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11.26.15

Saving the Integrity of the European Patent Office (EPO)

Posted in Europe, Patents at 12:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The imperialist ambitions of a patent office result in growing neglect of local actors

French coup d'état
Management takeover by Team Battistelli similar to French coup d’état of 1851

Summary: Some timely perspective on what’s needed at the European Patent Office, which was detabilised by ‘virtue’ of making tyrants its official figureheads

THE main concern I have always had regarding the EPO was potential granting of software patents in Europe. I even wrote a letter to the Enlarged Board of Appeal about it (that was half a decade ago). As a software engineer surrounded by other software engineers I know that people who write software (computer programs) don’t want to bother with patents. They needn’t worry about who got a monopoly on which algorithm (copyright law is more than sufficient here). This worry is further accentuated when dealing with Free/Open Source software, where a lot of compartmentalised code gets imported/grafted (not licensed per se), and it is infeasible to start checking what line of code may infringe which patent. It would be lunacy to review hundreds of thousands of US patents before undertaking the simple task of writing a program. It would also put one at greater risk (higher damages due to willful infringement).

“It would be lunacy to review hundreds of thousands of US patents before undertaking the simple task of writing a program.”EPO management would have to lie (with a straight face even!) if it persisted in portraying its opposition as aiming to ‘destabilise’ the Office. There is a big difference between destabilisation and reform. There are many abuses taking place inside the EPO, putting aside our concern about software patents. The need to obey the law or the efforts to compel the EPO’s managers to obey European laws aren’t ‘destabilisation’ efforts. Imagine a political parable; dictatorships like to say that their opposition is ‘destabilising’ a nation, or trying to cause chaos. Any dictatorship that deems itself ‘benevolent’ (which dictatorship has ever believed otherwise about itself?) will always insist on crushing opposition. That’s why elections are imperative (with time limits for one single individual to run) and there is a clear separation between media and governance for instance — a separation which EPO evidently no longer respects.

“Contrary to misleading portrayals from Team Battistelli, EPO staff is not violent. The aggressor here is actually the management.”The EPO took many decades to acquire its reputation (quickly eroded by Team Battistelli, in just a few years), so efforts to fix the EPO are actually defensive and they are intended to rescue the EPO’s integrity. Sometimes from a temporary/localised destruction (e.g. of tyranny at the top) comes liberation. Sometimes it’s known as revolution, although the word revolution has negative connotations (with blood and violence).

Contrary to misleading portrayals from Team Battistelli, EPO staff is not violent. The aggressor here is actually the management.

“The EPO can learn from the failings of lesser successful patent systems — systems which the EPO’s current managers increasingly emulate.”EPO staff continues to receive a salary and it would in no way help this staff if it saw the EPO going away (pensions too may be at stake). What definitely would harm this staff — in the long term — is an EPO that suffers reputation erosion, due in part to poor patents (too broad or easily invalided in courts, e.g. using prior art which examiners overlooked). They would devalue EPO patents, which would no longer be able to justify their high and ever-rising cost. To shield the integrity of the EPO the management needs to:

  1. Stop harassing staff, as it makes recruitment of talented examiners a lot harder and leads to a loss of many skilled and experienced patent examiners
  2. Re-examine the scope of patents because in some domains (e.g. software) patents do more societal and professional harm than good
  3. Re-examine the pace of patenting because quality should come before quantity and too many patents merely saturate the market, diluting/reducing each patent’s worth
  4. Restore patent neutrality, meaning that large corporations should no longer receive preferential treatment

There are many more points to be made, but this is just a very partial list. Reform is needed and the current management — not the staff — is resistant to a reform. It’s funny just how the management reversed this whole situation, painting the examiners as Luddites. Who’s really the Luddite here? It’s Orwellian spin.

“It’s funny just how the management reversed this whole situation, painting the examiners as Luddites.”The EPO can learn from the failings of less successful patent systems — systems which the EPO’s current managers increasingly emulate. Publicly posing or liaising with Chinese patent officials, for instance, is no triumph but arguably an embarrassment for a number of reasons (beyond the scope of this post). TechDirt, which wrote about Techrights yesterday, has many articles on this subject. In fact, it wrote several such articles yesterday.

TechDirt now shows evidence of the strategy of accumulating a massive number of junk patents [1] (when about 92% of applications get patents granted at the end, what is the role of examination really?) to then attack rivals in the domestic market [2] in China (just like the USPTO and ITC enable). With UPC, widespread injunctions (a la ITC) would become possible and patent scope would likely expand, not just in the domain sense but also the geographical sense (making more parties liable and thus subjected to legal threats, if not outright actions).

Today’s EPO management is bad for science, bad for lawyers (especially in the long term), bad for examiners, and even bad for European businesses, which it discriminates against. Who is the EPO good for? Evidence serve to suggest that it serves multinational conglomerates. It’s like an imperial institution, complete with mass surveillance, witch-hunting, and mental torture (so-called ‘interrogation’ of perceived dissent which poses a threat to the empire). █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Stupid Patent Of The Month: Infamous Prison Telco Patents Asking Third-Parties For Money

    There are two serious problems with this patent. First, the claims are directed to a mind-numbingly mundane business practice and should have been rejected as obvious. Obvious uses or combinations of existing technology are not patentable. Second, the claims are ineligible for patent protection under the Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank—this is a recent Supreme Court decision that holds that an abstract idea (like contacting potential third-party payers) doesn’t become eligible for a patent simply because it is implemented using generic technology. That the system failed to register either of these defects shows deep dysfunction.

  2. Chinese Company Learns From The West: Builds Up Big Patent Portfolio, Uses It To Sue Apple In China

    For many years now, Western governments have been complaining about China’s supposed lack of respect for intellectual monopolies, and constantly pushing the country’s politicians to tighten the legal framework protecting them. To anyone not blinded by an unquestioning belief in the virtues of copyright and patent maximalism, it was pretty clear where this strategy would end. Indeed, over five years ago, Mike warned where this was leading: towards China repeatedly punishing foreign companies to protect domestic Chinese firms — in other words, leveraging patents as a tool for protectionism.

A Call for Bloggers and Journalists: Did EPO Intimidate and Threaten You Too? Please Speak Out.

Posted in Site News at 10:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The EPO’s standards for media and communications similar to those of Myanmar

Flag of Myanmar

Summary: An effort to discover just how many people out there have been subjected to censorship and/or self-censorship by EPO aggression against the media

WHAT the EPO did to us [1, 2, 3] last month and earlier this month (for a number of weeks) is important because it can help inform other sites of what EPO has been up to and how to stand up to it. We already have evidence to show that Team Battistelli is using the “chilling effect” against politicians, lawyers, bloggers, journalists, and even government delegates. How far will these sociopaths go? The EPO is already aping Myanmar’s low standards for media and communications.

“For EPO staff (not managers) remedy may already be on the way, especially as more people become aware of these issues and English-speaking journalists finally write more about it.”In our first part of this multi-part series we showed our reasons for suspicion that EPO lawyers had lazily used a template and didn’t even change the name when they sent a threatening letter. This led us to the supposition that other sites were being threatened with action too. We don’t know which sites — if any — these were. This kind of evidence suggests that other such letters were sent to other publishers, demanding that they take down their articles about the EPO. We don’t know if such letters were maybe to SUEPO as well (takedown letters). We already know that SUEPO removed some links from its public site. EPO management put them under threat, hence FOSS Patents links and Heise links got removed (we wrote about this at the time, back in early autumn). Any information about what exactly happened back then would be greatly appreciated. There is a campaign of “chilling effect” against dissent and if nobody speaks out, as a French blogger did a few months ago, we wouldn’t know just how widespread this campaign is. Based on the letter we received, it is likely that the EPO went also after German blogger or journalist (someone called Mr. Schneider).

