half years then occurred before the first examination report issued (following a chaser letter from the Applicant).

The EPO and the Applicant exchanged chaser letters, exam reports and replies over the next 3 years but a summons to oral proceedings was not issued until March 2010.

The patent application was refused by the Examining division and the Applicant duly appealed. The Appeal Board decision is dated 21 December 2015.

[...]

i) the first instance proceedings following regional phase entry had taken over 12 years and this was regarded as excessive by the Appeal Board. Reference was made to two other cases (T315/03 and Kristiansen and Tyvik AS v. Norway before the European Court of Human Rights) in which delays were regarded as an infringement of Article 6(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights. The conclusions of these cases were regarded as relevant to the present case, in particular because the delays were not affected by any unusual behaviour of the Applicant;

Given growing political pressure on the EPO to stop violating human rights (we gave a new example just one hour ago), it will be interesting to see just how many abuses the EPO can get away with before the management is sacked or pressured to resign (to make it look friendlier/amicable). We seem to be not so far from it. █

UPC Nepotism, Political Abuses, and UPC Involvement From the Legal Firm That EPO Hired to Bully Techrights

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Fieldfisher and UPC

Summary: The Unitary Patent Court (UPC), a rigged system that is being rammed down Europe’s throat by the EPO, its big clients (even foreign), and their patent lawyers laid bear for people to see

There’s a lot of very serious abuse (at least institutional) surrounding the UPC, much like in those ‘trade’ agreements with all the confirmed bribes. The UPC should be at least as scandalous as ACTA or the TPP, but the public is hardly aware of the UPC, there’s no public input on it, and the driving forces behind it typically work behind closed doors (or in private events with high fees to attend and no input from critics).

The UPC is driven not by public demand but by the desire of some parties to essentially loot the public. It’s like legalised theft, or systematic passage of wealth.The EPO has its own lobbyists Brussels and so do EPO allies like Microsoft, which employs Microsoft-connected lobbying groups in Brussels (for software patents in Europe — a goal evidently shared by the Battistelli-led EPO). Does anyone know who funds the front/lobbying group “Fair Standards Alliance”? They don’t say, but we can make guesses.

Curiously enough, yesterday we found out that the legal firm that the EPO hired (i.e. paid) to bully me with legal letters is boosting the UPC right now. Well, another coincidence or alignment/intersection of interests? MIP wrote that in its partially-visible article (behind paywall). “Fieldfisher expand ahead of UPC launch,” it says, and all I know Fieldfisher for is threatening legal letters that it sent me. Articles which highlighted the connection between Microsoft and the EPO is what they threatened me over, repeatedly.

As it turns out, based on yesterday’s tweet from the FFII’s President, the “German Ministry of Justice seems to prepare for UPC ratification, software patents like a letter to the post #swpat #nodebate” (indeed, no public debate at all, same as in the UK).

Patent firms love the UPC because more (and broader) lawsuits mean more income for them. As it turns out, based on input that we received yesterday, there is a lot of nepotism and lobbying in the mix. The German Ministry of Justice is implicated, too. To quote this source of ours:

Roy,

as regards your postings on who will benefit most from a unitary patent and Unified Patent Court, you might want to have a closer look to the article here:

http://www.stjerna.de/index_en_htm_files/The_requirements_of_Article%20118_1_TFEU.pdf

Its sections I. and II. describe a remarkable connection between the German Ministry of Justice and one of the leading German pro-UPC proponents, Prof. Tilmann (http://www.hoganlovells.com/winfried-tilmann/), a preeminent German attorney at Hogan Lovells, one of the leading patent litigation firms in Europe. Tilmann admitted that he had been given confidential court documents by the Ministry of Justice to publicly comment on these in favour of the UPC.

The article also cites a letter sent by his firm to a Committee of the House of Commons in 2012, trying to clarify that Mr Tilmann was not acting on behalf of Hogan Lovells, but was merely providing “his own personal views” – after he had apparently pushed his lobbying for the unitary patent and UPC a little too far. The letter was mentioned on the IPKat (http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/05/when-unity-creates-division-kat-patent.html), it can be downloaded here (https://sites.google.com/site/ipkatreaders/unifiedpatentproposal/hoglove.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1). It is still a good laugh.

