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10.21.16

EPO Caricature: Battistelli’s High Five

Posted in Europe, Humour, Patents at 3:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Battistelli's high five

Summary: Another cartoon about the sad state of the EPO

10.20.16

Battistelli Ruins Not Only the EPO But Also the Whole of Europe By Ushering in Software Patents That Patent Trolls Love So Much

Posted in Asia, Europe, Patents at 8:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Battistelli liar
Source (original): Rospatent

Summary: Battistelli’s bad leadership at the EPO threatens to bring to Europe all the ills and menaces of the patent system in the United States

Battistelli has (almost singlehandedly!) done so much damage to the EPO. He brought into the EPO some truly dodgy people and former colleagues (and their family members), he attacked the staff representatives, and he even attacked justice itself (putting aside the poetic/Orwellian action of attacking a judge).

“He brought into the EPO some truly dodgy people and former colleagues (and their family members), he attacked the staff representatives, and he even attacked justice itself (putting aside the poetic/Orwellian action of attacking a judge).”How on Earth is Battistelli still working at the EPO and permitted to waste extraordinary amounts of money buying the media while lying to everyone? “In a sane world (not Eponia),” as I put it yesterday, “he’d be asked to pack up his things and leave by day’s end.” The only people dismissed so far are basically ‘whistleblowers’, i.e. people who are brave enough to say the truth — however politely — about Battistelli. It’s like Eponia became a miniature North Korea at the very heart of Europe and politicians lack the authority (sometimes even the will) to intervene.

According to this new article from Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP: “In an attempt to tackle the backlog, the EPO has launched a new initiative to encourage applicants to abandon their applications in exchange for a refund of the official examination fee.”

“Patent applications will have run out in a couple of years. What then? No more examination at all?”Well done, Battistelli. Great job! So granting/approving (often in error) all sorts of very old applications takes its toll on new ones. What will be left of the EPO other than a fossil if this carries on? Patent applications will have run out in a couple of years. What then? No more examination at all? No examiners? Machine 'examination' alone? All applications accepted by default, irrespective of merit and novelty? Quite a few EPO insiders seem to believe so when they fear the worst and look at the French system, examining its obvious failures.

Another new article from Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP says: “In this edition, we consider the IP5 offices’ proscription against the introduction of new subject matter into a patent application that has already been filed. While it is not surprising that all IP5 offices disallow introduction of new matter into a patent application, what constitutes “new matter” differs among the IP5 offices, as discussed below.”

IP5 is a collective term referring to large patent offices, including the notorious (for patent quality) USPTO. Mind the fact that the US is moving away from software patents right now (more on that in the weekend), whereas the EPO moves in the opposite direction. As a patent attorney implied the other day, the EPO is now more software patents-friendly than the USPTO. To quote [1, 2]: “I’m working on a family of software patents/apps where EPO allowed patent, surveved [sic] 2 oppos; but US rejected as ineligible. The software patent family is large, many countries. ONLY THE USPTO FOUND SUBJECT MATTER INELIGIBLE.”

“If the EPO gets away with granting more and more software patents (UPC would contribute a great deal towards that), then we should expect a lot of patent trolls to park in Europe and damage a lot of businesses (some of which I heard from personally).”The “EPO is corrupt,” Benjamin Henrion responded to him, reflecting a change in public perceptions.

If the EPO gets away with granting more and more software patents (UPC would contribute a great deal towards that), then we should expect a lot of patent trolls to park in Europe and damage a lot of businesses (some of which I heard from personally). This, in turn, would suck money out of the economy, elevate prices of things, and make Europe a lot less competitive. But hey, Battistelli can crow about “production, production, production!” (at least until the applications run out and operations dry up)

Yesterday we saw the EPO once again promoting its India-Europe software patents fest. Patent maximalists and boosters like Battistelli (who has no patents and no scientific background) would have us believe that the more the merrier; obviously! See what the page says; it speaks explicitly about software patents which are banned in Europe and also banned in India.

Speaking of which, here we have a British site publishing a new article titled “Patenting the abstract – can you patent code?”

It was published this morning and it talks about Europe and the UK:

Patent applicants, and indeed patent attorneys, can spend a lot of time gazing at that window, occasionally hurling rocks at it: where does the line lie between a computer program ‘as such’ and a computer program which can count as a ‘real’ invention? There is certainly no hard and fast answer to that and each idea must be assessed on its own merits. What we do have is a body of examples from cases which have been considered by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the UK courts which at least may help to clarify the boundary. In the examples which follow, I have made no particular distinction between cases in the UK and before the European Patent Office (EPO) although in fact there are differences (despite a broad intention of conformity). Currently, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) seems much more likely to raise an objection that an idea is excluded from patentability – is a non-invention – than the EPO. That doesn’t mean computer-implemented ideas get a particularly easy ride before the EPO; the EPO’s current practice is only to consider ‘technical’ features as contributing to the inventiveness of an idea and, if your only technical feature is a common computer, the same idea that could be identified as a non-invention at the UKIPO could be determined to be not patentable as it is not inventive when considered at the EPO. That said, if I was asked to choose how to attempt to protect a computer-implemented idea in the UK right now, I’d chose to do so via the EPO – it is my view that the UK IPO is currently less friendly to potential ‘non-inventions’ than the EPO.

Over in India today we found this clueless new rant from a patents-centric person, bemoaning India’s ban on software patents. Watch some of his arguments:

Elite technology companies (including TCS, Yahoo, Samsung, Ericsson, Microsoft and Philips) from more than 10 countries had their CRI applications rejected in India in the past six months. Besides rejections, many applicants, including high-tech Indian companies such as Wipro, have started to receive negative examination reports calling for rejection of their patent applications. This can call into question the quality of patent examination in India for inventions in advanced software as well as communication technologies.

A lot of the companies named above actively feed patent trolls (Ericsson and Microsoft for instance) and are using software patents offensively, in highly controversial circumstances. If India’s laws prevent them from expanding the plague of patent trolling to India, then that is absolutely great. This author calls “elite technology companies” not Indian companies but a bunch of multinationals trying to cement their monopolies (or near monopolies). These arguments are similar to those made by the patent profiteers in Europe, notably patent law firms and tax-evading patent tax-wielding giants like Apple and Microsoft (which Battistelli is totally clueless about and offers preferential treatment to)

At the EPO, unfortunately, Battistelli remains a “President” for now, but he lost respect; staff distrusts him and some prominent delegates tell him off; they’re not afraid of him anymore, even in the face of epic tantrums. █

EPO Spokesman Lies to IP Watch in Order to Save Face and Save the King (Battistelli)

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 8:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Battistelli lies

Summary: Rewriting history (revisionism) regarding Battistelli and what was demanded amidst abusive behaviour from him

THE IP-CENTRIC MEDIA, even by a so-called “conspiracy of silence” as the late Pieter Hintjens once dubbed it, has become somewhat complicit with the EPO. It continues to stand by quietly and idly while the EPO is being destroyed and buys the media. Sometimes it even throws a bone to Battistelli or offers him a platform (for puff pieces and lies).

Quite frankly, we lost faith in much of the above media. Not even the local media in Munich is responsive anymore. It shuts its eyes, shuts its mouth, shuts its ears and pretends that EPO (or Eponia) does not exist in Munich and that nothing interesting or noteworthy happens there other than banal granting of patents. On IP Kat not covering EPO scandals (no lack of them!) anymore, one person wrote this yesterday: “Disappointing lack of EPO information here these days. Has Merpel been neutered? Or worse still had an accident with a diplomatic car. Let’s hope she’s happily chasing small furry creatures in Denmark and will be back soon.”

This alludes to this series of stories and this photo of a diplomatic car. Why are we the only site covering this and what does that say about European media?

