11.01.21

Power Without Countervailing Power in Patent Law

Posted in Europe, Law, Patents at 4:15 pm by Guest Editorial Team

By Reinier B. Bakels PhD LL.M. MSc^* [also available as PDF]

IT is a well-known organisational principle that power cannot exist without countervailing power.¹ Is this principle also observed in patent law? Power here rests mainly with the European Patent Organisation,² an institution that acts as an executive, judicial and sometimes even legislative power. This complicates political control – but patent law is an important instrument of economic and trade policy that should promote innovation.

Jurisdiction

The resolution of patent-granting disputes is entrusted to the Boards of Appeal,³ which until 2016 were part of the European Patent Office, but have since formed a separate organisation, the Boards of Appeal Unit, albeit still within the European Patent Organisation, under supervision of the Administrative Council of this organization,⁴ about which more later.

The European Patent Convention places so much emphasis on the independence of the members of the Boards of Appeal⁵ that one would be inclined to doubt it. In any case, it is thought provoking that a decision is made on their reappointment every five years.⁶ That is why they are not called “judges”. After the aforementioned restructuring, these Boards moved from the EPO’s headquarters in the centre of Munich to the suburb of Haar, which should underline their independence. Although we still have to give this new organization the benefit of the doubt, it is to be feared that it will not constitute a real countervailing power to the EPO, if only because the members usually have made their career at the EPO.

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^* The author can be reached via reinier.bakels@gmail.org. He is not related to any organization.
¹ The direct cause for this article is turmoil in Dutch politics in the “toeslagenaffaire”, where the national tax office was insufficiently controlled, leading to unjustified fraud claims with far-reaching effects against a large number of citizens.
² Art. 4 European Patent Convention (hereinafter EPC). This organisation consists of the European Patent Office, its “Administrative Council”, and the Boards of Appeal that recently were made independent. All these units will further be discussed later.
³ Art. 21 EPC.
⁴ Art. 26-36 EPC.
⁵ Art. 23 EPC.
⁶ Art. 11(3) EPC.

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A litigant cannot appeal against a decision of a Board of Appeal.⁷ There is an “Enlarged Board of Appeal”,⁸ but that is not an additional instance, in so far as a party can only invoke it in the event of irregularities in the procedure.⁹

It is clearly a shortcoming that parties cannot appeal judgments of Boards of Appeal to an authority outside “the patent system”. In contrast, in the United States it is possible to appeal against decisions of the highest “patent judge”.¹⁰ The U.S. Supreme Court regularly issues patent law decisions, which is remarkable because the nine judges of this Court cover all federal law in the US, handling only about one in a hundred requests.¹¹ They may be no specialists in patent law, but their broader vision is essential. A typical example is Justice Breyer’s warning against a patent law with the effect that “instead of having competition on price, service and better production methods, we’ll have competition on who has the best patent lawyer”.¹²

There are, indeed, some critical remarks to be made about the case law of the Boards of Appeal. Of course they are bound by the EPC,¹³ but several writers give convincing arguments that they violate it.¹⁴ Still, the Boards of Appeal believe that this is unavoidable because the EPC would not be structured logically. The alleged discrepancies, however, rather indicate a misunderstanding of the EPC, and do not require that it be deviated from, but rather that it be followed more closely.¹⁵ A little more respect for the treaty legislature would be appropriate.

Another objection is that the Boards of Appeal base the decision on whether particular subject matter can be patented¹⁶ almost exclusively on the question of how technical that subject matter is.¹⁷ This question is not always easy to answer. An

