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02.18.16

Team Battistelli Tries to Bend the Rules to Prevent the European Patent Office From Going on Strike

Posted in Site News at 2:13 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office refuses to be intimidated by Battistelli’s inner circle and insists on the right of staff to go on strike next month

TWISTING the law in its own favour isn't atypical a practice at Battistelli’s EPO (the high-level management). The man revels in autocracy. One person asked me today: “Is there any truth in rumours that the big man has gone?” Rumours that Battistelli has been sacked or resigned (sounds familiar) are most likely false. As one person put it, “the place is bristling with rumours following yesterday’s B28 meeting.

“There is something going on, but I can’t separate the wheat from the chaff.

“All I can say is that it appears to have been a very rough meeting.”

One thing we do know is that as of yesterday, there was a fight over staff's intent/thoughts of going on strike. The following letter is self-explanatory as context is included/alluded to:

European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY

Ms Elodie Bergot
PD Human Resources
Isar – R 718

Interlocutor and representatives to the ballot committee

Dear Ms Bergot,

We refer to your e-mails of Friday 12 February 2016, one addressed to us and one addressed to the colleagues who signed a recent call for strike in accordance with Circular No. 347, initiated and organised by staff (Annex 1).

In the above-mentioned mails you acknowledge that the quorum of 10% of staff has been reached and confirm that the Office will organise a ballot within one month, i.e. on 9 March at the latest.

The call for strike designates an external lawyer as the contact person representing the undersigned. In the e-mail to the petitioners, you state that “strike shall be a means of last report and the time of preparation of the ballot should be used to discuss the claims presented in the call for strike.”

According to your mail “external attorneys cannot be considered as social partners to engage into meaningful discussions regarding to EPO’s internal matters.” The petitioners are therefore invited to designate representatives from among active EPO staff members.

We wish to point out the following:

  • There is no basis in law or in reason to reject any given person as an interlocutor. Specifically, there is no rule dictating that the European Patent Office
    interlocutor must be an active EPO staff member.
  • It is not clear how the petitioners could designate their representatives. The petitioners do not know each other and in any case cannot send e-mails to more than 50 persons with their EPO e-mail account.
  • The petition concerns central staff matters. The CSC is the elected staff representation responsible for central matters.

In order to avoid endangering the strike ballot, the external lawyer has asked the CSC to accept delegation of his mandate for any further process or action with regard to the upcoming procedural steps foreseen by the EPO administration. We intend to accept this delegation.

Concerning the mail addressed to us, we designate the following representatives to the ballot committee:

Stéphane Écolivet
Ansgar Wansing

Yours sincerely,

The Central Staff Committee

We confirm that this letter was legitimately decided and produced by the Central Staff Committee1.

__________
1 Pursuant to Article 35(3) ServRegs, the Central Staff Committee shall consist of ten full and ten alternate members.

The CSC presently consists of 17 members, because two have resigned in Dec 2014 and one has been dismissed in Jan 2016 (against the recommendation of the Disciplinary Committee).

One full member of the CSC has been downgraded in Jan 2016 (against the recommendation of the Disciplinary Committee). In fact, the Office has launched investigations and disciplinary procedures against other Staff representatives as well, affecting negatively their health.

Here is the original with all the signatures included:

Letter to Bergot - page 1

Letter to Bergot - page 2

Letter to Bergot - page 3

Letter to Bergot - page 4

Stay tuned as there’s more on the way. █

The EPO’s Patent Coup in Europe Moves on With Conflict of Interests-Plagued German Authorities for UPC

Posted in Europe, Patents at 1:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Trojan horse

Summary: Germany, careful not to reveal its bias and gross nepotism (not to mention self interest) in this matter, is starting to push for the Unitary Patent Court (UPC), which would potentially destroy Europe’s wealth by passing a lot of it to very few (already affluent and usually non-European) actors

THERE is an increasingly urgent and incredibly big EPO scandal that many EPO insiders haven't been paying enough attention to (or were thoroughly misinformed on, as part of the secretive and expensive PR campaign for UPC, let aside the internal censorship). Dr. Glyn Moody wrote about it earlier this month and the EPO's official responses to him only served to reinforce beliefs that the UPC is quite a scandal (against democracy) in the making. The vast majority of European citizens know nothing at all about the UPC, probably by intention — as obscurity serves the UPC's architects and lobbyists. The UPC is not for Europeans. It’s steered by scope maximalists, as FOSDEM recently explained (Stallman too spoke about it).

“The vast majority of European citizens know nothing at all about the UPC, probably by intention — as obscurity serves the UPC’s architects and lobbyists.”“Breaking news is that Germany has produced draft bills for implementing the UPC,” wrote this new commenter, who spreads terrible news that we have been dreading for months (EPO-funded media repeatedly pressured Germany — even by shaming — to do this).

“BMJ is financed with EPO fees,” Benjamin Henrion correctly noted, “and they do have a bad record with the swpat [software patents] directive, where they trumped the econ ministry” (we previously wrote about this role of nepotism in UPC promotion inside Germany, putting the country’s justice system/ministry to great shame, having led the way in software patents promotion). Spain shows the better way forward and explains the reasons.

