03.21.17

In the US Patent System, Evolved Tricks for Bypassing Invalidations of Software Patents and Getting Them Granted by the USPTO

Posted in America, Patents at 7:42 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: A roundup of news about patents in the US and how the patent microcosm attempts to patent software in spite of Alice (high-impact SCOTUS decision from 2014)

THE EPO has been so full of scandals and lies lately that we have, at times, lost sight of news from the US, including improvements at the USPTO. Tonight, for a change, here is something positive.

“As one can expect, patent law firms promote software patents under the guise of “AI”…”This bit of news suggests that Sony wants a patent on wireless charging — not a new concept in its own right, but we certainly remember that Sony ‘innovated’ devices that almost literally explode, owing to their splendid battery. This happened several times over the years and 3 years ago there were still recalls of products (it also happened a decade ago, and not for the first time).

Putting aside patents on hardware, there are silly new patents on software being assigned. “Interfacing to cloud storage” they call it — the cloudwashing of patents as we called it this month and last month (a fairly recent trend of pseudo-’innovation’ using buzzwords). Someone in Twitter sent a “BS software patent alert” about it. Will courts ever uphold such a patent? probably not after Alice (§101).

“Patent examiners should watch out for these silly workaround attempts; just because some software is described as “on a device”, “over the Internet”, “on a phone”, “in the cloud”, or “for AI” doesn’t mean it’s any less abstract.”Speaking of cloudwashing of patents, we have mentioned “AI” as another buzzword commonly used these days to patent old stuff. As one can expect, patent law firms promote software patents under the guise of “AI” and Barker Brettell LLP, which we mentioned here before in relation to the EPO [1, 2], has no qualms about it (here is another new article along those lines). Patent examiners should watch out for these silly workaround attempts; just because some software is described as “on a device”, “over the Internet”, “on a phone”, “in the cloud”, or “for AI” doesn’t mean it’s any less abstract. The same goes for “machine learning”, “IoT”, “DevOps”, “smart”, “wearable” and other trendy terms that mean too little (if anything at all). These are still software patents, just like that Baxter patent application which Judge Corcoran ruled against in T1508/12-3.5.05.

Over at Watchtroll, the strident proponent of software patents (where actual software engineers never write about it), someone from a law firm (Harrity & Harrity) decided to market some tricks for patenting business methods in spite of Alice. Here’s an except:

These examples seem to indicate that the power of §101 to restrict patentability has been whittled down since Alice and that the USPTO would like to reduce the number of §101 rejections for technological claims in light of court decisions post-Alice. Below, we describe each example provided by the USPTO and explain the USPTO guidance for each example to assist practitioners with reducing and overcoming §101 rejections.

As often happens, they try to sort of reverse-engineer the USPTO’s guidelines in order to defy the rules and sneak bogus patents past the examiners. Once granted, any defendant would have to spend a fortune in court to prove invalidity (with burden of proof and fees enough to make a settlement more attractive an option). As long as the victims are kept isolated and unaware of one another (NDAs can accomplish this), they won’t pool together the financial resources required to fight back against the serial aggressor (taking away the ‘weapon’).

“Once granted, any defendant would have to spend a fortune in court to prove invalidity (with burden of proof and fees enough to make a settlement more attractive an option).”§101 has been worrying the patent microcosm and media of this microcosm keeps trying to scrape some good news from the bottom of the barrel. The other day, for example, MIP’s Michael Loney went along with a rather misleading headline, based on some figures from the patent microcosm itself (Fenwick & West). We’ve already mentioned this analysis; Loney could say that CAFC MAINTAINS high §101 invalidity rates, but instead he went along with “US district court 101 invalidity rates down slightly in 2017″ and left much of the rest behind a paywall. “The Federal Circuit,” he noted before the paywall kicked in, “maintains its high invalidity rate on Section 101 decisions so far this year but the district court rate has fallen, according to new figures from Fenwick & West’s Robert Sachs. One interesting recent trend is the PTAB has reversed all 16 ex parte appeals of Section 101 rejections since October…”

PTAB maintains and even increases its workload, though Loney recently compared non-corresponding months to make it look otherwise. They’re using all sorts of tricks in an effort to give their readers, the patent microcosm, some good news and ‘tricks’ for fooling examiners, judges, etc.

“They’re using all sorts of tricks in an effort to give their readers, the patent microcosm, some good news and ‘tricks’ for fooling examiners, judges, etc.”Speaking of CAFC, Patently-O wrote about this new verdict, noting that a “California jury held that TVIIM’s U.S. Patent No. 6,889,168 was both invalid as anticipated and not infringed. On appeal, the Federal Circuit affirmed. [...] The result here is that a potentially inconsistent verdict is not improper so long as any possible resolution of the inconsistency reaches the same outcome (here, that the patentee loses). In this case, any proposed construction of the claim terms resulted in either the patent being invalid or being not infringed.”

This is a good example of tricks used in vivo — so to speak — once the patents are already in a process; the same sorts of tricks have been attempted at PTAB, in desperate efforts to save patents by editing their contents (as if patents are something dynamic that should have versions and revisions even after a grant). It’s like evergreening of patents ‘on the go’. The whole thing is laughable and it contradicts the very premise/basis of patenting!

“…it seems clear that there is growing backlash against patent maximalism, which has become more like a religion than a science, and is practiced by firms that engage neither in science nor in any form of production.”Incidentally, recently in Techrights we have covered several examples of frauds and charlatans extorting with patents; Some patently unethical frauds out there blackmail small companies by the thousands (of companies) using patents they haven’t got or patents which they know are bogus. Classic protection racket! Many examples were recently given of it and this new article (behind paywall) says that “Patent Owners Face Increased Fraud Liability Risk”. To quote the open access summary/outline: “New legislative and court-driven developments in patent law have increased the risk of securities fraud liability for public company patent owners. Such patent owners and their securities counsel are therefore best advised to understand these developments, their intersection with securities law, and how they may affect some public disclosures.”

As access to the article is restricted, as is normal for that site, it’s hard to say if any of this alludes to frauds and charlatans who claim to have patent leverages that they haven’t (in order to extract fees from a lot of companies), but either way, it seems clear that there is growing backlash against patent maximalism, which has become more like a religion than a science, and is practiced by firms that engage neither in science nor in any form of production. █

“Then They Came For Me—And There Was No One Left To Speak For Me.”

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

The EPO’s campaign of censorship (removal of essential information) must stop

Joseph Goebbels
“My Party is my church, and I believe I serve the Lord best if I do his will, and liberate my oppressed people from the fetters of slavery. That is my gospel.” (he spoke of the Nazi party, not Team Battistelli)

Summary: The decreasing number of people who cover EPO scandals (partly due to fear, or Battistelli's notorious "reign of terror") and a cause for hope, as well as a call for help

THE EPO successfully neutered and muted the cat (or Kat) after it had attempted to do the same thing to me (at the time, people said the Kat would be next in line and last year the Kat too was sanctioned by the Office). Here are just two of the legal threats that the EPO sent to me [1, 2]; they ought to be in the public domain. Invoking something like state secrets to suppress journalism is a very old trick.

“The new quality standards have been specifically designed to allow management to hide any drops in quality.”
      –Kieren McCarthyJudging by El Reg comments — and we don’t need to quote them as there’s not much new information there (no EPO insiders among them, or very few based on the tone and the content of messages*) — the 'pampered' party line (borderline trolling) is spreading. The only ‘defense’ of the EPO right now is a bunch of accusations against ‘spoiled’ examiners.

The original author of the article, Kieren McCarthy, weighed in to clarify (amid distractions/diversions) as follows:

I don’t understand why you would imagine that the number of patents approved in any way diminishes the fact that the EPO management is mistreating its employees.

That’s what the stories and the strikes and the public rebukes and the critical reports have all been about: the president is trying to force through changes that he believes will make the EPO more efficient and when he’s met with anything but compliance, he reacts very aggressively.

Battistelli created an investigation team that carried out surveillance of union workers that is illegal under the laws in the countries where they are based. He has run disciplinary hearings that have been criticized by all arms of the EPO and by politicians, and other staff unions and even the ILO. His own administrative council ordered him to stop – and he ignored it.

Each time the EPO’s checks and balances have been invoked, Battistelli has responded by changing the rules to award himself greater power. And when he is faced with increasingly angry people around him, he responds by diminishing them and by using the EPO’s resources against them. Or, in the case of his personal bodyguards, using the EPO’s funds to benefit himself.

The EPO management team is well aware that increasingly the number of patents processed is likely to result in lower quality but rather than work hard on making that work, or facing up to the issue and recognizing a likely drop but arguing it will rebound (and providing targets and metrics for recover), it has done what every bad management team in history has done: fixed the results.

The new quality standards have been specifically designed to allow management to hide any drops in quality.

Now if, after all that, you feel you can simply point at the number of patents granted and say: wow, they’re doing a terrific job, then you are either willfully ignorant or painfully short-sighted. Unfortunately you would not be alone: a large number of the administrative council members also appeared to be persuaded that so long as the numbers look good, you can ignore the day-to-day workings of the organization.

Someone later highlighted a point that we had made last year regarding the way EPO counts applications. To quote: “Number of applications is a dodgy statistic which includes some formal applications in China which never proceed due to no fee being paid. You need the lower figure of applications which ever come to the EPO. Granting more doesn’t mean better performance. The Americans used to grant almost all and that was criticised (rightly) for being too easy. There is a balance between rejecting some and granting some based on whether they meet the criteria. The danger is to too easily drop standards to grant more.”