For EPO staff (not managers) remedy may already be on the way, especially as more people become aware of these issues and English-speaking journalists finally write more about it. More of them will weigh in more often throughout the rest of this year, based on information that we have. Reprieve won’t come from EPO collapse but from EPO managers accepting that they need to obey the law (or resign). █

“A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.”

–Baltasar Gracian

European Patent Office (EPO) a “Kingdom Above the EU Countries, a Tyranny With ZERO Accountability”

Posted in Site News at 10:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Like Ferdinand Marcos, Benoît Battistelli declares de facto martial law (with help from Control Risks) to perpetuate his tyranny and aggressively eliminate dissent

Benigno Aquino

Summary: Criticism of the EPO’s thuggish behaviour and endless efforts to crush dissenting voices by all means available, even when these means are in clear violation of international or European laws

The EPO‘s attempts to gag and/or censor Techrights using threats [1, 2] is becoming the subject of some news coverage with a broad audience. As this one article (among several) put it: “In fact, to argue that Schestowitz’s post is defamatory is crazy. Threatening Schestowitz with a defamation claim is much crazier and dangerous than even Schestowitz’s own interpretation of the EPO’s memo. If you’re working for a government agency, such as the EPO, you have to be willing to accept some amount of criticism, even if you disagree with it. To claim it’s defamation and to threaten a lawsuit is really, really screwed up. [...] I’m having trouble thinking of any other governmental agency that has ever threatened a public critic with defamation. Basic concepts around free speech suggest that the EPO should suck it up. If it disagrees with Schestowitz’s interpretation of what it’s doing, then it can come out and explain its side of the story. Threatening him with defamation actually only makes me think that perhaps his interpretation hits closer to home than I originally believed.”

“That might be one important reason why cleaning out the EPO stable is different from FIFA. At the EPO, there are victims.”
      –AnonymousI am not the first EPO and/or UPC critic whom the EPO threatened to sue, it’s just that a lot of people don’t know about these cases. The EPO hopes that its victims will stay silent and afraid. In fact, this one example may have resulted in the site becoming inactive (for a number of years now).

Techrights is eager to get to the bottom of everything and won’t give up as the EPO probably hoped it would. “I finish on one straw of hope,” an anonymous comment wrote last night. “Thinking about FIFA, there are not thousands of employees involved. That might be one important reason why cleaning out the EPO stable is different from FIFA. At the EPO, there are victims.”

Some of these victims commit suicide, too.

“In the coming days or weeks we intend to show that what the EPO did wasn’t just foolish but also dubious from a legal standpoint.”The EPO is clearly out of control. It is a quasi-political entity working using taxpayers’ money (to some degree) and abusing those taxpayers. Think about if for a moment; that’s worse than the British Conservative party hypothetically threatening to sue blogs critical of British Conservatives. In the case of the EPO it’s even worse because it was not even elected and the British Conservative party is not taking the money of the public to use for its own promotion at election time.

In the coming days or weeks we intend to show that what the EPO did wasn’t just foolish but also dubious from a legal standpoint. Then again, the EPO doesn’t exactly care about what’s legal. It mostly disregards the laws and makes up its own on a whim (or the President’s whim). The two last comments which stand out in the above article say that “EPOnia is not a “government agency”, it is legally a Kingdom above the EU countries, it is a tyranny with ZERO accountability… legal-wise”; another says “German employer rules or any other EU country do not apply inside EPOnia”.

If EPO thinks that it is above international law, then we need to show here just to what degree it disregards — if not deliberately violates — the law. █

“Denial ain`t just a river in Egypt.”

–Mark Twain

Links 26/11/2015: The $5 Raspberry Pi Zero, Running Sans Systemd Gets Hard

Posted in News Roundup at 9:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • Video: PBS Pro Workload Manager Goes Open Source
  • Turris Omnia: high-security, high-performance, open-source router

    An Indigogo campaign was recently launched for the Turis Omnia, promising backers a high-security, high-performance, open-source router.

    “With powerful hardware, Turris Omnia can handle gigabit traffic and still be able to do much more,” the company said.

    “You can use it as a home server, NAS, printserver, and it even has a virtual server built-in.”

  • IBM SystemML Machine Learning Technology Goes Open-Source
  • PuppetLabs Introduces Application Orchestration

    Everybody loves Puppet! Or at the very least, an awful lot of people USE Puppet and in the IT world, “love” is often best expressed by the opening of one’s wallet. I know, in the FOSS world wallets are unnecessary, and Puppet does indeed have an Open Source version. However, once one gets to enterprise-level computing, a tool designed for enterprise scale is preferable and usually there is a cost associated.

    Puppet was originally started as an open source project by Luke Kanies in 2005, essentially out of frustration with the other configuration management products available at the time. Their first commercial product was released in 2011, and today it is the most widely used configuration management tool in the world with about 30,000 companies running it. According to our own surveys, better than 60% of Linux Journal readers use some form of Puppet already and you must like it too as it regularly finishes at or near the top in Readers’ Choice awards.

  • My Open Source Thanksgiving List: Wine, Netflix, OpenWrt and More

    Running 3.1 miles through my hometown. Consuming unreasonable quantities of simple carbohydrates, fat and sodium. Pretending that the former activity justifies the latter. These are some of my favorite Thanksgiving traditions.

  • Give back and support open source

    Here I am, almost 20 years into my own crazy open source story, and it shows no sign of abating.

  • IBM open-sources machine learning SystemML

    IBM is aiming to popularise its proprietary machine learning programme SystemML through open-source communities.

  • Events

  • Web Browsers

    • Mozilla

      • Mozilla contributor creates diabetes project for the masses

        My open source story started in high school as a student. I always considered myself to be a hacker—not the malicious type, but the curious type who liked to tinker with code and hardware. My first encounter with open source was in 2001 when I installed my first Linux distro, Lindows. Of course, I was also an early user of Mozilla Firefox.

      • Mozilla: we’re not getting money from Google any more but we’re doing fine

        For many years, Firefox developer Mozilla generated substantial income from a sponsorship deal with Google; the search and advertising firm paid Mozilla in return for Firefox making Google its default search engine. That deal was ended last year, with Firefox defaulting to Yahoo in the US, Yandex in Russia, and Baidu in China.

      • Best Firefox Add-ons for a Better YouTube Experience

        From blocked videos to annoying ads, there are many things about YouTube we don’t like. These restrictions and distractions only dampen the amazing experience that the video-sharing website is meant to provide. If you are a Firefox user, however, you won’t have to worry about such things. Firefox offers a variety of add-ons that let you fix pretty much any annoyance that YouTube has. Furthermore, they also let you download videos right to your desktop so that you can watch them whenever you want, even without a connection.

      • Mozilla Releases Thunderbird 38.4.0 to Patch High and Critical Security Issues

        Mozilla has announced the release of a new maintenance version of the popular, open-source, and cross-platform Mozilla Thunderbird 38 email and news client for all supported operating systems, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows.

      • Pale Moon 25.8.0 (Firefox Based Browser) Has Been Released

        As you may know, Pale Moon is an open-source, cross-platform browser based on Mozilla Firefox, being up to 25% faster then the original.