Here is the comment in question in its entirety:

Breaking news is that Germany has produced draft bills for implementing the UPC.

https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Gesetzgebungsverfahren/Dokumente/RefE_Uebereinkommen_EinheitlichesPatentgericht.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=2

https://www.bmjv.de/SharedDocs/Gesetzgebungsverfahren/Dokumente/RefE_Begleitgesetz_EuropaeischePatentreform.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=3

My German may be a little rusty, but I cannot see anything in the two published documents that indicates how German national law will be amended in the light of the substantive provisions of the unitary patent package.

Can anyone shed any light on this situation? I would have thought that at least some modifications of national patent law would be necessary.

“The document of your second link,” added another commenter, “proposes all necessary amendments of German Law, particularly for the international patent act and the patent act. But the first link is the more interesting…”

“UPC is a cash cow for patent lawyers in Germany.”According to this morning’s post from IP Kat: “In its proposal for the legislation implementing the Unified Patent Package in Germany, the German Ministry of Justice suggests a compromise: double patenting vis-a-vis unitary patents is not prohibited, but if an action regarding a unitary patent for the same invention is pending before the Unified Patent Court or is made pending during the national proceeding or has been finally adjudicated by the UPC, then the German court will dismiss the action brought based on the national patent insofar as the patents concern the same invention, provided that the defendant raises the objection before the beginning of the oral hearing (see proposed Article 18 Gesetz über internationale Patentübereinkommen, p. 6 of the linked PDF).”

UPC is a cash cow for patent lawyers in Germany. They would make a lot of money from it, and guess at whose expense…

No wonder it’s mostly patent lawyers who are pushing for the UPC, usually behind closed doors. It’s an attack on democracy. It is a coup. The UPC is yet another rogue project, maybe on par with (or along with) efforts such as TPP. They are hoping to bypass the European public and covertly impose the 1%’s wishes on all who live inside Europe. Deception, propaganda etc. come into play as soon as the public begins to discover what’s going on, whereupon it antagonises. That’s when they start pretending that it’s good for European SMEs and perpetually spread other such myths.

“BristowsUPC”, an LLP rebranded for UPC marketing, has just written about the above. Longtime UPC booster Annsley ​Merelle Ward (also of IP Kat) said: “The German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) yesterday published the first draft of legislation that will make it possible for Germany to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The draft bill was published, together with a second draft bill to implement the Unitary patent system into German law. After a period of consultation, it is anticipated that final draft bills will be introduced into the German parliament before summer 2016. These will then pass through the legislative process in parliament for debate, any amendment, and then a final vote.”

“The EPO’s autocracy is now expanding onto other European institutions.”Only patent lawyers (and their media) rejoice right now (see the positivity, with optimistic phrases like “A significant development for the #UPC.”) while the rest of the public is totally unaware. It is an unacceptable attack on European democracy. “DE, UK & 2 more need to ratify for #UPC to begin,” said the patent maximalists (MIP in this case). As Henrion put it last night: “There should be a call to abolish fiscal priviledges for royalties over any type of IP right, and tax it as the same level as labour #fraud”

The EPO’s autocracy is now expanding onto other European institutions. This too is a cause for alarm. They don’t care what the public thinks; they just do whatever the heck they decided is good for Europe (or for themselves and their mates). It’s like with the EPO the EU is increasingly shadowing the worst practices of the Kremlin; oh, lo and behold whose hands Battistelli is now shaking (warning: epo.org link). To quote the latest puff piece showing Battistelli in Russia: “On the occasion of a visit to the EPO in Munich by Grigory Petrovich Ivliev, the new Director General of Rospatent (the Russian Federal Service for IP), the two institutions have committed to further strengthen their co-operation.”

That was published yesterday. It’s self-serving propaganda disguised as ‘news’ (and Google News indexes it as such).

“While the EPO says (right there on national television) that it intends to ignore the law and refuse to obey the highest court at The Hague it sure feels comfortable to do its patent brainwashing right there at The Hague.”Congratulations, Mr. Battistelli. Having just collaborated with Cubans (who parked Russian nukes just a short distance away from your American masters), you now go visit their old masters in Moscow. Having refused to obey orders from The Hague (renowned for international criminal justice), your obedient PR bunnies now set up shop in The Hague. Irony is not dead yet. While the EPO says (right there on national television) that it intends to ignore the law and refuse to obey the highest court at The Hague it sure feels comfortable to do its patent brainwashing right there at The Hague.

The EPO is officially a rogue institution out of control. The UPC is its latest project and the main threat to this project is European democracy (meaning, people actually becoming aware of what’s going on and then voting on it, i.e. against it). █

Danish Left’s Alternate for European Parliament Slams the European Patent Office While Staff Protests Are Again Ignored by the German Media

Posted in Europe, Patents at 12:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

As if this patent institute is totally unchallengeable, like immigration law in Merkel’s Germany

Karen Melchior

Summary: The latest information from and about the European Patent Office/Organisation, where there has just been a major protest (in Munich), albeit nobody would know it based on or due to the silence of the media

THE Administrative Council (AC) of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) is led by a Dane and some rumours suggest that it may be pursuing (or at least exploring) removal of Battistelli and his team, who have become a disgrace and source of great shame to the Organisation. Karen Melchior, a rather popular (on the Web) Danish diplomat/lawyer*, has just said “Shame on @EPOorg” (European Patent Organisation, led by a Dane), the context being software patents in Europe (context about the EPO in general can be found in our corresponding Wiki).