The other day IP Watch (a decent site most of the time) issued a rare report about the EPO. It doesn’t write so much about the EPO anymore (more WIPO focus), but it used to write about the EPO more habitually. Readers should see the comment on this article, based on one item (from May). The article has been updated with damage control from Team Battistelli and it now says:

[Update:] Asked to confirm whether current disciplinary procedures have been suspended pending the December AC meeting, an EPO spokesman said later that the council “did not ask the President to take such a position.” Moreover, he emailed, the disciplinary committee is equally composed of management and staff representatives, and it decides independently on its recommendation, uninfluenced by any external authority. [end update]

Since it includes gender (“spokesman”), we are guessing it was Rainer. We have heard some unpleasant things about him from journalists and as we noted about a year ago, nowadays the EPO lies both to journalists and to staff (and to job applicants). These people simply cannot be trusted!

See the remainder of the article and the comment:

The statement of the EPO spokesman (see the above [Update]), is typical of EPO, and incorrect:

While it is true that the Council “did not ask the President to take such a position,” by the help of an official resolution during its October 2016 meeting, the Office is nevertheless walking a fine line:

Firstly, during the last Council meeting, several delegations, in particular CH, FR, UK and NL, insisted in clear words that no decision should be taken on running disciplinary procedures. Secondly, the position of the president is in contrast with the Administrative Council’s (AC) resolution of this March, which requested him, inter alia,

“to ensure that disciplinary sanctions and proceedings are not only fair but also seen to be so, and to consider the possibility of involvement of an external reviewer or of arbitration or mediation” and

“pending the outcome of this process and before further decisions in disciplinary cases are taken, to inform the AC in appropriate detail and make proposals that enhance confidence in fair and reasonable proceedings and sanctions”

The two requirements “that disciplinary sanctions and proceedings are not only fair but also seen to be so” and “pending the outcome of this process and before further decisions in disciplinary cases are taken” would clearly not be met if the president would take a decision on any disciplinary proceedings before revised regulations on investigative/disciplinary procedures have been approved by the AC. The requirement “to inform the AC in appropriate detail and make proposals that enhance confidence in fair and reasonable proceedings and sanctions” would not be met either since the proposals the president presented at the 149th AC meeting did not meet legal standards, such that the delegations forced him to withdraw them.

The first statement of the EPO spokesman that the Council “did not ask the President to take such a position,” is thus incorrect; the Council asked the President “to take such a position” in its March resolution.
The second statement in the email that “the disciplinary committee … decides independently on its recommendation,” is well-worded, but – irrespective of whether it is true – diverts the reader from the main subject; the Administrative Council’s resolution of this March.

By taking a decision on any disciplinary proceedings under the current regulations, the EPO president would be in breach of the March resolution. The Council would be obliged to dismiss him.

As we said back in May, Battistelli should have been sacked, but his pet chinchilla (Kongstad) continues to protect him no matter what, even hiding his contract and salary. What kind of oversight of this?!?! █

Unitary Patent (UPC) is Dead, But ‘Managing IP’ and Selfish Patent Law Firms Still Try to Resurrect It

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

They just refuse to let go, much to Battistelli’s satisfaction and everybody else’s chagrin (to use a French term)

Bristows LLP and EPO

Summary: The latest attempts to shore up the Unitary (or Unified) Patent Court and who’s behind it other than the usual suspects

THE PATENT microcosm, and Team UPC in particular, wishes us to believe that the UPC is not dead. They spent years investing money and time in it, so they’re still in denial about its death. They’re still in one of these famous stages preceding “acceptance”.

“They’re still in one of these famous stages preceding “acceptance”.”Still trying to salvage what’s left of the dead UPC scheme, MIP sets up a so-called ‘webinar’ (basically live streaming some agenda) and says: “Please send us your questions on Brexit/Unitary Patent/UPC!”

Isn’t it a done deal already? The Brexit vote — however it winds up — eliminated UPC, and probably not just in the UK. “Why does MIP keep pushing the UPC agenda,” I asked online. “Is this reciprocated for by EPO people? Seems so (not directly)…”

“Today’s webinar on Brexit & #UnitaryPatent has just finished,” MIP later wrote. “Listen to & view the recording & vote results here! http://www.managingip.com/Web-Seminars.html … pic.twitter.com/yvoq7shTBM”

“We are still hoping that someone will explain to us why the EPO Boards of Appeal celebrated this week.”Responding to what I wrote, MIP said: “Roy, we’re not pushing the #UPC (or any other) agenda. We’re just providing a discussion forum. Did you listen to the webinar?”

I asked: “Any critics of the UPC in there?”

“Range of views expressed,” they said. “We’ll have a blog up soon with more details…”

That’s not actually answering my question but instead dodges it, so we’ll assume the so-called ‘webinar’ was a one-sided echo chamber, like the UPC-themed conference they set up last month to assist lobbying [1, 2, 3, 4] by the likes (or lies) of Margot Fröhlinger [1, 2, 3].

Earlier in the same day I asked publicly: “Does anybody know why the EPO Boards of Appeal are celebrating? Is the UPC dead? Well, it is. So what’s the news? AC meeting?”

We are still hoping that someone will explain to us why the EPO Boards of Appeal celebrated this week. No doubt the very prospect of the UPC was taking away their jobs (they’re grossly understaffed and perpetually besieged); among their jobs, or imperatives at times, was keeping software patents out of Europe, i.e. upholding the law. I actually wrote to the Enlarged Board of Appeal about this subject in the distant past.

Regarding UPC and Brexit, there is no lack of new pieces from various lawyers that want the UPC and would even lie for it. Here is a new piece by Boult Wade Tennant (“Is there a place for a post-Brexit UK in the Unitary Patent system?”) and another one in German (“Europäisches Einheitspatent und Brexit”). Another article, published yesterday by Li Zhu of Robins Kaplan LLP says this:

Some quick history — the Unitary Patent system is the European Union’s attempt in 2013 to propose a new European patent with unitary effect and a unified European patent court (“Unified Patent Court” or “UPC”). Both are designed to promote homogenous patent protection across participating EU states, so companies can enforce their patent rights with greater predictability and efficiency. Under the Unitary Patent system, when a patent is granted, the patentee can request (1) a unitary patent—which is enforced across all participating states in a single action; (2) a traditional European patent; or (3) a unitary patent alongside European patent protection for any country not covered by the UPC agreement. For parties enforcing or defending their patent rights, the UPC could eliminate the unnecessary duplication of multiple actions in different member states and avoid divergent results from parallel court proceedings.

That’s hardly a balanced interpretation but more like marketing of the UPC, parroting the tired old talking points.

The title of the article is “Brexit—The End of the Unitary Patent System as we Know it?” but it’s not just the end of UPC as we know it (the answer is “yes”) but quite likely the end of the UPC as a whole. Don’t believe those liars who advertised bogus job openings in the UK for the UPC; they have no credibility, no decency, and total disregards for UK and EU democracy. █

Links 20/10/2016: Linux 4.10 Preview, ONF and ON.Labs to Merge

Posted in News Roundup at 6:38 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • ‘Why Use Linux?’ Answered In 3 Short Words

      This post is not a typical post. I’m not going to change your life, or teach you a new trick. Instead I’m going to drag you down the rabbit hole…

      I had to Google a rather dry grammatical enquiry from my sister earlier. See, she’s in the process of going back to college to study nursing and has become fastidious about punctuation in the process.

      She turned to me because her iPhone did not, in her words, ‘give the correct answer’.

    • How does Linux need to change to achieve the ‘year of the Linux desktop?’

      The year of the Linux desktop has long been the unicorn of the open source movement. People have looked for it for quite a long time, but nobody’s ever seen it. But hope springs eternal, and for some the quest for the year of the Linux desktop goes on.

  • Kernel Space

    • Linux kernel bugs: we add them in and then take years to get them out

      Kees Cook is a Google techie and security researcher whose interests include the Linux Kernel Self Protection Project.

      The idea of “self-protection” doesn’t mean giving up on trying to create secure code in the first place, of course.

      It may sound like an irony, but I’m happy to accept that writing secure code requires that you simultaneously write code that is predicated on insecurity.

    • storaged – next evolution step of udisks2

      What do you think about the above goals? Do you think GNU/Linux distributions should and will adopt storaged as a replacement for *udisks2″? Would you like your favorite distribution to do so? Or do you see a really bumpy road ahead? Please tell us what you think in the comments and if you know about somebody who should read this post and participate in the broader discussion, don’t forget to let them know and send them the link!

