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03.13.16

Links 13/3/2016: KDE at CERN, FCC Versus FOSS

Posted in News Roundup at 5:21 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Science

    • Why Is Styrofoam Still a Thing?

      It might not have the sexiest name, but expanded polystyrene is truly a wonder material. Widely—and incorrectly—known by by the trademarked name Styrofoam™, this lightweight substance is crafted from petroleum-based polystyrene beads, which are stretched out during an intricate steaming and moulding process. The resulting product is 98 percent air, extraordinarily cheap to manufacture, and has widespread applications ranging from life rafts to fast food containers.

    • Google AI goes 3-0, wins Go match against humanity’s champ Lee Se-dol

      Late on Tuesday night, Google’s DeepMind AI group began its show down against one of the world’s best human Go players, Lee Se-dol of South Korea. Now by the end of the week, the search giant’s robotic hivemind has defeated humanity 3-0 in a clean sweep.

      The matchup was best of five games in total between AlphaGo (DeepMind’s Go-playing software) and Lee, all played at the Four Seasons hotel in Seoul. The winner of the series receives a $1 million (£700,000) prize—so with DeepMind winning, it will donate the proceeds to charity. Lee, by virtue of being a champion prizefighter who has spent most of his life honing his Go skills, still received about £100,000 just for turning up.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Britain’s care homes are being turned into complex financial instruments

      Adult social care in the UK is in crisis. This much we are told by those in the sector and this much we can see in the statistics. To cite but a few of these: around 1.86 million people over the age of 50 are not getting the care they need; approximately 1.5 million people perform over 50 hours unpaid care per week; and the proportion of GDP the UK spends on social care is among the lowest in the OECD, with budgets having undergone an overall reduction of over 30 per cent since 2010.

      Reflecting on the severity of the situation, Ian Smith, chairman of the largest care home chain in the UK, Four Seasons Healthcare, recently declared himself to be ‘embarrassed to be British at the state of our health and social care.’ As with the NHS, a mood of impending catastrophe hangs heavy over social care.

      Yet whilst attention has overwhelmingly been focused on the impact of austerity in reducing levels of state support, something murkier and altogether more complicated is going on in the shadows.

      According to a groundbreaking new report by the research organisation CRESC, large care home chains – which account for around a quarter of the industry – are rife with dubious financial engineering, tax avoidance, and complex business models designed to shift risks and costs from care home owners on to staff, the state and private payers.

  • Security

    • Friday’s security updates
    • OpenSSH Security Advisory: x11fwd.adv
    • [openssh-unix-announce] OpenSSH Security Advisory: xauth command injection
    • [OTR-users] Security Advisory: upgrade to libotr 4.1.1
    • Why Microsoft’s vulnerability severity ratings are obsolete

      The distinction between ‘critical’ and ‘important’ has become meaningless. It makes no sense to treat them differently. Patch Tuesday needs a patch.

    • Let’s Encrypt Free Certificates’ Success Challenges SSL/TLS Industry

      NEWS ANALYSIS: The free security certificate effort backed by the Linux Foundation achieves a major milestone with one million free certificates, but are all those free users actually secure?

    • DDoS attacks: Getting bigger and more dangerous all the time

      Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are more frequent, bigger and more damaging than ever before a new report by internet security firm Verisign has warned.

      According to statistic published in the VeriSign Distributed Denial of Service Trends Report, DDoS activity is the highest it’s ever been, with the final quarter of 2015 seeing an 85 percent rise in instances – almost double the number of attacks – when compared with the same same period in 2014. The figures for Q4 2015 also represent a 15 percent rise on the previous quarter.

      The report also suggests that cyber attackers are getting much more persistent as targets are now being hit by repeated attacks, with some reportedly being the target of DDoS attacks up to 16 times in just three months.

    • The Firejail security sandbox
    • New Name, New Home for the Let’s Encrypt Client

      Over the next few months the Let’s Encrypt client will transition to a new name (soon to be announced), and a new home at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

      The goal of Let’s Encrypt is to make turning on HTTPS as easy as possible. To accomplish that, it’s not enough to fully automate certificate issuance on the certificate authority (CA) side – we have to fully automate on the client side as well. The Let’s Encrypt client is now being used by hundreds of thousands of websites and we expect it to continue to be a popular choice for sites that are run from a single server or VPS.

    • 600,000 TFTP Servers Can Be Abused for Reflection DDoS Attacks

      A new study has revealed that improperly configured TFTP servers can be easily abused to carry out reflection DDoS attacks that can sometimes have an amplification factor of 60, one of the highest such values.

    • Do you trust this application?

      Much of the software you use is riddled with security vulnerabilities. Anyone who reads Matthew Garrett knows that most proprietary software is a lost cause. Some Linux advocates claim that free software is more secure than proprietary software, but it’s an open secret that tons of popular desktop Linux applications have many known, unfixed vulnerabilities. I rarely see anybody discuss this, as if it’s taboo, but it’s been obvious to me for a long time.

    • Do you trust this website?

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Negotiating a New (Sykes-Picot) Contract for the Middle East

      The old Sykes-Picot divided up most of the Arab lands that had been under the rule of the Ottoman Empire in 1916. The Agreement was enforced by the superpowers of that moment, Britain and France with buy-in from the Russians. The immediate goal was colonialism, not independent states, but the unspoken end point was a form of stability. Following the massive realignment of the balance of power that was World War I, the lines were literally drawn for the next eight decades. The lines themselves did not cause all the problems per se; the lines codified the problems on the ground.

    • If a US Drone Strike Kills 150 People, Does Anyone Care?

      Americans can sleep easier now that the US military has wiped out 150 more “terrorists.” US airstrikes over Somalia targeted al-Shabab militants, who were, according to Pentagon spokesperson Captain Jeff Davis, planning “offensive operations.” Davis neglected to elaborate on what “offensive operations” were planned by the group.

      He did say that they had been monitoring the camp for a while and had a “sense” that the “operational phase was about to begin.” Unsurprisingly Davis failed to elaborate on the details of the “operational phase” or what it might have looked like. Or how they got their “sense” to begin with.

      Interestingly, Davis also said that “their removal will degrade al-Shabab’s ability to meet the group’s objectives in Somalia.”

    • US Airstrikes Kill 150 People in Somalia

      U.S. airstrikes in Somalia over the weekend killed more than 150 people, U.S. officials revealed on Monday.

    • Bernie Sanders Promises “Level Playing Field” on Israel-Palestine

      Signs pointed to his taking Israel’s side. During the 2014 war in Gaza, he famously told a pro-Palestinian critic at a Vermont town hall to “shut up,” and he has mostly been seen as a strong defender of Israel in its past conflicts.

      In the context of U.S. politics, however, his comments Tuesday were fairly remarkable, bucking the bipartisan establishment consensus that the United States should be openly biased in favor of Israel in its conflict with the rest of the region.

  • Transparency Reporting

    • FBI Can’t Have Whistleblower Protection Because It Would Encourage Too Many Complaints

      The Department of Justice is undercutting Chuck Grassley’s efforts to provide FBI employees whistleblower protection. That became clear in an exchange (2:42) on Wednesday.

      The exchange disclosed two objections DOJ has raised to Grassley’s FBI Whistleblower Protect Act. First, as Attorney General Loretta Lynch revealed, DOJ is worried that permitting FBI Agents to report crimes or waste through their chain of command would risk exposing intelligence programs.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • What Indonesia Doesn’t Know About Peatlands Could Undermine its Climate Goals

      Peat forests, or wetlands, are some of the most important ecosystems for Indonesia and climate change. The country holds the largest tropical peatland in the world, which acts as a major carbon sink. At the same time, carbon emissions from peat decomposition and peat fires account for 42 percent of Indonesia’s total emissions, and spikes in peat fires in 2015 pushed the country to move from world’s sixth-largest to the fourth-largest emitter.