“Willy Minnoye, as head of internal services was in fact promoted after being found guilty of breaching fundamental rights several years ago when he confiscated private union mail (see ILO judgment 1547).”
      –AnonymousThankfully we have many sources (more than before, especially after the EPO foolishly chose to censor and threaten us), both outside and inside the EPO. “Willy Minnoye,” told us a source privately, “as head of internal services was in fact promoted after being found guilty of breaching fundamental rights several years ago when he confiscated private union mail (see ILO judgment 1547).” It sure looks like Battistelli and his team have quickly become a massive liability for the Organisation as a whole. “Dear Roy,” wrote to us a person, “thanks for the great work.” But it’s becoming harder to do such work without further input from readers. A partial media blackout in the whole of Europe prevents people from finding out what really goes on inside the EPO. EPO members of staff find themselves fearing communication even with their colleagues and German media might not want to remark negatively about the EPO for reasons we explained here before [1, 2]. All we know so far about the protest and surrounding developments comes from this comment:

Latest news from The Staff Committee is that they have informed the AC that they no longer support the planned Social Survey. Their version is that while BB invited them to nominate an observer for the organising committee, the nominee then wasn’t invited to any meetings and was given the results at the last minute as a fait accompli. The SC consider that their nominee is just a fig leaf to show that BB had dealt with them but that this was not bona fide consultation. Also it seems that no AC members are part of this either so that it is all being organised by BB. Quelle surprise!

In his 4th Feb speech to staff, BB gave the impression that his door was open but that the SC kept refusing to come on in! I wonder how he’ll organise an independent study if no staff will speak to the survey.

Meanwhile, SUEPO is organising a follow-up to a survey from a couple of years ago. Should be revealing but I presume BB’s PR gurus are already writing their rebuttals…

If anyone can please send us material which is related to the protest or the second Board 28 meeting of this year, that will help a great deal and enable dissemination of information. This is the worst nightmare of the abusers: a flow of reliable information, not Battistelli-led propaganda. The pressure on Mr. Kongstad has grown over the years because of letters (including from Transparency International), protests, and so on. Will he listen more carefully if fellow Danes speak speak out?

“Danish is not an official EPO language,” Benjamin Henrion pointed out yesterday. “And DK companies won’t get a legally binding translation.”

“Only about 10% of European patents get validated in DK [Denmark] currently. Polish gov’t report made similar observation.”
      –Jesper LundThere’s a reason why some of last year’s protests targeted the Danish Consulate (this actually received press coverage from several Danish newspapers), and it’s not just Mr. Kongstad’s complicity by silence (letting Battistelli totally off the hook and helping Battistelli hide his salary from the European public).

Jesper Lund, who is Danish, responded to Henrion by saying “we happily swallowed the EPO pill in 2014 and accepted a 10-fold increase in patents valid in DK :( [...] That’s “over time”. Only about 10% of European patents get validated in DK [Denmark] currently. Polish gov’t report made similar observation.”

“The 10x increase is not there yet? With the UPC many countries will see drastic patent warming,” Henrion added.

In order to keep this concise, we shall cover these matters in a separate post about the UPC.

Despite the fact that we are now better equipped to quickly capture any morsel of information about the EPO, we are still not seeing anything about yesterday’s protest, so input from readers is sorely needed right now. Here is how to get in touch. █
______
* Melchior prefers “Danish radikale politician.” According to her Web site, she is “a foreign policy professional with an academic background in law [who] worked more than 7 years in the political systems of the EU, Denmark, UK and France.” She attended “Transparency International Summer School on Integrity 2014,” which brings back memories of the EPO’s relation (good and bad, implicating the Danish AC Chairman and Control Risks Group) to Transparency International.

La Universidad de Harvard se Vuelve un Vasallo de Microsoft y Maquilla a Famosos Criminales

Posted in Bill Gates, Microsoft at 11:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en Bill Gates, Microsoft at 7:06 am por Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Parte de un ampli esquema implicado a Microsoft en CORRUPCIÓN SISTEMÁTICA, transformando escuelas y universidades en puestos de Microsoft a cuesta de los contribuyentes

Harvard Wreath

Sumario: La universidad de elección de Gates sobre la cuál todavía saca ventaja, se vuelve una agencia personal de Microsoft para INDOCTRINAR, convirtiéndose parte de su asistida por el gobierno conquista de la educación de Ciencias de la Computacion en los Estados Unidos.

BILL GATES nunca se graduó de Harvard (grados honorarios en realidad no cuentán para nada, virtualmente están a la venta). Abandonó su educación. Sin embargo Gates tomó control de Harvard así como otras universidades en los Estados Unidos (y en un menor grado en el extranjero también). Al ´donar´ dinero bajo falsas pretensiones SECUESTRÓ la agenda/curricula de su Ciencias de la Computación (echándola a su favor) e incluso nombró instalaciones como a sí mismo. Algo realmente anti-academico de hacer. Es lo anti-ético a la noción de educación.