    • Ten Years of KVM

      We recently celebrated 25 years of Linux on the 25th anniversary of the famous email Linus sent to announce the start of the Linux project. Going by the same yardstick, today marks the 10th anniversary of the KVM project — Avi Kivity first announced the project on the 19th Oct, 2006 by this posting on LKML…

    • Linux Foundation Certified Engineer: Karthikeyan Ramaswamy

      Linux was part of my academics. I was introduced to Linux at the Anna University Bioinformatics Lab by my Professor Gautam Pennathur. After that introduction, I became truly interested in Linux and open source when I was doing my final year project with Professor Nagasuma Chandra in the bioinformatics department, Indian Institute of Science. It was an incredible journey with the different flavors of Linux as well as the scripting and programming languages. After learning about the history of Linux and open source software movement, I become an Individual supporter of The Linux Foundation and an Annual Associate Member of the Free Software Foundation.

    • Linux 4.9 Is Showing Some Performance Improvements On A Core i7 6800K

      Now that Linux 4.9-rc1 is out, it’s onward to testing this new Linux kernel on the dozens of test systems at Phoronix. With some early testing on a Core i7 6800K Broadwell-E box, there are some promising improvements.

    • Linux 4.10 To Expose EFI Framebuffer Configuration

      While Linux 4.9-rc1 was only released this past weekend, the EFI subsystem changes are already being staged for the next kernel cycle.

      One of the EFI changes catching my attention for Linux 4.10 is that the EFI frame-buffer configuration will be exposed. This will allow for localized status strings during firmware updates.

    • Features You Won’t Find In The Linux 4.9 Mainline Kernel

      While there are many new features in Linux 4.9, there is some functionality we’ve been looking forward to that sadly isn’t yet in the mainline kernel tree.

    • Blockchain technology can help save the lives of millions of refugees by giving them a verified identity

      What if you had no proof of who you are? What would you do when the bank manager asked for ID when you tried to open an account or when the hospital asked for your documentation?

      You wouldn’t be able to function, at least not easily. Billions face this problem internationally, but now blockchain technology is helping those with no paper proof of existence get the same services as those with “official” identification.

    • Open Networking Foundation and ON.Lab Merge

      As Software Defined Networking (SDN) has matured from just being a theoretical concept to a production reality, consolidation is now happening in SDN advocacy efforts as well. Today the Open Networking Foundation (ONF) and ON.Lab announced that they would be merging, bringing the two groups’ SDN efforts under one umbrella organization.

      [...]

      There is also a connection between ONF and the Linux Foundation, with the ONOS and CORD projects led by ON.Lab. Parulkar said that with the ONF merger, the ONOS and CORD boards and governance will continue unchanged and they will continue to be Linux Foundation Collaborative projects.

    • ONF to Merge With On.Lab

      The Open Networking Foundation (ONF) is merging with On.Lab, creating one entity that will curate standards such as OpenFlow while developing software projects such as ONOS and the Central Office Re-Imagined as a Datacenter (CORD).

    • SDN groups shack-up to promote standards, open software development
    • ON.Lab and ONF to combine open source SDN efforts
    • SDN Champions ONF & ON.Lab Tie the Knot
    • ONF, ON.Labs to Merge
    • ONF will merge with ON.Lab to advance SDN adoption
    • Linux Kernel 3.12.65 LTS Released with Updated Wireless Drivers, PowerPC Fixes

      It’s been only two weeks since the release of the Linux 3.12.64 LTS kernel maintenance version, and today’s Linux kernel 3.12.65 LTS update attempts to add various improvements, updated drivers, as well as patch some of the bugs reported by users. According to the appended shortlog and diff from Linux kernel 3.12.64 LTS, a total of 80 files were changed, with 516 insertions and 283 deletions in Linux kernel 3.12.65 LTS.

      “I’m announcing the release of the 3.12.65 kernel. All users of the 3.12 kernel series must upgrade,” said Jiri Slaby. “The updated 3.12.y git tree can be found at: git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git linux-3.12.y and can be browsed at the normal kernel.org git web browser: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/linux-stable.git;a=summary.”

    • Systemd – Progress Through Complexity

      A play on the Audi slogan: Vorsprung Durch Technik. Except we’re going to talk about something that is clearly not progress. Systemd. Roughly 6 years ago, Systemd came to life as the new, event-based init mechanism, designed to replicate the old serialized System V thingie. Today, it is the reality in most distributions, for better or worse. Mostly the latter.

      Why would you oppose progress, one may say. To that end, we need to define progress. It is merely the state of something being newer, AKA newer is always better, or the fact it offers superior functionality that was missing in the old technology? After all, System V is 33 years old, so the new stuff ought to be smarter. The topic of my article today is to tell you a story of how I went about fixing a broken Fedora 24 system – powered by systemd of course, and why, at the end of, my conclusion was one of pain and defeat.

    • Graphics Stack

  • Applications

  • Distributions

    • New Releases

    • Red Hat Family

    • Debian Family

      • Open Build Service in Debian needs YOU! ☞
      • Freexian’s report about Debian Long Term Support, September 2016

        Like each month, here comes a report about the work of paid contributors to Debian LTS.

      • Derivatives

        • RaspEX Project Now Lets You Run Ubuntu 16.10 on Raspberry Pi 3 and 2, with LXDE

          Today, October 19, 2016, GNU/Linux developer Arne Exton informed us about the immediate availability of a new build of his RaspEX project, which brings the latest Ubuntu OS to Raspberry Pi users.

        • Why Security Distributions Use Debian

          What do distributions like Qube OS, Subgraph, Tails, and Whonix have in common? Besides an emphasis on security and privacy, all of them are Debian derivatives — and, probably, this common origin is not accidental.

          At first, this trend seems curious. After all, other distributions ranging from Slackware and Gentoo to Arch Linux all emphasize security and privacy in their selection of tools. In particular, Fedora’s SE Linux can be so restrictive that some users would rather disable it than learn how to configure it. By contrast, while Debian carries many standard security and privacy tools, it has seldom emphasized them.

          Similarly, Debian’s main branch consists of only free and open source software, its contrib and non-free branches not being official parts of the distribution. With many security experts favoring the announcement of vulnerabilities and exploit code rather than relying on security through obscurity, the way that many pieces of proprietary software do, this transparency has obvious appeal.

          Yet although the advantage of free software to security and privacy is that the code can be examined for backdoors and malware, this advantage is hardly unique to Debian. To one or degree another, it is shared by all Linux distributions.

        • Why Use Linux, Systemd Complications, Debian’s Security

          Why do so many security focused distributions choose Debian as their base? Bruce Byfield detailed several reasons beginning with Debian’s transparency in dealing with security issues and its free and Open Source commitment. But primarily, “security and privacy are built into Debian policy and procedure.” Keeping out intruders is better than trying to expel them he said. And finally, Byfield believes stability trumps “newness” everyday of the week especially since “newer packages are more apt to have vulnerabilities than older.”

        • Canonical/Ubuntu

          • Apache on Ubuntu Linux For Beginners: Part 2

            You must set up your Apache web server to use SSL, so that your site URL is https:// and not http://. Sure, there are exceptions, such as test servers and lone LAN servers that only you and your cat use.

            But any Internet-accessible web server absolutely needs SSL; there is no downside to encrypting your server traffic, and it’s pretty easy to set up. For LAN servers it may not be as essential; think about who uses it, and how easy it is to sniff LAN traffic.

          • Live kernel patches for Ubuntu

            Kernel live patching enables runtime correction of critical security
            issues in your kernel without rebooting. It’s the best way to ensure
            that machines are safe at the kernel level, while guaranteeing uptime,
            especially for container hosts where a single machine may be running
            thousands of different workloads.

            We’re very pleased to announce that this new enterprise, commercial
            service from Canonical will also be available free of charge to the
            Ubuntu community.

            The Canonical Livepatch Service is an authenticated, encrypted, signed
            stream of livepatch kernel modules for Ubuntu servers, virtual
            machines and desktops.

          • Canonical Ltd.’s Ubuntu Core

            Canonical Ltd.’s “Snappy” Ubuntu Core, a stripped-down version of Ubuntu designed for autonomous machines, devices and other internet-connected digital things, has gained significant traction in the chipset/semiconductor market recently.