    • Fighting of fires must continue under blue skies — Simon Tay

      Blue skies breed amnesia. With the clear skies, many may now struggle to recall the urgency and anger over the smoke haze pollution in the region.

      Last year was one of the worst on historical record for fires and it was barely six months ago that the haze reached its peak, hitting a Pollutants Standards Index (PSI) of 2,300 in Central Kalimantan.

      It is critical that governments, corporations in the relevant industries and concerned citizens continue to work on the issue. Predictions are that 2016 may not be as dry as last year.

    • Indonesian province declares emergency as forest fires flare

      Indonesia’s western province of Riau has declared a state of emergency over forest and land fires blazing on the island of Sumatra, a government official said on Tuesday.

      The fires, which send choking smog over Southeast Asia every year, raged uncontrollably across several provinces last year, costing an estimated $16 billion, and pushed average daily greenhouse gas emissions above those of the United States.

      “The governor has declared an emergency now, to be able to prevent a repeat of the haze that occurred in 2015,” said provincial government spokesman Darusman, adding that life in the province continued to be normal.

  • Finance

    • Russian Bitcoin issuers will risk seven-year prison sentence

      The Russian Ministry of Finance is planning an amendment to the criminal code to establish severe penalties for those who issue the Bitcoin cryptocurrency or other ‘money substitutes’.

    • Providers’ Newsletter Service Has Broken Down, Awaiting A Fix By The Provider

      As I have previously reported, in January 2004, 12 years ago, I stated in a nationally televised TV economic debate about jobs offshoring that the United States would be a Third World country in 20 years. I over-estimated the time it would take. We are already there. We have 23% unemployment, no jobs for university graduates, deteriorating and collapsing infrastructure, large percentages of the population drowning in debt and its service, the decay of cities that were once the sites of our industrial and manufacturing power, such as Detroit, Michigan, largely in ruins, and Flint, Michigan, where the water is undrinkable.

    • Why Your Boss Hates Your Commute More Than You Do

      Companies are starting to include emissions from employee commuting into calculations of their carbon footprint. Now, there’s an app for that.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Sanders, Redbaiting and the ‘Denouncing’ Double Standard

      Clinton’s sudden—and hypocritical—support for “human rights” notwithstanding, the moment was predictable as it was routine. It’s been 25 years since the end of the Cold War, so younger voters may not be used to these types of loyalty rituals. But whenever the issue of socialism—or communism, its more fear-inducing cousin—comes up, the press must attempt to compel those who have previously expressed support or sympathy for red politics to “denounce” their prior statements. Sanders’ refusal to do so caused noticeable agitation among the moderators.

      [...]

      A handful of Clinton partisans jumped at the chance to paint Sanders as a far-left loony who likes to cozy up to “dictators.” Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, one of the media’s most reliable Clinton boosters, jumped right in, linking to a recent Daily Beast piece by Michael Moynihan, former senior editor of libertarian Reason magazine and current Vice/Bank of America talkshow host, who did a rundown of Sanders’ dreaded leftist past. Suddenly, a topic Marcotte had never once tweeted about, or expressed any public concern for, was of utmost importance and needed to be brought to the forefront of public discourse.

    • Ben Bagdikian, Visionary

      Before almost anyone else, Ben warned about the impact of the modern wave of media mergers that accelerated during the Reagan years (and accelerated further during the Clinton administration). In the first years of FAIR, I heard from various sympathetic journalists in mainstream media who said they were thrilled that, finally, a pro–working journalist media watch group had formed . . . but that we were off-base to emphasize the impact of corporate owners—that the problem was in the newsroom far more than the boardroom. A few years and a few mergers later, these same journalists told us that we’d been right, almost prophetic—that boardrooms were undermining journalism, often quite nakedly.

    • How Activists Mobilized To Shut Down Trump In Chicago

      On Friday night, so many protesters descended upon a Donald Trump rally at the University of Illinois-Chicago that the Republican presidential front-runner canceled his appearance, citing security concerns. Violence broke out inside and outside the rally, with Trump quickly criticizing the “thugs who shut down our First Amendment rights.” Conservative commentators avidly defended Trump, saying that it was a shame that protesters — also making use of their First Amendment right — had shut him down.

  • Censorship

  • Privacy

    • Snowden hits out after Obama sides with FBI against Apple

      Former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden has come out swinging against US President Barack Obama after the latter, referring to the ongoing spat between Apple and the FBI, urged Americans not to adopt absolutist positions on privacy and security.

      Snowden was speaking from Moscow to the Logan Symposium in Berlin organised by the London-based Centre for Investigative Journalism on Friday and Saturday. Obama was participating in a keynote conversation at the 2016 South by Southwest Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, the first sitting president to grace the stage of an SXSW event.

      Obama, responding to a question from Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, said he could not talk directly about the Apple-FBI matter, where the FBI is demanding that Apple produce a modified version of its iOS mobile operating system so that the agency can access information from an iPhone that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, an employee of the San Bernardino county health department and one of two responsible for the deaths of 14 people in December last year.

    • VPN Provider’s No-Logging Claims Tested in FBI Case

      While many VPN providers say they do not log their users’ activities in order to protect anonymity, it’s not often their claims get tested in the wild. However, a criminal complaint filed by the FBI this week notes that a subpoena sent to Private Internet Access resulted in no useful data being revealed about a suspected hoaxer.

    • Obama Wants Nonexistent Middle Ground on Encryption, Warns Against “Fetishizing Our Phones”

      President Barack Obama says he wants strong encryption, but not so strong that the government can’t get in.

      “The question we now have to ask technologically is if it is possible to make an impenetrable device or system where the encryption is so strong that there is no key, there is no door at all?” he asked, speaking at the South By Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin on Friday.

      “Then how do we apprehend the child pornographer? How do we solve or disrupt a terrorist plot? What mechanisms do we have available to do even simple things like tax enforcement? If in fact you can’t crack that all, if the government can’t get in, then everybody is walking around with a Swiss bank account in their pocket. There has to be some concession to the need to be able to get into that information somehow.”

    • NSA: House Of Cards Plot Is “Illegal And Unbelievable”

      Unlikely. First of all, Section 702 is designed for foreign surveillance, and would be much more likely to be used in cases of international communications. Instead, the government would be much more likely to lean on another legal authority. It might still be a longshot, but Section 214 of the Patriot Act would be a smarter bet. Section 214 was the NSA’s go-to authority when it conducted its program, discontinued in 2011, of tracking Americans’ internet and email metadata. That means it would track, for instance, the “to” and “from” fields of a given email, but not what’s written in the body, as well as which websites people visited—similar to the kinds of voter profiles developed in the show.

    • NSA to share more data with domestic law enforcement
    • FBI channels Kafka with new rules on slurping Americans’ private data
    • NSA Privacy Concerns Assert Serious Federal Sidestep
    • Federal Judge Inadvertently Confirms Existence of NSA Spying Program
    • Encryption Makes Us Safe, Says Sen. Mark Warner at SXSW
    • Trackers

      A couple of weeks ago I went to the local shopping centre looking for a thermometer. After entering one store upon leaving without buying anything a tracker was assigned to me. I didn’t think much of it at first, but he followed me dutifully around the shopping centre, took careful note of how I walked. Whenever I visited a store he made a note in his little black book (he kept calling it my profile, and he didn’t want to show me what was in it so I assume it was actually his, rather than mine). Each of those stores of course assigned trackers to me as well and soon enough I was followed by my own personal veritable posse of non-descript guys with little black books making notes.

    • Why Are We Fighting the Crypto Wars Again?

      Last week I arrived in San Francisco to hear good news: Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman had won the ACM A.M. Turing Award. This is the Nobel Prize of computer science, with a million-dollar check and priceless prestige. The choice of these 2016 honorees is both long overdue and appropriately timely. Overdue because their contribution to the field (and to the world) was public key cryptography, which they created in 1976. And timely because the consequences of their invention — which would lead to the development of online privacy tools, whether the government liked it or not — are once again a flash point of Constitutional proportions.

