* Prof. Adam Mossoff, George Mason University School of Law
* Prof. David S. Olson, Boston College Law School
* Mr. Robert Sachs, Partner, Fenwick & West LLP
* Moderator: Prof. Mark F. Schultz, Southern Illinois University School of Law
Notice that none of these people is a scientist. This is why we end up in such a rotten state of affair. Nobody bothers to consult people who actually write computer programs.
Since the US elections are fast approaching, I thought I would remark very quickly on what I call the “Business Party” — a two-faction, corporate-run delusion of a choice where those in power are plutcrats who send orders to lawyers-turned-politicians. As long as this system remains in place, nothing will change. At least, nothing will change in people’s favour. █
NB – If Romney was fitted onto this image, he would be one among the individual people who shout “Change”. There are more than two options in the race, but corporate press merginalises those. Voting for the lesser evil (Obama in my humble assessment) still helps endorse a fake democracy and validate/solidify the role of the Business Party.
Posted in Apple, Deception at 11:18 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Apple complies not with court orders but with intuition which limits damage to reputation
According to electronic publications like The Verge, Apple is printing — through the paper medium alone — some apology right after failing to do so in its Web site [1, 2, 3, 4]. Apple should remove or amend what its site was saying, but will it? There is more than one paper with the apology, but what will Apple preach to its choir which keeps insisting that Android is “stealing”? We keep seeing such claims in Twitter and beyond (links omitted as they are rebutted therein). People are still sceptical of what Apple is doing:
Apple’s apology to Samsung has hit the printed newspapers today. It’s shorter than the one it was ordered to rewrite, but does it sound like Apple means it this time?
We believe that in order for Apple to stop its more arrogant or zealous supporters from spreading FUD it should lead by example with a sincere statement at Apple.com. █
“We’ve always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”
Summary: Apple’s Hubris and reluctance to comply with court orders is costing it not just in bad publicity but also a more severe and stern order
Apple is a nasty company based on its behaviour in recent years. It’s not mere emotion that makes one call Apple “nasty”; this has become a widely-held perception, sometimes about Apple’s most passionate customers too. Watch Apple getting criticised for its aggressive nature again:
Apple is a litigious company, most famously for its multi-billion dollar patent crusade against Samsung. The Cupertino company has a more quixotic legal battle going on against its competitors, however, that has also become a bit of a war against the English language. Since last year, Apple lawyers have been arguing that “App Store” is a trademarked phrase, and it has the right to stop others from using similar phrases. That includes Amazon, which was sued by Apple in March 2011, shortly after it opened the Amazon Appstore for Android.
Now, some of those issues are finally coming to a head in public. At a hearing today in an Oakland federal court, it became clear that while Apple may have a lot of fury and passion behind this lawsuit, it has run into trouble in the form of a very skeptical judge. US District Judge Phyllis Hamilton showed great doubt that Apple will be able to prove that consumers were confused or deceived by Amazon’s use of the word “Appstore.” At this point, it’s somewhat remarkable that the company hasn’t dropped this suit, since Hamilton indicated a year ago that she was unimpressed by Apple’s arguments and denied a preliminary injunction.
“Forstall’s name is on 166 pending patent applications. That’s more than anyone at the company, according to data from investment bank MDB Capital.”
Those patents have been used against companies like Samsung, usually in vain. Apple is getting told off by judges who accuse the company of breach of order. To quote: “Apple tried to argue that it would take 14 days to post an updated notice on its website, but the request was shot down. In fact, Judge Jacob made it clear that Apple’s actions are beginning to make him testy.”
Last week we noted that Apple had put up a rather petulant non-apology apology in response to the UK court order requiring it to advertise to the world that Samsung didn’t copy Apple in making its devices. Many people wondered how the court would react to Apple’s attempt… and the answer is that the court is not pleased (and is further displeased by Apple’s claim that it needs two weeks to come up with something better)…
Pamela Jones says that Apple must go further than before:
There are consequences now that are worse than before. Apple tried to argue that they followed the letter of the law in the original notice, as does Patently Apple. But there is something called the spirit of the law too, and if you follow one and thumb your nose at the other, things can go wrong, because people notice. Judges are not stupid. Not that I believe what Apple did obeyed the letter of the law either. Nor did the judge in the UK.