  • Devices/Embedded

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • London Zoo escaped gorilla ‘drank five litres of undiluted squash’ during escape

    A gorilla that sparked an emergency after breaking out of its enclosure at London Zoo opened and drank five litres of undiluted blackcurrant squash during his escape, the Zoological Society of London has revealed.

    Members of the public and staff at the zoo were locked into buildings and ordered not to leave certain areas after Kumbuka, an adult silverback gorilla, made his escape on Thursday.

  • Health/Nutrition

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Does Hillary Have The Temperment To Have Her Finger On The Nuclear Button?

      If these reports are true, at this time of heightened tensions between Washington and the two other major nuclear powers, it would be extremely dangerous to have in the White House a person susceptible to uncontrollable rage, especially a person who would be staffed with neoconservative warmongers. A vote for Hillary could be a vote for nuclear war and the end of life on earth.

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Ecuador Cut Off Assange’s Access to the Internet – So This Man Is Reading It to Him

      After WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet service was cut off by the Ecuadorian embassy where he is holed up, one man sought to bring the internet back for the cloistered Queenslander.

      Armed with a bullhorn and a sign that reads “Julian Assange’s Personal Internet Service,” Canadian comedian Bobby Mair has been standing outside the embassy shouting the news of the day to Assange.

    • Ecuador confirms it cut off Assange’s internet over Clinton emails

      The Ecuadorian government confirmed Tuesday that it cut off WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s internet connection because of his anti-secrecy platform’s publication of emails allegedly stolen from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.

      “The Government of Ecuador respects the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. It does not interfere in external electoral processes, nor does it favor any particular candidate,” Ecuador said in a statement.

      “Accordingly, Ecuador has exercised its sovereign right to temporarily restrict access to some of its private communications network within its Embassy in the United Kingdom.”

      The emails are believed to have been stolen by the Russian government, and their release has been widely seen as a deliberate attempt to meddle in the U.S. election — although some Republicans have lauded their publication.

    • Assange’s Fate

      ​The saga of Julian Assange seems to be drawing to a climax – one that will decide the fate of this historic whistleblower who, for years, has been a giant thorn in the side of governments everywhere.

      His role in exposing the machinations of the US government over the years earned him the plaudits of liberals – until the Bush era ended, and he started exposing the crimes of the Obama administration and – most pointedly – the hypocrisy and venality of Hillary Clinton and her journalistic camarilla. Now we see right-wing figures like Sean Hannity and – yes! – Donald Trump praising and defending him, while the ostensible liberals take up the cry of the Clinton campaign that he’s a “pawn of the Kremlin” and a “rapist.” Even Glenn Greenwald, formerly a comrade-in-arms, who together with Assange helped Edward Snowden evade the not-so-loving arms of Uncle Sam, has lately sought to distance himself from the founder of WikiLeaks (over the value of “curation”). Nice timing, Glenn!

    • CNN Tells Viewers It’s Illegal For Them To Read Wikileaks Document Dumps. CNN Is Wrong

      I cut the cord years ago, so the only time I stumble into cable “news” coverage is usually at the gym or airport. And time and time again I’m struck by how the empty prattle is more in line with dystopian satire than anything resembling actual news reporting or intellectual analysis. Even when these channels feature live breaking news stories, you’d be hard pressed to find a reporter willing to call up a source and confirm details of what’s happening, resulting in something that’s more akin to industrialized speculation than the polished news product of multi-billion-dollar media empires.

    • A Peculiar Coincidence

      Today, Swedish prosecutors were meant to question Julian Assange in the Ecuadorean Embassy, something for which the Assange legal team has been pressing for years. They believe that once this step has been taken, prosecutors will no longer be able to keep from the scrutiny of Swedish courts the fact that there is no viable evidence whatsoever to back up the ludicrous allegations which have been made.

      Frustratingly, Swedish prosecutors cancelled the interview last week, with no explanation given. Anyone would think they do not wish the investigation to progress… Then this same day Assange’s internet access is cut, WikiLeaks say by a state actor. To add to this string of coincidence, at the same time Russia Today has its bank accounts frozen by the Royal Bank of Scotland, again without explanation

      This series of events are all aimed at those who seek to counter the neo-con narrative pumped out by the state and corporate media. It could be coincidence, but it looks like co-ordinated clampdown to me.

    • ‘Nothing to See Here’ Is Pundit Takeaway on DNC Leaks

      Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails have been trickling in for the past week. The leaks—along with previous DNC emails—provide intimate details about the inner workings of the campaign that may well soon elect the most powerful person on Earth.

      The response from some journalists has been to analyse, dissect and find the most newsworthy bits. For others, the reaction has been to dismiss and downplay, turning the often cynical meatgrinder of American politics into a snooze barely worthy of discussion.

    • How to Really Really Upset the Foreign Office and Security Services

      I left Julian after midnight. He is fit, well, sharp and in good spirits. WikiLeaks never reveals or comments upon its sources, but as I published before a fortnight ago, I can tell you with 100% certainty that it is not any Russian state actor or proxy that gave the Democratic National Committee and Podesta material to WikiLeaks. The claim is nonsense. Journalists are also publishing that these were obtained by “hacking” with no evidence that this was the method used to obtain them.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • High-Selectivity Electrochemical Conversion of CO2 to Ethanol using a Copper Nanoparticle/N-Doped Graphene Electrode

      Though carbon dioxide is a waste product of combustion, it can also be a potential feedstock for the production of fine and commodity organic chemicals provided that an efficient means to convert it to useful organic synthons can be developed. Herein we report a common element, nanostructured catalyst for the direct electrochemical conversion of CO2 to ethanol with high Faradaic efficiency (63 % at −1.2 V vs RHE) and high selectivity (84 %) that operates in water and at ambient temperature and pressure. Lacking noble metals or other rare or expensive materials, the catalyst is comprised of Cu nanoparticles on a highly textured, N-doped carbon nanospike film. Electrochemical analysis and density functional theory (DFT) calculations suggest a preliminary mechanism in which active sites on the Cu nanoparticles and the carbon nanospikes work in tandem to control the electrochemical reduction of carbon monoxide dimer to alcohol.

    • This Could Be Important, A Means To Readily Convert CO2 To Ethanol Electrically
    • October 2016: North Carolina Flooding

      From October 11-16, the National Geodetic Survey (NGS) collected imagery of areas in North Carolina to help assess damage caused by river flooding due to heavy rains from the now-dissipated Matthew. The aerial imagery was collected in specific areas identified by FEMA and the National Weather Service.

    • ‘How Do We Get to a Conversation in This Country About Climate?’

      That a holiday honoring a man responsible for the murder, enslavement and exploitation of indigenous people should be occasion for the arrest of Native Americans acting in defense of water, land and life is not mere symbolism. The celebration of Christopher Columbus in US history books and culture is increasingly denounced, not only because of his devastating cruelty, but because of the way the fable erases the Taino people, legitimizing their oppression with an implicit view of history as the story of the winners.

    • The Debates Are Over, and No One Asked About Climate Change

      From campaign finance reform to gun violence to poverty to education to LGBTQ rights, lots of important subjects were ignored by corporate media debate moderators in the presidential (and vice-presidential) debates. All of these topics are urgent and deserve a spotlight on the national stage. But one topic stands out as a non-factor: climate change.

      Climate change—or, more accurately, climate disruption—is the greatest existential threat of our time. It threatens the economy, national security and health, exacerbates poverty and racism, and threatens to undermine or compound virtually all other issues discussed on the stage tonight.

  • Finance

    • Bradley Birkenfeld on Corporate Crime in the USA

      And it is telling that he invited some of the nation’s top whistleblowers — including John Kiriakou who spent two years in prison — to be his guests.

      One of the ironies that was not lost on anyone in the room is that increasingly, it’s not corporate executives but whistleblowers who are doing jail time.

      Birkenfeld himself blew the whistle on his employer, the giant Swiss bank UBS, where the rich and famous stashed their millions in numbered accounts to evade U.S. tax authorities.