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⁷ Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the European Patent Organisation, art. 3(1). A patent granted by the EPO can however still be invalidated by a national court for a specific country.
⁸ Art. 22 EPC.
⁹ Art. 112a EPC.
¹⁰ This is the “Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit”, abbreviated as CAFC.
http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov.
¹¹ In American Latin they are said to grant “certiorari”.
¹² https://www.supremecourt.gov/media/audio/mp3files/13-298.mp3 from 14:38 to 14:46
¹³ Art 23(3) EPC.
¹⁴ See Axel Von Hellfeld, ‘Ist nur Technik Stand der Technik? – Zum neuen Neuheitsbegriff im Europäischen Patentamt und dessen Anwendung auf rechnergestützte Erfindungen’, 57 GRUR Int 2008, p. 1007-13 (On the new novelty concept in the European Patent Office and its applicfation to computer-based inventions); Kilian Klaiber, ‘Stellungnahme zur vor der großen Beschwerdekammer des EPA anhängigen Vorlage G3/08 betreffend die Patentierung von Computerprogrammen’ (Opinion on referral G3 / 08 pending before the EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal on the patenting of computer programs), 112 GRUR 2010, p. 561-66(566).
¹⁵ See Reinier B. Bakels, The Technology Criterion in Patent Law. A controversial but indispensable requirement. Oisterwijk: Wolf Legal Publishers 2012, ISBN: 978-90-5850-862-1.
¹⁶ This is a necessary, not just a sufficient condition.
¹⁷ Legal Research Service of the Boards of Appeal. Editors: Frédéric Bostedt, Sabine Demangue, Barbara Dobrucki, Ian Eveleigh, Helen Fineron, Filipe Fischmann, Annemarie Grabrucker & Jérôme

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English judge rightly spoke of a “restatement of the problem in different and more imprecise language”.¹⁸ The Boards of Appeal endeavour to grasp the essence of “technology”, ignoring the question of what interest is served by granting patents solely on technology. That is both a shortcoming and a missed opportunity, because the technology criterion could be better understood from a goal.

Since 2007, the EPC rules that patents are granted “in all fields of technology”.¹⁹ According to the rules of treaty law, this text must be taken literally,²⁰ so it should not be inferred that only technology is patentable. The phrase comes from the TRIPS Agreement,²¹ where it is meant literally in any case, because the World Trade Agreement aims to broaden rather than limit patent law. In short, it cannot be said that the treaty legislator forces patent applications to be assessed on the basis of technical content.

Still patents outside the realm of technology are in a sense a horrifying thought ever since a US judge allowed business method patents,²² triggering a tsunami of applications that disrupted the US patent system for years. Only twelve years after the said ruling the Supreme Court intervened,²³ but not by requiring technology henceforth.²⁴ Not unjustly, because there also appear to be technical business methods, even according to the EPO itself.²⁵ The US judge was right that “business method” is not a useful category for a demarcation. The traditional criteria should suffice to exclude unwanted patents.²⁶ If they actually fail to do so, a different solution must be sought. For example, the inventiveness threshold is much lower than the layman is inclined to think.

The technical content is also no good criterion for computer software, because in fact all software is technical. That is why the EPO invented the rule that software can

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Serre, Case Law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office, 2019, I.A.1 Patent protection for technical inventions, p. 2-9.
¹⁸ Patents Court 21 juli 2005, no. 2005 EWHC 1589 Pat, RPC 2006, p. 5, under 14 (CFPH).
¹⁹ Heading art 52 EPC. Italics added.
²⁰ Art. 31 Viena Treaty on the Law of treaties.
²¹ Art. 27(1) TRIPS Agreement. This Agreement is part of the World Trade Agreement.
²² See CAFC 23 juli 1998, nr. 96-1327, 149 F.3d 1368, 1376 (State Street Bank & Trust v. Signature Financial Group).
²³ U.S. Supreme Court 28 juni 2010, nr. 08-964, 130 S.Ct. 3218, 3221 (Bilski v. Kappos). Later decisions limited the patentability of business methods too: see U.S. Supreme Court 19 June 2014, 13-298, 573 U.S. ___ , 134 S.Ct. 2347 (Alice v. CLS).
²⁴ The new criterion is the “machine or transformation test”.
²⁵ See Technical Board of Appeal (hereinafter: TBA) 12 March 1992, nr. T 636/88 (Material distribution/NAT SHIPPING BAGGING SERVICES).
26 CAFC 23 July 1998, nr. 96-1327, 149 F.3d 1368, 1377 (State Street Bank & Trust v. Signature Financial Group).