“We are gratified to know that Britain’s largest news site for techies is now regularly covering the EPO conflict and is being cited even by politicians in Parliamentary sessions (e.g. recently in Dutch Parliament).”We don’t want to waste too much space and time quoting provocations against EPO staff (examiners that is). Instead, in the coming days/weeks, IP Kat comments will be quoted, along with anonymous sources of ours who know the system from the inside. ‘Radical’ transparency is well overdue as the more people know, the worst things become for EPO management.

We are gratified to know that Britain’s largest news site for techies is now regularly covering the EPO conflict and is being cited even by politicians in Parliamentary sessions (e.g. recently in Dutch Parliament).

“…writing about the EPO’s management sometimes feel like covering Mexican drug gangs, Russian elites, or the Sicilian Mafia.”The important thing right now is to help defend, support and encourage the few who are left to cover EPO scandals. Team Battistelli is suffering (it's afraid of information/reporting, as opposed to its paid puff pieces that are easily refuted) and it is attempting to silence — sometimes by scare tactics — those who persist and actually understand the system well enough to highlight the abuses and explain these to a wider audience (as the El Reg did, even in that long followup comment).

In Russia, as per today’s news, a lawyer has been thrown out of a building (sounds like a familiar story because it happens to journalists too, but media reports frame it somewhat differently now [1, 2]) and writing about the EPO’s management sometimes feel like covering Mexican drug gangs, Russian elites, or the Sicilian Mafia. We don’t think Merpel is a coward; in fact, people should be thankful to her for covering EPO scandals for as long as she had. █
_________
* “Granting patents is easy – it’s rejecting patents that’s hard,” one noteworthy comment has noted.

As Expected, the Patent Microcosm is Already Interfering, Lobbying and Influencing Supreme Court Justices

Posted in America, Courtroom, Patents at 5:24 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Insulting Justices/judges, like hitting them under the belt

Justice Breyer
Justice Breyer was pro-Alice or in favour of what’s now known as the Alice test that eliminates many software patents

Summary: The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is preparing to deliver some important decisions on cases with broad ramifications, e.g. for patent scope, and those who make money from patent feuds are attempting to alter the outcome (which would likely restrict patent scope even further, based on these Justices’ track record)

SOME of our earliest articles about SCOTUS were quite critical of it; the same goes for the USPTO. But nearly a decade has passed and the United States is nicely reforming the patent system, led by key decisions from SCOTUS (decisions such as Alice and Mayo).

“…nearly a decade has passed and the United States is nicely reforming the patent system, led by key decisions from SCOTUS (decisions such as Alice and Mayo).”There are some important and relevant (to us) cases coming from SCOTUS, possibly with new Justices joining quite soon (following the death of Scalia and the change of political party in power). A loosely-closeted patent maximalist (disguised as academic) seemed rather bothered about the upcoming decisions. He wrote a lot about them recently, noting for instance that “Justice Breyer dissented – arguing that “for more than a century courts with virtual unanimity have applied laches in patent damages cases” in order to fill an important gap in the statutory regime.” (regarding SCA Hygiene Prods. v First Quality Baby Prods)

He also wrote regarding the Lexmark case which we recently wrote about in light of the attacks on Justice Breyer. The patent maximalist quotes from this SCOTUS oral arguments [PDF]: “If you look it the Alice case, for example, that obviously had tremendous implications…”

“There are some important and relevant (to us) cases coming from SCOTUS, possibly with new Justices joining quite soon (following the death of Scalia and the change of political party in power).”Yes, fantastic implications to software developers, albeit negative for patent trolls, patent lawyers etc. (in other words, people who produce nothing of use)

SCOTUS will likely rule for common sense yet again, as it so persistently did in the patents domain (the composition of Justices is still very similar). Here is Watchtroll attempting to influence the outcome by giving the platform to “an associate in Womble Carlyle’s Intellectual Property Transactions Group.” (i.e. patent microcosm).

Watchtroll great againNo doubt there will be a lot of lobbying to that effect in the coming days, weeks, and beyond.

A great headline that we found earlier today said, “In Apple v. Samsung, SCOTUS Sided With Reason Over Rounded Corners”

“No doubt there will be a lot of lobbying to that effect in the coming days, weeks, and beyond.”There may be more such decisions (regarding Apple and Samsung) heading into SCOTUS, with nearly billions of dollars hanging in the balance (for this case alone, irrespective of impact it would have on other, future cases). To quote the article: “After almost five years of legal volleying, the U.S. Supreme Court finally issued a decision in the highly anticipated Apple v. Samsung design patent case late last year. On Tuesday, Dec. 5, the court delivered a unanimous decision in favor of Samsung, finding that damages for design patent infringement may be limited to revenues attributable to a component of an article of manufacture rather than profits from the entire article. While this is an important victory for startups and innovators—from global corporations to inventors toiling in garages—courts must still work to provide the guidance and clarity necessary to prevent bad actors from abusing the patent system to the detriment of innovation. And they have a new opportunity to do so: On Feb. 7, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit took a significant step in that direction by remanding the Apple v. Samsung case to the Northern District of California court.”

We have been trying to figure out where a Justice Gorsuch (if appointed, not just nominated) would stand on patents, but it’s still too much of a mystery [1, 2]. We have not yet seen any indication — except perhaps this — that Trump is going change course and attempt to reverse/undo the progress made. █

Intellectual Ventures — Like Microsoft (Which It Came From) — Spreads Patents to Manifest a Lot of Lawsuits

Posted in Microsoft, Patents at 4:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

They are still close friends…

Bill and Nathan
Bill Gates (Microsoft co-founder) and Nathan Myhrvold (Intellectual Ventures founder, former Microsoft CTO). Credit: Reuters

Summary: That worrisome strategy which is passage of patents to active (legally-aggressive) trolls seems to be a commonality, seen across both Microsoft and its biggest ally among trolls, which Microsoft and Bill Gates helped create and still fund

TWO days ago we wrote that it certainly seemed (based on new evidence) like Microsoft would start siccing trolls on (and against) companies such as Amazon and AWS customers — something that some pundits had already hypothesised about (since the “Azure IP Advantage” announcement [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]).

“Is this a new modus operandi for Intellectual Ventures? Is Microsoft, a close ally of Intellectual Ventures, in the know about this?”We are now hearing, right from the mouths of Intellectual Ventures apologists, that the patents it gives away to other fake companies (which produce nothing) are being used to attack legitimate companies down in the Eastern District of Texas. Is this a new modus operandi for Intellectual Ventures? Is Microsoft, a close ally of Intellectual Ventures, in the know about this? Will some of these firms that Intellectual Ventures is arming go after AWS customers and never against Azure customers? We shall see…

As IAM put it today (remember that IAM repeatedly groomed this troll, the world’s largest patent troll): “In December last year, however, IV’s Invention Science Fund made three separate transfers of 49 assets to an entity called Location Based Services LLC, a Plano-based business that appears to be controlled by Leigh Rothschild. He is listed on IV’s website as being part of its invention network and, according to the site, has turned to IV in the past to help monetise his own patents. He has also been only too happy to pursue alleged infringers through the courts and now appears prepared to try to monetise some of IV’s grants. Last month, Location Based Services filed three infringement lawsuits in East Texas against Rand McNally, MITAC Digital Corp and Garmin International.”

“It’s going to be difficult to keep track as Intellectual Ventures already has literally thousands of proxies, based on reliable press reports.”It’s not an isolated example. The title of the article is, “As IV increases its rate of patent sales, more of the assets it divests are ending up in court”.

So it’s Intellectual Ventures — not just Microsoft — which is now fueling massive number of lawsuits by giving patents to trolls. It’s going to be difficult to keep track as Intellectual Ventures already has literally thousands of proxies, based on reliable press reports. █

What the Patent Microcosm is Saying About the EPO and the UPC

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 4:21 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The patent microcosm is the military-industrial complex of the patent world

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

–Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961

Summary: Response to 3 law firms and today’s output from them, which serves to inform or misinform the European public at times of Big Lies and fog of (patent) war, revealing the true nature of 21st century asymmetric patent warfare and lobbying

THE EPO is not the only ‘department’ accusable of spreading lies. Around the EPO — just like the USPTO for that matter — there are various legal firms looking forward and eagerly awaiting for a bite at the EPO’s corpses (like hyenas).

“The last thing Battistelli wants is a process that helps highlight (or quantitatively determine) the rapid demise in patent quality under his watch — something which insiders believe is intentional.”Simon Kahn of Boult Wade Tennant, for example, has just published this article that helps remind us that patent parasites and trolls will benefit if Battistelli gets his way (eliminating patent quality, oppositions, appeals and so on). “Nevertheless,” Kahn notes, “the low cost of EPO Oppositions and their central effect on the European Patent across all the countries in which it is in force, still makes them a valuable tool. It should be borne in mind that an Opposition can only be filed within nine months of the European Patent’s grant, so keeping track of patents in relevant sectors can be of great benefit.”

Battistelli shortens such appeal/opposition windows, raises the associated costs, understaffs the appeal broads, demotivates them and so on. The last thing Battistelli wants is a process that helps highlight (or quantitatively determine) the rapid demise in patent quality under his watch — something which insiders believe is intentional. We recently published EPO leaks (from which the EPO attempted to distract on the same day) that show admissions from the inside that patent quality control is an utter disaster.