    • Obama attempts to heal rift between tech world and government at SXSW

      The president did not directly comment on the battle between Apple and the FBI but said that ‘fetishishing our phones above every other value is incorrect’

    • New Documents Solve a Few Mysteries in the Apple-FBI Saga
    • Obama weighs in on Apple v. FBI: “You can’t take an absolutist view”
    • Government Can’t Let Smartphones Be `Black Boxes,’ Obama Says

      President Barack Obama said Friday that smartphones — like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple Inc. to help it hack — can’t be allowed to be “black boxes,” inaccessible to the government. The technology industry, he said, should work with the government instead of leaving the issue to Congress.

      “You cannot take an absolutist view on this,” Obama said at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. “If your argument is strong encryption no matter what, and we can and should create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance we have lived with for 200, 300 years, and it’s fetishizing our phones above every other value.”

      Obama’s appearance on Friday at the event known as SXSW, the first by a sitting president, comes as the FBI tries to force Apple Inc. to help investigators access an iPhone used by one of the assailants in December’s deadly San Bernardino, California, terror attack. Apple has appealed a magistrate court order that it assist the government, saying to do so would undermine its encryption technology.

    • Why Isn’t DOJ Complaining about Apple’s Cooperation with Police States Like South Korea … or the US?

      There was lots that was nasty in yesterday’s DOJ brief in the Apple vs FBI case. But I want to look at this claim, from DOJ’s effort to insinuate Apple is resisting doing something for the US government it has already done for China.

    • FBI Has New Plan to Spy on High School Students

      The FBI is instructing high schools across the country to report students who criticize government policies as potential future terrorists, warning that such “extremists” are in the same category as ISIS.

    • Alvaro Bedoya on Facial Recognition and the Color of Surveillance

      But in 2016 America, the conversation can suffer from not being grounded in an understanding of how surveillance technology is actually being used right now. Whether we are being watched by private companies or by law enforcement and the state, our guest says, not everyone is watched equally.

    • To prevent whistleblowing, U.S. intelligence agencies are instructing staff to spy on their colleagues.

      Elham Khorasani was sitting in her car at a stoplight in Northern Virginia when she got the call. It was April 16, 2013. “I’m with the FBI,” a man on the line said, “and we’re at your home executing a search warrant.”

      Khorasani was flummoxed. (A pseudonym is being used to protect her privacy.) The Iran native, a U.S. citizen since the 1990s, had worked as a Farsi and Dari language analyst at the National Security Agency (NSA) going on eight years. She had recently been selected for a second tour at Menwith Hill station, the NSA’s mammoth listening post in northern England. Minutes before the FBI called, she’d left a meeting at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI).

    • President Obama Is Wrong On Encryption; Claims The Realist View Is ‘Absolutist’

      This is not all that surprising, but President Obama, during his SXSW keynote interview, appears to have joined the crew of politicians making misleading statements pretending to be “balanced” on the question of encryption. The interview (the link above should start at the very beginning) talks about a variety of issues related to tech and government, but eventually the President zeroes in on the encryption issue. The embed below should start at that point (if not, it’s at the 1 hour, 16 minute mark in the video). Unfortunately, the interviewer, Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune, falsely frames the issue as one of “security v. privacy” rather than what it actually is — which is “security v. security.”

    • A Judge Just Admitted The Existence Of The NSA’s PRISM Program

      A U.S. judge has just admitted the existence of the NSA’s infamous PRISM program by name, apparently the first time any federal judge has done so.

      PRISM has been an open secret since June 2013, when documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden were first made public. An ominous NSA PowerPoint training slide claimed that PRISM allowed “collection [of user data] directly from the servers” of major American tech companies like Yahoo, Google and Apple, though those tech companies immediately and fiercely protested that no, to their knowledge, they didn’t give the NSA such access. It’s since been generally accepted that the NSA wasn’t physically accessing those companies’ servers with PRISM, but instead creating a streamlined legal process to compel those companies, via orders processed in the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to turn over users’ data.

    • Scheer Intelligence: William Binney and Blowing the Whistle On the NSA

      Binney also discusses the ThinThread data collection system that he helped create while at the NSA, which ended prematurely, and why he believes the agency chose instead to implement the more expensive and bulky Trailblazer, later widely considered to be a failure.

    • Obama Urges Techies to Compromise on Encryption

      President Barack Obama stopped by South By Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas today to talk about, among other things, encryption. The crux of his argument: techies shouldn’t be “absolutists” on the issue, because information in your phone shouldn’t be treated differently than information in your home.

      “This notion that somehow our data is different, and can be walled off from those other tradeoffs we make, I believe is incorrect,” said Obama, while also claiming he is “way on the civil liberties side of this thing.”

    • Skype co-founder launches ultra-private messaging, with video

      A group of former Skype technologists, backed by the co-founder of the messaging platform, has introduced a new version of its own messaging service that promises end-to-end encryption for all conversations, including by video.

      Wire, a 50-person start-up mostly made up of engineers, is stepping into a global political debate over encryption that pits privacy against security advocates, epitomized by the standoff between the U.S. government and Apple.

  • Civil Rights

    • Feds Ask For 5 Years In Jail For Matthew Keys Giving Up Tribune Account Password; Still Don’t Care About Actual Hacker

      We’ve written a few times now about the somewhat bizarre Matthew Keys case. While he still denies having done anything, he has been found guilty under the CFAA for sharing the login information to the Tribune Company’s computer systems, which apparently resulted in someone hacking a story on the LA Times website. The hack was nonsensical and lasted for all of about 40 minutes. There’s no indication that this bit of vandalism did any actual harm — or even that very many people saw it. And yet… the Feds had to work overtime to figure out how to turn this minor bit of vandalism (which everyone agrees Keys did not actually do directly) into nearly $1 million in damages (thanks to emails that the Tribune Company says were worth $200+ each, and random claims about “ratings declines” due to a separate incident involving Keys and the Tribune-owned TV station Keys used to work for).

    • Why Immigration Concern Is Racist

      Since 1979 UK governments have deliberately and systematically pursued policies which prioritised the speculative financial industries of London and damaged large scale manufacturing. The apotheosis of this policy was the massive transfer of money from everybody in the land to the bankers in 2008 by Gordon Brown.

      There are two major results of this forty year policy. The first is that the deliberately engineered manufacturing decline has caused social and economic devastation in the UK outside South East England. The second has been an astonishing accumulation of wealth in a tiny number of hands as income inequality levels have risen to the highest disparity in all of human history, wealth centred in South East England.

      This has naturally led to rising discontent among many people in many areas, despite the concentrated use of mass communication media under elite control to spread narratives to contain or divert discontent. But as unrest has continued to threaten control, a particular diversionary narrative has become dominant.

      [...]

      Concern about immigration is racism. A racism deliberately whipped up to divert people from their real enemies.

    • Outrageous to Criticise Pharisees, Says Archbishop
    • Drugs, Dams, and Power: The Murder of Honduran Activist Berta Cáceres

      Last year, the group Global Witness named Honduras as the world’s deadliest country for environmental activists. “There is a straight line between environmentalist activism and assassination in Honduras,” said Dr. David Wrathall, a United Nations University geographer who studies Honduras. Over the last decade, Central America has become awash in drug money, Wrathall says, which frequently ends up entangled in large-scale agriculture and development projects such as dams.

    • No Bern Notice: the Imperial Myopia of Candidate Sanders

      Does Bernie Sanders know what Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did to Honduras? Does he care? Last week saw yet another savage murder of a Honduran activist for democracy — one of hundreds such atrocities since Clinton and Obama blessed a brutal oligarchical coup there in 2009. But Sanders said nothing — says nothing — about this damning legacy of his opponent. It’s an extraordinary omission by someone presenting himself as an alternative to the failed elitist policies of the past.