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only be patented if it has a “further technical effect”.²⁷ That should correct an inconsistency in the EPC. Or does the alleged inconsistency prove by contradiction that the EPO bases its conclusion on an erroneous premise?²⁸

The EU tried to regulate the patenting of “computer-implemented inventions” in a European Directive²⁹ for the member states of the European Patent Organization that are also EU members,³⁰ but it was rejected by the European Parliament. That did not stop the President of the EPO a few years later from attempting to obtain approval for similar rules from the Enlarged Board of Appeal, but in a well-reasoned judgment it wisely decided that rather politicians should decide.³¹ But they had already spoken. It shows little respect for democracy to try to let an explicit rejection of a Parliament overturn by a court (unless fundamental rights are at stake).

Incidentally, the former Dutch Patent Office established long ago that software and hardware are equivalent insofar as a given task can be realized both “hardwired” and with software.³² This means that a separate regulation for “computer-implemented inventions” (as intended by the Directive) does not make sense. There are definitely objections against many software patents, but often similar objections apply to other patents.

Legislation

The European Patent Convention is primarily decisive, but it is not flexible, because amending this convention is a time-consuming process, which requires a diplomatic conference,³³ followed by ratifications by a number of Member States (to be agreed on a case-by-case basis). To get the idea, the EPC 2000 revision only came into effect at the end of 2007.

It is considerably easier to amend the Implementing Regulations of the EPC, because the Administrative Council³⁴ of the European Patent Organization is competent to do

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²⁷ An example is the invented “further technical effect” requirement for software patents. TBA 1 July 1998, nr. T 1173/97, 22 OJ 1999, p. 609-632, under 6.3 (Computer Program Product I/IBM).
²⁸ The EPC excludes certain subject-matter such as computer programs “as such” (art. 52(3) EPC). The EPO interprets those rather enigmatic words as ”unless still technical”.
²⁹ Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (Commission proposal COM(2002) 92). COM(2002) 92. Brussels, 20 February 2002.
³⁰ Albania, Liechtenstein, Monaco, North-Macedonia, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Turkey, Iceland, the United Kingdom and Switzerland are members of the European Patent Organisation, but no EU members.
³¹ Enlarged Board of Appeal 12 May 2010, nr. G 3/08, 34 OJ 2011, p. 10-59, under 7.2.4 en 7.2.5 (Patentability of programs for computers/PRESIDENT’S REFERENCE).
³² Dutch Patent Office, appeal department 19 January 1983, 51 BIE 1983, p. 104 (Tomoscanner).
³³ Art. 172 EPC.
³⁴ Art. 26-36 EPC.

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so.³⁵ This powerful³⁶ body is composed of two delegates from each of the (currently 38) member states, usually the head of the national patent office and a deputy, e.g. a senior official from the national Ministry of Economic Affairs.³⁷ At best, these officials are democratically controlled indirectly. Whether they really constitute a countervailing power must therefore be doubted, also because they have an interest in a high “turnover” of the EPO, since the national patent offices collect the renewal fees in the first place, although they have to relinquish part of it to the European Patent Office.³⁸ Patents are a lucrative business for patent-granting agencies.³⁹

The Administrative Council introduced all kinds of regulations in the EPC Implementing Regulations that go beyond implementation rules in the strict sense, such as the implementation of the European Biotechnology Directive.⁴⁰ The aforementioned restructuring of the Boards of Appeal in the Boards of Appeal Unit is also regulated in these regulations, although the organization of the “European Patent Organization” was actually regulated in the EPC itself.

For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that since 2007 the EPC provides that a conference of the responsible ministers of the member states must be held at least once every five years.⁴¹ Is it going to be the countervailing power?

Policy and politics

It is very difficult for the legislator to democratically control the EPO, because the interpretations of this organization can only be followed by specialized lawyers, and the link between rules and interests is often unclear, if not absent.