Después de sobornar oficiales para asegurarse contratos SOBREVALORADOS (como cubrimos anoche)) Microsoft ahora se apodera de universidades, no sólo escuelas. Como lo puso Slashdot ayer:

¨¿Supo usted que Microsoft ha apoyado a Harvard en crear una nueva versión (de su muy popular CS50 curso) llamado CS50 AP, designado especialmente para educadores de secundaria?¨ preguntó una publicación Aprenda a Blogear Microsoft. Si le gustaría enseñar CS50 AP (y en turno Principios de AP CS) en su salón de clases este año,¨ Harvard informa a posibles profesores, ¨estan cordialmente invitados a unirse a nosotros en uno de nuestros entrenamientos para profesores workshops a llevarse a cabo en varias partes alrededor del país y el mundo!¨ Pero antes de matricularse están requeridos a responder a lo siguiente y Harvard no aceptará un NO como respuesta: ¨Nuestros AMIGOS en Microsoft nos están ayudando a distribuir materiales de apoyo para los profesores para esta versión de CS50 para profesores y estudiantes de educación secundaria. Al chequear la cajita de abajo, ustedes están de acuerdo que podamos ´compartir´ los datos que usted sometió a traves de esta forma como parte del proceso de planificación.¨ Microsoft esta DIRIGIENDO a la educación secundaria estos días – carajo, la Casa Blanca incluso deja al presidente de Microsoft Brad Smith reunir a periodistas y relatarles sus planes de gastar $4 B de impuestos en una nueva CS para toda iniciativa secundaria antes de que el Presidente lo anuncie a los contribuyentes. A propósito, la CS50 AP Wiki contiene una forma de autorización y deslindación por la cual, entre otras cosas, requiere a estudiantes tímidos estar sentados en una zona de ¨no cámaras/film¨ sin protestar si no quieren sus fotos o videos usados por Harvard para promover un curso promovido por Microsoft.¨

Cubrimos la nata acerca de Brad Smith a principios de mes.

Para citar las palabras nauseabundas: ¨Nuestros amigos de Microsoft nos están ´ayudando´ a distribuir los materiales para apoyo del maestro de esta versiond de CS50 para profesores y estudiantes de secundaria. Al chequear la cajita de abajo, ustedes están de acuerdo que podamos ´compartir´ los datos que usted sometió a traves de esta forma como parte del proceso de planificación. [...] Esto es requerido, por favor entre un valor.¨

“Harvard ahora es MIERDA,” nos dijo un lector que solía trabajar para una univesidad grande estadounidense. “Que VERGUENZA para ellos y para los Estados Unidos en general.”

“Esto parece sembrar un montón de preguntas,” una persona me dijo esta mañana en Twitter, “ética, legalmente, y acerca de integridad – en los Estados Unidos, Microsoft, UE, Romania etc.”

Microsoft es todavía un cáncer en la educación. Sobre todo es acerca de convertir a la gente joven DEPENDIENTE (encerrádo dentro) de código secreto con puertas traseras. Harvard debería avergonzarse de sí misma. Ocasionalmente invitaba a un famoso CRIMINAL, Bill Gates, a dar discursos allí, como si esto fuese un ejemplo a seguir por los estudiantes. UCLA también hace lo mismo con el más grande TROLL DE PATENTES [1, 2], quien es amigo personal de la rata Bill Gates. Todo se resume a corrupcción y política podrida. █

De Nuevo Es Confirmado: Microsoft Esta Sobornando a Oficiales

Posted in Fraud, Microsoft at 10:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado in Fraude, Microsoft at 1:53 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Pero no esperen que alguien de Microsoft sea sentenciado a pasar unos años en prisión (alas, es notorio)

Rumanian flag

Sumario: La epidemia de CORRUPCIÓN DE Microsoft es resaltada en una corte de leyes, pero ya que Microsoft es un moustrou bien conectado políticamente no esperamos castigo por tal comportamiento CRIMINAL

EL año pasado Microsoft fue atrapado chantajeando políticos Británicos [1, 2] y días atras escribimos acerca de su extorsión y chantaje (con patentes) contra Android OEMs.

El último fin de semana un lector nos hizo enterar de un viejo artículo que sobrepasamos al momento. Después de reportajes acerca de muchos casos de SOBORNO por parte de Microsoft (lo que lo trajo bajo una prueba en los Estados Unidos) escuchamos muy poco, como sí la investigación no era más investigada. Recuerden que el Presidente Obama fue ya pagado (algunos dicen sobornado) por Microsoft, which rápidamente uno de sus más altos contribuyentes antes de las elecciónes, como bien dijo Bill Gates, su esposa, Steve Ballmer y su esposa también. Haciéndo su influencia en le gobierno estadounidense pegajosa (vea nuestra página Wiki titulada ¨La influencia de Microsoft sobre el gobierno Estadounidense¨) seguramente que vale la pena.