    • Former paid agent of Swedish Security Police dictated Amnesty Sweden’s stance against Assange

      The government security agent, Martin Fredriksson, was mainly active during the years that former Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was dictating Sweden’s foreign policy, when the “Assange Affair” was widely publicized on the home page of Sweden’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to statements Fredriksson posted on Twitter, his “work” at SÄPO covered different periods between 2004 and 2010, the year Sweden opened its ‘investigation’ against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

    • Blowing the Biggest Political Story of the Last Fifty Years

      The shocking story isn’t the rise of Donald Trump but how the GOP slowly morphed into a party of hate and obstruction.

    • Trump Concerned His Rallies Are Not Violent Enough

      For months now, Donald Trump has been complaining about the level of violence inflicted on protesters at his campaign rallies. Complaining, that is, about protesters — who have been tackled and kicked, pushed, spat on, and sucker-punched — not being subjected to nearly enough violence.

      In the latest instance, at a rally in St. Louis on Friday, Trump complained about the overly gentle treatment of protesters being dragged from a theater and things got ugly outside, as his supporters faced off with protesters.

    • European Parliament to Vote on Torture Resolution Over Italian’s Death in Egypt

      THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT is scheduled to vote tomorrow on a resolution that strongly condemns “the torture and assassination” of Italian student Giulio Regeni in what the resolution describes as a pattern of “torture, death in custody, and enforced disappearances across Egypt.”

      Regeni, a 28-year-old Italian researcher, disappeared in Cairo on January 25, the fifth anniversary of the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. Regeni’s body was found last month on a highway on the outskirts of Cairo bearing signs of torture. Italy’s interior minister said Regeni had suffered “inhuman, animal-like” violence. Egypt’s security forces, notorious for arbitrary arrests and abuse of detainees, are widely suspected of being involved in his death, though the government has denied any involvement.

    • The Most Wanted Man in China

      Fang Lizhi, the astrophysicist who inspired Chinese pro-democracy student protesters in the late 1980s, gives a fascinating and insightful account of his life in a memoir now published nearly four years after his death in exile. In “The Most Wanted Man in China,” Fang takes us from the 1940s, when he joined an underground Communist Party youth organization, through the years when he was expelled from the party and sent to the countryside to dig wells, labor in a coal mine and work on a railroad construction site.

    • On Being Far Left

      Yet in 1976 I was a Liberal, and politically centre or only slightly left of centre. My views were absolutely mainstream and were voiced in mainstream media every day.

      While standing still, I now find myself far left as the mainstream political spectrum rushed rightwards past me.

      Is this because the Thatcherite revolution, carried on so enthusiastically by Blair and New Labour, proved wildly successful? Is it because deregulation and privatisation has brought prosperity, harmony and an inarguably better society?

      No, not at all. The new right wing consensus has been a disaster. It led directly to the great crash of 2008 and the resulting austerity, which will dog us for another two decades at this rate. It led to massive, astonishing inequality of wealth and a society in which it is considered normal for top executives of an organisation to be paid 100 times more than the lowest employee. It led to hedge fund managers owning our politicians, and to Russian mafia owning our football clubs. It led to a world where Save the Children can pay its chief executive £375,000 a year of donation money yet nobody pukes. It led to collapse in manufacturing and to vast areas of blight and hopelessness, to a generation who will never afford a house while buy to let multi millionaires abound, to QE transferring yet more money straight to financial institutions.

      [...]

      I am not without hope. There is no doubt that the Sanders/SNP/Corbyn phenomenon represents a reaction to the dreadful inequality of society and all the evils which I have described. But I would also argue that this reaction has only been practical because of the new maturity of social media, weakening the grip of corporate media on the popular field of debate and the popular imagination.

    • We Are Witnessing the Decline of Saudi Arabia as a Major Power

      Five years ago, when the Arab Spring seemed at its most hopeful point, a Saudi diplomat told me, scornfully, that it would come to nothing. I had met him in the halls of the United Nations, where I had been asking diplomats about their views on Libya. The Saudis were eager to have the UN validate armed action to remove Muammar Qaddafi. A Saudi news outlet, al-Arabiya, had suggested that the Libyan military was killing its citizens with abandon. Fog surrounded Libya. The U.S. State Department seemed clueless. It did not have any reliable intelligence. Hillary Clinton, who pushed for war, relied upon the French and the Saudis for their assessment of Libya. These were unreliable narrators. Saudi Arabia, at least, wanted the Arab Spring shut down. It threatened its own undemocratic regime. The diplomat’s scorn grew out of this anxiety.

      Like an angry dragon, Saudi Arabia lashed around the region, throwing money and arms, encouraging chaos in this and that country. One underestimates the biliousness of monarchs: at a 2009 Arab League meeting, Qaddafi had cavalierly dismissed the King of Saudi Arabia as a creation of the British and a protectorate of the Americans. It was evident that the monarchs would not tolerate his existence for much longer. Two years later, they—with Western help—dismissed him.

    • Saudi Arabia due to ‘complete’ January mass executions with four more deaths

      Four more prisoners are reportedly to be killed by Saudi Arabia as the country moves to “complete” a wave of mass executions that started in January.

      The kingdom put 47 people to death on a single day that month, including the prominent Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr and at least one teenager, sparking global protests.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

  • DRM

    • Netflix Can’t Stream House of Cards Globally, Blames Licensing Deals

      Netflix’s release of the fourth season of House of Cards has turned into a bitter disappointment for fans in dozens of countries. Due to “legacy” licensing agreements, Netflix is not allowed to show its own original programming in countries such as Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Hong Kong, causing many people to turn to pirate sources.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • CIPIL Spring Conference: what is the scope of IPR protection (and what should it be)?

      This year’s conference, chaired by Mr Justice Richard Arnold and – as usual – attended by practitioners and academics alike, is devoted to exploring the scope of IPR protection.

    • Trademarks

      • Twitter Won’t Stop Fighting To Trademark ‘Dronie’

        You know the word “selfie” by now (whether you like the concept or not), but what about “dronie”? It seems that, back in 2014, Twitter, of all companies, decided to try to make “dronie” a thing, combining drones with selfies (i.e., photos of yourself, taken from drones). It even set up a twitter feed for @dronie and tried to highlight examples of such things — focusing on a campaign around the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. The concept did drum up some fairly lame press coverage (because of course it did), with some puff pieces on “dronies,” pretending that it was the next new thing — even though it was just a Twitter marketing campaign. Never mind the fact that others apparently had been using the term before Twitter started in.

    • Copyrights

      • MPAA Wants to Keep Its Anti-Piracy Secrets From Google

        Hoping to find out more about the collaboration between the MPAA and Mississippi State Attorney General Jim Hood, Google recently requested a deposition of MPAA lead counsel Steve Fabrizio. This week the Hollywood group told the court that the request goes too far, claiming that Google is using the legal process to uncover its anti-piracy strategies.

      • Music Licensing Shop Harry Fox Agency Appears To Be Scrambling To Fix Its Failure To Properly License Songs

        A couple of months ago, I wrote a long post trying to dig into the details of David Lowery’s class action lawsuit against Spotify. In the end, while there was some question over whether or not streaming music services really need to get compulsory mechanical licenses for producing reproductions of songs, it seemed like the fact that such licenses are compulsory and can be obtained easily via having the Harry Fox Agency issue a “Notice of Intention” under Section 115, it seemed crazy to think that the various music services had not done that. In fact, we noted that the only way the lawsuits made any sense was if the various music services and HFA ignored this and didn’t send out such NOIs. At the time, I noted that this would be a surprise, and it could mean the services were in deep trouble.

03.12.16

The EPO ‘Results’ Are Bunk

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Pseudoscience reigns supreme in Battistelli’s EPO

Lord Monckton

Summary: The EPO’s so-called ‘results’ get thoroughly debunked in an academic fashion (numerous independent analyses), leaving the EPO’s marketing department in a growing state of crisis and Battistelli incapable (or less capable) of convincing the Administrative Council (AC) that his iron-fisted, abuses-ridden regime ultimately paid off

A PATENT attorney, writing a blog post with some graphs he had produced, showed that the EPO was most likely "inventing" its so-called 'results' and figures. Soon thereafter, quite magically in fact, WIPO revisited its figures. How bizarre.

