Patents Roundup: ACTA Xenophobia, Motorola Wants Embargo with Patents
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2010-01-24 12:37:23 UTC
- Modified: 2010-01-24 12:37:23 UTC
Summary: Patent news of interest
●
Activist ejected from 'public' meeting on secret copyright treaty for tweeting
The latest round of negotiations over the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA -- a secret treaty that contains provisions requiring nations to wiretap the Internet, force ISPs to spy on users, search laptops at the border, and disconnect whole households from the net on the basis of mere accusation of copyright infringement) is just kicking off in Mexico, and activists from around Mexico and the world have converged on the meeting to demand transparent, public negotiations of this critical treaty.
●
'Public' Consultation Over ACTA In Mexico Almost Required NDAs, Blogger Removed For Tweeting
The room, then, was mostly industry people, who were apparently concerned as to why everyday citizens were in attendance, and they even booed a lawyer who questioned the human rights angle. As for Geraldine, she tried twittering the event, and the industry folks demanded she leave (and had a guard escort her out). It's almost like they're trying to make themselves into a caricature of businesses plotting to harm the public.
●
Motorola asks ITC to ban BlackBerry imports
Patent litigation between Motorola and Research In Motion is heating up, with Motorola filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
In the complaint, filed Friday, Motorola alleges that RIM engages in unfair trade practices by importing and selling products that infringe five Motorola patents. The patents cover technologies related to Wi-Fi access, application management, user interface and power management, Motorola said.
●
Motorola Asks ITC To Ban BlackBerry Imports
●
Motorola files case against Blackberry owners, RIM
Motorola has asked US regulators to ban Research in Motion (RIM), the Canadian firm behind the Blackberry, from importing its products into the US.
●
Beltway Issues Poised to Hurt Digital Innovators
Patent reform - Patent trolls are reshaping the patent landscape; their litigation of broad, vague software patents is amounting to a "tax" on innovation.
●
Petition to Stop Software Patents in Europe
The petition aims to unify the voices of concerned Europeans, associations and companies, and calls on our politicians in Europe to stop patents on software with legislative clarifications.
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
- Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
- Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
- Everything here will persist as normal
- The "Infinite Bread"
- The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
- In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
- The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
- Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
- Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
- Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
- 4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
- Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
- He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
-
- Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
- Links for the day
- They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
- we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
- Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
- Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
- Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
- Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
- Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
- If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
- IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
- Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
- Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
- Liberation From 'The Feed'
- They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
- Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
- We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
- Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
- Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
- OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
- Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
- 19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
- In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
- Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
- "More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
- IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
- This won't end well
- Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
- Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
- For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
- They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
- Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
- A crashing franchise
- Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
- Links for the day
- Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
- Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
- Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
- Links for the day
- As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
- French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
- 25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
- there's nothing unreasonable about it
- A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
- Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
- Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
- Links for the day
- US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
- GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
- LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
- Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
- Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
- some weeks ago
- All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
- Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
- The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
- Each year it gets worse
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
- IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
- The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
- Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
- Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
- Links for the day
- Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
- The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
- Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
- Links for the day
- Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
- We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
- Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
- We appreciate the honesty
- Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
- It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
- From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
- We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
- End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
- There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
- What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
- They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
- Digital Sanitation Good Practices
- leave behind Microsoftism
- 10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
- English translation
- Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
- The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
- The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
- expect the FSF to add more people
- Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
- That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
- Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
- Links for the day
- Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
- Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
- Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
- From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
- Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
- Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
- IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025
Comments
Jose_X
2010-01-25 05:16:29
Subj: Patent system useful to slow fast progress -- quick, export our laws!
If enough more people understood how vague and broad most patents are and how much damage some of these patents do to progress, there would be a quick overhaul of the US patent system.
The larger company has the leverage over the smaller company because they have much more money and many more incentives to file vague patents faster so as to overload and stop new and smaller competitors. Ironically, the small company that doesn't produce any products at all has the ultimate leverage because their products don't exist so they can't be stopped.
Patents should only be allowed in industries that have very few competitors (boring industries). Otherwise, each 20 year patent monopoly aggregates in large numbers to stifle the heck out of the industry. No one is fast enough or wealthy enough to write down all their ideas and file expensive patent applications for each one before other competitors grab most of these and other ideas.
Other dirty laundry of the patent system include: (a) frequently, ideas patented have not only occurred to many people before, but are accepted as behinds the scenes standard practice; (b) sometimes ideas get "rediscovered" decades later; (c) the bar for patentability, being "novel and nonobvious", is mockingly low -- if you had to think about the idea for more than a few weeks or sometimes for more than a few minutes, it's "nonobvious"; (d) the monopoly period of 20 years of preventing others from using the invention is an insult to humanity -- most human's lifespan means they aren't even that productive for much more than 20 years; (e) some inventions are remarkably cheap to manufacture, modify, distribute, etc, and are even interesting and fun to invent -- these absolutely need no monopoly incentive whatsoever and monopolies most definitely stifle advance; (f) there is a fundamental disconnection between what really promote progress, collaboration, and a monopoly grant, defined to suppress collaboration completely; (g) monopolists, having no competition, tend to get very lazy and misuse resources for a full 20 year period; (h) inventors that were working on the same inventions and theories for years have their work go down the drain if they didn't file many patents and someone else later did; (i) almost any successful product can be stopped from many future improvements by a series of hostile patent filings by competitors; (j) supposedly "open" standards can be patented, so that in order to participate in the market place, you necessarily have to infringe on patents; (k) the cost of patents means it's a club for the wealthy, and major existing patent players actually want to make it even more expensive so that they have much less competition from other patent filers; (l) you can patent something that you have little clue of how it actually works -- this is a failure in the whole concept of the patent system since it allows those with broad general ideas to stop those with specific ideas and detailed knowledge; (m) ....
We all lose with our current patent system, and the more competitive the industry (like software and business methods), the more damage patents do to it. On the other hand, the US wants to spread our foolish patent laws to other countries. This means everyone else will also be as handicapped as us, so we will be able to compete a little bit better against them. This partly makes up for the fact we will have a lot fewer interesting inventions and will need to get permission and pay a fee to some "Einstein" in order to do a lot more things.