      Guess who went to jail?

      Birkenfeld.

    • I Won $104 Million for Blowing the Whistle on My Company—But Somehow I Was the Only One Who Went to Jail

      Bradley C. Birkenfeld, 51, blew the whistle on the Swiss bank UBS for helping Americans avoid paying taxes, leading to about $15 billion in recovered tax money, fines and penalties. He spent two and a half years in prison, but he later was awarded $104 million by the I.R.S. for his role in exposing the scheme.

    • The government has finally come up with a plan for Brexit and it’s seriously worrying

      Speaking at a trade fair on Tuesday evening, the environment secretary Andrea Leadsom outlined Britain’s plans for Brexit.

      Prior to the referendum there was no plan for Brexit.

      Turns out they weren’t bluffing.

      Then Brexit meant Brexit.

      [...]

      According to an official press release, the goverment believes there could £185 million worth of exports to Japan “through demand for classic British products like tea, jam and biscuits and new opportunities for British beef.”

      These predictions are ‘export wins’, meaning exports which would probably not have occurred without government support.

      Leadsom was unveiling her department’s ‘International Action Plan for Food and Drink’, at a fair in Paris, France. Home of jam, and bourbons.

    • After CETA: the EU trade agreements that are in the pipeline

      EU countries are considering signing the free trade agreement with Canada this month, but the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) is far from the only deal the EU is working on. Various deals are being negotiated all over the globe, but they can only enter into force if the European Parliament approves them. Read on for an overview of negotiations in progress and a discussion of how it works.

    • ISDS Alone Makes TPP Unacceptable
    • What Are The NAFTA and TPP Trump and Clinton Fought About in the Debate?

      The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which went into force in 1994, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is still pending ratification in the U.S. and elsewhere, are international trade agreements.

      Trump is unambiguously, totally, absolutely, hugely opposed to both deals and any others in the future. He has held that position from Day One.

      Clinton, less so. NAFTA was pushed through by Bill, and Hillary continues to defend it. As Secretary of State she strongly advocated for the TPP. She continued that advocacy during the first part of her campaign, right up until Bernie Sanders started to score points against her by opposing it. Hillary then shifted to also opposing it. No one knows what her stance will be if she is elected.

      Meanwhile, the Obama administration is still hoping to force TPP through a lame duck Congress following the election. Hillary would then be free to shrug her shoulders come January and claim the TPP is not her responsibility.

    • Halloween Comes Early as Bloomberg Tries to Scare Kids With Debt Monster

      Bloomberg (10/14/16) decided to get into the Halloween spirit by warning our kids about the national debt. The piece is headlined “A Child Born Today Comes Into the World With More Debt Than You.” Bloomberg was going to headline the piece, “Kids Worried That Universe Is Closer to Destruction Than When Parents Were Born,” but they decided it would be too scary.

    • ‘Real Estate Investors Should Be Treated Like Any Other Businessmen’

      In case you somehow managed to miss it, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump acknowledged in the most recent debate that, for at least some period of time, he paid no federal income tax, explaining, characteristically, “That makes me smart.”

      The statement revealed nothing we didn’t know about Trump, but it did raise a few questions for some folks about taxes—who pays what and why. Richard Phillips is senior policy analyst at Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. He joins us by phone from Washington, DC.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Jill Stein: Democrats Govern by Fear—That Alone Should Cost Them Your Vote

      Despite running a national campaign with an established political party, you were excluded from the presidential debates this year, but you’re scheduled to appear alongside Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in a Democracy Now! special debate segment later this week. What do you expect from the candidates?

      Jill Stein: Truthfully, I don’t expect much that is different from the prior two debates. We’ve had a very enthusiastic response to our forcing real issues and real answers into the debate. There’s a dire need for real discussion here, and the events of even the last week underscore that, now that we have been involved in an exchange of missiles with Yemen. The war is getting bigger and still there is no real discussion of this war, certainly not between Donald and Hillary. Their discussion of the war in the last debate amounted to the question of when exactly did Donald Trump take his various positions about Iraq?

    • Jill Stein Rips John Oliver for ‘Disingenuous Attack’ on Student Loan Debt Plan

      Jill Stein is firing back at John Oliver after the “Last Week Tonight” host criticized Stein’s plan to cancel student loan debt.

      “Coming from someone who made a stunt of buying and canceling medical debt on his show, and who claims to want alternatives to the failed two-party system, this disingenuous attack on the idea of cancelling student debt is both puzzling and hypocritical,” Stein’s campaign said in a statement.

      In the segment, Oliver said that Steins’s plan involved the use of a process called quantitative easing, in which more money is printed and put into circulation.

    • Green Party: Don’t Vote for the Lesser of Two Evils

      Ajamu Baraka is running for Vice President alongside Doctor Jill Stein. He made a campaign stop at Wayne State University Tuesday.

      Baraka says now is a critical time for the Green Party to campaign aggressively.

      “When do we draw a line in the sand and build a real alternative to corporate power? When do we oppose the agenda and the interest of the one percent? 2016 is the time to go ahead and make that change,” Baraka says.

      Baraka says polls show that citizens are disgusted with both major party options for president.

    • Green Party VP hopeful in Detroit: Time to “break two-party monopoly”

      It’s time to reject the “politics of fear,” and embrace third-party alternatives in American politics.

      That was the message Ajamu Baraka had for an audience at Detroit’s Wayne State University on Tuesday.

      Baraka, a longtime political activist who founded the U.S. Human Rights Network, is the Green Party candidate for vice president. He and running mate Jill Stein will appear on the ballot in 45 states, including Michigan.

      Baraka says he and Stein represent an opportunity to “break the two-party monopoly” on government.

    • Where the ‘Bernie or Bust’ movement ends up

      When YahNé Ndgo went to the first presidential debate at Hofstra University, on Long Island, she had a lot on her mind. She had to pack for a couple weeks of appearances and travel along the West Coast. She wanted to buy her 19-year-old daughter some groceries, and maybe even cook some dinner. She hoped they’d have some time to spend together in her hometown, Philadelphia, before Ndgo had to leave on an early morning flight to Arizona.

      Ndgo wasn’t afraid of getting arrested for protesting the exclusion of Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein from the debate, but she just didn’t have the time.

    • The Internet’s Best Rebuttals to John Oliver’s Attack On Jill Stein

      If you have at least one outspoken Hillary supporting friend on your Facebook, chances are you saw a video of John Oliver’s latest hit piece on Jill Stein and Gary Johnson (who we don’t specifically cover in this article. However, his scandals are a lot less terrifying than the two “major party” candidates.)

    • WikiLeaks Just Dropped Bombshell About Hillary’s Health… The Truth, REVEALED!

      WikiLeaks has been Hillary Clinton’s worst nightmare for months, but they just dropped the biggest bombshell yet: They have released emails which confirm just how serious Hillary Clinton’s debilitating health issues are.

      First we learned, Hillary Clinton reached out to the NFL Commissioner in 2012 to ask for advice about dealing with her “cracked head” and head injuries.

      But the details are even worse than that. It has been confirmed that the State Department staff, under Hillary Clinton, was told to research new drugs to treat Parkinson’s disease.

  • Censorship/Free Speech

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • ACLU Wants 23 Secret Surveillance Laws Made Public
    • Trove of Stolen Data Is Said to Include Top-Secret US Hacking Tools
    • NSA official calls for new federal cyber structure
    • Feds need clarity on cyber structures
    • The US Needs One Cyber Defense Agency—Not Three, a Top NSA Official Says
    • NSA: Hackers find an easy path to U.S. systems
    • NSA deputy proposes dedicated U.S. cybersecurity team
    • NSA: No zero days used in last two years

      It is hard to believe that not one single zero-day exploit – or a previously undisclosed vulnerability – has been used against the United States in the last 24 months, and even harder that that fact could be viewed as a negative. But according to Curtis Dukes, deputy national manager for national security systems at the NSA, adversaries did not need to use such exploits, instead taking advantage of poor security and poorly patched systems.