It’s never all right to show disrespect to a court of law, and lawyers above all others should take the lead in demonstrating that respect. The rule of law actually depends on it, which is another way of saying that civilization itself depends on it. Otherwise, it’s back to pistols at dawn, or worse.
We wrote about the fake apology several times before [1, 2, 3]. Here is the best report we found in the sense that it’s not shy to slam Apple:
Apple Has To Readmit That Samsung Did Not Copy iPad Design: Reprimanded By Court
[...]
Judge Jacob said, “I’m at a loss that a company such as Apple would do this. That is a plain breach of the order.”
Apple’s arrogance doesn’t end here. The company requested 14 days to make the changes. Wow. Why would a company need 14 days to make changes to it’s own site? Typical Apple.
Judge Jacob did not buy this and rejected the request stating, “I just can’t believe the instructions you’ve been given. This is Apple. They cannot put something on their website?”
Apple has 48 hours to re-write a statement on its website relating to its design rights dispute with Samsung, UK judges have ruled.
[...]
Lord Justice Longmore told Mr Beloff: “We are just amazed that you cannot put the right notice up at the same time as you take the other one down.”
Sir Robin Jacob added: “I would like to see the head of Apple [Tim Cook] make an affidavit about why that is such a technical difficulty for the Apple company.”
Now, that would be entertaining. Apple got itself deeper in the PR blunder. Its arrogance sure works against its intentions and brings no benefit. █
Companies like Kodak, in the mean time, put many software patents on sale. As one blogger put it the other day:
Kodak went bankrupt after over 130 years, but not because the company failed to innovate. It owned over 1,000 digital imaging patents, part of a portfolio valued in the billions of dollars, but the company failed to realize any commercial gains from its innovations. The company was too focused on trying to save its film business.
Now it is suing and may reportedly feed Android-hostile trolls, not bodies like OIN, which continue to boast growth but hardly do anything.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission should sue Google Inc. (GOOG) for trying to block competitors’ access to key smartphone-technology patents in violation of antitrust law, the agency’s staff told commissioners in a formal recommendation, according to four people familiar with the matter.
A majority of the agency’s five commissioners are inclined to sue, according to the people, who declined to be identified because the matter isn’t public. A final decision on the staff recommendation, made last month, isn’t likely until after the Nov. 6 presidential election, they said.
This is ridiculous because Google has been the victim all along. How can the regulators be blind to Apple’s and Microsoft’s behaviour? We reported the unethical Microsoft/Apple lobby to the FTC; instead of going after the aggressor it goes after the defender. It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so pathetic. █
Summary: The British government says no to “FRAND”-washed software patents traps, at least in the public sector
It is with great pleasure that we read this news about standards winning in the UK. Real standards:
Whitehall has launched its long-awaited response to the open standards consultation, which will force government bodies to comply with its list of “Open Standards Principles” when purchasing technology.
Departments must use the principles for all software interoperability and data and document formats. If they do not use the principles they will have to apply for an exemption, according to a Cabinet Office statement. As of today the principles will be embedded in the Cabinet Office’s spend control process.
A little over five years ago I was speaking at a conference for the CIOs of various Canadian ministries. Speaking just before me was a consultant from Accenture who was presenting on their most recent Global Report on Government Service Delivery. In it, Canada had just slipped from first to second in the world, after Singapore. While slightly disappointed, the audience remained content that among 30 or so leading countries in the world, Canada remained second.
Today, the UK took a long-awaited, important step towards fixing this problem. (FSFE press release) It published a set of “Open Standards principles” (pdf). They’re effective immediately, and all central government bodies will have to abide by them. It also put out a response to the public Open Standards consultation that it had run up to June 2012. (See FSFE’s response to the consultation.) In this post, I’m covering only the Open Standards principles.
This news is important for British SMBs which capitalise on standards, unlike giant multinationals. █
hen we last published Richard Stallman's idea for software patents reform he spoke about it over the phone. We now see it summarised as “Legislate That Using Software On General Purpose Computers Is Not Infringing,” as put by Mike Masnick. For a little bit of background: “Wired is running a series of opinion pieces concerning ways to “fix” problems with the patent system today (we’ve made our own suggestions in the past if anyone’s interested). It started with a suggestion from Mark Lemley that was similar to his other recent statements about fixing the problems of software patents by actually applying existing law to stop functional claiming (i.e., claiming around general concepts rather than specific implementations).”