Aquí esta el reporte de noticias titulado ¨Antiguo Ministro Rumano admite haber recibido un soborno de €4mn bribe in un caso de Microsoft” (recordándonos que Microsoft todavía es una COMPAÑÍA CRIMINAL). Dice:

El previo Ministro de Comunicaciones Rumano Gabriel Sandu admitió en una audiencia ante una corte el pasado Octubre 12 que recibió un soborno de €4mn en el llamado caso de Microsoft. Otros ocho previos ministros también estan bajo investigación en el caso, pero Sandu es el único en haber sido acusado por el momento.

Las implicaciones del caso permanecen inpredecibles, ya que envuelve ministros de tres gobiernos de varias orientaciones políticas. Fue instigada por el Primer Ministro Victor Ponta del Partido de Centro-Izquierda de Social Demócratas (PSD) quienes desearon una investigación sobre los contratos firmados bajo su predecesor y rival político Emil Boc durante el 2009-2012. Pero abrió la puerta a una más ancho escándalo que ha arrastrado a políticos de ambos partidos.

El Directorado Nacional Anticorrupción (DNA) empezó investigaciones sobre la venta de licensias de software para las escuelas Rumanas en Septiembre del 2014. Los nueve antiguos ministros son sospechosos de RECIBIR SOBORNOS A CAMBIO DE FIRMAR Y LUEGO EXTENDER CONTRATOS PARA LICENCIAR SOFTWARE DE mICROSOFT A PRECIOS MÁS ALTOS QUE EN EL MERCADO.

Sandu fué el primer previos ministro en dar su testimonio delante de la corte. Afirmó haber contribuído los €4mn de soborno que recibió al Partido de Centro-Derecha Demócratico Liberal (PNL) para su campaña electoral y la de Traian Basescu, el exitóso candidateo de las elecciones presidenciales del 2009.

“Eso es Rumania,” nos dijo un lector, ¨¿qué acerca de Rusia y los otros? ¿Cuál es el status?¨ Bueno, previamente escribimos acerca de Rumania en:

Todavía esperamos por el resultado de las investigación de los Estados Unidos contra Microsoft (por corrupcción), pero permanecemos escépticos hasta que veamos la luz del dia. Microsoft tiene a MUCHOS CABILDEADORES E INCLUSOS POLÍTICOS EN SUS BOLSILLOS, como hemos cubierto a traves de los años extensivamente.

Rumania es simplemente uno de varios países donde Microsoft debería someterse a una extensiva examinación, incluso la EVASION DE IMPUESTOS que esperamos que el IRS finalmente lo tome más seriamente. En algunos de los articulos de arriba ya hemos discutido los trucos de contabilidad de Microsoft en Rumania.

Cuando leemos algo de lo de arriba se hace más evidente que Microsoft está básicamente ARRIBA DE LA LEY, rodeado de POLÍTICOS CORRUPTOS quienes están muy asustados (or envaselinados) para realmente hacer algo al respecto, sin mencionar sus socios que hacen mucho de su trabajo sucio (como fue el caso en los días de OOXML con elecciones ARREGLADAS). ¿Cuál es el ruido acerca de este ´nuevo´ Microsoft de todas maneras? Nada más que una sobreusada campaña de mercadeo y relaciones públicas, alrededor de las lineas: ¨Microsoft ama a Linux.¨

A la gente no le gusta Microsoft porque es bueno. A la gente típicamente le disgusta Microsoft por que ellos entienden la historia y saben que Microsoft es… bien, especial. █

Links 18/2/2016: New Ubuntu Phone, Go 1.6

Posted in News Roundup at 10:34 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • 7 Reasons Why Open Source Code is Better Than Proprietary

    I’m always surprised when users wish that Microsoft Office or PhotoShop would be ported to Linux. Probably, some just want to be able to use standard industry software on their favorite operating system. But so far as I am concerned, applications like LibreOffice Writer or Krita are not just substitutions — even without my ideals, I would choose them as the highest quality software available for my needs.

  • Top 4 open source issue tracking tools

    So let’s take a look at four excellent choices for managing bugs and issues, all open source and all easy to download and host yourself. To be clear, there’s no way we could possibly list every issue tracking tool here; instead, these are four of our favorites, based on feature richness and the size of the community behind the project. There are others, to be sure, and if you’ve got a good case for your favorite not listed here, be sure to let us know which is your favorite tool and what makes it stand out to you, in the comments below.

  • How to make sense of any open source mess

    Open source development and collaboration takes place online, in places made of information. From individual commit messages to project websites and even larger digital structures, each piece of information we create is part of a mess. This is not a slight against open source; all human endeavors are messy, because that is just the way we are as human beings. We all bring our own strengths and failings, wisdom and ignorance, to everything we do.

  • ONF Offers OpenDaylight Support in Latest Atrium SDN Stack

    The embrace of the OpenDaylight SDN controller follows the support of the ONOS controller in the first release of the Atrium software last year.
    Open Networking Foundation officials are hoping to accelerate the adoption of network virtualization by including support for the OpenDaylight SDN controller in the latest release of its open-source Atrium software distribution.

  • Wikimedia: We’re Building Something, But It’s Not A Search Engine To Challenge Google

    The Wikimedia Foundation has rejected the media reports that claimed that the non-profit is working on some search engine that will be a one-click replacement of Google.