    • Intelligence Contractors Being Paid Millions To Surf The Web, Sext With Teens, Have Affairs With Co-Workers

      There’s way too much fraud, misconduct, and criminal activity in these reports to fully cover here. The 264 pages [PDF] released to Leopold and Vice as the result of an FOIA lawsuit detail extramarital affairs involving supervisors and subordinates, unapproved telecommuting by contractors handling sensitive documents, and page after page of attendance fraud.

      Multiple cases are included, most involving hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars of unearned wages. The intelligence community has the big budget and all the manpower it wants, but it apparently doesn’t have enough actual work to keep them all busy. Contractors have charged taxpayers for hours they never worked, running personal errands, moonlighting as university instructors, and tending their Farmville crops.

      This is the direct result of the community’s “collect it all” attitude. If some is good, more is better, and while budgets and staffing expand exponentially, lots and lots of tax dollars are spent paying contractors who aren’t doing anything and plenty of other contractors engaged in IC busywork that contributes nothing to the nation’s security and safety.

    • Racial Disparities in Police ‘Stingray’ Surveillance, Mapped

      Louise Goldsberry, a Florida nurse, was washing dishes when she looked outside her window and saw a man pointing a gun at her face. Goldsberry screamed, dropped to the floor, and crawled to her bedroom to get her revolver. A standoff ensued with the gunman—who turned out to be an agent with the U.S. Marshals’ fugitive division.

      Goldsberry, who had no connection to a suspect that police were looking for, eventually surrendered and was later released. Police claimed that they raided her apartment because they had a “tip” about the apartment complex. But, according to Slate, the reason the “tip” was so broad was because the police had obtained only the approximate location of the suspect’s phone—using a “Stingray” phone tracker, a little-understood surveillance device that has quietly spread from the world of national security into that of domestic law enforcement.

    • Ex-NSA head suggests US also hacks political parties

      Former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden on Tuesday implied that the United States, too, has hacked foreign political parties.

      The difference between the U.S.’s actions and Russia in the 2016 presidential election, Hayden said, was that “once they got that information, they weaponized it.”

      But up until they weaponized information, Hayden said their actions were par for the course.

      “I have to admit my definition of what the Russians did [in hacking the Democratic National Committee] is, unfortunately, honorable state espionage,” Hayden said during an on-stage interview at the Heritage Foundation.

    • Snowden: the IT analyst turned whistleblower who exposed mass surveillance

      Essentially, this is the tale of an idealistic patriot motivated solely by the common good. He enlists to serve his country and, when the gruelling army regime leads to broken legs and an administrative discharge, he joins the CIA. An unethical field mission in Geneva leads him to resign, only to join the NSA as an infrastructure analyst.

    • NSA’s post-Edward Snowden reforms fall short

      When Edward Snowden swiped a trove of classified information from the National Security Agency and released it to journalists, he exposed deep flaws in the way America’s intelligence community secures its most sensitive computer data. The NSA and the federal government embarked on reforms meant to never allow a breach as devastating and extensive as Snowden’s to happen again.

      Those reforms included overhauling the way Washington conducts background checks on people given access to classified information, a new task force to create and enforce security rules for agencies that handle sensitive data, and cutbacks in the number of employees allowed access to top secret material. Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm that employed Snowden and the recipient of billions of dollars in contracts with the U.S. intelligence community, last year teamed up with Raytheon to create a service that records an employee’s activity on his or her computer screen.

    • Yahoo accused of scanning emails for US government

      The American Civil Liberties Union, Edward Snowden and others criticized Yahoo after an unverified report released Tuesday claimed the company scanned all of its users’ emails for the National Security Agency.

      [...]

      Amnesty International also dashed off a disapproving statement regarding the company.

      “If true, this news will greatly undermine trust in the internet,” said Sherif Elsayed-Ali, head of technology and human rights at the organization.

    • Businesses cooperate with government mass surveillance at their peril, says Edward Snowden

      Resisting government mass surveillance isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s good for business, whistleblower Edward Snowden told a Toronto cybersecurity conference Tuesday.

      Speaking via video link to the annual Canadian industry event SecTor, Snowden brought up the recent revelation that Yahoo! Inc. had agreed to scan customer’s emails for U.S. intelligence. Yahoo also recently disclosed its email accounts were hacked in 2014 and Verizon Communications Inc. has since announced it is attempting to renegotiate its US$4.8 billion agreement to buy the company.

    • Edward Snowden talks privacy, surveillance at Valley cybersecurity conference

      Some call Edward Snowden a hero, while others call him a traitor.

      The whistleblower and former intelligence officer helped launch a global debate on privacy after revealing the National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs in 2013.

      Snowden talked with CyberScout employees and customers via Skype at the Scottsdale company’s fourth annual Privacy Xchange Forum Monday afternoon at the Boulders Resort in Carefree.

    • The Echo Chamber: On Snowden

      Without Snowden and others like him, we would be completely unaware as to how our government is spying on us. But was he in the right? Who gets to decide what is leak-worthy? And how much should our government be spying on us and the world around us? These questions are for you to decide. I just hope that you’ve enjoyed some time outside of The Echo Chamber.

    • Imagine if Donald Trump Controlled the NSA

      When Edward Snowden first came forward in 2013 as the leaker of the biggest trove of National Security Agency secrets ever spilled, he ended his first interview by noting that his greatest concern was about the agency’s future. He feared that a less scrupulous commander-in-chief would take charge of the executive branch and with it, the most highly resourced surveillance agency in the world, ready to be exploited in new and troubling ways. “There will be nothing the people can do at that point to oppose it,” Snowden warned. “And it will be turnkey tyranny.”

      Three years later, America has watched Donald Trump praise foreign dictators from Kim Jong Un to Vladimir Putin, vow to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his opponent, Hillary Clinton, if he’s elected, and call for Russian hackers to dig up Clinton’s emails. “I wish I had that power,” he later said in a campaign speech. “Man, that would be power.” If that statement didn’t sufficiently reveal Trump’s lust for surveillance capabilities, he reportedly listened in on phone calls between staff and guests at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach in the mid-2000s. As Trump and Clinton prepare for their final debate tonight—this time focused on national security—NSA alumni as well as critics are concerned that Trump may be exactly the turnkey tyrant Snowden had in mind.

    • Appeals Court Affirms NSA Surveillance Can Be Used To Investigate Domestic Criminal Suspects

      The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals confirms what’s already known about the NSA’s domestic surveillance: it’s not just for terrorism.

      The NSA collections — done in the FBI’s name — are supposed to only gather info related to international terrorism. But that requirement has been phased out. The NSA “tips” a certain amount of data to the FBI for its own use and it has been shown in the past to do the same for the DEA, which it then instructs to obscure the origin of its info.

      An opinion [PDF] just released by the Appeals Court, says basically the same thing: although the NSA’s surveillance is supposed to be used to sniff out terrorists, there’s nothing in the law that prevents it from using its collections to go after criminals.

    • ACLU takes on Fisa court over secret decisions on surveillance laws

      The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging a secret court to effectively turn its back on deciding the meaning of a broad swath of surveillance and cybersecurity laws without public disclosure.

      A motion the ACLU is filing on Wednesday before the controversial foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court, a panel that operates in secret, argues that the first amendment requires the release of numerous classified decisions between 2001 and 2015 that have established a legal foundation for expanding the government’s surveillance activities.

      Among the Fisa court opinions sought is an interpretation of the seminal Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 that many suspect will shed light on a reported Yahoo program to scan vast amounts of users’ emails.

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • TSA staffer claims retaliation in do-nothing jobs

      A Transportation Security Administration worker is urging criminal charges against the head of the agency for assigning him do-nothing jobs after he won reinstatement to the job he lost as a whistle-blower.

      TSA Administrator Peter Neffenger told Congress that Robert MacLean, a former air marshal who flew undercover and was armed to thwart terrorists, has received substantive assignments since he was reinstated in the decade-long personnel conflict that reached the Supreme Court.

      MacLean was fired in April 2006 for disclosing years earlier to MSNBC that TSA planned to reduce air marshals on overnight flights. TSA charged that he revealed secret information.

      But MacLean fought the dismissal all the way to the Supreme Court, where justices ruled in January 2015 that his disclosures weren’t “specifically prohibited by law.” TSA reinstated him in May 2015 rather than continue the dispute at the Merit Systems Protection Board.