Well, based on some other research, from which figures have been produced, the EPO is lying to everyone about so-called ‘results’ in an effort to justify its many abuses. The thugs who (at least now) run the Office habitually like to paint it all as a compromise, or a toll taken due to a necessary ‘reform’.

Nonsense.

“The EPO has been telling all who will listen in recent years that its processing of applications is getting ever more efficient,” wrote IP Kat‘s Merpel earlier today, “while quality is also improving. Given that quality is somewhat intangible and that the perception of different users on what constitutes quality can differ so much let’s leave that aside. Surely the efficiency claims can be verified beyond doubt?

“The thugs who (at least now) run the Office habitually like to paint it all as a compromise, or a toll taken due to a necessary ‘reform’.”“Alas, the hard data and analysis has been somewhat sparse, leaving Merpel and the world at large in the position of having to rely on the EPO’s figures and claims with little opportunity to put these to the test.

“Until now…

“A valued reader who goes by the nom de plume of Archibald Calculus has been doing some number crunching. He has taken raw data of various types from the EPO, tabulated it, graphed it, and tortured it mercilessly until it gave up its essential truths.

“Over the next few posts, Merpel will be passing on to her readers the results of Archibald’s invaluable analysis. Are pendency times improving measurably? Does an independent analysis back up the claims of efficiency made to the AC?”

This very long post, which contains many graphs, shows that the EPO’s claims are most likely false. We have been hearing this for quite some time from numerous sources inside the EPO, but now there are more data points to prove it.

“Does an independent analysis back up the claims of efficiency made to the AC?”
      –MerpelTo quote just one bit, the EPO’s “practice of occasionally presenting median values for prosecution times, whether deliberate or not, hides this situation.”

On misleading statistics: “Information from the EPO on the duration of the procedure is rather piecemeal and seems confused as to what is being measured: mean, median, or proportion of files respecting some absolute criteria.”

Another bit says: “Despite the reassuring statements put out by almost all EPO Presidents in the last fifteen years including the present one, the delay to grant for European patents has worsened almost continually ever since the Office was founded.”

They are torturing statistics basically. Coming from PR people with massive outside help (lying to journalists and even to staff), this oughtn’t be so shocking. The only remaining question is, how long before yet another source shows (again) that the EPO’s ‘results’ are bunk, or simply propaganda?

Battistelli — like Lord Monckton (photographed above) — has no background in science, so it’s hardly surprising that he gleefully spits on science in an effort to advance his reckless agenda. How do the many scientists which the EPO employs feel about it? That’s like putting a person who denies human role in climate change in charge of NASA or CERN. █

Battistelli Acting Like a Politician, Lobbying for UPC All Across Europe and Coming to London Soon

Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:29 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The European public is asleep while the EPO lobbies for a new patent system that severely harms the public (to the benefit/gain of large foreign corporations)

Public nap

Summary: Battistelli’s UPC ‘world tour’, or the lobbying for the interests of his Office and big clients (not examiners or ordinary Europeans, SMEs and so on), carries on unabated

THE LOBBYING activities of the EPO have been covered in nearly a dozen posts so far. IAM’s editor in chief foolishly denies that EPO management intervenes in these matters (he told me this after organising a pro-UPC event funded in part by the EPO's PR firm).

Don’t believe the lies.

Battistelli acts like a politician. He is still close to Sarkozy, which in some sense disqualifies him or makes him unsuitable for his job.

Sometimes Battistelli acts like a lobbyist. See for example the following previous posts (there are more):

It is worth noting that there’s more to Battistelli’s notoriety and one day we may actually get around to covering it properly. The EPO is connected to WIPO in the scandals sense (similar kinds of scandals), potentially the Željko Topić sense, and Battistelli’s competition for the top position there (against Francis Gurry, whose leadership is equally notorious at WIPO). WIPO is cracking down on whistleblowers rather than address the serious problems which they highlight. Battistelli is doing the same thing — much to the outrage of the B28. In order to restore order at the EPO they should give Hardon and other staff representatives their job back, they should give the job back (no suspension/house ban) to the judge who is alleged to have spoken with Hardon (part of the dubious allegations made against her), and finally — most importantly perhaps — the independent/external investigators must look into what the judge is alleged to have spoken about, whereupon the only person likely to be left without a job (maybe just convictions) is Vice-President Željko Topić.

“Battistelli acts like a politician. He is still close to Sarkozy, which in some sense disqualifies him or makes him unsuitable for his job.”Like every abusive institution, such as the NSA, sociopaths in positions of power are to be expected. They can justify the unthinkable, at least to themselves.

The EPO’s President and his bodyguards (yes, plural) are going to London next month. This should be interesting for several reasons. Battistelli and his bodyguards, along with the large (or oversized) lawyers ‘industry’ of London, will be heavy in attendance, that’s for sure, and UPC will be on the agenda, just in time for Brexit debates. The lawyers whom Battistelli et al used to bully me for my reporting on the EPO are also patent lawyers who want UPC. I still have a lot to say about what the EPO did to me after I had pointed out its strong relationship with Microsoft and what Microsoft itself tried to do to me (calling my boss and more). There will be consequences, including greater resentment and increased coverage here. Censorship comes about through fear and I still refuse to be intimidated into silence. The harder one rocks the EPO boat (and gets closer to inducing change), the worse the consequences become. Staff of the EPO surely knows this. There are even suicides (induced by bullying) that serve as a reminder. Big corporations and greased up millionaires/billionaires fight with lawyers, thugs, assassins, PR firms like FTI Consulting, etc. Money matters and they try to play with their pockets, not with minds and words. Depending on which country one speaks out in, the exposed can resort to violent actions. Those who expose them fight only with words. EPO opposition only has words. Soon it might be strikes too; these are a form of expression — a nonviolent action.

“UNION’s dinners are becoming famous for their mix of good spirit and great speakers and they have surpassed themselves this time with their next dinner on 6th April 2016 featuring EPO President Benoit Battistelli himself.”
      –Darren SmythThis new article from Darren Smyth (published this morning) says the “UNION’s dinners are becoming famous for their mix of good spirit and great speakers and they have surpassed themselves this time with their next dinner on 6th April 2016 featuring EPO President Benoit Battistelli himself. In his first public appearances in the UK for a long time, the President will be speaking on the topic “The EPO: Current and future role” and we’re looking forward to a fascinating evening, hosted by UNION President Gwilym Roberts who comments “this is a fantastic opportunity to show Mr Battistelli some British hospitality and hear a little more about future plans for the EPO in an informal and mellow environment”. Full details and tickets can be obtained from EventBrite at https://union-ip-battistelli.eventbrite.co.uk .”

Well, looking at the original site, we find (unsurprisingly) UPC lobbying on the agenda. To quote: “President Battistelli has inherited a giant and complex organisation at a time of great flux both for external reasons, for example the introduction of the UPC, and internal reasons with productivity and operational matters high on the agenda. This is an opportunity for the EPO to explain how it sees its role going forward, and what we can hope for from this major player on the global IP scene.”

Regarding our recent claims about EPO lobbying for UPC (“A Patent Office or a Lobbying Firm?”), one person sent us “More on EPO involvement regarding the UPC” (Unitary or Unified Patent Court; the name keeps changing, as it has for more than half a decade).

Days ago I wrote: “The EPO’s boosters (who rub Battistelli’s back) keep insisting that the EPO is not pushing for or touching policy pertaining to the UPC.”

That’s alluding to the aforementioned IAM editor in chief, who is scrambling to distance himself from his buddy because of negative publicity.