  • ReactOS 0.4.0 Released
  • Open source Windows-clone ReactOS hits version 0.4 (ten years after 0.3)

    The developers of ReactOS have been working to develop an open source operating system capable of running Windows software since 1998.

    It’s been slow going: version 0.3.0 was released in 2006. Nearly 10 years later, ReactOS 0.4.0 is available for download.

  • Skytap Supports the Modern Developer Toolchain with Vagrant, Open Source Contributions
  • Here’s why Bottle Rocket is contributing open-source code

    Bottle Rocket has stepped out from behind its proprietary code and expanded its reach into the open-source market.

    The Addison-based company, which creates custom mobile applications for business customers, has released its first few pieces of code for Android and plans to build on the code it has shared with the development community.

  • IBM Contributes Thousands of Lines of Code to Blockchain Efforts
  • IBM Goes Open-Source For Better IoT Apps

    Putting limits on what the Internet of Things can do to transform everything from in-store retail operations to multinational logistics is a great way to hamstring a potentially revolutionary technology. So too is keeping the way IoT apps and services are developed locked away behind the closed doors of intellectual property laws.

    Fortunately, IBM has seen the light of publicly supported solutions and is releasing a new open-source IoT development tool by the name of Quarks. Supported by the IBM Streams platform that specializes in compiling and analyzing gigabytes of live data in real time, Quarks might be used alternatively by hospitals to share designs for vitals monitoring apps that can be used with wearables and by industrial companies outfitting their workers’ uniforms with safety sensors, TechCrunch reported.

  • IBM’s Open Source Quarks Pushes IoT Analytics to the Edge

    IBM has open sourced new technology called Quarks to push Internet of Things (IoT) analytics from centralized systems out to the actual edge devices that are collecting and spewing out vast amounts of data.

  • The Grid: Web Design by Artificial Intelligence

    Flow-Based Programming (FBP) is a software development paradigm where applications are built by “wiring together” various reusable components inside a graph.

    Since running into the concept in 2011, I’ve built the NoFlo environment, which brings Flow-Based Programming to the universal runtime of JavaScript, allowing flows to be run on both Node.js and the browser.

  • Google’s TensorFlow Serving Goes Open-Source
  • Google ups the ante in the machine learning wars
  • Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Introduces TensorFlow Serving
  • Google Delivers TensorFlow Serving, Advancing Machine Learning
  • Google’s TensorFlow Serving goes open source for large scale machine learning model creation

    Google has released TensorFlow Serving to the open-source community, a fresh addition to computer learning software for large-scale modeling projects.

  • Events

    • Devconf – Amazing place for a developer

      As a fresh start of 2016, I got a chance to be part of Devconf – an annual conference which takes place in the beautiful Brno city of Czech Republic. From past three years, its been happening in February month’s first Friday to Sunday and hence this year it was from 5th to 7th February.

    • Get ready to Fork the System at LibrePlanet

      Hundreds of people from around the world will meet at LibrePlanet 2016: Fork the System, March 19-20, 2016 at MIT in Cambridge, MA. This year’s conference program will examine how free software creates the opportunity of a new path for its users, allows developers to fight the restrictions of a system dominated by proprietary software by creating free replacements, and is the foundation of a philosophy of freedom, sharing, and change. Sessions like “Yes, the FCC might ban your operating system” and “GNU/Linux and Chill: Free software on a college campus” will offer insights about how to resist the dominance of proprietary software, which is often built in to university policies and government regulations.

  • SaaS/Big Data

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • LibreOffice 5.1 Offers Reorganized User Interface for Its Apps

      The Document Foundation (TDF) released LibreOffice 5.1 on Feb. 10, providing users with a new milestone update of the popular open-source office suite. LibreOffice originated as a fork of the open-source OpenOffice suite in 2011 and has been downloaded more than 120 million times since then. LibreOffice includes Writer document, Calc spreadsheet, Impress presentation, Base database and Draw drawing programs as part of the integrated suite. In the LibreOffice 5.1 update, a key area of improvement is the user interface throughout the suite’s programs, which all benefit from a reorganization as well as menu additions. With the 5.1 update, the office suite’s integrated programs can now load and save files from remote locations directly through menu dialog box. LibreOffice is the default standard office suite in many mainstream Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE and Ubuntu. LibreOffice is also available for both Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X. In this slide show, eWEEK takes a look at some of the highlights of the new LibreOffice 5.1 release.

    • LibreOffice Is Getting Better GTK3 Support

      Last year LibreOffice made much progress in receiving GTK3 support that it also began running on Wayland. The battle though is not over and more GTK3 improvements are still forthcoming.

  • Pseudo-/Semi-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • Public Services/Government

    • Tallinn schools piloting open source software

      Schools in the city of Tallinn (Estonia) are gradually moving to PC workstations running on free and open source software. A pilot in March 2014 switched 3 schools and 2 kindergartens. Students, teachers, school administration and kindergartens’ staff members are using LibreOffice, Ubuntu-Linux and other open source tools.