“If they’re not a mere victim of EPO deception, then they are willfully complicit in a disinformation campaign, which doesn’t bode well for Awapatent (albeit Battistelli will love them for it, forever and a day).”As is usual, patent law firms are too afraid to express their concerns about all this (maybe because they benefit financially from overpatenting, or maybe for fear of retaliation). Earlier today Awapatent took the role of Battistelli and EPO ‘mouthpiece’, repeating claims about EPO ‘results’ and even repeating patently false claims. If they’re not a mere victim of EPO deception, then they are willfully complicit in a disinformation campaign, which doesn’t bode well for Awapatent (albeit Battistelli will love them for it, forever and a day).

Speaking of patent law firms that spread lies, watch this latest Bristows tweet and corresponding — cough cough — article. They are are lying about Germany again (we debunked this in [1, 2], among other posts). They say a German “bill makes it possible for Germany to ratify the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC)(Drucksache 18/11137 here) and the other to implement the unitary patent system into German law (Drucksache 18/8827 here).”

“Don’t they realise that they actively work against everyone in Europe except themselves, and possibly their largest clients that are not even European (American pharmaceutical giants, for instance)?”Actually, as per the rules, it’s probably an invalid ‘vote’, more like a publicity stunt from Team UPC. A 1:30 AM (yes, AM!) vote with just 5% of the German politicians is about as valid one person in a classroom coming to school at 4 AM to act as a Students’ Union. As one can imagine, patent lawyers’ media continues to promote these claims, but the “UPC is clearly against the interest of Europe (except some law firms in Europe, preying on legitimate businesses),” I told them.

Well, to their credit, they did share my words to their followers. Don’t they realise that they actively work against everyone in Europe except themselves, and possibly their largest clients that are not even European (American pharmaceutical giants, for instance)? The patent microcosm is doing a lot to disgrace itself each time it lies to the public and to public officials about the UPC (and its effects on European businesses), in a purely lobbying (in nature) effort to tilt laws in their favour. █

Tough Day for the EPO’s Media/Press/PR Team, Trying ‘Damage Control’ After Important Techrights Publications

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 3:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

EPO damage control

Summary: In an effort to save face and regain a sense of legitimacy the EPO publishes various things belatedly, and only after Techrights made these things publicly known and widely discussed

Poor Benoît…

The EPO is collapsing around him and simply going on mysterious money-sharing tours (an issue we’ve mentioned since 2014, in relation to Croatia) raises more questions than ever…

“The above is a great example of ‘damage control’.”The USPTO never in its entire history earned the same level of disgrace that Benoît managed to ‘accomplish’ in just a few years on the job. Tonight we have much planned for publication, as sources multiply and truth is becoming too much for Benoît to bear (most of the large European nations already want him ousted, only to be outmaneuvered by this Danish man who keeps Battistelli’s salary secret).

The above is a great example of ‘damage control’. It doesn’t get any greater than that and it feels like they play catchup while we, thanks to our sources, are virtually running circles around the PR team of Team Battistelli whom it serves so diligently (nothing but 100% loyalty is tolerated by the ‘king’).

What we see here is responsive or reactionary publication. Earlier this year, for example, just hours after we had leaked these internal E-mails about patent quality the EPO came up with some recycled old news about “quality” in an apparent effort to distract and divert away from the leaks.

“What we see here is responsive or reactionary publication.”This evening, less than 24 hours after our post about it (see what we posted earlier today, just after midnight), the EPO published this nonsense (warning: epo.org link). In it, the PR people conveniently do not mention the date, as it happened quite a while back (with strategic timing) and they chose not to report/mention anything about it (as it would raise the very questions we raised this morning — causing internal rumours that are definitely damaging to Battistelli). Only after Techrights had reported on it the EPO felt like it needed to pretend to be transparent. In Twitter it wrote (a short while ago): “President Battistelli signed bilateral co-operation plans with heads of the patent offices of Latvia and Lithuania”

Why was the EPO silent for so long about it? The question is rhetorical.

“You know that Techrights exposed your crooked dealings,” I told them in Twitter, “so again you manipulate history” (to make it seem like they were open about it all along).

“The EPO is just getting desperate and trying to appear more popular than it really is.”Speaking of the EPO’s Twitter account, compare these statistics that we shared earlier this year to the latest. In 2 months EPO gained just 22 fake “followers” and just 36 real followers. Is this SEO? SPAM farming? Whatever it is, for the sake of comparison, in the same period of time I gained ten times as many legitimate followers and there are hardly any “fakes” associated with me. The EPO is just getting desperate and trying to appear more popular than it really is. The rapid growth in “follower” count magically stalled when we pointed this out. Maybe they read what we write on a regular basis and respond accordingly. This comes to show that our sources have a real impact.

Earlier today in Twitter the EPO continued to mention nations where there was a decline in patent applications (it only started doing this after we had criticised it for omissions). One tweet said: “Norway is the only Nordic state to register growth in patent applications in 2016, up 1.8%”

That’s one out of three if not one out of seven. “Aren’t you going to add the map from which you removed Scandinavia?”

That’s what I asked them. For those who missed it, the EPO decided it doesn’t recognise Scandinavia because it didn’t like the numbers from Scandinavia. We addressed the subject in the following previous posts:

The last among the above was published earlier today. They haven’t shared that map since. Instead they said, more humbly than usual: “Finnish companies filed fewer patent applications at the EPO in 2016″

“Earlier today in Twitter the EPO continued to mention nations where there was a decline in patent applications (it only started doing this after we had criticised it for omissions).”No excuses!

Bravo!

That’s the first time we’ve seen an honest tweet from the EPO about its results. Brutally honest. “Well done,” I said to Finland, “people there seems to have realised that EPO is a rogue institution…”

“How can Battistelli and his cronies explain that, other than play dirty games with statistics and attempt to distort the figures for lobbying purposes?”It’s not just Finland. The majority of Europe also saw decline in demand [sic] for EPs. How can Battistelli and his cronies explain that, other than play dirty games with statistics and attempt to distort the figures for lobbying purposes? Maybe Donald Trump and Benoît Battistelli can have alternative facts as a good “topic” for discussion some day, perhaps debating how to hide the fact that demand [sic] for EPs nosedived in the US last year.

Earlier today the EPO wrote: “The EPO will be at #LESI2017 http://www.lesi2017.org/ We look forward to seeing you all at our booth!”

“We encourage readers to send us material as it’s evident that EPO management is squirming and grappling with the facts.”I asked the EPO: “Do French applicants know that as supposed retaliation against French politicians Battisetlli got them demoted?” (in the patents examination pile)

Guess what happened to patent demand [sic] in France? It’s down.

We encourage readers to send us material as it’s evident that EPO management is squirming and grappling with the facts. █

Links 21/3/2017: PyPy Releases, Radeon RX Vega, Eileen Evans at Linux Foundation

Posted in News Roundup at 2:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

  • Desktop

    • Red Flag Windows: Microsoft modifies Windows OS for Chinese government

      China has long been both a huge lure and a thorn in the side for Microsoft. Massive piracy of Windows XP, a decade-long effort to replace Windows entirely with a home-grown Linux variant called Red Flag and an OpenOffice variant called RedOffice, and a ban on Windows 8 for government use following the leak by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden of information on National Security Agency spying all have combined to hinder Microsoft in the Chinese market. But now Microsoft—in partnership with the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group (CETC)—is preparing to reboot its relationship with Beijing, thanks to a modified version of Windows produced specifically for China, Dow Jones Newswires reports.

    • [Old] Windows 10 May Delete Your Programs Without Asking

      When you install a major Windows 10 update, you may reboot to find some of your programs missing. Yes, Windows 10 may remove your programs without asking you–but you can get them back pretty easily.

      This is the takeaway from some people’s experiences with the “November update,” Windows 10’s first big update. Microsoft has refused to comment on this, but it seems like the update process is designed to remove incompatible programs. Here’s what’s going on, and what you can do about it.

  • Server

    • DevOps still very much a work in progress, survey suggests

      That’s the key takeaway from a recent survey of 2,045 IT managers and professionals, released by Quali, an IT automation solutions provider. While most people in enterprises would say at this point that they have DevOps underway in some shape or form, achieving agility is another story.

    • IBM chases Google, Microsoft with Kubernetes in the cloud

      It’s only a matter of time before every major cloud vendor offers a version of Kubernetes as a service. Now it’s IBM’s turn.

    • In The Virtualization Space, Containers Are Making A Move

      Wow has it been a whirlwind over the last ten years in the virtualization space. Where once Xen and then KVM sat on the pedestal, the baton has been passed to the projects revolved around containers. Names like Docker, Kubernetes and Mesos are most often mentioned. As is generally the case in the FLOSS arena, evolution is a constant. Therefore, if one is in the DevOps arena, it is time to familiarize yourself with containers if you have not already done so.

    • The DOE and NSA Construct Doomsday Scenario for American HPC

      One last point. The Chinese economy continues to expand faster than that of the US, and, depending on who you talk to, will reach the size of the US sometime between 2018 and 2028. Such an economy would be expected to field an HPC capability on par with that of the US. Furthermore, China and the US should both be able to maintain an indigenous and self-sustaining HPC capability for their own use, and it’s unreasonable to think either could prevent the other from doing so. In such a world, the US may no longer enjoy technological supremacy, but it can surely have the wherewithal to control its own future in HPC.