When it comes to the UPC, the EPO has been closely involved from the very beginning. In the legislative proceedings, for instance, Battistelli was repeatedly heard by the European Parliament, wherein he presented his biased views that are self-serving (to the detriment of Europeans). This can be recaptured in the transcript volume published here [PDF] and in the video clips referenced there. He can be seen alongside Klaus-Heiner Lehne, whom we wrote about in past years [1, 2, 3] (early on throughout or preceding Battistelli’s presidency). Back then, i.e. about 6 years ago, Klaus-Heiner Lehne called it “unitary EU patent” (it kept changing names, going back to the days of Michel Barnier and Charlie McCreevy as chief proponents).

The bottom line is, EPO isn’t a patent office but also an instrument of lobbying. Battistelli appears to have taken this to new levels, working alongside horrible people such as Klaus-Heiner Lehne (see our past articles about him). █

Growing Awareness of Microsoft’s Campaign Against Linux, Based on Poor Quality Software Patents and Secret Settlements

Posted in Microsoft, Patents at 5:20 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Techrights at Reddit

Summary: Articles that we published about the past week’s Microsoft shakedowns (targeting Linux with software patents) are receiving unprecedented traffic levels

TECHRIGHTS is gratified to see that shortly after writing 3 articles about Microsoft’s latest anti-Linux patent deals [1, 2, 3] there is a Web-wide debate about it, and it extended far beyond the GNU/Linux world. The various threads about it are approaching 1,000 comments in all sorts of sites (hard to keep up with it all) and people express their justified anger at Microsoft.

“The various threads about it are approaching 1,000 comments in all sorts of sites (hard to keep up with it all) and people express their justified anger at Microsoft.”Yesterday we noticed this a angle getting press coverage in Germany. To quote: “Microsoft hat zwei Patentabkommen geschlossen, die sich auf Technologien beziehen, die in Linux und Android verwendet werden. Darauf weist Roy Schestowitz vom Techrights-Blog in einem Beitrag hin. Zwar versuche Microsoft derzeit, sich als besonders Linux-freundlich zu inszenieren, so Schestowitz, an der Praxis der Geltendmachung von Patentrechten gegenüber Linux und Android habe sich aber nichts geändert.”

An English-speaking news site wrote yesterday that “not all strands of the open source community are welcoming the open source-Microsoft rapprochement. Christine Hall at FOSS Force filed an analysis this week in which she wrote that Microsoft’s moves “are based solely on greed” and represent a “one-way street” to drive more business for Microsoft.

“Make a lot of money without lifting a finger, basically just sending a flow of patent applications, at the cost of millions, in order to earn billions from companies that actually make things““Similarly, Roy Schestowitz, one of the staunchest of the younger new generation of open source acolytes, writes that Microsoft has “blackmailed Linux.”

“At first glance, criticisms like these may seem merely to reflect deep-seated misgivings toward Microsoft on the part of open source fans who represent the more ideological part of the open source community. It would be easy to write them off as radical viewpoints with little mainstream significance.”

For those who don’t know enough about the controversy, the gist of it is that Microsoft wishes to:

  • Make Linux more expensive
  • Get leverage over Linux development/distribution, using threat of expensive litigation, in order to make Microsoft’s proprietary software (sometimes malware/spyware) preinstalled, e.g. on Android
  • Make a lot of money without lifting a finger, basically just sending a flow of patent applications, at the cost of millions, in order to earn billions from companies that actually make things

“It’s a scorpion or a snake in the parable sense.”Yesterday we mentioned Simon Phipps’ IDG article about this. Shortly afterwards, accompanying his IDG article (maybe stating what’s not suitable for publication there) Phipps released this piece in his personal blog and said: “I went to the Microsoft press release page looking for the news about Linux support for SQL Server and joining Eclipse. Much to my surprise, there was nothing there. But there was something else; a press release celebrating the signing of another Linux user into Microsoft’s patent licensing regime and another celebrating an Android patent win. Nothing about SQL Server, Eclipse or any other positive open source engagement.

“I’ll set aside the issues of the validity of software patents, or of the applicability of Microsoft’s portfolio of them to Linux, although both have real and significant issues. The surprise arises from my own experiences at Sun.”

This came after I had exchanged some words with Phipps, who concluded with: “That’s why I’ve written in InfoWorld a call for Microsoft to join OIN. Please join me in answering every Microsoft announcement related to open source with “But have they joined OIN yet?” until they do.”

They probably never will. It’s not in their nature. It’s a scorpion or a snake in the parable sense.

Earlier today, linking to a pro-Microsoft site, we noticed this Reddit post titled “Raining on the Parade: Microsoft shakes down company over Linux infringing patents” (a lot of the media overlooked this at the time because of plenty of distraction). There are now nearly a dozen Reddit posts linking to Techrights in relation to this topic (here is just one of them). Even Soylent News covered this earlier today by taking stock of Phipps’ article and ours:

Simon Phipps comments on Microsoft’s latest antics in regards to open source. Specifically, while the public is distracted by show, Microsoft is shaking down the Android/Linux and GNU/Linux communities for patent licenses.

Phipps asserts that it’s time for them to put up or shut up by either joining the OIN or admitting that they can’t be trusted in the open source community they now claim to love.

Roy Schestowitz has some harsher words on the same topic, noting that the media is ignoring malicious actions in favor of paying attention to the public relations campaign.

While the OIN cannot protect against NPE’s aka patent trolls, it is created for just this kind of situation and choosing to join — or not — sends a very clear message about their intentions towards the community.

“We hope that our few articles on the topic of Microsoft and GNU/Linux will be enough to leave a lot of people with sobering balance and a broader perspective on things.”There are many comments in there, including: “Simon has written more over at his personal blog. He asks people to join him in answering every M$ announcement related to open source with “But have they joined OIN yet? [webmink.com]” until they actually do. M$ can’t expect to carry on patent shakedowns and also be respected as an open source peer.

“Maybe joining OIN would work, but I’d rather seen M$ fold financially and their remaining assets seized. Nothing they have is needed or even advantageous to open source or free software. The world is better off without them. Certainly technology would be much further advanced. The decades of damage they have done to the software industry in general cannot be undone quickly or easily, even if they were to start in earnest, which they haven’t. But that complaint aside, I agree with Simon. The only way they can show that they are there to work with open source rather than against it would be to join the OIN.”

“This leads people closer to the truth.”There are currently close to 800 comments in Reddit about Techrights‘ latest article (I cannot recall ever attracting this many comments for one single article). FOSS Force has just said: “Although Microsoft mainly succeeded in its attempts to hijack the FOSS news scene this week by spreading open source love — better than spreading FUD, I guess — there was plenty of FOSS news happening away from the Redmond campus. Even Microsoft with all its billions, it seems, isn’t large enough to monopolize all of the news in the big, wide and wonderful world of FOSS.”

We hope that our few articles on the topic of Microsoft and GNU/Linux will be enough to leave a lot of people with sobering balance and a broader perspective on things. Microsoft is not a friend and we estimate that nearly a million people have come across our posts regarding Microsoft’s latest patent bullying. This leads people closer to the truth. █

India Got it Right on Software Patents, But Gives Up on Pharmaceutical Aspects

Posted in Asia, Patents at 4:32 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Some pills

Summary: India is surrendering to Western demands regarding patents on medicine that costs virtually nothing to produce and can save many lives

WHEN it comes to policy on software patents, we salute India in spite of the loopholes which remain (same as in New Zealand and in Europe). Last year we showed how a medical company, for instance, tried disguising software patents as "devices", or something along these lines (or “as such”).

“India’s new leadership is promising in many senses, including its policy on software procurement in government.”India’s new leadership is promising in many senses, including its policy on software procurement in government. It’s driving Microsoft mad, as we noted last year (see the Wiki page “Microsoft influence in the Indian government” for more details).

We were somewhat disappointed to have stumbled upon this IP Watch article from yesterday. “Today,” it said, “Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors Without Borders) filed a patent opposition against Pfizer’s vaccine for pneumonia in India.”