  • Openness/Sharing

    • 2016 Open Source Awards Finalists Named

      The Benjamin Franklin Award is a humanitarian/bioethics award presented annually by Bioinformatis.org to an individual who has, in his or her practice, promoted free and open access to the materials and methods used in the life sciences.

    • Open Data

      • Geography students bring open-source mapping group to State College

        Two geography students have started a Maptime chapter in State College to support community cartography and teach people how to use and create maps. The endeavor is co-sponsored by The Peter R. Gould Center for Geography Education and Outreach in Penn State’s Department of Geography.

        “I really want to put State College on the map—literally,” geography graduate student Carolyn Fish said. “So much open-source mapping is centered in large cities, such as New York, Washington and San Francisco.”

    • Open Access/Content

    • Open Hardware

      • Open Source CowTech Ciclop 3D Scanner Kit Available on Kickstarter for $99

        Montana-based startup CowTech launched an affordable 3D scanner kit on Kickstarter and they easily breezed past their funding goal in the first 24 hours. The CowTech Ciclop is a $99 3D laser scanner kit that was designed specifically with owners of 3D printers in mind. The buyer can print most of the scanner parts out on their own 3D printer and the parts were designed to fit on virtually any desktop 3D printer with a print bed volume of 115 x 110 x 65 mm (4.5 x 4.3 x 2.6 in) or higher. Once all of the components have been printed, the assembly process is quick and simple, and the Ciclop can start scanning in less than 30 minutes.

  • Programming

    • Go 1.6 is released

      Today we release Go version 1.6, the seventh major stable release of Go. You can grab it right now from the download page. Although the release of Go 1.5 six months ago contained dramatic implementation changes, this release is more incremental.

      The most significant change is support for HTTP/2 in the net/http package. HTTP/2 is a new protocol, a follow-on to HTTP that has already seen widespread adoption by browser vendors and major websites. In Go 1.6, support for HTTP/2 is enabled by default for both servers and clients when using HTTPS, bringing the benefits of the new protocol to a wide range of Go projects, such as the popular Caddy web server.

    • Go 1.6 Released
    • Women write better open source code on GitHub than men [Ed: conveniently (and wrongly) concludes from that it’s FOSS (not CS) that discriminates against women]

      Woman may be more competent than men at writing code but still there is evidence that they are discriminated against in open source communities because they are women.

    • A New Study Suggests That Women Write Better Code Than Men

      A recent study conducted by researchers from the computer science departments at Cal Poly, San Luis, Obispo and North Carolina State University reports that women write better code than men.

    • If Women Are Better at Coding, It’s Because They Have to Be

Leftovers

02.17.16

A Short Visit to Pro-Patents (or Patent Maximalism) Sites of Patent Lawyers and Patent Predators

Posted in Patents at 9:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

When your income comes from (in)famous patent trolls

NPE 2015

Summary: Critique of the ‘content’ and angle from sites for (and by) patent maximalists, notably IAM ‘magazine’

THE EPO and EPO-funded media are not a source of information but they are often the target of criticism or ridicule. Now that the EPO promotes monopolies on plants (to increase the number of granted patents, irrespective of the overall impact on society) we wish to highlight CEVA et al with their pro-GMO (i.e. patent monopoly) agenda, as covered in IP Watch the other day [1]. This is a fantastic example of the harms of patent maximalism — something that EPO-funded sites sure love and even take pride in. Let’s look at IAM ‘magazine’, based on the past few days’ articles.

“It glorifies what the site profits from, but at whose expense?”“IP Hall of Fame” is a term like that’s being used by IAM right now. Like “Monopoly of fame” or “Protectionism of the year”, one has to be pretty brainwashed to really ‘dig’ into that. Then again, what can be expected from a site which targets ‘IP’ lawyers? It glorifies what the site profits from, but at whose expense?

According to this article, the patent troll of Ericsson still attacks Android OEMs (impacting Linux, by extension). To quote: “The IPKat has been aware for some time that the Patents Court, in the person of Mr Justice Birss, has been devoting considerable time to a series of cases concerning mobile phone technology (Unwired Planet v Huawei and Samsung).”

“BlackBerry, despite its embrace of Android, will quite likely troll other Android OEMs with patents.”According to IAM, BlackBerry is now acting somewhat like a troll, much as we foresaw and predicted. But IAM uses terms like “monetisation”, which are effectively euphemisms (how about “corporate foodchain” as a euphemism?). To quote: “When BlackBerry concluded a cross-licensing agreement with Cisco last June, with a provision for the Californian company to pay an on-going royalty, this blog stated that the deal could mark the start of the Canadian telecoms and wireless business becoming a major player in the patent monetisation space.”

BlackBerry, despite its embrace of Android, will quite likely troll other Android OEMs with patents. Microsoft, according to this IAM report, is hoarding LG patents that it can later use to extort (or tax) Android devices more than it already does. To quote IAM, “20 US assets covering mobile telecoms assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC; also 44 assets on 9th April.”