    • [Older] Getting Down To Bare Metal On The Cloud

      When you think of the public cloud, the tendency is to focus on the big ones, like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform. They’re massive, dominating the public cloud skyline with huge datacenters filled with thousands of highly virtualized servers, not to mention virtualized storage and networking. Capacity is divvied up among corporate customers that are increasingly looking to run and store their workloads on someone else’s infrastructure, hardware that they don’t have to set up, deploy, manage or maintain themselves.

    • Avoid complex infrastructure when building simple things

      For local development, go crazy. For real production use.. I think you should avoid this until you’re the size of business that someone else will do this for you. If this seems controversial do the math: include backing it up, patching it, keeping it highly available, the time spent not working on your differentiating features etc. There are plenty of datastore services available that will do all this for you and let you focus your limited time on your app, and they’re really very cheap when you consider the actual cost of running a production database. Write your app so that the cost of moving to your own database later if you need to is unlikely to be high. Managing a simple web app instead of managing a web app, a production database, a message queue etc is a big win.

  • Kernel Space

    • Intel Has More DRM Graphics Driver Code Ready For Linux 4.12

      Intel had already sent in a batch of feature updates to DRM-Next targeting the Linux 4.12 kernel and yesterday an additional feature pull was submitted of work to premiere in this next kernel series.

    • Eric Anholt Continues Tuning GLAMOR, Cleaning Up ARM CLCD Driver

      For those following the development of the open-source VC4 driver stack that notably supports the Raspberry Pi graphics hardware, developer Eric Anholt has published another status update.

      As covered already, VC4 HDMI audio is coming to Linux 4.12 as a big milestone.

    • The Linux Foundation’s Arpit Joshipura to Host Open Networking Q&A on Twitter [Ed: If you do not join (i.e. give data to) surveillance and censorship platform Twitter you can't speak to the Linux Foundation now?]

      On Friday, March 31, The Linux Foundation will kick off a new initiative. No, it’s not a new project, event, or training course, although there are plenty of those in store. Instead, the foundation will begin a monthly Twitter chat, called #AskLF, with leaders at the organization.

    • CoreOS Donates its rkt Container Technology to CNCF

      At the same time that Docker offered to donate its containerd technology to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), CoreOS did the same with its competing rkt.

    • The Linux Foundation Appoints Eileen Evans to Board of Directors

      The Linux Foundation, the nonprofit advancing professional open source management for mass collaboration, today announced that Eileen Evans, Vice President and Deputy General Counsel for Software and Open Source at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), has joined The Linux Foundation Board of Directors as an At-Large director. Ms. Evans had represented HP and then HPE from 2012 through 2016 on the Board as a Platinum director.

    • Graphics Stack

      • AMD GPU Linux driver patches is listing seven Vega 10 IDs

        100 Linux patches amounting to over fourty thousand lines of code was sent out today for review in order to provide “Vega 10″ support within the Linux AMDGPU DRM driver.

        Adding Vega support to AMDGPU is a big task due to all of the changes over Polaris and other recent GPUs reports Phoronix.

      • Mesa 17.0.2 Brings Improvements to Radeon RADV and Intel ANV Vulkan Drivers

        Immediately after announcing the last maintenance update to the Mesa 13.0 3D Graphics Library series, Collabora’s Emil Velikov published the second point release for the new Mesa 17.0 branch.

        Mesa 17.0.2 is here only two weeks after the release of the first maintenance update to Mesa 17.0, which is currently the most advanced stable branch of the graphics stack used by default in numerous Linux-based operating systems.

      • Mesa 13.0.6 Is the Last in the Series, Users Encouraged to Move to Mesa 17.0

        Collabora’s Emil Velikov is announcing today the general availability of the sixth and last scheduled maintenance update for the Mesa 13.0 3D Graphics Library series for GNU/Linux distributions.

        Mesa 13.0.6 is here only to backport many of the improvements from the newest stable branch, Mesa 17.0, to the Mesa 13.0 series, which some of you are still using on your Linux distro. However, you should start migrating to Mesa 17.0 as soon as you read this.

      • 140 Patches Posted To Wire Up Radeon RX Vega In RadeonSI Gallium3D Driver
      • Porting Mesa/Libdrm’s Build System To Meson Brings Up Controversy

        Last week an independent developer proposed replacing the build system of libdrm — the DRM library that sits between Mesa and the Linux kernel DRM — to using the Meson build system as a potential replacement to using Autotools. That has led to another colorful discussion around build systems.

        Dylan Baker’s RFC patches can be found on the dri-devel list and the discussion that ensued. He argues that the build system with Meson would be better since it’s written in Python, Meson makes use of Ninja rather than CMake, its syntax is arguably simpler, and it’s quicker. Dylan found that his build times dropped from 26 seconds to 13 seconds when going from Autotools to Meson. When making use of ccache, the build times dropped from 13 seconds to 2 seconds. He also mentioned he’s planning on porting Mesa’s Autotools/CMake build system over to Meson.

      • AMD’s Linux GPU patches seven Vega 10s

        These 100 patches add up to 40,000 lines of code and have been sent out today for review. The idea is that AMD will use them as the basis to provide “Vega 10″ support within the Linux AMDGPU DRM driver.

      • Seven AMD Vega GPU IDs have appeared in the latest Linux driver release

        More than forty thousand lines of updated code have been sent out with 100 little patches for AMD’s Linux graphics drivers so they can deliver Vega GPU support when the new architecture launches. Inside the latest drivers have appeared seven discrete Vega 10 device IDs.

      • AMD Linux Driver Team Releases Over 100 ADMGPU Driver Patches Including Vega 10, Polaris 12 Support

        More than 100 patches for ADMGPU driver, including some much talked about support for Vega 10, were released by AMD’s Linux driver team yesterday.

  • Applications

    • Buku – A Powerful Command-line Bookmark Manager for Linux

      I can damn sure, managing bookmarks is one of the major/important tasks to everyone now a days. Everyone have different requirement and holding bunch of URL’s for their needs and keeping those in bookmarks.

      We all knows about bookmarks, usage, and how to do in web browser, especially in GUI mode. What about command-line? Most of us doesn’t know about this awesome utility which used to create bookmarks in command-line.

    • Indicator DOOM Gives Your Ubuntu Desktop the Badass CPU Monitor It Deserves

      Say hello to the flat-out coolest way to keep and eye on your desktop’s CPU load.

      Because as handy as tools like Indicator Multiload are, they lack a certain …badassery.

      Indicator DOOM is a CPU load indicator for Ubuntu that displays processor load using Doomguy‘s face from the iconic DOOM video game.

    • PiCluster 1.7 – Efficient Container Management

      I am pleased to announce PiCluster v1.7. In this release, I wanted to make PiCluster easier to use by having the Web Console handle most of the common configuration file changes. Not everyone enjoys editing json files including myself. Now let’s go over what is new in this release.

    • Command-line document conversion tools for writers

      Today, we have ample tools available for editing memos, letters, essays, books, presentation slides, and other documents on our computers. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage: on the one hand, if you don’t like a piece of software, you can simply move on to another one any time; on the other hand, a lot of these tools, especially proprietary software, are fully compatible with their own formats only. As a consequence, the more documents you have created with such a program, the less likely switching over to another solution will be possible without investing significant time, energy, and even money. This phenomenon is called vendor lock-in.

    • Instructionals/Technical

    • Games

      • The 25 Best Games for Linux and Steam Machines

        When I was first introduced to Linux and the Open Source community gaming was an issue that users always complained about. Interested gamers always had to use wine or implement one workaround or the other.

        There were either not good enough drivers to run certain games on Linux or the games themselves weren’t available for the platform.

        Fast forward to 2017 and the story has changed. Linux gamers now have a variety of games they can choose from ranging from free to the relatively pricey ones.

        Today, I bring you a list of the 25 best games you can play on your Linux system.

      • Dota 2 patched for AMD Ryzen

        Valve have put out a small Dota 2 update that aims to improve performance on the new Ryzen processors from AMD.

      • Jack Orlando: Director’s Cut now has a Wine-port on Steam for Linux

        Jack Orlando: Director’s Cut [Steam], an adventure game published by Topware is the latest game of theirs to get a Wine-port on Steam.

      • RPG Maker MV now has a Linux version and a Linux game export option

        We saw signs of RPG Maker MV [Steam] coming to Linux early last year, but now it’s official. RPG Maker MV now has a Linux version and it can export Linux games.

        With the release of the 1.4.0 update, anyone who owns it now has access to the Linux version on Steam. So anyone wanting to make simple RPG games on Linux has access to a highly rated tool.

      • Dota 2 Receives Optimization For AMD Ryzen CPUs

        If you were an early buyer of AMD Ryzen hardware, Valve has pushed out a Dota 2 game update with some Ryzen optimizations.

        Today’s Dota 2 update from Valve mentions, “Improved threading configuration for AMD Ryzen processors.” Presumably this is with better dealing of Ryzen’s new SMT capabilities for AMD processors.

      • Space sandbox game ‘Avorion’ has a whopper of an update, considering getting a server for it

        I am a massive fan of ‘Avorion’ [Steam] as this Early Access space sandbox has a lot going for it and it just got a major update. I am also considering setting up a GOL server for it!

        This new update will mean a re-design of your ships, so be warned. The flight model has been reworked and you now need to make use of three new blocks: Directional Thruster, Gyro Array, Inertia Dampeners.