“How far can this patent maximalism go?”Yes, the Big Pharma industry (derogatory term for multinational drug monopolies) is getting its way and patent maximalists like IAM are seemingly jubilant. “Talking to operating companies and even a few NPEs [patent trolls],” IAM wrote, “they’re paying closer attention than ever. From where I’m sitting, the overall trend looks favourable for patent owners.”

A new article by Dr. Glyn Moody, citing this article from Reuters, said: “Techdirt has been covering India’s complex relationship with pharma patents since at least 2009. In particular, we’ve been following for years India’s use of compulsory licenses to provide its people with access to life-saving drugs at affordable prices. Naturally, Big Pharma companies in both the US and EU hate that, not least because it might encourage other countries to do the same. As a result, the US pharmaceutical industry in particular has been applying political pressure to get India to stop using compulsory licenses, even though they are a perfectly legitimate policy tool under the WTO TRIPS Agreement.”

“Why is India, a country with well over a billion people, tolerating this? To appease a few dozen countries whose overall (aggregate) population is about half that of India’s?”Read the whole thing. Glyn Moody wrote an entire book covering patents on genetics or the efforts to virtually privatise life in the DNA sense. It’s no wonder that he uses terms like “Big Pharma companies”; one class of patents which we deem as unethical as (if not more unethical than) software patents is patents pertaining to life itself, or naturally-recurring phenomena (recall what informed people wrote in relation to cancer). How far can this patent maximalism go? Have we not already lost sight of the original goals of the patent systems? Why is India, a country with well over a billion people, tolerating this? To appease a few dozen countries whose overall (aggregate) population is about half that of India’s? Are Indian lives of lesser value? What are they worth in terms of patents? And what happens when people are viewed as products to be monetised? █

03.11.16

Business Profit Over Science: Patent Scope at the EPO Has Gone So Badly Out of Control That Even the European Parliament is Complaining

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Reckless rubber-stamping ‘business’, like mortgage-giving bonanzas that created a bubble and eventually led to financial collapse

Green register

Summary: The increasingly greedy and unscientific EPO management led examiners to a detrimental point of no return, where the quality of European patents is being significantly compromised/reduced by inflation or ‘dilution’ (as if the goal or the required “result” is quantity, very much at the expense of quality)

EARLIER tonight we published a translation of a French article where the EPO's task is treated as (or framed like) a "business". This clearly isn’t what the EPO was supposed to be. People who signed the EPC would be terribly disappointed to see how it turned out. Many of them are already deceased. Battistelli, being a Republican, possibly believes that everything (including governance) should be run like a business. Past articles about his background and colleagues suggested so as well. When companies evaluate themselves (and assess their balance sheet) based on patent values as though these are intangible assets, patent bubbles (like software patents in the US post-Alice) can result in bankruptcies. There are severe long-term consequences for Battistelli’s misguided policies.

“People who signed the EPC would be terribly disappointed to see how it turned out”According to this new article from Republican media (the Wall Street Journal is owned by News Corp.), patents on genetics are absolutely fine. The article is so optimistic about it that there are “billions” in the headline and it states: “Seldom has an intellectual property feud been freighted with so much commercial consequence, scientific implications and uncertainty as the patent battle involving the gene-editing advancement known as Crispr.”

We previously wrote about the European Parliament's complaint against the EPO's practice of granting patents on plants. A new article about this has just been published in lawyers’ media and it recalls: “The European Parliament has not digested the decision by which the European Patent Office ruled about the patentability of certain vegetables with specific characteristics (in this case, tomatoes and broccoli), obtained by conventional breeding techniques. Parliament has thus approved by a large majority (413 votes in favor and 86 votes against) a resolution which called on the European Commission to intervene urgently to clarify the actual scope of European legislation on biotechnological inventions.”

“There are severe long-term consequences for Battistelli’s misguided policies.”Not only patents on genetics/life forms are a problem. The EPO has thrown away scope limitations/restrictions to the point of granting software patents through loopholes. With scope totally out of control, the EPO’s status should be reconsidered; maybe the management too should be shuffled. They are expanding patent scope for their own selfish purposes/reasons and the whole of Europe suffers as a result.

Speaking of results, the EPO calls/dubs its self-serving misleading propaganda “results”. Like “the facts” (a term used by Microsoft in its propaganda) or “the truth” (often a term used/preferred by conspiracy theorists).

Well, the problem is, the “EPO results” (or #eporesults Twitter hashtag) don’t tell the full story; they are self-serving EPO propaganda as we noted here before (see an analysis in English or in Spanish, which is the latest among several).

“These dubious numbers, which torture statistics, shouldn’t be too shocking as the EPO also lies to journalists and even to staff.”Looking at the EPO’s Twitter account today, the propaganda carries on and it often latches onto articles that are themselves based on the EPO’s propaganda (cyclic ‘proof’). Contrary to what the EPO wants us to believe, when a rich country files more expensive/overpriced patents it’s only to be expected. There are false correlations here*, like claiming Switzerland is “most innovative” because of the number of patents/application per capita (ignores economic edge/advantage, which makes the process more affordable) and the wrong assumption that a patent is necessarily the same as innovation. The EPO latches onto other countries as well (not to mention foreign companies).

It’s all just EPO propaganda, and it is percolating its way into the media and then getting used by the EPO as ‘proof’ of the propaganda (it’s loopy, like the Bible proving God and God proving the Bible correct). And this is an institution which employs a lot of scientists? How do they feel about having a bunch of liars among them? These dubious numbers, which torture statistics, shouldn’t be too shocking as the EPO also lies to journalists and even to staff. █
_________
* The EPO’s friends over at IAM now latch onto questionable research which they describe using the headline “Start-ups that file for patents are 35 times more likely to be successful than those which don’t, new research reveals” (from Massachusetts Institute of Technology). This sounds, at least on the surface, like very major propaganda from IAM (whether they’re misrepresenting the research or just relaying propaganda). Most likely, given common sense, companies that don’t succeed just don’t have money for patents (applications plus renewal fees). It’s not that their lack of patents leads to their failure. They reverse cause and effect to highlight bogus correlations. That’s just very unscientific. That’s a bit like saying, companies that are worth billions have their own accounting department, hence every startup should have an accounting department, as it would lead to growth and greater profit.

The European Patent Organisation’s Administrative Council Can Stop the Strike by Agreeing/Working to Reintegrate Staff Representatives and End Benoît Battistelli’s Witch-hunts

Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Hardon at protest
Credit: Kontrovers

Summary: The Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office asks the Organisation to take steps against the unjust union-busting moves from Benoît Battistelli, who is eager to cover up his own abuses rather than address these

TWO days ago we wrote about next week's EPO protest and WIPR wrote about it too, noting that the “European Patent Office’s (EPO) largest staff union has called for a demonstration to coincide with the next meeting of the Administrative Council (AC) on March 16.

“The Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) called for a demo yesterday, March 9, following a vote from staff members to take strike action.”

“The Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) called for a demo yesterday, March 9, following a vote from staff members to take strike action.”
      –WIPRWe happen to know a little more about this protest and now seems like a good time to share some additional information.

Internal documents suggest that the Central Staff Committee is “being chosen by Staff as their interlocutor for the strike petition. Unfortunately so far no meaningful dialogue with the current management has been possible on the claims of the petition.”

“Clearly, this is meant as an “opportunity to deescalate” to be seized by the Administrative Council…”
      –AnonymousFor those who forgot what the petition stated, here it is as an image or as text.

“In the light of the overwhelming results,” says an anonymous person, the Committee “has sent a letter to the Chairman of the Administrative Council explaining the further steps regarding the voted industrial action.”

Someone sent us this letter, which we published the other day. “Clearly,” we learned, “this is meant as an “opportunity to deescalate” to be seized by the Administrative Council (AC):

  • Staff will not be satisfied by their representatives just “having a meeting” — a meeting being just an extra tool offered to achieve a goal. Rather staff will be convinced by concrete results.
  • This sign of good-will sent to the AC is made in the express expectation that concrete actions are decided at the next session of the AC on the claims made by Staff

It is increasingly being speculated that if Battistelli isn’t told to leave (or leaves of his own volition) later this month he will be replaced in June, which is when the AC will meet after next week.