“…there is already patent trolling in China, but the opaque court system changes all the risk equations…”
      – James SalsmanThe euphemism “monetisation” again appeared in IAM around the same time, in relation to China’s SIPO. The lenient patent system in China (like USPTO in the US) could bring in the trolls; maybe that’s what what “monetisation” now means in IAM (if not NPE). As Jack Ellis put it, in order to sell the “monetisation” (trolls) agenda in China (shaming tactics): “Protectionist, biased, anti-foreigner: those are kinds of labels that are often attached to China’s IP enforcement system by rights holders from outside of the country.”

As James Salsman ‏put it when asked, “there is already patent trolling in China, but the opaque court system changes all the risk equations [...] I lived in Shanghai working at @EFLabs where patents prevented pronunciation intelligibility remediation software improvements” (the latter, with context, can be found here).

The bottom line is, the Web continues to be saturated with coverage about patent matters composed by people who profit from it. Some even receive money from patent offices. Therein exists a real, profound problem. Public interests are ignored at best and habitually trampled. It’s everyone’s ethical imperative to change that, or else very few people will hoard all the wealth and many productive human activities (such as sharing, trade, invention and manufacturing) will effectively be banned except when permitted by those few wealth hoarders. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. FAO Symposium On Agricultural Biotech Raises Lobbying Concerns

    At issue, according to a joint press release (Via Campesina, Grain, and ETC Group), is the agenda, which they find unbalanced as it includes speakers from industry such as, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, CropLife International, and CEVA among others, which they say are promoting GMOs, while they found only one speaker openly critical of GMOs.

Lexmark Demonstrates Patents Against Public Interests and Against Competition

Posted in America, Patents at 8:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Ink
See original article

Summary: A review of press coverage regarding the Lexmark patent case, where gross overpricing of ink was defended by the Federal Circuit

THE news has been dominated, to some degree, by reports about the Federal Circuit doing a disservice to society (yet again).

As the EFF put it this week: “The Federal Circuit’s rule privileges patent owners over consumers, and helps ensure even less competition in the resale market. We hope the Supreme Court takes a hard look at this case, and restores consumers’ rights in products they purchase.”

“The Federal Circuit’s rule privileges patent owners over consumers, and helps ensure even less competition in the resale market.”
      –EFFWithout a doubt, many lawyers’ firms and lawyers’ sites are writing about it right now, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14].

Worth noting is the fact that legal sites wrote like 10 times more articles than general news sites (or technology sites) about this case, e.g. [1, 2]. A lot of people don’t ‘get’ patents; neither do journalists. They’d use silly phrases like “invent patents” or “make patents”. The propaganda worked on them.

“Here, the court held that this type of restriction is enforceable for Lexmark, but only because Lexmark’s product is covered by patent rights.”
      –Dennis CrouchHere is the best report we’ve found on this subject (so far). TechDirt, which has covered this subject for over a decade (going back to 2004 if not earlier), wrote: “if you fail to block competition with one kind, apparently you can try, try again with another kind — and eventually you’ll end up in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who will mess everything up and kill off the competition. Printer company Lexmark has been at war with alternative suppliers of ink for well over a decade. As you may be aware, printer ink is sold at a ridiculously high markup, such that one estimate (from over a decade ago) noted that in order to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with printer ink, it would cost you $5.9 billion (yes, with a “b”) at the checkout counter of your local office-supply retailer. The printer makers have notably taken a “give away cheap crappy printers at a low cost, and make it up in seriously overpricing the ink” strategy to their businesses. This kind of thing works great until someone tries to step in and sell competing ink.”

Suffice to say, this case is about keeping the prices artificially high (higher by several orders of magnitude than the production cost). A response posted by Dennis Crouch said: “I was surprised at the en banc Federal Circuit’s decision in Lexmark to re-affirm Mallinckrodt — giving a seller power to block future resale and reuse of a patented product. My surprise is grounded in the longstanding tradition in American property law of promoting the free-flow of commerce by refusing to enforce servitudes that limit the alienation or use of goods. To be clear, courts have often enforced contracts between willing parties to this end, but those same courts have refused to allow restrictive covenants to cling to the good and bind any subsequent purchaser. Here, the court held that this type of restriction is enforceable for Lexmark, but only because Lexmark’s product is covered by patent rights.”

“Remember that CAFC is responsible for many other equally tactless decisions.”It was not the first time that Crouch’s blog covered this case in recent days (we mentioned this a few times in last week’s posts). Basically, Lexmark twists and bends the law for price-fixing/price hikes. Other companies, such as HP, would no doubt benefit from this, at the expense of the public. To quote Crouch’s blog: “The presumptions are of some importance for those operating on the ground. Here, the US court will presume that foreign sales of a product do not exhaust the US patent right. Thus, an importer must obtain a release/license of those rights to avoid liability (assuming a valid and otherwise infringed patent). Of course, that license right may be implied based upon providing notice of the importation intent. In addition, depending upon the location of sale, UCC 2-312 (or its foreign equivalent) may create a presumption of license depending upon the situation.”

When laws are being passed to protect the business models or large corporations at the expense of the public, are the laws at all legitimate? Should we not feel free to challenge them or better yet, engage in civil disobedience? Remember that CAFC is responsible for many other equally tactless decisions. It was also CAFC that got software patents started, not just in the US but in the whole world. In the past we showed evidence of institutional corruption inside CAFC. █

“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”

–Oscar Wilde

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