Regards

It seems possible that the only reason the European public has not yet scandalised the UPC is the secrecy around it, the lack of understanding (the EPO spends money on pro-UPC propaganda events), and lack of public participation.

We urge all readers, both inside and outside Europe (and inside the EPO or outside the EPO) to antagonise this injustice. The EPO spends a lot of money misleading the public so whistleblowers are needed. One reader told us yesterday: “thank you for tenaciously holding the EPO management to account. I don’t necessarily see eye to eye with you on software patents, but I definitely agree with you on the state of the EPO.”

No two people can agree on everything, but there are overlaps. It is also possible to work for the EPO (e.g. as an examiner) whilst also recognising the problems with the UPC. We strongly encourage readers to send us documents, pointers or any other material we should know about regarding the UPC. EPO management is understandably paranoid about UPC critics (it sees UPC critics even where there are none), as we stressed several times in the past. █

Member of European Parliament Brings Up “Ongoing Violations of the Fundamental and Employment Rights of the Staff of EPO”

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

MEP Ana Gomes
By Foto-AG Gymnasium Melle, CC BY-SA 3.0

Summary: Question to the European Commission from Portuguese MEP Ana Gomes, as published in the site of the European Parliament

A FEW months ago, as a reader told us, Ana Maria Gomes brought up the subject of EPO abuses. These were mentioned in front of the European Commission. Here is what she said/wrote (available in English and in French):

17 November 2015
E-014796-15
Question for written answer to the Commission
Rule 130
Ana Gomes (S&D)

Subject: Re-establishing fundamental rights at the European Patent Office

Has the Commission asked the Member States of the European Patent Office (EPO), and, in particular the two EU Member States in which the seats of the organisation are located, namely the Netherlands (The Hague) and Germany (Munich), for an explanation of the ongoing violations of the fundamental and employment rights of the staff of EPO?

It would seem that the Netherlands are putting their economic interests, i.e. the fact that the seat of the EPO is located on their territory, ahead of the rights of the organisation’s staff. The decision by the Netherlands Government to support the EPO in the appeal it has brought before the Netherlands Supreme Court merely confirms this. What view does the Commission take of this matter?

Irrespective of the ruling handed down by the Netherlands Court of Appeal, the EPO is violating not only the fundamental rights of its staff, but also basic principles of the rule of law.

The argument concerning the EPO’s immunity was considered and explicitly rejected by the Netherlands Court of Appeal. By continuing to invoke its immunity, the EPO is deliberately disregarding a ruling handed down by a court of law.

What action does the Commission plan to take against an international organisation which deliberately places itself above international and national law and violates the rule of law?

There are other ongoing political actions that we are aware of but are not publishing yet (as it might interfere with their progress). The EPO is in very deep trouble. Battistelli seems to be afraid, and quite rightly so. █

La Oficina Europea de Patentes Pretende que No Pasa Nada y Prepara una Feria de Vanidad

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado in Europe, Patents at 8:02 am por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

La presente estrategia de los medios es pretender que ¨aqui no pasa nada¨ y trabajar en presencia en los medios al enviar varias nuevas (cuidadosamente preparadas en casa). Que tales caraduras!

Of media presence

Sumario: La estrategia de relaciones públicas de la OEP cuya destructiva estrategia de patentes continua sin disminución (por ahora), se engancha en Colombia y se esfuerza en manufacturar el mito donde el público, examinadores de patentes, y aplicantes de patentes todos estan muy felices con la OEP.

LA situación en Europa es gris cuando se trata de patentes. La OEP todavía no ha tenido algun ejecutivo sometido a procedimientos legales, a pesar de que violaciones en suelo europeo fueron bien reportadas (documentadas en los medios tambien). Mas aún la OEP todavía esta promoviendo patentes de software esta semana. Por ello virtualmente todos los trolles de patentes estan dependiendo de ella.