    • Turkey Becomes Brazil: Orders Victim To Pay For Costs Of Trial After Police Blinded Him

      If George Orwell’s “1984″ has become a how-to manual for the modern surveillance state, Terry Gilliam’s dystopian satire “Brazil,” released in 1985, is surely the film of the book (one of the possible titles considered for the film was “1984 ½”). Amongst its many brilliant and disturbing moments, there’s the following dialog from an interview of Mr. Helpmann, the Deputy Minister of Information…

    • Kyrgyz tourist wounded in Gezi protests ordered to pay debt to Turkish state

      A Kyrgyz tourist who was wounded during the Gezi Park protests has been ordered to pay a total of 151 Turkish Liras to the Turkish state even though his injuries were caused by state police.

      Shavkatbek Saipov, 30, filed a complaint against the police, claiming that he lost his eye after a gas canister hit his face, but the court rejected his claims and ordered him to pay 151 liras as “the cost of trial.”

    • Documents Show Chicago PD Secretly Using Forfeiture Funds To Buy Surveillance Equipment

      The Chicago Reader has put together a massive, must-read investigation into the Chicago Police Department’s secret budget. The Chicago PD has — for years now — used the spoils of its asset forfeiture program to obtain surveillance equipment like Stingrays. This discretionary spending is done off the city’s books, allowing the CPD to avoid anything that might prevent it from acquiring surveillance tech — like meddling city legislators… or the public itself.

    • FBI, CBP Join Forces To Turn Airports Into Informant Recruiting Centers

      The FBI and CBP have been using the nation’s borders as recruiting stations for informants. This phrasing makes it sound a lot more voluntary than it actually is. The Intercept has obtained documents showing how these two agencies work together to pressure foreign visitors into basically becoming spies for the United States.

    • Revealed: The FBI’s Secret Methods for Recruiting Informants at the Border

      Think about arriving at the airport from a foreign country. You are tired from a long flight, anxious about your baggage, and thinking about meeting your family in the arrivals area. You may not have seen them in years. Perhaps it is your first time in the United States. Perhaps you do not speak English well. Perhaps you plan to ask for asylum. Perhaps you are coming from a country where interactions with people in uniform generally involve bribery, intimidation, or worse.

      The FBI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection work closely together to turn these vulnerabilities into opportunities for gathering intelligence, according to government documents obtained by The Intercept. CBP assists the FBI in its efforts to target travelers entering the country as potential informants, feeding the bureau passenger lists and pulling people aside for lengthy interrogations in order to gather intelligence from them on the FBI’s behalf, the documents show. In one briefing, CBP bills itself as the “GO TO agency in the Law Enforcement world when it comes to identifying individuals of either source or lead potential.”

      When the FBI wants to find informants that fit a certain profile — say, men of Pakistani origin between the ages of 18 and 35 — it has at its fingertips a wealth of data from government agencies like CBP.

    • Highland Clearances

      Deporting children who have only ever known Scotland is ludicrous. Fairly well the entire community of Laggan has written in support of the Zielsdorfs. Both Jason and Christy have Scottish ancestry.

    • The Ugliest Face of Unionism

      Cohen’s fury that a member of his neo-con clique should be denigrated, leads him to deny the existence of the most extreme misogyny imaginable. It also leads him to make the laughable assertion that the SNP control the media in Scotland. In Scotland the BBC, STV and 80% of the newspapers are viciously anti-SNP. Plainly that is not enough for Cohen. He hates the SNP for providing an alternative to unionism, he hates Corbyn for providing an alternative to neo-liberalism, and he hates the idea of anybody criticising the neo-con cheerleaders. His pathology is simple enough. But why does the Spectator pay him for it?

    • Charges Dropped Against Amy Goodman–No Thanks to Corporate Media

      Few corporate media journalists took note of a fellow reporter being charged with trespass for doing her job (FAIR.0rg, 9/15/16). When the prosecutor upped the ante by trying to build a criminal charge based on his perception of a reporter’s point of view, this still did not provoke much attention—let alone outcry—from outlets whose lucrative commercial enterprises are dependent on the protection of the First Amendment.

    • North Dakota’s War on 1st Amendment Goes From Bad to Worse

      Both sets of charges relate to Goodman’s coverage of protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline project, which is opposed by a Native American–led coalition that is concerned about its threat to sacred and historic sites, North Dakota’s water resources and the planet’s climate. While accusing a journalist of trespassing for covering a breaking story of vital public interest is a clear threat to freedom of the press (FAIR.org, 9/15/16), a riot charge would be even worse, because it would attempt to criminalize Goodman’s point of view as a reporter.

    • Dutch woman raped on vacation receives ‘lenient’ suspended sentence from Qatari court for ‘adultery’

      A Dutch woman who reported being drugged and raped while on vacation in Doha was sentenced to a one-year suspended jail term by a Qatari court for having “illicit sex.” She had been held in custody since March.

      On Monday, a Qatari court sentenced a 22-year-old Dutch woman, known as Laura, to a one-year suspended sentence and fined her 3,000 riyals ($824) for having “extramarital sex.” The woman will be deported once she pays the fine, according to the court’s decision.

      While on vacation in Qatar in March, Laura went out for drinks at an upmarket nightclub in Doha before being taken to an unknown place where she said she was sexually assaulted.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Comcast Sued For Misleading Fees It Claims Are Just Its Way Of Being ‘Transparent’

      In addition to vanilla price hikes and usage caps and overage penalties, ISPs have spent the last few years borrowing a tactic from the banking industry to covertly jack up the advertised price of broadband service: the completely nonsensical hidden fee. From CenturyLink’s $2 per month “Internet Cost Recovery Fee” to Fairpoint’s $3 per month “Broadband Cost Recovery Fee,” such fees usually just hide some of the cost of doing business below the line, letting an ISP advertise one price, then charge something quite different at the end of the month.

    • Vox Joins Growing Chorus Of Outlets Weirdly Crapping On Cord Cutting

      For a few years now there’s been a lazy trend among reporters analyzing “cord cutting,” or the practice of leaving legacy cable TV for streaming alternatives. Usually the narrative goes something like this “cord cutting is (stupid/failing/irrelevant/on the ropes) because users need to subscribe to multiple streaming video services to get the same amount of content they used to get with cable.” Despite these stories popping up pretty much constantly these reports miss a few key points, the biggest being that nobody wants to duplicate the 300 channels of bullshit that comprises the traditional cable bundle.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Trademarks

      • International report – Supreme Court to review exclusion of disparaging marks from federal trademark registration

        On September 29 2016 the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Lee v Tam. In so doing, the Supreme Court agreed to review a decision of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit which held that the statutory prohibition on disparaging marks from federal trademark registration was unconstitutional.

        The trademark application at issue in Lee was for the mark THE SLANTS. The applicant was Simon Shiao Tam, a member of Asian American rock band The Slants. The mark was refused registration under Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, which prohibits the registration of a mark that consists of “immoral, deceptive, or scandalous matter; or matter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute”. The mark was alleged to be likely to be disparaging to persons of Asian descent. After the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the examiner’s rejection of the mark, the applicant appealed to the Federal Circuit. On rehearing en banc, the issue before the Federal Circuit was whether the Lanham Act’s prohibition of disparaging marks burdens private speech in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

    • Copyrights

      • International report – Illegal hyperlinks: the final decision

        Is posting a hyperlink to a work which is protected by copyright allowed? The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has now said yes – and no.

        Since 2012 Sanoma and shockblog GeenStijl.nl have faced each other in court. GeenStijl had posted links on its website to unpublished photos from Playboy, a Sanoma publication. Sanoma claimed that GeenStijl violated its copyright. With the ECJ’s ruling, this long-running case is now approaching a final decision.