  • Desktop Environments/WMs

    • K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

    • GNOME Desktop/GTK

      • GNOME Photos 3.24.0

        It was high time that we overhauled our old GtkIconView-based overview grids. Their inability to reflow the thumbnails leads to a an ugly vertical gutter of empty space unless the window is just the right size. The other problem was performance. GtkIconView gets extremely slow when the icons are updated, which usually happens when content is detected for the first time and start getting thumbnailed.

  • Distributions

  • Devices/Embedded

    • Rugged, Linux-ready sandwich style SBC packs Skylake CPUs

      VersaLogic’s 125 x 85 x 37mm “Blackbird” offers Skylake CPUs, up to 32GB of DDR4, 3x mini-PCIe sockets, wide-range power, and MIL-STD-202G ruggedization.

      VersaLogic calls its dual-layer Blackbird an Embedded Processing Unit (EPU). Like the other VersaLogic EPUs we’ve seen, such as the Atom-based Osprey EPU, the Blackbird is a three-layer sandwich consisting of a COM Express module in the middle, a same-sized I/O interface board on the top, and a heat spreader on the bottom. Compared to the Osprey, the Blackbird has a lot more real-world ports, making it more SBC-like rather than a COM with SBC-like characteristics. The Blackbird is “supplied fully assembled and tested, including heat plate, ready to install in a system,” says Versalogic.

    • Phones

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Chile: Civil Society, Members Of Congress Urge Issuance Of Compulsory Licences

      Representatives of Chilean civil society and Congress this week presented the Chilean health minister with a proposal urging the government to take advantage of international trade law and a newly passed congressional resolution to issue compulsory licences on high-priced drugs for hepatitis C and prostate cancer.

      The proposal was made under the advisement of Luis Villarroel, director of Corporación Innovarte, a non-governmental organisation in Santiago.

    • Eli Lilly Loses Quixotic Quest To Get Canada To Pay $500 Million For Rejecting Its Bad Patents

      Over the last few years, we’ve written a ton about “corporate sovereignty” provisions in trade agreements. Technically, these tend to be called “Investor State Dispute Settlement” or ISDS provisions, but I really believe that a decent part of the reason they’re called something so boring is to stop people from paying attention to just how nefarious these provisions truly are. One of the reasons we first started paying attention to these provisions — as they were showing up in agreements under negotiation, such as the TPP and TTIP — was following a story involving the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly demanding $100 million from Canada for rejecting two of its patents.

      The issue was that Canada had rejected these two patents because the company couldn’t prove that the patented drugs were actually useful. Eli Lilly claimed that Canada had no right to reject patents on that basis, arguing that it was a “dramatic” shift in how patents were reviewed, and thus it was “expropriating its property” and undermining the company’s “expected future profits.” Think about that for a second. By the time this case went to an actual tribunal, the amount that the company was demanding had ballooned from $100 million to $500 million. This battle has waged on for many years — and for Eli Lilly, this was a huge deal. Management at the company basically bet the company on continuing to get new patents, and any hiccup — even a rejection of patents for not being useful — could be a disaster for the company. The company even pushed to get Canada slammed during diplomatic proceedings in the infamous Special 301 Report for the USTR for daring to reject its patents — and the USTR complied.

    • Patients, Members of Congress Ask Chilean Government to Issue Compulsory Licenses on Prostate Cancer and HCV Drug Patents

      Members of the Chilean Congress and a group of 6 patients visited the Chilean Ministry of Health yesterday to ask that the government use its authority under Chilean law to end patent monopolies on the prostate cancer drug enzalutamide (U.S. brand name Xtandi) and on sofosbuvir-based combination drugs for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV).

      The patients and members submitted a petition (signatures here) that outlined the legal authority and public policy rationale for the grant of compulsory licenses on the patents for the drugs described in the petition. Those compulsory licenses would allow prescription drug manufacturers to produce affordable generic versions of the drugs, subject to a reasonable royalty.

      The petition was written by Chilean attorney Luis Villarroel, and signed by Luis and five members of civil society and patient groups, and four members of the Chilean Congress, including Diputados Giorgio Jackson, Karla Rubilar, Miguel Alvarado, and Gabriel Boric.

      Knowledge Ecology International was asked to provide technical advice on the petition.

    • Norway Is No. 1 in Happiness. The U.S., Sadly, Is No. 14.

      After placing fourth last year, Norway is now the world’s happiest country, according to the 2017 World Happiness Report, released on Monday. The Central African Republic was the least happy of 155 countries.

      The authors of the report found that a half-dozen socioeconomic factors explain much of the difference in happiness among countries, but that social factors play an underappreciated role. As evidence, they cite periods of substantial economic growth that were nonetheless matched by declining happiness in China and the United States, which ranked 14th.

  • Security

    • Security updates for Monday
    • Old Linux kernel security bug bites

      OK, hands up, who knows what High-Level Data Link Control (HDLC) is? It’s an archaic networking data framing protocol that’s used in modems, X.25, frame-relay, ISDN, and other now uncommon networking technologies. I know it because I used to work with them back in the day. You’ll get to know it now because a researcher discovered a security hole hidden within the Linux kernel driver that implements it.

    • Seven year-old Linux vulnerability now patched

      An old vulnerability was just discovered in the Linux kernel, potentially allowing hackers to gain privilege escalation, or cause a denial of service. The vulnerability was quickly fixed and there have been no signs of it in the wild, although that does not necessarily mean it went unnoticed.

    • OpenSSH 7.5 released

      OpenSSH 7.5 has just been released. It will be available from the mirrors listed at http://www.openssh.com/ shortly.

    • OpenSSH 7.5 Has Security Fixes, Removes OpenSSL 1.0 Support for Portable OpenSSH

      OpenSSH, the cross-platform and open-source 100% complete SSH 2.0 protocol implementation offering both SFTP server and client support was updated today to version 7.5.

      OpenSSH 7.5 comes three months after the release of OpenSSH 7.4 in late December 2016, and promises to be a maintenance update that addresses two important security issues, implements support for the “=-” syntax to make removing of methods from algorithm lists a lot easier, and fix numerous reported bugs.

    • Is Linux Mint a secure distribution?

      Linux Mint has been lambasted by some in the media for security problems over the last few years. But how accurate are such perceptions? Does Linux Mint really suffer from security problems or is it all much ado about nothing?

      A writer at DistroWatch wades into the controversy and examines some of the myths and misunderstandings about Linux Mint and security.

    • Linux Mint’s security record

      Some of the more common misunderstandings I have encountered recently have involved the Linux Mint distribution. Mint has been a popular project in recent years and, with many people using the distribution and talking about the project, there is bound to be some mis-communication. In particular, most of the rumours and misunderstandings I have encountered have revolved around Mint’s security practises and history. I would like to clear up a few of the more common rumours.

    • Mozilla Firefox is the First Pwn2own 2017 Victim to be Patched

      Some vendors respond to security issues faster than others. Last week, the 10th annual Pwn2own hacking challenge was hosted by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), with multiple groups of researchers taking aim at web browsers, operating systems and virtualization technology.

      Mozilla’s Firefox web browser was successfully exploited on March 16, the second day of the Pwn2own event. Researchers from Chaitin Security Research Lab were the only group to attack Mozilla Firefox, and earned $30,000 for demonstrating a new zero-day exploit. The day the exploit was demonstrated, the only thing publicly revealed about the exploit is that it made use of an integer overflow flaw in combination with an uninitialized memory buffer in the Windows kernel.

  • Defence/Aggression

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • [Older] Leaked travel advice for spooks from the CIA

      AMONG the trove of American intelligence agency documents released by Wikileaks this week is one that instructs the country’s spies on protocols to follow while travelling abroad. Some of these are specific to the CIA’s needs. (“Talk to CCIE/Engineering about your planned TDY timeline,” the document begins, adding such tidbits as “Breeze through German Customs because you have your cover-for-action story down pat.”) But others are just good common-sense business-travel tips—for spies and corporate sales managers alike.

      The first universal advice in the document, which appears to be designed for spooks visiting an operations base in Frankfurt, is this: “If you are using a personal credit card, be sure to call your credit card company and notify them of your travel to Germany.” That seems like sound guidance.

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Indonesia’s Peat Fires Still Blaze, But Not As Much As They Used To [iophk: "transmigration"]

      Indonesia is home to half the world’s tropical peat lands, and the catastrophe focused unprecedented attention on their importance. Despite being illegal, clearing peat land by fire remains widespread in Indonesia, as it is the cheapest way to clear land for agriculture and industry.

      [...]

      Subandi says he moved with his parents from the island of Java to Borneo in the early 1970s. Many of today’s peat land residents were moved there by the government [...]

    • Hunt Saboteurs Assaulted by Notorious Yorkshire Hunt

      Hunt saboteurs were assaulted by members of the Middleton Hunt at their meet in Uncleby, North Yorkshire on Saturday 18th March. Riders from the hunt stole a video camera and two body cams, hit sabs on the head with whips, attempted to ride them down and jumped off their horses to continue the attacks. One female saboteur has cracked ribs after being crushed between two horses.

  • Finance

    • US Apple users urge company to ‘do the right thing’ and pay NZ taxes

      He was commenting on revelations today in the Weekend Herald that Apple paid zero tax to the NZ Government in the past 10 years in a period when its sales in this country totalled $4.2 billion.