Policymakers often associate patents with innovation, but inventions do not automatically lead to innovation, and can even hinder it. Innovation is an economic concept that stands for a “diffusion” of inventions that leads to social benefit.⁴² Diffusion originally is a concept of physics, and in physics it is typically slow. Patents

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³⁵ Art. 33(1c) EPC.
³⁶ Art. 33 EPC.
³⁷ Members of the European Patent Organisation Administrative Council: https://www.epo.org/about-us/governance/administrative-council/representatives.html
³⁸ Art. 39 EPC.
³⁹ Annual Review 2020, Budget and Finance, p. 84 e.v. https://www.epo.org/about-us/annual-reports-statistics/annual-report/2020.html
⁴⁰ Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions. Rule 28-34 of said Implementing Regulation relate to this Directive.
⁴¹ Art. 4a EPC.
⁴² See the standard work Everett M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation. New York, NY: Free Press 2003. Incidentally, innovation is not limited to inventions: mere ideas can lead to innovation too.

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can promote investment, and the obligation to publish patent applications⁴³ can improve the awareness of inventions. However, generally the patent owner is not obliged to grant licenses and can thus hinder innovation. A classic example is James Watt, who slowed down steam engine development due to a restrictive licensing policy.⁴⁴

Furthermore, it is often misunderstood that European patents do not simply stand for European innovation: they are patents for Europe, but not necessarily of European patent owners. Less than half of European patents have owners from the member states of the European Patent Organisation,⁴⁵ which can put European industry at a disadvantage. European patents can protect us against the rise of the Chinese, but they can also facilitate the Chinese rise.

A current geopolitical theme is patents on vaccines against COVID-19. These would impede the fight against the pandemic, but that observation does not answer the question of what constitutes sensible policy.⁴⁶

Much more can be said about the effectiveness of patents, or its pursuit. We would primarily like to remind here that patents are a means with ‘side effects’ in the form of disadvantages.

How to proceed from now?

It is especially important that the possibility is created to submit decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO to an external court. That requires an amendment to the “Protocol on Privileges and Immunities”. This is part of EPC,⁴⁷ and we already noted that it takes a lot of time to change that.⁴⁸

It seems most obvious to give the European Court of Justice a say in patent cases. the complicated nature of patent law cannot be an argument against this: this court also handles decisions about disputes in trademark law, which is an equally specialized and complicated area of law. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrates that

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⁴³ This is regulated in national statutes, for instance in art. 31 Dutch Patent Act (ROW1995) en § 32 German Patent Act (Patentgesetz).
⁴⁴ See Henry Winham Dickinson & Rhys Jenkins. James Watt and the Steam Engine. Oxford: Clarendon 1927.
⁴⁵ Patent Index 2020. Statistics at a glance. https://www.epo.org/about-us/annual-reports-statistics/statistics.html
⁴⁶ See Reto M. Hilty, Pedro Henrique D. Batista, Suelen Carls, Daria Kim, Matthias Lamping & Peter R. Slowinski, Covid-19 and the Role of Intellectual Property. Position Statement of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition of 7 May 2021.
https://www.ip.mpg.de/fileadmin/ipmpg/content/stellungnahmen/2021_05_25_Position_statement_Covid_IP_waiver.pdf
⁴⁷ Art. 164(1) EPC.
⁴⁸ See p. 4.

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a broad view can be more important than ultimate knowledge of details. A difficulty is, however, that not all EPO member states are also members of the EU,⁴⁹ and that the European Patent Convention is not EU law, but in the past that did not prevent the EU from issuing Directives in the field of patent law,⁵⁰ even though those do not apply to countries like the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

One could also envisage a role for the “Unified Patent Court”,⁵¹ which is currently being set up, although that is in turn a body within the “patent system”. Moreover, in the light of Brexit, the United Kingdom has decided⁵² not to participate in this Court anymore – while this country can be called the most important “patent country” in Europe after Germany.

Conclusion

The European Patent Organization is a kind of separate “state”, which can run its course almost unchecked by any countervailing power.