        Palemoon is based on Firefox, has support for the official Firefox extensions, but does not contain all of the Firefox features, including: social API, accessibility features, WebRTC and has some specific customizations and configuration options which are not available on Firefox.

  • SaaS/Big Data

    • Practical tips for working with OpenStack

      To build your own cloud and take advantage of the power of the open source powered OpenStack project takes dedicated resources and a good bit of learning. Due to the size of the project and the pace of development, keeping up can be difficult. The good news is that there are many resources to help, including the official documentation, a variety of OpenStack training and certification programs, as well as community-authored guides.

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice Has About 1,200 UI-Related Reported Bugs, Come and Help Fix Them

      LibreOffice might be a great office suite, but the community doesn’t like the fact that the UI still looks kind of dated. The good news is that anyone with some coding skills can try to fix that by working on the project.

    • Improving the Toolbars in LibreOffice

      With the Design team, we are working on improving toolbars in LibreOffice. This is part of our long-term goal, making LibreOffice “simple for beginners and powerful for experts“.

      Toolbars in LibreOffice are currently quite limited: A toolbar can have icons, or custom widgets, in a row. You can switch between icon-only, icon+text or text-only display.

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • Area51 updates (KDE on FreeBSD)

      The area51 repository continues to update, even as the official ports tree for FreeBSD sticks with KDE4. Since the KDE-FreeBSD team is also responsible for the official ports, that basically means that not everything has been shaken out yet, and that the team doesn’t feel that it can provide a really good Frameworks5 / Plasma5 / Applications installation .. yet. I’ve been playing with ideas for a default desktop wallpaper (the upstream default gives me a headache; I’d really like to combine Flying Konqui by Timothée Giet with bubbles made from the BSD logo.

  • FSF/FSFE/GNU/SFLC

    • GNU.org Website Says Microsoft’s Software Is Malware

      GNU.org has a category on its website named “Philosophy of the GNU Project,” where the Microsoft software is described as malware, along with Apple and Amazon.

    • Supporting Software Freedom Conservancy

      There are a number of important organizations in the Open Source and Free Software world that do tremendously valuable work. This includes groups such as the Linux Foundation, Free Software Foundation, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Apache Software Foundation, and others.

    • Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

      Today Software Freedom Conservancy announces a major fundraising effort. Pointing to the difficulty of relying on corporate funding while pursuing important but controversial issues, like GPL compliance, Conservancy has structured its fundraiser to increase individual support. The organization needs at least 750 annual Supporters to continue its basic community services and 2500 to avoid hibernating its enforcement efforts. If Conservancy does not meet its goals, it will be forced to radically restructure and wind down a substantial portion of its operations.

    • GIMP 2.8.16 Has Been Released
    • 20 Years of GIMP Evolution: Step by Step

      GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) – superb open source and free graphics editor. Development began in 1995 as students project of the University of California, Berkeley by Peter Mattis and Spencer Kimball. In 1997 the project was renamed in “GIMP” and became an official part of GNU Project. During these years the GIMP is one of the best graphics editor and platinum holy wars “GIMP vs Photoshop” – one of the most popular.

    • Infinity status

      I’m winding down for a month away from Infinity. The current status is that the language and note format changes for 0.0.2 are all done. Y

  • Licensing

    • Free Router Software Not In The Crosshairs, FCC Clarifies

      FCC will not seek to ban free software from wireless routers, according to a clarification it made earlier this month on a rulemaking related to radio devices. An earlier draft of the official proposal included a specific reference to device manufacturers restricting installation of the open-source project DD-WRT.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • San Francisco sets sights on open source voting by November 2019

      Open-source voting systems bring a greater level of transparency and accountability by allowing the public to have access to the source codes of the system, which is used to tabulate the votes. A system owned by The City could also save taxpayers money.

    • Road testing the community-powered grocery store

      Building a business in an open and collaborative way can be a wonderfully rewarding experience, engaging both the members of the organization as well as the customers in a unique relationship based on common, transparent goals, while growing a sense of community around the venture.

      Last year, Shaun McCance wrote an article for Opensource.com, 4 tips from growing a community grocery store, where he shared his experiences from the initial steps of building a co-operative (co-op) grocery store in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, applying similar practices that many open source software projects use in software development.

  • Standards/Consortia

    • Denmark’s Aarhus insists on open IT standards

      Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, is requiring the use of open IT standards for all of its future IT projects. This way, the city aims to rid itself of IT vendor lock-in. Aarhus is currently ”fenced in by contracts, proprietary software and proprietary standards”, says Camilla Tække, leading the change management project for the city. “This is a change in culture, not just as a technical one.”

Leftovers

  • The Immaculate British

    Coe may be a Tory Lord, but he is a disgrace not fit to lead international athletics. When will the British learn that corruption is not something that just happens abroad? If the standards of British public life were ever higher, we have the living breathing examples of Sebastian Coe and Tony Blair to show us what a sleazy entity Britain has now become.

  • Science

    • Geeks visit Bletchley Park, birthplace of the Turing machine

      What do a few geeks do when they find themselves on the way to Dublin for LinuxCon Europe? They make a side trip to Bletchley Park, of course. Seeing the place where Alan Turing, father of computer science, broke the German Nazi Enigma codes in the second World War was quite an experience. In this article, Jeffrey Osier-Mixon (community manager at the Yocto Project at Intel) and I describe a few of the highlights of our geeky and wonderful side trip.

      Bletchley Park was one of Britain’s best-kept secrets, and for decades after the war, the people who worked there were still sworn to secrecy. The work at Bletchley Park is believed to have saved thousands of lives and shortened the war by about two years, but it wasn’t until 2009 that the people working at Bletchley were publicly recognized for their service. For more about the history, read an in-depth story on the Bletchley Park website.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • ‘They’re Not Americans’: CNN Guest Justifies Massive Attacks on Civilians

      Scheuer’s proudly sociopathic views should come as no surprise. In December 2013, he called for the assassination of President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron…

    • Cultural figures and rights groups call for release of poet facing execution

      Leading international cultural figures have joined human rights campaigners in calling for the release of Ashraf Fayadh, the Palestinian poet and artist facing execution in Saudi Arabia.

      Chris Dercon, the director of Tate Modern, British poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, historian Simon Schama, playwright David Hare, and Egyptian novelist and commentator Ahdaf Soueif are among the those calling for the death sentence imposed on Fayadh by a Saudi court last week to be overturned.

      More than a dozen organisations for artists, writers, musicians and freedom of expression from the UK, North America and Africa – including Index on Censorship, literary association PEN International and the International Association of Art Critics – have also signed a joint statement condemning Fayadh’s conviction for renouncing Islam, a charge which he denies.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • Feeding ‘Godzilla’: As Indonesia Burns, Its Government Moves To Increase Forest Destruction

      In the midst of its worst fire crisis in living memory, the Indonesian government is taking a leap backward on forest protection. The recently signed Council of Palm Oil Producing Nations between Indonesia and Malaysia, signed at the weekend in Kuala Lumpur, will attempt to wind back palm oil companies’ pledges to end deforestation.

      This is despite Indonesia’s efforts to end fires and palm oil cultivation on peatlands.

      If successful the move will undo recent attempts to end deforestation from palm oil production, and exacerbate the risk of future forest fires.

  • Finance

    • British Values

      That throws a rather lurid light on what could be done with the £175 billion admitted cost of Trident, if we lived in a society with less crazed values.