This series in Wired was mentioned here the other day an here is its latest part. It starts as follows:
Patents threaten every software developer, and the patent wars we have long feared have broken out. Software developers and software users – which in our society, is most people – need software to be free of patents.
The patents that threaten us are often called “software patents,” but that term is misleading. Such patents are not about any specific program. Rather, each patent describes some practical idea, and says that anyone carrying out the idea can be sued. So it’s clearer to call them “computational idea patents.”
Computer-implemented inventions, or CII, is another common term for them. Nothing physical is being patented except the arrangement of electrons and bits on general-purpose machines. This needs to stop. It’s a perversion of the patent system and its intended purpose. Read Stallman’s ideas in the links above. █
Microsoft’s omission of the legally-required Browser Choice screen in Windows 7 SP 1 lost Mozilla approximately 6 to 9 million downloads of its open source Firefox web browser, according to a blog posting by Harvey Anderson, VP of Business Affairs and General Counsel at Mozilla.
In 2009, Microsoft was ordered by the European Commission (EC) to present a Browser Choice screen to users as part of an antitrust case against the company. The Microsoft Browser Ballot screen rolled out in early 2010 to provide users of its Windows operating system (XP, Vista and Windows 7) a choice of web browsers, including Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome and, of course, its own Internet Explorer browser. By agreeing to the deal with the EC, Microsoft was to avoid having to pay millions in further anti-trust fines.
The solution should be simple. Ban Internet Explorer. It is made by a company which breaks the law repeatedly, for decades. Avoidance of the law helps the company make more money than by complying. So the last resort is the blacklist.
Remember that many people — honest people — lost their job as a result of Microsoft’s criminal behaviour. These are not victimless crimes where only computer users suffer. True justice will never be restored (e.g. reparations or jail time for the perpetrators), but one can strive to it. █
A look at some of the latest spin and the latest shaming courtesy of the patent microcosm, which behaves so poorly that one has to wonder if its objective is to alienate everyone
In defiance of common sense and everything that public officials or academics keep saying (European, Australian, American), China's SIPO and Europe's EPO want us to believe that when it comes to patents it's "the more, the merrier"
The problem associated with Battistelli's strategy of increasing so-called 'production' by granting in haste everything on the shelf is quickly being grasped by patent professionals (outside EPO), not just patent examiners (inside EPO)
Free/Open Source software in the currency and trading world promised to emancipate us from the yoke of banking conglomerates, but a gold rush for software patents threatens to jeopardise any meaningful change or progress
To nobody's surprise, the past half a decade saw accelerating demise in quality of European Patents (EPs) and it is the fault of Battistelli's notorious policies
New trouble for Željko Topić in Strasbourg, making it yet another EPO Vice-President who is on shaky grounds and paving the way to managerial collapse/avalanche at the EPO
The utter lack of participation, involvement or even intervention by German authorities serve to confirm that the government of Germany is very much complicit in the EPO's abuses, by refusing to do anything to stop them
Another example of UPC promotion from within the EPO (a committee dedicated to UPC promotion), in spite of everything we know about opposition to the UPC from small businesses (not the imaginary ones which Team UPC claims to speak 'on behalf' of)
Uploaded by SUEPO earlier today was the above video, which shows how last year's party (actually 2015) was spoiled for Battistelli by the French State Secretary for Digital Economy, Axelle Lemaire, echoing the French government's concern about union busting etc. at the EPO (only to be rudely censored by Battistelli's 'media partner')
In violation of international labour laws, Team Battistelli marches on and engages in a union-busting race against the clock, relying on immunity to keep this gravy train rolling before an inevitable crash
A new year's reminder that the EPO has only one legitimate union, the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO), whereas FFPE-EPO serves virtually no purpose other than to attack SUEPO, more so after signing a deal with the devil (Battistelli)
Orwellian misuse of terms by the EPO, which keeps using the term "social democracy" whilst actually pushing further and further towards a totalitarian regime led by 'King' Battistelli
The paradigm of totalitarian control, inability to admit mistakes and tendency to lie all the time is backfiring on the EPO rather than making it stronger
An outline of recent stories about patents, where patent quality is key, reflecting upon the population's interests rather than the interests of few very powerful corporations
The role played by Heiko Maas in the UPC, which would harm businesses and people all across Europe, is becoming clearer and hence his motivation/desire to keep Team Battistelli in tact, in spite of endless abuses on German soil
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