A lack of countervailing power is particularly noticeable in the judiciary, which is not really independent, violates the EPC, and makes decisions so complicated that they can only be followed by specialized lawyers, which prohibits proper democratic control. For a structural solution, treaties will have to be changed, which is a long-term affair.

Politicians should be more aware that patents are not merely a “technical” matter, but an instrument of economic (geo-)politics. A critical eye does not have to wait for treaty changes.

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⁴⁹ See note 30.
⁵⁰ Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions
⁵¹ https://www.unified-patent-court.org
⁵² https://www.unified-patent-court.org/news/uk-withdrawal-upca

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[Meme] [Teaser] San Marino Grape Stomp

Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:07 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: The San Marino representatives on the EPO‘s Administrative Council discuss the pros and cons of Battistelli‘s “Strike Regulations”

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Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part IV — Mr. MobileCoin: From Mono to Plagiarism… and to Unprecedented GPL Violations at GitHub (Microsoft)

Posted in Deception, Free/Libre Software, GPL, Microsoft, Mono at 11:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Series parts:

Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part I — Inside a Den of Corruption and Misogynists
Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part II — The Campaign Against GPL Compliance and War on Copyleft Enforcement
Microsoft GitHub Exposé — Part III — A Story of Plagiarism and Likely Securities Fraud
YOU ARE HERE ☞ Mr. MobileCoin: From Mono to Plagiarism… and to Unprecedented GPL Violations at GitHub (Microsoft)

GitHub: Where everything comes to die

Summary: MobileCoin, which employed a person from Team Mono (and a close associate of GitHub’s CEO), has serious accusations against it; as it turns out, GitHub is now looking to make plagiarism mainstream, mostly in an effort to combat copyleft; In this introductory part we hope we can explain what’s wrong with Copilot very clearly and very concisely, then use that as a cautionary tale, knowing past patterns/behaviour of those manipulative individuals who are behind Copilot

THE weekly installment of this series isn’t timed for impact; it’s timed to give way to the EPO series, which is a very high-impact series that will end about a week from now. Then, once done, we hope to be able to rush through with the GitHub series; we have so much to show and to cover.

“…it’s no exaggeration to say — and hard to overstate the severity of it — that the GitHub management is a bunch of charlatans, frauds, and back-stabbing moles.”Last week, in Part III, we left off after explaining misuse of funds and misuse of code. Basically, it’s no exaggeration to say — and hard to overstate the severity of it — that the GitHub management is a bunch of charlatans, frauds, and back-stabbing moles. Those are not the same people who created and grew the company; that the new management also has a profound misogyny problem and a lack of empathy is an aspect we’ll come to much later in the series. Even some Microsoft insiders are set aback, almost appalled by it. But they love money, so they continue to participate. Not a novel or a new kind of problem…

This isn’t some ‘low-level’ issue, either; this concerns the CEO of GitHub, who just like the CEO of Microsoft has well-documented misogyny issues. The angle more interesting or relevant to us is legal and technical, though megalomania can be understood in the context of how people treat their partners; “it’s in regards to Nat Friedman and his personal life,” one person noted, as “from personal experience he’s a misogynist”.

We’ll leave all that for another day or another week/month. There’s a lot of material related to this. It’s just as important, but we must tackle one issue at a time.

Today’s focus will be MobileCoin. As Wikipedia notes under criticism: “MobileCoin has been accused of a pump and dump scheme. The integration of MobileCoin wallets into the popular security messager app Signal received criticism from security expert Bruce Schneier, who previously praised the app. Schneier stated that this would bloat the app and attract unwanted attention from the financial authorities.”