    • CNN Analyst “Shocked There’s No Violence” During Chicago Protests
    • How the Gates Foundation Reflects the Good and the Bad of “Hacker Philanthropy”

      Despite its impact, few book-length assessments of the foundation’s work have appeared. Now Linsey McGoey, a sociologist at the University of Essex, is seeking to fill the gap. “Just how efficient is Gates’s philanthropic spending?” she asks in No Such Thing as a Free Gift. “Are the billions he has spent on U.S. primary and secondary schools improving education outcomes? Are global health grants directed at the largest health killers? Is the Gates Foundation improving access to affordable medicines, or are patent rights taking priority over human rights?”

      As the title of her book suggests, McGoey answers all of these questions in the negative. The good the foundation has done, she believes, is far outweighed by the harm. In education, she maintains, most of its initiatives have either gone bust or failed to deliver on their promises. The foundation’s first great education initiative focused on creating small schools in place of big ones, on the assumption that doing so would allow students to receive more individualized attention. From 2000 to 2008, it spent $2 billion to establish 2,602 schools across the United States, affecting a total of nearly 800,000 students. Unfortunately, the experiment failed to improve college acceptance rates to the degree that the Gateses had hoped, and so they abruptly terminated it.

      Instead, the foundation channeled its resources into a host of other initiatives — increased data collection on teacher effectiveness, the introduction of performance-based teacher pay, more standardized testing for students. The foundation has invested heavily in charter schools and vigorously backed the Common Core, which sets national reading and math standards. These are all key elements of the so-called school reform movement. Arne Duncan, as head of Chicago’s public schools, worked closely with both the Gates and Broad foundations, and as President Obama’s secretary of education he sought to implement many of their ideas.

      McGoey (along with many others) is sharply critical of this movement. She cites studies that show that charter schools have performed no better or worse than traditional public schools, and she notes that the Gates Foundation itself has backed away from its once vocal support for assessing teacher performance on the basis of student test scores. While the willingness of the Gateses to change their minds in the face of evidence is admirable, McGoey writes, the reforms they championed “are now entrenched. For many teachers and students, their recent handwringing over the perils of high-stakes testing has come a little too late.”

      [...]

      On one point, however, McGoey is convincing — the need for more analysis of this powerful foundation and the man and woman at its head. Bill and Melinda Gates answer to no electorate, board, or shareholders; they are accountable mainly to themselves. What’s more, the many millions of dollars the foundation has bestowed on nonprofits and news organizations has led to a natural reluctance on their part to criticize it. There’s even a name for it: the “Bill Chill” effect.

      That’s not to say that there has been no critical coverage of the foundation’s work. Diane Ravitch has excoriated Gates along with the rest of the school reform movement in her book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, as well as on her blog. The New York Times and other papers have offered occasional close examinations of Gates’ work. And Joanne Barkan, in a 2011 article in Dissent titled, “Got Dough? How Billionaires Rule Our Schools,” offered a thoroughgoing critique of the education work of Gates and its fellow foundations. In another Dissent article on “how big philanthropy undermines democracy,” Barkan complained that “the mainstream media are, for the most part, failing miserably in their watchdog duties. They give big philanthropy excessive deference and little scrutiny.”

      That may be changing. Alessandra Stanley, writing in the Times in late October, offered a skeptical assessment of the outsized claims made by Sean Parker and other Silicon Valley philanthropists. “Tech entrepreneurs believe their charitable giving is bolder, bigger and more data-driven than anywhere else — and in many ways it is,” she observed. “But despite their flair for disruption, these philanthropists are no more interested in radical change than their more conservative predecessors. They don’t lobby for the redistribution of wealth; instead, they see poverty and inequality as an engineering problem, and the solution is their own brain power, not a tithe.”

      [...]

      We need more probing accounts of this sort. The power of the new barons of philanthropy is only going to grow. The risks they take and the bets they make will no doubt become bolder. If journalists don’t hold them accountable, who will?

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

  • Censorship

    • Another Court Logically Concludes That Linking To Allegedly Defamatory Content Isn’t Defamation

      Many members of the public believe the internet is subject to a completely different set of laws when it comes to defamation. Fortunately, sanity (mostly) continues to reign when courts apply REAL laws to newfangled message delivery systems. There are exceptions, of course. An Australian court recently declared Google to be the “publisher” of defamatory content posted by other people at other websites, but returned in search results. A Canadian court found a blogger personally liable for republishing defamatory statements made by others.

  • Privacy

    • Dell Compromises Customers’ Security with Pre-Installed Rootkit
    • Dell computers bundled with backdoor that blurts hardware fingerprint to websites

      Dell ships Windows computers with software that lets websites slurp up the machine’s exact specifications, warranty status, and other details without the user knowing.

      This information can be used to build a fingerprint that potentially identifies a person while she browses across the web. It can be abused by phishers and scammers, who can quote the information to trick victims into thinking they’re talking to a legit Dell employee. And, well, it’s just plain rude.

      A website created by a bloke called Slipstream – previously in these pages for exposing security holes in UK school IT software – shows exactly how it can work.

    • Every cloud has an unknown lining

      I don’t go so far as Richard Stallman, who condemns clouds as a proprietary trap to be avoided at all costs. However, if you are going to use commercial clouds, encrypt your data with a key that only you or your company members possess. Better yet, set up a private cloud, and secure it to your satisfaction.

    • Reddit will honor ‘Do Not Track’ requests from visitors

      Reddit has decided to honor ‘Do Not Track,’ a feature that will ensure that it does not download third-party analytics on to browsers that enable the option.

      The DNT option allows users to ask their browser to send websites they access a request or signal to opt-out, for example, from third-party tracking for purposes such as behavioral advertising. But as Reddit points out, websites can interpret the signal however they want and most ignore it.

    • Let’s Encrypt: The FSF beta tests a new Certificate Authority

      Let’s Encrypt is a non-profit Certificate Authority (CA), run by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), which aims to make the process of getting X.509 certificates for Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption a trivial process, as well as cost-free.

    • Stronger Locks, Better Security

      What if, in response to the terrorist attacks in Paris, or cybersecurity attacks on companies and government agencies, the FBI had come to the American people and said: In order to keep you safe, we need you to remove all the locks on your doors and windows and replace them with weaker ones. It’s because, if you were a terrorist and we needed to get to your house, your locks might slow us down or block us entirely. So Americans, remove your locks! And American companies: stop making good locks!

    • Montana Standard newspaper plans to retroactively unmask anonymous commenters

      I must say that I’m extremely skeptical that it is really technically “impossible,” or even highly impractical, to maintain the anonymity of past comments. If the newspaper really valued its readers’ privacy, and the promise that seems to me to be made in the Privacy Policy (and that is in any event implicitly expected by commenters), I would think that some technical solution would have been eminently possible, even if it would involve some modest expense and hassle. (For instance, I assume the tech people could just replace the real names in all the existing user entries with the screen names, and then block any future posts from those now-fully-anonymous accounts. That would require users to create new real-name-based accounts, but that seems a modest price to pay for maintaining the privacy of the old accounts.)

  • Civil Rights

    • Court Rules Assassination Memo Can Stay Secret

      A MEMO ABOUT HOW the George W. Bush administration interpreted a ban on assassination can be kept secret, along with other legal documents about the drone war, a federal appeals court said in a ruling made public Monday.

      For several years, the American Civil Liberties Union and the New York Times have been suing to wrench documents from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Council that outline the rationale for killing suspected terrorists. Specifically, they sought the release of the justification for drone strikes that killed three U.S. citizens in Yemen in the fall of 2011: Anwar al Awlaki, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al Awlaki, and Samir Khan.