    • Goldman to move hundreds of staff from London pre-Brexit: Europe CEO [Ed: Getting rid of parasitic banks may be good for society, but when they leave because we have nothing to offer it's a loss]

      Goldman Sachs will begin moving hundreds of people out of London before any Brexit deal is struck as part of its contingency plans for Britain leaving the European Union, the Wall Street firm’s Europe CEO said.

      “We are going to start to execute on those contingency plans,” Richard Gnodde, chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs International, the European arm of the Wall Street bank, told CNBC on Tuesday.

      “For this first period, this is really the period as we put in place contingency plans, this is in the hundreds of people as opposed to anything greater than that,” he said.

      British Prime Minister Theresa May will trigger EU divorce proceedings on March 29, launching two years of negotiations that will shape the future of Britain and Europe.

    • Tory MPs are attacking the BBC for not telling the public fairytales about Brexit

      Donald Trump might have sunk to record levels of unpopularity across the Atlantic, but that hasn’t stopped 72 Brexiteer MPs from taking a leaf out of his playbook.

      The august Parliamentarians have come together to form a little corp of Trump-kin Mini-Mes by signing a letter lambasting the BBC for its coverage of Brexit.

      It claims, among other things, that the corporation’s “pessimistic and skewed reporting” risks undermining the project and damaging Britain in the process.

      “It particularly pains us to see how so much of the economic good news we’ve had since June has been skewed by BBC coverage which seems unable to break out of pre-referendum pessimism and accept new facts,” it opines.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Judge Decides Free Speech Is Still A Right; Dumps Prior Restraint Order Against Mattress Review Site

      A couple of weeks ago, a federal judge in Utah decided prior restraint was the best way to handle a recently-filed defamation suit against Honest Mattress Reviews by Purple Innovations, makers of the Purple Mattress.

      Purple’s lengthy filing contained numerous allegations of harm caused by Honest Mattress Reviews’ extended commentary on the white plastic powder covering every mattress Purple ships. It also alleged HMR was just a front for site owner Ryan Monahan’s brand management work with Purple’s competitor, Ghostbed. Rather than give HMR a chance to respond, the judge decided the review site could publish nothing further about Purple or the lawsuit. It wasn’t even allowed to refer to its previous rating of Purple’s mattress.

      Honest Mattress Review didn’t care much for this decision — one it had been given no chance to contest. It immediately posted an article about the case and offered to comply with the letter of the order, but perhaps not its spirit.

    • Censorship Is Never Acceptable

      Doing a sociolinguistics module last semester made me well aware of the power of language. We use the words we do to construct our own identities, and therefore language contributes to the shaping of society. This means that it can be used in harmful ways. Yet the beauty of language is in its variety and its flexibility, and therefore we should oppose any attempt to censor language.

      Alas, that is what Cardiff Metropolitan University has done. By banning the use of certain words, they are impinging on people’s right to use language in whichever way they choose. Freedom of expression is not just about being able to express any opinion, it is about being able to express that opinion in any way you choose. Cardiff Met are restricting this freedom and therefore, whilst well-meaning, this policy is actually a step away from a more liberal society.

    • Censorship allegation made as Bruce Township officials toss newspaper from hall

      Cory said the treasurer gave away copies of The Record to residents coming into her office for them to read articles relating to Brockmann’s arrest, which is being adjudicated through the 42-2 District Court in New Baltimore. Sobczak said that he never told Obrecht to personally distribute The Record, but stands by her right to do so.

    • Filing Bogus Lawsuits As Part Of A ‘Reputation Management’ Strategy Costs Firm $71,000

      Because abusing the DMCA process only goes so far, some reputation management entities have begun exploiting an inattentive legal system to push lawsuits past judges. In some cases, these suits have featured fake plaintiffs filing bogus libel lawsuits against fake defendants and using a fake affidavit to fraudulently obtain court orders requiring Google to delist URLs.

      Those engaged in this fraudulent behavior aren’t likely to get away with it for much longer. Paul Alan Levy and Eugene Volokh managed to track down the person behind one set of bogus lawsuits and get the presiding judge to take a closer look at the bogus documents he was being handed. Pissed Consumer has also been reporting on others using the same MO, and has headed to court to get these suits examined and tossed.

      The end of line for supposed reputation manager Richart Ruddie came at the hands of Volokh and Levy, with the judge granting discovery to the defendant after being apprised of the apparently fraudulent filings. Now that Richart Ruddie of Profile Defenders has been exposed, it looks as though he’s given up the fight. Levy reports Ruddie has settled anti-SLAPP claims brought against him and is paying restitution for his reputation mismanagement.

    • To censor or not to censor? YouTube’s double bind

      YouTube has found itself fighting battles on two fronts this week.

      Advertisers have launched a concerted attack against the video-streaming platform for its devil-may-care attitude to extremist content. They argue it is too hard to guarantee that advertising spend won’t end up going to the likes of far-right group Britain First, and have decided to boycott the platform en masse until YouTube can confirm changes.

      In response, YouTube’s parent company Google has apologised, and promised a raft of changes to appease the big spenders, from better categorisation of hate speech to simpler, more powerful controls for advertisers. It’s also promised to hire “significant numbers of people”, on top of the thousands who already do the work, to review questionable content.

      At the same time, in a very different community, YouTube creators are lambasting the site after the discovery that its “restricted mode”, a feature intended to let schools, parents and libraries filter out content not appropriate for children, also removed a vast amount of LGBT content. Some videos from pop duo Tegan and Sara, who are gay, were hidden from view, as were videos from bisexual YouTuber NeonFiona – but only those which talked about her sexuality.

    • Man Actually Arrested For Assault With A Deadly Tweet

      Late last year, we wrote about the crazy case in which journalist Kurt Eichenwald was suing an anonymous Twitter troll, claiming that the troll had sent Eichenwald a flashing gif designed to cause some small percentage of epileptics to have a seizure. Eichenwald claimed that it had worked and he’d had a seizure on the spot. As we noted at the time, we’re no fans of Eichenwald. In our opinion, he’s an absolutely terrible journalist with a fairly long history of really weird issues, and a strange obsession with massively overselling stories. He has me blocked on Twitter and has indicated that he’s no fan of us either.

      [...]

      If you can’t see those, it’s a series of Direct Messages from the “@jew_goldstein” account, saying things like that Eichenwald “deserves to have his liver pecked out by a pack of emus.” “I hope this sends him into a seizure.” “Spammed this at [Eichenwald] let’s see if he dies.” “I know he has epilepsy.”

      [...]

      If you can’t see it, that’s the flashing gif that @jew_goldstein sent Eichenwald and it says “You Deserve A Seizure For Your Posts.” This was the same one that Eichenwald’s wife found on Kurt’s computer when she found him having a seizure. The affidavit includes a screenshot she took of his computer screen showing that exact gif. Oh, and also stored in Rivello’s iCloud? A screenshot of an edited Wikipedia page of Eichenwald, claiming that he’d died the day after the gif was set. And also screen shots of an article about epilepsy seizure triggers, and an article about how the police were trying to track down the troll.

      So that’s a lot of pretty damning evidence. As lawyer Keith Lee notes, it’s something of a miracle he was tracked down. Even though he took some fairly basic precautions to cover his tracks (fake account, Tracfone phone connection), he didn’t take that many and didn’t seem to realize how many other ways there were to track him down.

    • A Cuban film about gay repression pulled from festival. Was it censorship?

      Cuban filmmaker Carlos Lechuga has pulled an acclaimed film, based on repression against gay writers in the early years of the Revolution, from an upcoming presentation in New York after festival organizers banned it from official competition and instead categorized the screening as a special presentation.

    • Goodbye craft and DIY inspo: Pinterest falls victim to China’s Great Firewall
    • Chinese Internet Censors Have Banned Pinterest
    • Pinterest Gets The Boot In China
    • Pinterest—the Largest Digital Design-Inspiration Board—Is Blocked in China
    • Power Rangers next to be banned in Malaysia?
    • Nazri to LPF: Don’t ban Power Rangers, slap on P13 rating instead
    • Nazri appeals for Power Rangers not to be banned (Updated)
    • Nazri hopes no ban on Power Rangers
    • You are not our appointed moral guardian, Nazri tells Censorship Board
    • Now Power Rangers in the sights of censors for minor lesbian scene
    • Australian Senator Attacks Game Censorship, Classification Board

      Australian Liberal Democratic Party Senator David Leyonhjelm has criticised the Government and the Australian Classification Board in a speech delivered to the Senate yesterday.

      The Senate crossbencher highlighted the recent case of Outlast II, which was refused classification late last week due to a rape sequence during one of the game’s cut-scenes.

    • Censorship and extremism worry content creator even as tech helps: Uday Shankar
    • STAR CEO Uday Shankar on courts, censorship and the Internet as a “progressive challenger”
    • Uday Shankar:Rising censorship,hooliganism killing creativity
    • Benegal committee recommends immediate abolishment of censorship: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
    • Shyam Benegal committee recommends abolishment of censorship: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Home Office admits it’s preparing to accept EU ruling on surveillance

      The Home Office has acknowledged that it is preparing to accept a landmark EU ruling from last year which restated that access to retained data must only be given in cases of serious crime, unlike the range of cases provided for under the new Investigatory Powers Act.

      When the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its judgment last December, the Home Office said it was “disappointed with the judgment… and will be considering its potential implications”.