“Even some Microsoft insiders are set aback, almost appalled by it.”Without going into all the pertinent details (what MobileCoin is and where it came from) we’ll focus on its relevance or similarity to a scenario we have with Microsoft’s GitHub. As many are aware, GitHub increasingly integrates with Azure and Visual Studio, which are proprietary software with surveillance (Visual Studio Code has surveillance built in and a non-free licence). To make matters worse, Visual Studio Code — with help from fools who still put their code in GitHub — now flagrantly suggests GPL-licensed code under the guise of “Hey Hi” (but without any licence notices). A recipe for disaster, sure…

Co-Pilot (or CoPilot or just Copilot) is a lot smaller than GitHub, but it’s important to know where it came from and why. As we noted in Part III, there may be a securities fraud aspect to it, albeit this angle will be dealt with separately as it merits further investigation and understanding of the law.

Copilot is being touted/advertised (spammed by Microsoft boosters in their sites and captured media) as exciting novelty/innovation, but it’s an attack on our community, programmers, and basically an assault on GPL enforcement. It’s telling people not to worry about GPL compliance because the code, which was actually written by humans, is some sort of “magic” created out of thin air.

One of the persons involved in the Copilot attack (because that’s what it is — an attack) is called Alex, who had “a run in with the Monero community,” according to a former partner. “Alex also worked on MobileCoin…”

“One of the persons involved in the Copilot attack (because that’s what it is — an attack) is called Alex, who had “a run in with the Monero community,” according to a former partner.”What is it about? The gist: “The token attached to Signal in a way that seems unclear even to people that work at Signal” (there’s information related to this, with good references, in the above-mentioned Wikipedia article).

Signal is not trustworthy, but this isn’t the subject of our series. We might do a separate series about spying elements in the so-called ‘crypto’ community and even in some of the (self-described) “Open Source” fake ‘community’…

The former partner is “aware that Copilot is scraping other people’s code and compiling into a service, claiming fair use…”

At a scale such as this it is not fair use, but that’s a subject for another part. The FSF has already invited essays on this matter as part of a competition with a generous reward to winners.

The short story is, Copilot is against enforcement of Free software licences. We wrote a number of articles about it in the past (along with videos and memes). It’s no laughing matter and it is the foremost threat to Software Freedom. It wasn’t ‘pioneered’ to help developers but to help Microsoft’s agenda.

“The short story is, Copilot is against enforcement of Free software licences.”This kind of objective “seems to be a theme for Alex,” the former partner noted. As we’ll explain some other time, it’s the same Alex who made Tomboy, a notorious infection vector for Team Mono inside GNU/Linux distributions. There’s a patent angle to be covered as well (that’s another part).

Microsoft is a prolific GPL violator (it got caught many times), so eradicating the GPL-type licences is a longterm objective. Just so that people can make proprietary software and extinguish Free/libre software used to make such software, then blame “HEY HI” (AI); yes, it’s a legal hack and there has not yet been a court case to test the legality of it. It’s totally untested in courts and we don’t suppose SFC wants to sue; SFC took money from Microsoft for two years in a row. SFC also lobbied very hard against the founder of the FSF, who came up with the GPL.

“Alex has a history with that,” the former partner said. “His company Hackpad is founded on some open source work he did, Tomboy notes, [and] thing is, he forked Tomboy from another repo [and] now Alex has a bunch of document editing patents that now belong to Dropbox…”

If this is true, there’s lots of explaining to do; and it’s “good to confirm my suspicions of plagiarism,” the former partner noted.

GitHub now does this on an unprecedented scale.

“Microsoft is a prolific GPL violator (it got caught many times), so eradicating the GPL-type licences is a longterm objective.”“The Monero community is pissed at him too,” the former partner recalled, as “supposedly MobileCoin plagiarized them, but MobileCoin isn’t decentralized”.

There was some digging around all this, asking people in the know. The former partner “also spoke to this guy [scalled] David Trowbridge, who was named in the original demand letter [...] he seemed sympathetic at first and went silent”.

“Gates started Microsoft by stealing other people’s work. That’s what Microsoft still does,” the former partner quotes, adding that “this quote stuck out to me, because Alex’s company Hackpad, was built upon an open source project Alex forked and claimed as his own and has been accused of plagiarizing Monero during his time at MobileCoin.”

At a later stage we’ll show how that’s connected to GitHub. There are also patents; This one is MobileCoin’s.