    • ‘You Don’t See Big Changes Without Major Scandals’ – CounterSpin interview with Nicholas Kusnetz on state government accountability

      If you want to keep believing that, you should on no account read the latest State Integrity Investigation from the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity. It grades state governments on criteria including electoral oversight, legislation accountability, lobbying disclosure and public access to information, and the results are not good.

    • How the Gambia banned female ​genital ​mutilation

      Female genital mutilation is still practised at a rate of one girl every 11 seconds around the world in 29 countries. At least 130 million women and girls live with the consequences of having their sexual organs forcibly mutilated, with many suffering from fistula, maternal mortality, child mortality, infection from Aids and typhus, and post-traumatic stress.

      Just 10 minutes before Yahya Jammeh, president of the Gambia, announced on Monday night that the controversial surgical intervention would be outlawed in his country, Jaha Dukureh, an anti-FGM campaigner, received a call from the president’s office to let her know that her work had been successful. They told her the president would announce that the Gambia was moving into the 21st century and there was no place for FGM in the modern state.

    • Meditation Helped Me Survive Death Row and 19 Years of Wrongful Imprisonment

      My name is Damien Echols, and in 1993 I was arrested for three counts of capital murder in the town of West Memphis, Arkansas. Nine months later I was sentenced to death, and spent almost 19 years on death row before being released in 2011 when new evidence came to light.

      Prison is a dark and stagnant place. It’s filled with the most cold, horrendous energy you can imagine. It feels like a kind of psychic filth that penetrates into your very soul.

      Much of magick is about is learning to change states of consciousness at will. I learned to use meditation and ritual as shields. They prevented the hellish energy of prison from changing me and making me more like the people all around me—people who had given up on even trying to be human.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Dropped AAAA record from DNS

      I host my blog on small machine somewhere in OVH. As part of package I got IPv6 address for it. Five minutes ago I decided to no longer use it.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Bernd Lange accepts perverse incentives in ISDS

      Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament international trade committee, has sent a letter to EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström regarding the EU commission’s investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) reform proposal.

      His letter shows that he overlooks many deficiencies in the commission’s proposal, among them perverse incentives. The proposed system lacks integrity and would undermine our values. I will go through his letter line by line.

    • Copyrights

      • YouTube to defend clear examples of fair use, even in court

        YouTube to litigate copyright infringement/fair use actions on behalf of users harassed by subject to inappropriate DMCA takedown requests?

        This is apparently what is going to happen soon, as IP enthusiast Nedim Malovic (Stockholm University) explains.

      • Insurer Refuses to Cover Cox in Massive Piracy Lawsuit

        Trouble continues for one of the largest Internet providers in the United States, with a Lloyds underwriter now suing Cox Communications over an insurance dispute. The insurer is refusing to cover legal fees and potential piracy damages in Cox’s case against BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music.

      • Dear European Commission, could you at least pretend you’re listening to us?

        C4C and several of its signatories co-signed two open letters, one addressed to the European Commission and the other to the European Parliament, in order to share our concerns regarding the European Commission’s current approach on copyright matters in its public consultations.

      • Cayman loses out in Bob Marley copyright dispute

        The English Court of Appeal has ruled that record label Cayman Music does not own the copyright to 13 songs composed by musician Bob Marley, including the hit “No Woman, No Cry”.

        Lord Justice Kitchin was joined by Lady Justice Arden and Lord Justice Lloyd Jones in ruling that the 13 songs were part of a 1992 agreement in which Cayman Music transferred the rights to Island Records.

      • German Publisher Axel Springer Just Can’t Stop Suing Ad Blockers, And Attacking Its Own Readers

        As you hopefully already know, we take a bit of a different view of ad blockers around here on Techdirt, recognizing that many people have very good reasons for using them, and we have no problem if you make use of them. In fact, we give you the option of turning off the ads on Techdirt separately, whether or not you use an ad blocker. And we try to make sure that the ads on Techdirt are not horrible, annoying or dangerous (and sometimes, hopefully, they’re even useful). Most publications, however, continue to take a very antagonistic view towards their very own communities and readers, and have attacked ad blockers, sometimes blocking users from reading content if they have an ad blocker. Perhaps no publication has fought harder against ad blockers than German publishing giant Axel Springer, the same company that frequently blames Google for its own failure to adapt.

      • Axel Springer Goes After iOS 9 Ad Blockers In New Legal Battle

        German media giant Axel Springer, which operates top European newspapers like Bild and Die Welt, and who recently bought a controlling stake in Business Insider for $343 million, has a history of fighting back against ad-blocking software that threatens its publications’ business models. Now, it’s taking that fight to mobile ad blockers, too. According to the makers of the iOS content blocker dubbed “Blockr,” which is one of several new iOS 9 applications that allow users to block ads and other content that slows down web browsing, Axel Springer’s WELTN24 subsidiary took them to court in an attempt to stop the development and distribution of the Blockr software.

      • MPAA Wins $10.5 Million Piracy Damages From MovieTube

        A group of major Hollywood studios have won a default judgment against the operators of MovieTube and several associated websites. The movie studios have been awarded a total of $10.5 million in statutory damages and control over a few dozen MovieTube domains, which were taken offline earlier this year.

11.25.15

EPO Management Needs to Finally Recognise That It Itself is the Issue, Not the Staff or the Unions

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

“If all I say is “I’m in favor of freedom”, I have not really tackled the difficult issue, because it’s very easy to say: “I stand for freedom”, even Bush says he stands for freedom, and Bush doesn’t even recognize freedom after he’s crushed it.”

–Richard Stallman

Summary: A showing of dissent even from the representatives whom the EPO tightly controls and why the latest union-busting goes a lot further than most people realise

OUR previous post presented a new document and provided a first glimpse at the true mess inside the EPO, where not only SUEPO but also the Staff Committee has concerns. There is also FFPE-EPO, which yesterday expressed solidarity for SUEPO in its official statement. Here is the same document in all languages (much larger file).

One might rightly ask, who are in this committee anyway? Well, it is not a closely-guarded secret, so here is who’s involved. Everyone in the EPO’s management knows them and in case there will ever be some altercation (like EPO managers trying to punish or intimidate representatives), we will be better at identifying possible motivations, causes, ulterior motives etc.

Staff Committee people

These people too will probably need protection at some stage, judging by the modus operandi of Team Battistelli.

Here is the complete opening, focusing on the English version/text of the document (more languages are in the original PDF):

European Patent Office

Central Staff Committee

24.06.2015
scl527Ocp — 0.2.1/2.2/2.3

Questions on the EPO

A discussion paper on the independence of the departments in DG1

Dear Colleagues,

A structural reform of the Boards of Appeal is currently under discussion. This will be a main topic on one of the next Council meetings. The reform addresses the independence of the Boards. Independence is an indispensable requirement for legal certainty with regard to the decisions taken by the members of the Boards, but also by the examiners in DG1.

The annexed documents (English, French and German versions of the discussion paper) shall give further input to the discussion from another point of view. Some daily life situations of examiners in DG1 are reflected in a questionnaire. Many difficulties result from the hierarchical position of examiners within DG1.

As a huge part of EPO staff is allocated to other DGs than DG1 and DG3, the documents contain some background information on the current structure of DG1. This should help to increase mutual understanding of all EPO staff in all DGs. We.would like to encourage everybody to discuss the issues addressed therein with her/his colleagues and superiors.

We are interested in your feedback, which can be sent to centralstcom@epo.org or to your preferred staff representative. We intend to publish a follow-up document so as to summarize your comments and to provide the administration with suitable proposals.