      Among those implications was the requirement for a far higher bar to access the range of data which the government had made it a legal requirement for ISPs to store on their users, including prohibiting the police and public bodies from authorising their own access to this data. Instead the CJEU ruling requires that access requests receive prior authorisation by independent courts or similar bodies.

    • Met police accused of using hackers to access protesters’ emails

      The police watchdog is investigating allegations that a secretive Scotland Yard unit used hackers to illegally access the private emails of hundreds of political campaigners and journalists.

      The allegations were made by an anonymous individual who says the unit worked with Indian police, who in turn used hackers to illegally obtain the passwords of the email accounts of the campaigners, and some reporters and press photographers.

    • NSA Director Backs Agency Surveillance Procedures

      Adm. Michael Rogers, head of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command, said that the section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allows the NSA to collect information on foreign nationals is “instrumental” in providing U.S. political leaders with intelligence.

    • NSA officials deny mass surveillance during Utah Olympics

      Former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden is denying allegations from a former Salt Lake City mayor that the NSA conducted a mass warrantless surveillance program during the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah.

    • Fox News drops legal analyst Andrew Napolitano over GCHQ Donald Trump spying claims
    • Legal analyst Andrew Napolitano pulled from Fox News over claims GCHQ helped spy on Trump
    • Fox drops analyst who said UK might have helped spy on Trump
    • How do you feel about the government sharing our personal data?

      In October 2016, the digital economy bill began its progress through the UK parliament, including, as a Guardian editorial noted, a big shift: when it becomes law, the public’s personal data will be shared across departments without specified safeguards.

      For some, this is an essential move towards making the government more efficient. Others are concerned that government departments will be able to pool data collected without having put in place robust privacy protections, and fear that public sector bodies may end up following the “data free-for-all” that exists in the private sector.

    • Three UK’s mobile customers experience new data breach

      The mobile phone company Three has experienced a fresh data breach after some customers logging into their accounts were presented with the names, addresses, phone numbers and call histories of strangers.

      Three said it was investigating a technical issue with its systems and urged those affected to contact its customer service department.

      One customer, Andy Fidler, told the Guardian he was presented with the data usage and full call and text history of another named customer when he logged in on Sunday night. Another, Mark Thompson, said on Facebook he received a call from a complete stranger who said she had logged on to her account and was shown his details.

    • US forbids any device larger than cellphone on airlines from 13 countries

      The new edict was distributed in an email described as “confidential” from the US transportation safety administration (TSA) on Monday.

      The requirement forbids passengers from bringing laptops, iPads, Kindles and even cameras larger than mobile phones into the cabin. All such devices must be checked.

    • TSA will ban flyers from 13 countries from bringing laptops, tablets onboard

      US authorities will no longer allow travelers from 13 African and Middle Eastern countries to bring computers and laptops into airplane cabins anymore, two news agencies have reported.

    • U.S. to ban some airline passengers from carrying larger electronics [iophk: "makes them easier to steal or break into"]

      Passengers traveling on certain U.S.-bound foreign airline flights will have to check electronic devices larger than a cell phone once U.S. authorities formalize a new ban in response to an unspecified terrorism threat, U.S. officials told Reuters on Monday.

    • New mass warrant reverses concepts: demands all data about everybody who searched for a specific term on Google

      A Minnesota judge has issued a warrant to Google to provide the local police with all data relating to anybody who searched for specific keywords. This is an enormous expansion of the concept of mass surveillance, and turns all previous concepts of search and seizure on their heads: no longer is a suspect subject to search, but the entire population is dragnetted without restraint.

    • Adobe, Microsoft team up to share sales and marketing data [iophk: "both companies infamous for failed security"]
    • RAND Study Suggests 0-Day Exploits Should be Stockpiled
    • Disable TELNET! Cisco finds 0-Day in CIA Dump affecting over 300 Network Switch Models

      Cisco is warning of a new critical zero-day IOS / IOS XE vulnerability that affects more than 300 of its switch models.

      The company identified this highest level of vulnerability in its product while analyzing “Vault 7″ — a roughly 8,761 documents and files leaked by Wikileaks last week, claiming to detail hacking tools and tactics of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

  • Civil Rights/Policing

    • Jailed ex-sergeant loses contempt case over device passwords

      “It’s quite possible he remains in jail for failing to comply with an order he can’t comply with,” he said.

    • After Trump, Amos Yee blames US judge in phone call from jail

      Singaporean blogger Amos Yee blamed a U.S. judge for his extended incarceration in a U.S. jail, this after blaming US President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration executive order.

      In a phone call from jail, Amos Yee spoke to Han Hui Hui in what appears to be instructions on what he expects the activist community in Singapore to do for his release.

      The video was sent to TISG by Han Hui Hui after her telephone call with Amos Yee. The video is also uploaded on Youtube with the Prickly Porcupine handle.

    • Dear recruiter, “open floor space” is not a job benefit

      The fundamental problem facing managers is that productivity is hard to measure. Faced with the inability to measure productivity, managers may feel compelled to measure time spent working. Never mind that it’s counter-productive: at least it gives management control, even if it’s control over the wrong thing.

    • Homeland Security Starts Banning Laptops & Tablets On Planes From The Middle East

      It’s been a very long time since I last flew somewhere without my laptop. I actually am more productive than usual on planes, and I tend to use flying time to just focus in and get a ton of stuff done. I can’t even begin to explain how ridiculously frustrating it would be to find out that I wouldn’t be allowed to bring a laptop onto a plane, and yet it appears that our new Homeland Security overlords have put in place new restrictions on flights to the US from certain countries in the middle east barring tablets and laptops from the cabin (apparently no American carriers are impacted — just foreign ones). Passengers are being told to check such things (which is odd, since normally you’re not supposed to check lithium ion batteries…). Flights from 13 countries are being hit with this, and Homeland Security won’t give any further explanation beyond the usual “national security.” And, just this morning, the UK announced that it would be doing the same thing.

      Homeland Security has been hinting that this is due to some sort of specific threat — so it sounds like there’s intelligence around a planned attack using such a device. Perhaps then the extra precaution is sensible. But, once again, this feels like a form of overkill security theater: inconveniencing basically everyone (to extreme levels) based on the slight possibility of a very small number of bad actors. There has to be a better way. Every time one of these new restrictions is put in place, it not only completely inconveniences people, but it shows people that if they somehow convince the scaredy cats at DHS of some new type of threat, they can inconvenience people even more. It’s almost as if each additional inconvenience is impacting things way more than an actual exploding laptop or whatever might.

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • San Francisco Ponders The Largest Community Broadband Network Ever Built

      Despite being considered one of the technology capitals of the country, San Francisco and the Bay Area continue to suffer from a lack of broadband options — just like the rest of us sorry sods. If they’re lucky, most locals there still only have the option of one of two large ISPs: AT&T and Comcast. Both companies have a long, proud history of fighting competition tooth and nail, often by quite literally writing shitty state telecom law that ensures the status quo remains intact. Attempts to break through this logjam and bring faster, better broadband service to the city have seen decidedly mixed results.

      Like most areas, ultra-fast next-generation broadband in particular is notably lacking. Some estimates suggest that just 2.6% of San Francisco residents have access to gigabit broadband service. Sonic CEO Dane Jasper, whose company is also busy deploying gigabit services to the Bay Area, tells me he believes those figures are stale and gigabit penetration rates in the city are closer to 17%. And while Google Fiber had tinkered with the idea of bringing fiber to the city, the company’s pivot to wireless has left that added avenue of competition up in the air.

    • Despite Gigabit Hype, Comcast Is Facing Less Broadband Competition Than Ever

      Despite the rise of heavily-hyped-but-highly-scattered gigabit deployments, the broadband industry is actually seeing less competition than ever before across huge swaths of the country. Once upon a time, broadband “competition” consisted of an equally matched telco going head to head with the incumbent cable provider (if you were lucky). These days, most phone companies lack the finances or competitive motivation to improve lagging DSL speeds across their footprints — speeds that don’t even meet the FCC’s base definition of broadband (25 mbps).

      That’s resulting in a growing monopoly for the nation’s cable broadband providers, who have quietly been absolutely butchering phone companies over the last several years. Just take a look at the latest data from Leichtman Research, which notes that while cable broadband providers collectively added 2.7 million net additional high-speed Internet subscribers last year, phone companies collectively shed roughly 600,000 broadband users.

  • DRM

    • DRM in HTML5 takes its next step toward standardization

      Ever since W3C decided to start working on a DRM proposal, there have been complaints from those who oppose DRM on principle. The work has continued regardless, with W3C director and HTML inventor Tim Berners-Lee arguing that—given that DRM is already extant and, at least for video, unlikely to disappear any time soon—it’s better for DRM-protected content to be a part of the Web ecosystem than to be separate from it.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • US must bolster fight with China over intellectual property rights [Ed: Person from the "IP" industry wants more "IP" action]

      But promoting innovation is only part of the Founding Fathers’ mandate — without enforcing those property rights, American competitiveness is at risk. A new administration with Lighthizer at the helm of U.S. trade policy, should help solidify recent gains with China and reinforce efforts to overhaul China’s IP system.

    • Intellectual property rights in a virtual world [Ed: "IP" maximalists ('owning' concepts) don't get enough 'ownership' in the real world, go after virtual world too ]

      This article will explore the key legal issues relating to intellectual property (IP) rights, traditionally only used in the real world, and their role in the virtual or augmented world. The basic legal position on including virtual or augmented versions of IP in virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) experiences is straightforward; if the creator of VR or AR content does not hold the requisite IP rights to include certain material in its content, it should seek permission from the owner of such rights.