Of note: Toby Segura/Segaran, Joshua Goldbard, and Chris Toshok… those names are relevant as “Toby Segura, Joshua Goldbard are the MobileCoin guys,” we’re told, and “they don’t like Alex” (who is now at Microsoft).

“GitHub is no longer controlled by the people who ran it for its first decade. The mission of GitHub isn’t the same, either.”“Chris Toshok is a friend of Nat [Friedman] and Alex [and] he said something to the effect of Alex not being at parties for the past few years, claiming they don’t hang out with him because he’s “mentally ill” and everyone knows it…”

“Chris said he hadn’t seen Alex at Nat’s parties at his house in a few years and it was probably because Alex is crazy, which I doubt, because Nat and Alex talked on the phone when we were together and Alex had been out of SF for several years…”

Either way, it looks like there’s a patch of skulduggery there. Some of the upcoming parts were already alluded to above. We expect to continue next Monday if not earlier. There’s a lot more in store. Remember who controls GitHub and remember that history/track record counts (repeat offenders). GitHub is no longer controlled by the people who ran it for its first decade. The mission of GitHub isn’t the same, either. █

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IP Kat Was Declawed by Battistelli’s Threats and Sanctions and Now It’s Collapsing

Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2 arrivals, but 5 departures (as noted a week ago)

Summary: The public wants to receive information (e.g. facts about EPO corruption), not self-promotional marketing from law/litigation firms and overt censorship of comments critical of António Campinos; the people who are still in IP Kat — and there aren't many of them still active — occasionally try to squeeze some karma or life out of “Merpel” (even though the original authors who used this pseudonym are long gone after Benoît Battistelli sent his "Capones")

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Recycling Enablers of the EPO Regime and Bribing Them (or Rewarding Them) Years Later

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum 4f384a5fcafd4e0561a217d574eacbf0

Summary: The sad state of the EPO seems to involve a “dangerous cocktail” of soft bribes, threats/blackmail, and nepotism; today we look at states with a population as small as 2,500 smaller than Germany’s

THE 29^th part of the current EPO series was published this morning. We’ve shown how Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos reward their enables in Monaco (more or less just part of France, which is where both Battistelli and Campinos are from).

This problem is actually a lot more profound; small states with fewer than 40,000 citizens have been given too much power in EPO governance — a power they’re eager to misuse if there’s something to be gained from doing so. We’ve already mention how some of the individuals who did this were handsomely rewarded, e.g. rising to positions of considerable power in spite of a lack of experience. Sometimes the notorious EIA festival is also part of the ‘money-laundering’ cycle, as the video above notes (towards the end). █

Monaco and EPO
Published five years ago

European Inventor Award venues:

2015: France (birthplace of Mr. Campinos and Mr. Battistelli)
2016: Portugal (father of Mr. Campinos)
2017: Italy (family roots of Mr. Battistelli, whose name is Italian)
2018: France
2019: Austria (notable enabler of “le système Battistelli”)
2020: (COVID-19)
2021: ~~Monaco~~ France

And the winner is France again

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Links 1/11/2021: GNU Linux-Libre 5.15 and Audacity 3.1

Posted in News Roundup at 8:26 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNU/Linux
- Distributions
- Devices/Embedded
Free Software/Open Source
Leftovers

GNU/Linux
- 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: “Halloween Edition”
  
  This week was spooky and brought some cool things, such as Linux 5.15 as the next LTS kernel, a new Linux laptop from Star Labs, a new Raspberry Pi model, as well as a new release of the Ubuntu Online project for demoing Ubuntu in a web browser.
  