The Central Staff Committee

There are nearly 60 more pages in the original PDF. Please note that the Central Staff Committee uses epo.org addresses, which, considering the mass surveillance inside the EPO (going as far as keyloggers and hidden cameras), very much limits one’s ability to independently operate. It’s a farcical body with no real, effective independence or autonomy. SUEPO overcame this issue by using its own domain, suepo.org (EPO management now deletes or blocks E-mail from that domain, allegedly since 2013).

“Please note that the Central Staff Committee uses epo.org addresses, which, considering the mass surveillance inside the EPO (going as far as keyloggers and hidden cameras), very much limits one’s ability to independently operate.”On another subject, let’s explain the severity of this whole situation. It is becoming ever more serious right now. It not only affects SUEPO. The suspension of the staff representatives is a real bombshell and there are many actions planned as a result (we have seen some details, but won’t publicly divulge them at this point).

Some of the details began to reach us with urgency as people inside the EPO were in panic. The EPO’s management too is in panic, but for different reasons. We were told the names of the parties involved and the shocking treatment of people at The Hague. We couldn’t reveal the names of the parties at the time, but both the Munich and The Hague staff committees later published the names of the parties (right before the scandal took the blogosphere by storm).

“The staff representation has NINE members, and FIVE of these have been suspended and/or “investigated”.”We are revealing the names not because we disregard privacy because they’re essential for understanding of just how terrible the EPO management became. Jesús Areso and Laurent Prunie can both be seen above, under The Hague. They were among those whom EPO managers (or their Stasi-esque unit) attacked. Malika Weaver and Brumme (under Munich) were also attacked. So was Michels (under Vienna). Why is this important?

The above image adds one piece of information which completes the picture which hasn’t been mentioned elsewhere to our knowledge:

The staff representation has NINE members, and FIVE of these have been suspended and/or “investigated”. That’s more than half! It’s only a matter of time until they figure out something for crushing the remaining four active members.

“We kindly ask readers to remember that these members were elected despite the rotten voting system unilaterally imposed by Battistelli in an attempt to sabotage the staff representation.”One can see for oneself the composition of the staff representation above.

We kindly ask readers to remember that these members were elected despite the rotten voting system unilaterally imposed by Battistelli in an attempt to sabotage the staff representation. We have covered this in passing already.

Who would even be brave enough to be a staff representative right now? Mr. Battistelli has achieved what even Vladimir Putin could not achieve. Battistelli made himself the Sun King. █

Even the EPO Central Staff Committee is Unhappy With EPO Management

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:14 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Questions to EPO

Summary: The questions asked by the Central Staff Committee shared for the public to see that not only a single union is concerned about the management’s behaviour

THE EPO is not behaving well and even groups that are traditionally quite loyal to the management aren’t entirely happy. Based on this new document [PDF], the Central Staff Committee has some tough questions for the EPO. It’s easy to see why the Central Staff Committee needs to tread carefully, or else risk being crushed like SUEPO. The roaring aggression of the EPO is now making people reluctant to say anything, even to colleagues (privately). It’s not just an atmosphere of fear; it’s a climate of terror from the man who purports to be fighting terrorism.

As one commenter said earlier today: “you have to be a bit careful about how you word something, and avoid accusations, but merely stick to facts in the public domain (damning enough). Could someone please let me know where it is said that you are not allowed to contact your delegate? I’m sure BB [Battistelli] does not like it, but that is not the same as it being against the Service Regulations. I have already done so a while ago on another matter. So far no comeback.”

“By the way,” this commenter added, “where are the patent attorneys in all this? They, or their professional organizations, should get active. Politicians cannot ignore representatives of industry as easily as they can civil servants.”

IP Kat is now sharing recommendation of books for patent lawyers or examiners, but there are some urgent matters we’ll attempt to address through the rest of this week. Please review the new PDF, on which we shall elaborate on a later occasion.

“It’s easy to see why the Central Staff Committee needs to tread carefully, or else risk being crushed like SUEPO. The roaring aggression of the EPO is now making people reluctant to say anything, even to colleagues (privately).”If anybody has information about a €800,000 contract, please consider sharing it with us.

It’s nice to have discovered a circulated message titled “Enemies everywhere”, wherein it stated: “The Blogger, Florian Müller, posted yesterday an article taking a clear view on the latest ac ons of the EPO, entitled “Shame on the European Patent Office for its legal threats against TechRights”: he notes that “with almost 20,000 blog posts, Dr. Schestowitz had not received a legal letter before an EPO lawyer sent him one.” and despite not being a great fan of the “opinionated” TechRights site (the latter has often attacked Mr. Müller), he adds he would personally “contribute money and lend an endorsement to a crowdfunding effort to finance his defence”.

Stay tuned for more exclusive coverage of EPO matters. █

The Broken Window Economics of Patent Trolls Are Already Coming to Europe

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 8:59 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

There’s the belief that from destruction come profit opportunities

Window broken

Summary: The plague which is widely known as patent trolls (non-practicing entities that prey on practicing companies) is being spread to Europe, owing in part to misguided policies and patent maximalists

MANY people are very much familiar already with the “Broken Window” fallacy. To quote this short article about it, “natural disasters, wars, and other destructive events can boost an economy’s production because they create demand for rebuilding work.”

“The US patent system, much like the Chinese one, strives to maximise the number of patents (a misguided goal).”Last month we pointed out that patent trolls were entering Europe. These are parasites. They are usually confined to operate within the borders of the US, but a poorly-implemented (to benefit the rich) ‘globalisation’ of patent systems means that more of them can expand their arsenal, extend their horizons, and unleash rage upon European businesses. We have covered many examples in recent years.

The US patent system, much like the Chinese one, strives to maximise the number of patents (a misguided goal). How else can such incredibly high approval rates be explained? It’s no wonder that a lot of domains like programming can now suffer from patent lawsuits in the US. According to this new decision: “Following jury and bench trials, the court found that plaintiff’s network security patent was not invalid for lack of patentable subject matter and found the claims were not directed toward an abstract idea. “Plaintiff contends that contrary to Defendant’s overgeneralization of claim 1 of the [patent-in-suit], claim 1 covers a specific technique of protecting computer networks.”

See? Software patents. An abstract thing. Patented! Welcome to the alternative universe where programs that are reducible to a sequence of numbers (to be fed into a processor or processed/solved using pen and paper) are covered by broad patents, not just copyrights. Where would that leave science and technology in the long run? It would just leave science and technology on the run.

“The largest publicly traded patent-holding company will have to pay online retailer Newegg $15,000 after bringing a frivolous appeal.”
      –Joe MullinAccording to some new reports, e.g. [1,2], Unwired Planet (formerly Openwave Systems, which we mentioned in [1, 2, 3, 4]) now uses software patents pertaining to networks in order to troll Android (Linux-powered) players, namely Samsung and Huawei. Patent maximalists don’t seem to mind this. The significance of this is that it all happened in a UK court, not some distant district of Texas (the rocket docket for trolls).

Speaking of patent trolls, the Microsoft-connected troll Acacia (already attacked Red Hat several times over the years) is said to have lost again. As Joe Mullin put it: “The largest publicly traded patent-holding company will have to pay online retailer Newegg $15,000 after bringing a frivolous appeal.