“…urgently reintegrate the fired colleagues and immediately cease running investigations and disciplinary procedures against staff representatives.”
      –AnonymousCommenting on “potential objective success criteria” (success meaning removal of the need for a strike): “Although not expressed, it seems obvious that the first claim of the petition represents a minimum breaking point for staff: Staff expect as a token of genuine change that some form of public instructions is given to the president to review his decision and urgently reintegrate the fired colleagues and immediately cease running investigations and disciplinary procedures against staff representatives.”

This isn’t entirely new. In fact, it’s right there in the petition and also in the B28's text. “Accordingly,” adds the above, the Central Staff Committee can decide on the next steps, e.g. a strike.

Jesper Kongstad, the successor of Battistelli in this position of his (Chairman), can become popular among Office staff by doing the just thing. Anyone can see that union-busting and mock trials just took place. This oughtn’t be tolerated anywhere in Europe. █

EPO Tells La Tribune That Benoît Battistelli’s Salary is “We Don’t Comment on Rumours”

Posted in Europe, Patents, Rumour at 6:34 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Liars

Summary: The contract of Benoît Battistelli remains a closely-guarded secret and his mouthpieces provide different answers from what he ‘namedrops’ on the media

IT is no secret that the EPO now lies to journalists and lies to EPO staff. We are still waiting for hard, concrete proof of Battistelli’s salary (including all the perks), which should be made apparent from his contract (that he insistently keeps secret, unlike his predecessor).

A new translation of this French article into English [PDF] is rather revealing and below we highlight some of the more important and unique bits:

Autocratic Frenchman under fire

By Florence Autret | 03/03/2016, 7:00 | 618 words

According to the Dutch daily De Telegraaf of 26 February, Benoît Battistelli is said to have demanded a golden handshake to speed up his departure (his term of office was renewed in 2015) of ….18
millions Euros, which would correspond to ten years of service. (Credits: DR) Business at the European Patent has never been better. But discontent is growing against the President. Criticized for his authoritarian management style, accused of nepotism, Benoît Battistelli is said to have attempted to negotiate his own departure – at least, according to the Dutch press. On Thursday, at a press conference in Brussels, he denied this completely, and denounced what he called a “campaign of calumny”.

Article published on Thursday, 3 March 2016 at 7.00, updated at 18.00

On 3 March this 65-year-old graduate of the prestigious French National Business School came to Brussels to present the impeccable results of the organization which he has headed for six years: Last year, patent applications were up by 4.8% in relation to 2014. The European Patent Office, based in Munich since 1973, cashes in on 1.5 billion Euros per year when it comes to registering patents. Its biggest clients are in the United States (27% of the applications), Germany (17%), and Japan (13%), but China is gaining ground with 22% more applications than in 2014.

“This is a reflection of the internationalisation of its companies and a sign of how swiftly it is catching up,” was Benoît Battistelli’s response.

Last year the Chinese Huawei Group came in fourth position after the Dutch Philips and two Korean companies (Samsung and LG), and ahead of Germany’s Siemens. “Europe remains an attractive market for technologies,” as the President also notes. In other words, business is booming.

But in Munich, enough is enough!

But relations between the President and his personnel have never been very good. The Frenchman is accused of nepotism, having brought in as his chief executive a former colleague from the INPI, the National Institute for Intellectual Property, and whose wife has been appointed as director of human resources. The unrest within this organization of 7,000 people is no longer confined to gossip around the coffee machine. The facts are hard and plain: Burn-outs, suicides at the workplace, a whole range of contentious disciplinary procedures against staff representatives, and so on.

In January, following the departure of two union executives, thousands of EPO staff members left their offices to gather in front of the French consulate to demand the departure of the “Frenchman”. “It’s getting worse and worse,” says Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’, French Socialist Deputy for French Citizens Abroad, who for more than two years has been monitoring the happenings at the EPO, and who, at the end of December, had an interview with Emmanuel Macron, the Minister of the Economy. In Paris he is said to have been given assurance that “no-one wants to wait for a fifth suicide to happen” before taking action. At Bercy, on the other hand, the response was “no comment.” A union source told La Tribune on Thursday that there were not four but five suicides in which there appeared to be a link between work and the lead-up to the act, and emphasised that the personnel, consisting essentially of engineers and legal experts, were subjected to “paradoxical constraints” between an intellectually highly demanding form of work and the pressures of performance.

In Germany, as in the Netherlands, where the Office employs 2700 people at the Rijswijk site near The Hague, President Battistelli has regularly featured in one or another of the media. On 2 March Bavarian television broadcast a documentary about the “nightmare” of one of the suicides in Munich.

“The suicides are personal tragedies. It is very difficult to give a reason for such a decision,” the President of the Office commented on Thursday. According to the Dutch daily De Telegraaf of 26 February, Benoît Battistelli is said to have demanded a golden handshake to speed up his departure (his term of office was renewed in 2015) of ….18 millions Euros, which would correspond to ten years of service.

“We don’t comment on rumours,” was the response on Wednesday by La Tribune, the mouthpiece of the EPO, which is one of the ever shrinking group of organizations which does not publish details of the salaries of its executives… Replying to a question from La Tribune, the President indicated that his annual salary, which is not officially published, was “300,000 Euros” annually. The rumours of his departure and the golden handshake, published by De Telegraaf, were “totally unfounded,” he maintained. These 18 million would correspond to the bonus distributed in 2015 to part of the personnel on the basis of performance indicators. “This is a political campaign”, and “calumny” says President Battistelli, who, incidentally was elected onto the municipal council of Saint-Germain en Laye on a list close to the Republicans.

For Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’, the social crisis is only a reflection of the crisis in management. The rule of “one country, one vote” prevails on the governing body, the Administrative Council. “With that principle, you can create silence” by lumping together coalitions of small countries, the Deputy explains. He goes on: “It would be a welcome step if the Member States were to take the matter in hand” by attending a ministerial conference, which has not happened for fifteen years, he says. One country, one vote: “It is the basic rule for international organizations,” replies the President of the EPO. “If the Member States want to change it, I have no objection… but I wish them good luck.” The EPO, which has 38 Member States, is not actually an institution of the European Union, where the influence of the states is weighted according to their size. The situation remains that, as from 2017, it is supposed to deliver the “Unitary Patent”, an industrial and intellectual property instrument created by the European legislature.

The next meeting of the Administrative Council is scheduled for 16 March, and promises to be a stormy event. The revolt has spread from the departments within the Office and is gaining ground among the representatives of the 38 Member States of the organization. In a recent letter to his associate members of the European Union, the Director General of the Patent Office, Jesper Kongstad, a Dane, gave notice of the lodging of a motion demanding an independent audit of the organization, and the suspension of the contentious disciplinary proceedings being taken against the staff representatives. The EPO management has given assurance that the wording of the document which will be submitted to the Council will be “considerably softened.” The President has already announced the convening of a “social conference” in the autumn and the issue of an invitation to tender for the recruitment of an “independent expert” whose task will be to come up with answers about the social situation. On 4 March he is scheduled to meet Martijn Van Dam at The Hague. The Dutch Secretary of State for Economic Affairs has been briefed about the social situation at the Rijswijk site. “The Netherlands are one of the countries which benefits most from the activity of the EPO, both as an employer as well as by way of the number of patents registered by its companies,” was the President’s rejoinder on Thursday. The Netherlands are the fifth country in the organization in terms of patents registered, and Philips hold the lead among the companies involved. Watch this space.

We have had a lot of input about Battistelli’s secret contract (it’s not what Battistelli claims without providing any evidence to the media), but we still hope that someone can leak it to us because of what Battistelli said. █

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