    • A Look At Optimal Patent Regimes For Canada

      Blit argues that Canada’s patent regime has not contributed to domestic innovation, and therefore has not offset the potential welfare losses which strong IP rights may bring. It is countries which have the highest innovation intensity, Blit says, which advocate for stringent IP protections beyond the level that would maximise global welfare.

    • Traditional Knowledge: beware of patent protection

      Protection of Traditional Knowledge (TK) is a complex legal issue, owing to its dynamic nature, lack of definition and the difficulty in establishing ownership and the
      geographical origin of TK, as well as the absence of an appropriate scheme for its protection. Indigenous communities and traditional knowledge practitioners all over the world are greatly concerned about the increased biopiracy and usurpation by commercial entities. It is in this context that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in India formulated the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL), which is an endeavor to preempt the grant of patents on India’s TK. TKDL contains approximately 2,08,000 formulations based on the traditional healing systems, such as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Yoga.

      TK Digital Libraries are the best defensive mechanism to prevent the patenting of TK already written down in ancient texts and manuscripts, although it still leaves scope for private appropriation of TK by making cosmetic improvements on it. India has signed access agreements with the European Patent Office and US Patents and Trademark Office, on the condition that secrecy be maintained and the database may be used as prior art for search and examination only. ‘Prior art’ is meant to encompass everything that has been published, presented or otherwise disclosed to the public as of the date of the patent and it includes documents in foreign languages disclosed in any format in any country. However, it is common sense that secrecy cannot be maintained on something that is classified as ‘prior art’.

    • UN Development Programme Calls For Reform Of IP And Investor Protection Regimes

      A United Nations Development Programme report released today places importance on transforming global institutions, and establishing fair trade and investment rules. The report calls for global reform of the intellectual property rights regime and investor protection regime. In addition, the report ranks countries on their human development level, putting Norway first followed by Australia and Switzerland.

    • Copyrights

      • Industry-Hated Game Emulators Save Two Video Games For Posterity

        For far too many years, the video game industry struggled to assert its place as a true artform, one deserving of the kind of respect granted to movies, music, television, and literature. This has been a source of frustration to those of us who can recognize the powerful storytelling device that video games represent, as well as the way modern games contribute to art and social commentary. But by its nature as a relatively new medium, games have also struggled to preserve the industry’s history in the way more widely and permanently disseminated artforms have accomplished. And that’s where the gaming industry has taken a turn against its own artistic interests, often demonizing methods for preserving gaming history over intellectual property concerns. Emulators are the chief method at hand, where games that are ancient by gaming standards can be digitized and preserved for posterity, save for the threat of legal action over copyright infringement and the industry’s attempts to stave off these useful tools.

        Like so many issues in the intellectual property world, it’s not hard to understand the gaming industry’s consternation. There’s no doubt that many people use emulators simply to play games from old consoles and cabinets rather than pay for physical copies. Still, there’s also no doubt that these same emulators work to preserve the artistic output in the gaming realm. This was most recently evidenced in two games that might never have seen the light of day again, save for emulators.

      • Yes We Scan: Why Concordia Should Not Shelve Its Book Scanner

        The copyright mistake at Concordia – a poetry centre scanned several books and posted them on the Internet without permission – has attracted considerable attention in the press and social media. Kate Taylor wrote a Globe and Mail column placing much of the blame at the feet of fair dealing, while I responded with a post yesterday that noted that no one claimed that the posting of the full-text books was permissible and that Concordia was an ill-advised target for fair dealing criticism given that it has a copyright collective licence with Copibec that compensates for copying on campus.

      • Kim Dotcom’s Historical Speeding Conviction Still a Deportation Danger

        Somewhat bizarrely, however, more than two years later and the case is still ongoing. According to the NZHerald, the case is now in its 29th month and is set to be the “longest, most drawn out investigation of its type.”

      • Getty Images Slams Google For Seeking Copyright Safe Harbor

        The notion that online platforms should not be held responsible for the infringing acts of their users is something entrenched in law in many regions, including the United States and Europe.

        In Australia, however, a perceived drafting error in the implementation of the Australia – US Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) means that safe harbor provisions only apply to commercial Internet service providers.

      • ‘Free TV’ Android box dealers lose court appeal to lift sales ban

        Cable giants won another victory today in the legal battle over fully loaded Android TV boxes. The Federal Court of Appeal in Montreal quickly dismissed an appeal of an injunction banning defendants from selling the controversial devices.

        Cable companies and content producers Bell, Rogers and Quebec’s Vidéotron won the temporary injunction in June after launching a legal case to stamp out the Android box business.

      • The Delhi University photocopy case comes to an abrupt end after publishers withdraw lawsuit

        In a rather bizarre end to the long running copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Delhi University (DU) and a photocopy shop, the three publishers: Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Francis & Taylor who filed the lawsuit have announced that they are withdrawing the lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by the publishers in 2012 to restrain DU and the photocopy shop from reproducing portions of copyright protected books for the purpose of creating course packs for students of DU. This had been the practice in DU and most Indian universities for several decades and was never challenged till the filing of this lawsuit. As a result, the lawsuit provoked protests and rallies by students and also rallies and a legal intervention by a society of academics and students who supported the university’s position that the educational use was covered by an exception in the Copyright Act, 1957.

      • Marrakesh Treaty For Blind Readers Jeopardised By EU Publishing Industry Lobbying, Group Says

        The treaty adopted almost four years ago in Marrakesh allowing for exceptions to copyright for the benefit of visually impaired people was hailed as a victory for human rights over private rights. However, as the European Union is preparing to ratify the treaty, according to a civil society group report, intense lobbying by the publishing industry is influencing the debate and might diminish the hard-gained ground in the treaty on copyright exceptions. The World Blind Union, meanwhile, said it finds the report “revealing and shocking”.

      • Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra – Needs More Theatre To Tackle Piracy [Ed: Millionaires and billionaires trampling all over blind people to ensure they stay rich and powerful (control over information)]

        Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra at Ficci Frames 2017, expressed that unless we build more theatres, piracy will be only way to take content out.

        Established in 1927, FICCI is the largest and oldest apex business organisation in India. Its history is closely interwoven with India’s struggle for independence, its industrialization, and its emergence as one of the most rapidly growing global economies, kick started the FICCI Frames 2017 today.

In IAM, Asian Courts That Deliver Justice Are “Unfriendly” and Asian Patent Trolls Are Desirable

Posted in Asia, Deception, Europe, Patents at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Think tank for Battistelli and trolls, who dislike judges and would rather settle without them

IAM logo and friends

Summary: Rebuttal or response to the latest pieces from IAM, which keeps promoting a culture of litigation rather than sharing, collaboration, negotiation, and open innovation

IAM’s writers have become — and clearly remained — mouthpieces of EPO/Battistelli, funded (their salaries) in part by the EPO's PR firm, which had received more than a million Euros from the EPO's budget in just one year (there is probably a continuation/expansion of that contract, which definitely needs leaking).

“At IAM, it’s just patent maximalism disguised as news.”Better headline for this morning’s nonsense from IAM would be “trolls-funded IAM is fuming at Japan for not being a vassal of patent maximalists,” but the current headline reads like their usual lobbying (they’re not really a news site) and says “data suggests that Japanese courts continue to be deeply unfriendly to patent owners” — mirroring/echoing the same sort of party line we see/hear whenever IAM covers the United States. At IAM, it’s just patent maximalism disguised as news. Anything goes, even notorious trolls such as Intellectual Ventures (habitually celebrated by IAM).

Recently, as the article at the top serves to show, IAM began promoting patent trolls in east Asia. Also see:

“Korea’s economic growth, which was very much real (its GDP surpassed even Russia’s), meant that companies such as Samsung and LG managed to accumulate capital and then pursued a lot of patents, even in the US and in Europe.”China’s patent hype and low quality of patents has led to a surge in patent applications, coming from various hopefuls who will successfully sneak in bogus patents through lazy/overworked/careless examiners (or in the case of SIPO, examiners whose job is to bolster the illusion of “China Rising” by just granting loads of patents, seeding a surge in patent lawsuits too).

Korea’s economic growth, which was very much real (its GDP surpassed even Russia’s), meant that companies such as Samsung and LG managed to accumulate capital and then pursued a lot of patents, even in the US and in Europe. Korea, however, is known for a reasonably non-aggressive patent culture (how often do Korean companies initiate legal action using patents, unless attacked/provoked first?) and it does not permit patents on software. A Korean patent troll (ish), Intellectual Discovery (ID), is now “facing a “crisis”, based on this new admission from it departing CEO: “Speaking with IAM on the day following his resignation as CEO, Kim described the organisation as facing a “crisis”. ID’s budget, he claimed, had been drastically slashed when responsibility for the organisation transferred from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO). Kim also suggested that working under KIPO made it difficult to pursue some business opportunities because many of the biggest potential licensees are also big patent filers. Overall he made clear his opinion that if ID were to have any future it would have to be as a private entity.”

He means a proper troll (“private entity”), not just a patent troll (ish). IAM would certainly like to see more patent aggression; that’s like the raison d’être of IAM, which is a pro-litigation site. Bear this in mind any time something is published by this think tank, which Battistelli likes to share (as he last did earlier this month, see below for a reminder). █

Battistelli and IAM

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