Basado en este nuevo articulo: ¨Alguos Productores Europeos de propiedad intelectual se estan uniendo para batallar las reglas que los ayudarán a ganar dinero en ´innovación´. Red de Comunicaciones Ericsson AB, constructor de aviones Airbus Group SE, la compañía francesa de teléfonos Orange SA y fabricante de trenes Alstom SA estan dentro de las compañías detras de IP Europe, consorcio que será revelado hoy en Bruselas.

Ericsson esta actualmente detras de algunos trolles de patentes. Ya dimos ejemplos de Europa atrayendolos como abejas a la miel y Ericsson tiene un montón que ver con ello, Nokia también. ¨Ericsson promoverá trolling de patentes a nivel Europeo, hardcore pro-swpat¨ (patentes de software) escribió ayer el presidente de la FFII (citando el artículo arriba).

En IP Kat, donde muchos trabajadores de la OEP comentan anónimamente, una persona escribió:

Estoy luchando por entender algo, así que acudo a los buenos lectores de IPKat por ayuda.

Cuando ¨Monsieur¨ Presidente citó figuras de producción por 2014, fue citado diciendo ¨Nuestra producción, nuestra productividad y nuestros controles de costods todos han mejorado¨, También entiendo que las cuentes de la OEP han mostrado un surplus saludable por los últimos años.

Así que basado en sus propias publicaciones, podemos concluir que la OEP ha alcanzado ambos un saludable ¨margen de ganancias¨ y una reducción de los costos (de producción). ¿Correcto?

Así que ¿Porqué (como siempre) las matrículas son más caras este año? Eso es, como los usuarios del sistema (quienes despues de todo, solventan el juego) no se benefician de la aparente mejorada productividad?

Respuestas en postal, por favor.

La OEP esta operando como un negocio, no un servicio, maximizando ganancias y haciendo difícil para las PYMEs europeas conseguir patentes (los precios se disparan). La República Bananera de OEPonia ahora visita SudAmerica y publica pura bazofia al respecto. Battistelli quien es tan beneficial a la region como lo fue en su tiempo Pinochet (vean este reciénte articulo en Ingles y Español), dijo ayer: ¨Además fuimos capaces de firmar el acuerdo de Prosecución de Patentes (PPH) en Bogotá entre la OEP y el SuperIntendente de Industria y Comercio de Colombia (quien vendió el futuro de millares de colombianos). Una medida hecha posible ya que afirmaron lazos a traves de un marco de cooperación escrito en el 2014. La conclusión del programa piloto de la PPH probará esencial para promover una acelerada prosecución y enforzamiento de patentes (a beneficio de las grandes corporaciones de los Estados Unidos no de las PYMEs colombianas). Es anticipado que esto incrementará ´crecimiento´ económico entre las dos regiones y estimulará cooperación entre nuestras oficians, trayendo ´beneficios´ adicionales a los poseedores de patentes ´europeos´ fuera de Europa (así ¿qué están fumando estos?). Esta envisionado que estos acuerdos apoyaran la adquisición de derechos de patentes con nuestros usuarios, como investigadores de universidades, innovadores industriales y negocios con los que me reuní antes de firmar el acuerdo. Fue claro por el interes de los medios que fueron medidas de interés por parte de actores en ´innovación´, negocios e industria.¨

¿Alguién ha notado qué Monsieur Presidente pasa más tiempo en países como China y Colombia en vez de paises Occidentales? Hace unos meses nos dijeron que había cancelado su viaje a Zagreb, donde su bulldog Topić enfrenta cargos criminales (más de ello mañana).

Manteniendo la pretensión de cualidad y conformidad, la OEP también ha publicado detalles acerca de este esfuerzo de crear una ilusión de apoyo de las partes interesadas, llevando a cuestas a la ISO [1, 2] a pesar de su aparejo (credenciales y venta de acreditación). Como escribimos aquí hoy temprano, hay otros esfuerzos propagandísticos por lo bajo (en Rijswijk). Preparénse para el asalto de la prensa european con mentiras blatantes y devaneos. █

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