“The order brings to a conclusion what was a once-classic example of sprawling “patent troll” litigation. In 2010, AdjustaCam LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corp., filed suit (PDF) in Eastern Texas against dozens of companies, saying that they infringed US Patent No. 5,855,343, which describes a type of movable camera clip. The list of defendants included camera makers like Gear Head and Creative Labs, as well as retailers like Amazon, Newegg, K-Mart, Overstock.com, and Wal-Mart.”

This happened in Eastern Texas, but now we see similar things happening in London. It’s not getting any better; it gets worse over time. People in Europe should watch these developments and trends with some concern.

Speaking of Eastern Texas, see this new article about trolls:

Texas Patent Law as If Roy Bean Were Still On the Bench: “Hang ‘Em First, Try ‘Em Later”

East Texas is really a very nice place. The people are friendly. Living is relatively easy amongst the “Piney Woods.” The region is more like the Old South, or the southeastern U.S., than the scrub brush and high plains that many usually think of when they think of Texas. Riddled with rivers, creeks and bayous the climate lends itself to the growth of Spanish moss and bald cypress. But recently it is another climate in East Texas that has attracted the most attention – its lawsuit climate.

The US Chamber’s Institute for Legal Reform recently released its annual lawsuit climate survey and Texas continues to fail, recently dropping again after some slight improvement in the last couple years. The Lone Star ranks an embarrassing 40th out of the 50 states.

Given the direction of the EPO’s management, Europe might soon become the same, little by little. The UPC would certainly contribute to this, for reasons we explained here many times before. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Privateering: UK court holds Ericsson patent valid, essential to LTE in case against Huawei, Samsung

    In March 2014, Unwired Planet sued several smartphone makers over various patents it had “acquired” from Ericsson. Actually, “acquired” misses the key commercial point here. In April I took a closer look at the related arrangements and couldn’t help but conclude that this was just a pseudo-sale of patents and simply an act of what is commonly referred to as “privateering.”

  2. Unwired Planet wins first of five patent trials against Samsung and Huawei

    Licensing company Unwired Planet has scored a double victory at the English High Court after it ruled that one of the company’s 4G standard-essential patents (SEPs) is valid and was infringed by Samsung and Huawei.

    Mr Justice Birss handed down his judgment today, November 23.

    The judgment is the conclusion of the first of five trials concerning the validity and any scope of infringement of Unwired’s five European SEPs, as well as a non-SEP, by Samsung and Huawei

    Samsung and Huawei argue that the patents are invalid.

Debunking the EPO’s Latest Marketing Nonsense From Les Échos and More on Benoît Battistelli’s Nastygram to French Politician

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

That’s a Scud by the way…

Battistelli with Scud

Summary: Our detailed remarks about French brainwash from the EPO’s media partner (with Benoît Battistelli extensively quoted) and the concerns increasingly raised by French politicians, who urge for national or even continental intervention

THE management of the EPO is very deep in a crisis, so it is now discouraging criticism if not demanding cessation thereof (similar to nastygrams in the slangy sense). This post will elaborate on what happened last week to a French minister (a longtime critic of the EPO [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]), but first we want to tackle some of the latest French propaganda from the EPO’s ‘media partner’ (euphemism for propaganda rag), Les Échos [1, 2, 3]. That’s because Benoît Battistelli is evidently citing this propaganda rag in private letters, in ‘support’ of his ludicrous, virtually indefensible side. As one commenter put it the other day: “In support of his argumentation, BB [Benoît Battistelli] also refers to recent press articles annexed to his letter, such as the paid-for article in EPO´s “media partner” Les Échos.”

Let’s look at what Les Échos has to say and annotate the text accordingly. “It is a sickening regurgitation of the Benoît Battistelli party line,” a reader told us, but nonetheless this reader translated the EPO-related part of the article:

Home -> Themes -> Transformation : put agility in your organisation Transformation: The “enemies” within

Yes, remember that the “enemy” is the staff. Not the management. The staff. That’s the premise.

Julie Le Bolzer | Le 19/11 à 11:39

Employees, unions and even bosses are sometimes so averse to change that the business transformation process is hindered. Some examples from the EPO, Air France KLM, and PSA.

We have already shown that PSA was altogether ‘airbrushed’ out of this article. The author loses credibility for not even mentioning this. Previously, parts that were critical of the EPO were also ‘airbrushed’ out of Les Échos articles.

As Benoît Battistelli, then director general of the [French] National Institute for Intellectual Property (INPI), took over in 2010 the leadership of the European Patent Office (EPO), his objectives were clearly defined. It was to reinforce and sustain the organisation’s competitiveness against its competitors from America and Asia, and to make it in the international office of record. Fact: the EPO, which had been created in the 1970s, has not evolved in 40 years, or very little. It is therefore necessary to profoundly reform it, at the structural, organisational and managerial levels.

“Competition with other patent offices,” we are told, is “management BS.” It’s not hard to see why given that the EPO enjoys a government-granted and government-protected monopoly inside Europe.

We are going to address and write about the roots of the EPO in some other article on some other day. The full story is rather embarrassing.

In concrete terms, Benoît Battistelli harnesses himself to a multi-pronged task: regulate salary increases (until then automatic), the right to strike and career progression (which are henceforth no longer based only on seniority but on performance), develop teleworking, implement a social agenda, adopt more transparency… And these were just the the internal transformations. On en external front, the EPO should differentiate itself from other international patent office (filing a patent in the United States costs 25% less). Amongst other innovations, the EPO supports the initiative of the countries of the European Union to create a unitary European patent, which is major progress for French and European businesses whose patents represent obvious competitive assets. The unitary patent is currently being ratified by national parliaments and could be implemented as early as next year in 26 different countries.

The thing about automatic “salary increases” is an “outright lies,” a reader told us. “Even in the “good old days” the god-damned production was #1 priority. The difference is that they can LEGALLY stand you up the wall, and they also do.”

Is the “unitary patent (UPC) a good thing? If so, for who? That’s like one of those articles boasting about the greatness of the TPP. A three-letter word on its own does not imply it’s good.

Now comes the worse propaganda:

European Patent Office : An in-house trade union is hostile to change

The problem might not be change itself but the kind of change. Big difference. They’re portraying staff as Luddites.

Here comes propaganda galore, as if Julie just did a copy-paste job without fact-check or research:

As of today, the transformation plan borne by Benoît Battistelli reveals its efficacy: an increase of 10% the productivity of the EPO and of 13% of the number of files handled (270,000 patent applications are received and nearly 70,000 are granted each year), an employer’s brand which has improved its images: more than 20,000 job applications were received for 200 positions to be filled…

As a reader put it:

“10% efficiency increase”? By what measure? Who can verify? How?

“270,000 applications” is the good ol’ pissing contest… This stupid trick was addressed repeatedly over the last few years in different blogs. The real number is about half of that. I don’t want to go in a course on patent law, but in a nutshell a large part of these applications never make it even to the doorstep of the EPO.

“The second part about Air France KLM seems a somewhat more balanced when compared to the first one,” our reader told us. “But should one trust it more than part one?”

Remember that Les Échos quietly remove the entire section about PSA. Completely too! To carry on with this puff piece:

But this process didn’t occur without resistance, nor even without grave disturbances, such as defamation campaigns, anonymous letters, personal attacks against the president and other office staff members. As any events which have left to disciplinary and judicial proceedings, some of which are still underway. The opponents to change, who are the root of opposition: certain SUEPO leaders, the in-house trade union worried by its dwindling influence over the 7000 employees, and which denounces the lack of checks and balances [literally: counter-powers] within the EPO.

Here’s a dictionary for the above paragraph:

Resistance=participation.

Disturbances=feedback.