10.19.16

Battistelli-Commissioned PwC ‘Study’: The Raw Outcome Shows Distortion of the Facts at the EPO’s Notorious ‘Social Conference’

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 11:50 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

EPO Staff Survey
Larger/full view

Summary: Results of the Staff Survey carried out by PwC (at the behest of Team Battistelli and the expense of EPO budget), in order to provide some propaganda for Battistelli’s expensive Social Conference

“In the Social Study,” say EPO insiders, “PricewaterhouseCoopers [PwC] carried out a staff survey in which 4,065 employees of the EPO participated. As their study presents the results of this survey filtered by the interpretation of PricewaterhouseCoopers, we compiled the actual statistics in the [above] diagram. This helps to give a neutral overview of the feelings of staff as presented in the survey.”

The EPO’s management reportedly excluded a lot of unhappy staff (although it’s based mostly on hearsay/rumours). We wrote about this before. Compare these results to a study commissioned by SUEPO rather than by this liar in chief, Battistelli, who just needed ammunition to justify cracking down on staff and the staff union. This so-called ‘Social Conference’ was just another one of his ludicrous lobbying events. He acts like a politician, which is basically what he is. █

Addendum: EPO’s Alberto Casado Cerviño, WIPO’s Francis Gurry, and EUIPO’s Archambeau

Posted in Europe, Patents at 11:04 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Photos taken as part of an IP event which took place in Riga (Latvia) in March 2015

IN the just-published part one of this series we mentioned the connections between Alberto Casado Cerviño of the EPO and various other bodies, including the now-notorious Francis Gurry, who once competed with Battistelli for the same position (both ended up absolutely loathed by their staff).

Some interesting photos are included below which include many of the “usual suspects” such as Casado, Archambeau (formerly EPO, now EUIPO) and Francis Gurry of the WIPO.

A link to a report on the conference (in Latvian) can be found on the homepage of the Latvian IPO. █

Casado:

CASADO with Sandris Laganovskis of Latvian IPO

Archambeau:

ARCHAMBEAU with head of Latvian IPO Laganovskis

ARCHAMBEAU RIGA 2015

CASDAO with ARCHAMBEAU

Gurry:

CASDAO with GURRY of WIPO

GURRY with head of Latvian IPO Laganovskis

Worrisome Connections Between EPO VP2 Alberto Casado Cerviño and Patricia García-Escudero Márquez

Posted in Europe, Patents at 10:48 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Exploring the potential conflicts of interests implicating the EPO’s Boards of Appeal Committee

TODAY we start a new series about the management of the EPO, or the extended ‘family’ of Battistelli, sometimes known as Team Battistelli or Battistelli’s circle.

Alberto Casado Cerviño is the Vice President of Directorate-General 2 (Operational Support) which is in charge of delivering support for patent administration activities to internal and external users of EPO services, and includes Quality Management, Patent Administration and Information Management.

“The only negative publicity which he has attracted so far within the EPO seems to have been the fact that a number of suicide cases were related to staff in his Directorate-General 2 where Ciaran McGinley (reported to be due to retire shortly) is a Principal Director.”On a day-to-day basis Casado’s role within the EPO is a mostly unobtrusive one and he doesn’t really attract much attention. In fact some people have said that he is almost invisible although he does occasionally appear for management-staff meetings. The only negative publicity which he has attracted so far within the EPO seems to have been the fact that a number of suicide cases were related to staff in his Directorate-General 2 where Ciaran McGinley (reported to be due to retire shortly) is a Principal Director.

But despite his apparently unobtrusive role Casado seems to be a key member of Battistelli’s inner “circle of trust” and is probably relied on to provide important connections to influential circles in Spain.

“Casado’s previous position at the EUIPO in Alicante is worth noting because it underlines the close cross-connections between the upper management of the EPO and the EUIPO (formerly OHIM).”Before joining the EPO, Casado was the Director General of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office (OEPM). Previously he held the posts of “Expert Consultant” of the World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO) and was a Vice-President of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), the EU Trademark Office based in Alicante, which has recently been renamed the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

Casado’s previous position at the EUIPO in Alicante is worth noting because it underlines the close cross-connections between the upper management of the EPO and the EUIPO (formerly OHIM). The current Executive Director of the EUIPO is Antonio Campinos who is rumoured to be interested in the position of EPO President and has been touted as a potential successor to Battistelli. Campinos’ deputy is Christian Archambeau who previously worked at the EPO as Director of Personnel (2002-2010) which is the position currently occupied by Madame Bergot. We wrote about this before.

“Campinos’ deputy is Christian Archambeau who previously worked at the EPO as Director of Personnel (2002-2010) which is the position currently occupied by Madame Bergot.”As previously reported on Techrights [1, 2, 3], the appointment of Casado’s successor as Director General of the OEPM was shrouded in controversy and rumours of procedural irregularities.

The current Director General of the OEPM, Patricia García-Escudero Márquez, is the sister of Pío García-Escudero Márquez (English Wikipedia | Spanish Wikipedia), Count of Badarán, a scion of the Spanish aristocracy and a leading figure in the main conservative party Partido Popular who has been the Chairman of the Spanish Senate since 2011.

With Fair Use arguments (under “criticism”), here are publicly-available photos of Patricia García-Escudero Márquez.

OEPM - Patricia Escudero I

OEPM Patricia Escudero III

OEPM Patricia Garcia Escudero II

In a follow-up article we shall take a closer look at some of the recent Spanish political affairs surrounding the Partido Popular and the role played by Pío García-Escudero Márquez in these matters.

But for the moment let’s get back to Casado whose close connections to the Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo (UIMP) deserve a mention.

The UIMP is a public university with administrative headquarters in Madrid and campuses in Santander, Valencia, Barcelona, Cartagena, Cuenca, Granada, Seville and Tenerife. Interestingly not only Casado but also Patricia García-Escudero Márquez, Campinos and Battistelli seem to have close connections to the UIMP and all of them are regular participants in events organised by the University, in particular the Summer IP Seminars which have been jointly organised by the OEPM and the UIMP since around 2006.

Casado is not too private a person. Here he is at a UIMP event.

CASADO at UIMP event

And some more casual photos in the public record.

CASADO I

CASADO II

CASASO III

In July 2011 an IP Seminar under the title “Innovations, Patents and Internationalising Businesses” was chaired by Casado in his role as Director General of the OEPM supported by Patricia García-Escudero in her then role as the Head of the OEPM’s Dissemination, Communication and Support Unit.

Two of the key speakers were Benoît Battistelli (EPO President) and Antonio Campinos (OHIM President). There was also a roundtable discussion moderated by Casado and featuring Campinos and Battistelli.

In July 2014 at the conclusion of one such event Battistelli was awarded with an honorary doctorate by the UIMP. Here is a photograph:

Battistelli UIMP

The latest event entitled “Protecting innovations in Spain: the new Patent Law” was held in July 2016. A video of Battistelli’s contribution can be seen here. Somebody should make a copy of the video before it disappears. For the sake of curation and long-term preservation we are making local copies of the event’s details [PDF] and also a programme from 2011 [PDF] (as referred to above).

“In July 2014 at the conclusion of one such event Battistelli was awarded with an honorary doctorate by the UIMP.”Battistelli is introduced by the current OEPM Director-General Patricia García-Escudero and the third person at the speaker’s table is none other than EPO Vice-President Casado.

Some readers may ask why these connections are of interest.

The answer lies in the recent appointments to the new supervisory body of the EPO Boards of Appeal, the Boards of Appeal Committee or “BOAC” as it is known internally. One of the members of this body is the OEPM Director-General Patricia García-Escudero.

“Based on the connections outlined above we are inclined to think that his favorite “pet chinchilla” on the BOAC is most likely to be Ms. García-Escudero.”Techrights recently reported that Roland Grossenbacher has also been appointed to this body and referred to him in this context as a longtime ally of Battistelli. We are not sure that Battistelli can still rely on Grossenbacher as a loyal ally, based on information received just days ago. Based on the connections outlined above we are inclined to think that his favorite "pet chinchilla" on the BOAC is most likely to be Ms. García-Escudero.

This first part will be followed by an article about recent Spanish political affairs surrounding the Partido Popular and the role played by Pío García-Escudero Márquez (brother of the current OEPM Director General and Casado’s successor). After that we will have a short update about VP4 (Željko Topić), who is effectively Battistelli’s ‘bulldog’ at the EPO (with a notorious and long track record). █

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