Defamation=explanation.

Anonymous=afraid of reprisal from management.

Personal attacks=personal accounts.

Disciplinary and judicial proceedings=the EPO’s own Stasi-esque department (or "Gestapo"), the Investigative Unit [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]], bolstered by ‘British Blackwater’, CRG.

SUEPO=staff.

The part that says “worried by its dwindling influence over the 7000 employees” is a lie. SUEPO is empowered by growing support from more EPO employees; it’s only harmed by union-busting actions from EPO management. Julie obviously didn’t pay attention to protests which took place a day before she wrote this article. About 2,000 people attended these, including some Directors (so there are defections to the union’s side even at the top).

Here is the last part:

The formal recognition process of unions at the EPO is well underway, and should lead to the signature of a first agreement in the coming weeks. The trade unions will thus have a status. The social dialogue was opened last April. “The goal is to build transformation in a collegial manner”, emphasises Benoît Battistelli. In such a climate of tension and even of extreme pressure, how could one maintain the course on a reform of such magnitude? “All that is excessive is not credible”, relativises the EPO president; “in particular, I have a strong ability for resistance and my beliefs are just as strong. I am conviced that the transformation of the EPO constitutes an asset for our employees and more widely for the European economy.”

“All that is excessive is not credible,” Battistelli is quoted as saying (by translation). Oh, the hypocrisy! The rest is just window dressing. Why didn’t Julie approach a staff representative for comment? Or even arbitrary staff? See, the purpose of this whole piece is to be one sides and paint a picture where only ‘poor’ rich people are the victims, not those whom they crush.

If this is the kind of puff piece that Battistelli uses as ‘evidence’ (from his media partner, relayed by Julie), then we worry that some politicians might be easy to bamboozle and pacify.

Looking at SUEPO’s Web site, we now see several translations of several items, some of which we translated before. These come from Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’ and the parts we don’t yet have are copied below for future reference and permanent retention. Here is the translation of the original blog post from the French MP, who SUEPO says “represents French nationals living in Germany and Austria (among other countries).”

Letter to Emmanuel Macron regarding the crisis at the European Patent Office

18 November 2015

I was informed last week of the actions being undertaken by the management of the European Patent Office (EPO) against a number of executives of the SUEPO staff union and representatives of the personnel. A considerable number of witnesses have also been in touch with me, as recently as yesterday. I find the aims being pursued and the methods of investigation described in these communications profoundly shocking. The state of health of the persons involved concerns me deeply, and likewise the anxiety felt by their families. I cannot accept that, under cover of immunity from outside legal intervention, the individual and collective rights of the staff of an international organization can be trodden underfoot with the aims and practices of another age. The attempts to re-establish and develop social dialogue are not disruptive. For three years I have been following with close attention the social conflict and crisis of management at the EPO. I have talked to all the parties concerned, and I have consciously sent limited reports about my meetings and the initiatives taken to ease the situation and to contribute to the efforts to find a compromise solution. What has occurred in the past few days at a number of EPO facilities, however, has shown me that all such efforts will remain in vain unless radical change is forthcoming.

I am therefore making public the letter which I sent this Wednesday to the Minister of the Economy, Industry, and Digital Affairs, Emmanuel Macron, whose area of responsibility in the Government includes intellectual property, to draw his attention to the situation at the EPO and to call our country to action.

Here is the translations of the letter to Minister Macron:

National Assembly
Pierre-Yves LE BORGN’
Deputy for French Citizens Abroad

French Republic
Liberty – Equality – Fraternity

Mr. Emmanuel Macron
Minister of the Economy and Industry
Cologne, 18 November 2015

Re: Actions taken against representatives of the personnel of the European Patent Office

Dear Minister,

I am writing to draw your attention to the deterioration in social relations at the European Patent Office (EPO). Over the past few days, a number of EPO employees, among them active members of the EPO staff union (SUEPO) and representatives of the personnel, have been the target of actions initiated by the internal investigation unit. Witnesses who have come forward to me from a number of EPO facilities have been subjected to interrogations of unusual violence, which has left these persons in a state of shock and distress which is extremely detrimental to their well-being, involving medical treatment and leading to stoppages at work. I have received emotional messages from the persons concerned, as well as from their traumatised families and their distressed colleagues. A number of retired EPO staff have likewise approached me to inform me of their alarm and revulsion, feelings which I share. This situation is intolerable.

“Witnesses who have come forward to me from a number of EPO facilities have been subjected to interrogations of unusual violence, which has left these persons in a state of shock and distress which is extremely detrimental to their well-being, involving medical treatment and leading to stoppages at work.”For close to three years I have been consistently involved with the endless issues of social conflict which have been ravaging the EPO, engaging with the staff and the executive management of the organization. I have written to you on a number of occasions, and also to your predecessors. I am well aware of the challenge posed by managing such an important organization, with the numbers of staff involved and the high stakes at issue in the field of intellectual property. Conversely, I cannot in any manner condone the fact that intimidation and management by fear have taken the place of social dialogue. The immunity from outside legal intervention of an international organization cannot be allowed to lead to policies and practices being adopted which labour tribunals would condemn forthwith in any Member State of the Council of Europe, in line with the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter.

“More than 1,000 French citizens work at the EPO facilities, falling under my area of responsibility.”Labour law cannot be allowed to stop at the doors of the EPO. It is the responsibility of each Member State to take due note of the crisis of governance which has led the organization into this situation, which it must be clear to all cannot be allowed to shape the future. A social audit must be conducted without further delay, by an independent authority, recognized and chosen by the Administrative Council of the EPO. It is vital that the Administrative Council and therefore the Member States exercise close control over all the policies being applied at the EPO, including the social policy. I am expecting our country to engage with full commitment to this effect. The argument that prudence should be exercised simply because one of our compatriots is presiding over the destiny of the EPO is not pertinent. More than 1,000 French citizens work at the EPO facilities, falling under my area of responsibility. I am their deputy, and I intend to defend them.

“It is high time for France to act, side by side with other Member States, major purveyors of patents, and to make them aware of the situation.”I shall be meeting you next week in the company of other parliamentary colleagues. It is high time for France to act, side by side with other Member States, major purveyors of patents, and to make them aware of the situation. Too much time has been lost in useless discussion since the start of the conflict. The timid reservations and protests occasionally uttered have led to nothing. It is radical change in certain policies at the EPO, and therefore resolute action, which is at issue. An international organization cannot live a life divorced from, and contrary to, that of its Member States, and, likewise, divorced from and contrary to the rights of its personnel. The EPO is in need of the greatest and most urgent attention of those who created it. It is a formidable organization, which should be encouraged and maintained, and of which the staff, with their recognized skills and commitment, must be respected. I am confident in this respect that I can count on your full attention and understanding.

Yours faithfully,

Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’

We already covered the two latter items, beating SUEPO to it by a number of days thanks to our kind French-speaking readers (definitely not EPO staff).

As SUEPO put it, Battistelli “wrote to the Minister of Economy M. Macron to report on the deteriorating situation at EPO following the suspension of 3 union officials in Munich and attacks on a further two representatives in The Hague.

“Read here the exchange of letters which followed publication of this alert: they seem to show Mr Battistelli has lost both his control and his capacity for discernment, all the while accusing SUEPO officials of any number of extravagant and extraordinary crimes.”

Battistelli and his team go not only after SUEPO, their lawyers, and politicians but also after bloggers. These thugs need to be stopped. They evidently think that in EPOnia they’re the judge and the executioner. █

“A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.”

–Henry Mencken

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