  On top of that, this week we got a new NVIDIA proprietary graphics driver release, new releases of the Nitrux and Escuelas Linux distros, a new KDE Plasma point release, and a new Calibre release. You can enjoy these and much more in 9to5Linux’s Linux weekly roundup for October 31st, 2021, a.k.a. the Halloween Edition!
- Kernel Space
  - Linux Kernel 5.15 Released. This is What’s New
    
    A quiet “Halloween” release yet impactful Linux Kernel 5.15 is here improving Processors, Storage, Graphics and other components. Here’s a release recap and how to download and install for Ubuntu.
  - Linux 5.15 Kernel Released – LinuxStoney
    
    After two months of development, Linus Torvalds has released the Linux 5.15 kernel . Notable changes include: new NTFS driver with write support, ksmbd module with SMB server implementation, DAMON subsystem for monitoring memory access, locking primitives for real-time mode, fs-verity support in Btrfs, process_mrelease system call for shortage response systems memory, remote attestation module dm-ima.
    
    The new version received 13,499 fixes from 1888 developers, the size of the patch is 42 MB (changes affected 10,895 files, 632,522 lines of code added, 299,966 lines removed). About 45% of all changes introduced in 5.15 are related to device drivers, approximately 14% of changes are related to updating code specific to hardware architectures, 14% are related to the network stack, 6% are related to filesystems, and 3% are related to internal kernel subsystems.
  - Linux Kernel 5.15 LTS Released! Brings Improved NTFS Driver to Linux – It’s FOSS News
    
    On Halloween, Linus Torvalds announced the availability of the next mainline, Linux Kernel 5.15.
    
    While Linux Kernel 5.14 focused on improvements for ARM-based systems, the focus seems to be on some significant changes this time.
    
    Here, I shall highlight the key highlights of this release.
  - Linux Kernel 5.15 released, futex2 work to help Linux gaming going into Kernel 5.16 | GamingOnLinux
    
    For the futex2 work coming from Collabora developer André Almeida, another developer Thomas Gleixner has sent in a request for Linus Torvalds to have it included along with other work so we should see it in the next Kernel release. This is for the new system call sys_futex_waitv that will help Linux gaming.
    
    As Almeida previously described it: “The use case of this syscall is to allow low level locking libraries to wait for multiple locks at the same time. This is specially useful for emulating Windows’ WaitForMultipleObjects. A futex_waitv()-based solution has been used for some time at Proton’s Wine (a compatibility layer to run Windows games on Linux). Compared to a solution that uses eventfd(), futex was able to reduce CPU utilization for games, and even increase frames per second for some games. This happens because eventfd doesn’t scale very well for a huge number of read, write and poll calls compared to futex. Native game engines will benefit of this as well, given that this wait pattern is common for games.”.
  - FUTEX2′s sys_futex_waitv() Sent In For Linux 5.16 To Help Linux Gaming
    
    As expected after first reporting on it a month ago when the FUTEX2 patches were queued up in locking/core, this work with the new sys_futex_waitv() system call for helping the Windows on Linux gaming experience will indeed land for Linux 5.16.
    
    The FUTEX2 work has been a long time coming and landing for Linux 5.16 is the main part: the sys_futex_waitv system call that allows for waiting on multiple futexes. This is very useful for the likes of Wine and Proton (Steam Play) for better matching the behavior of Microsoft Windows’ WaitForMultipleObjects functionality. Making use of this new system call on Linux 5.16+ when patches land for Wine / Proton will allow for greater performance possibilities. Native Linux games may also make use of this system call directly or via a wrapper (e.g. glibc patches have been floated) as well for performance/efficiency benefits. The performance advantage may be in the ballpark of a few percent.
  - GNU Linux-Libre 5.15 Kernel Is Here for Those Who Seek 100% Freedom for Their PCs
    
    Based on the Linux 5.15 kernel series, the GNU Linux-libre 5.15 kernel is here to clean up a lot of drivers in an attempt to offer you a pure kernel free of proprietary code. Drivers that needed cleaning up include adreno, btusb, btintel, brcmfmac, and gehc-achc.
    
    In addition, this release cleans up a new AArch64 qcom variant’s devicetree file, removes cleaning up scripts for the prism54 and rtl8188eu drivers, which were removed upstream in favor of new drivers that need cleaning up too, and it cleans up the mechanism behind the new option to enable -Werror during compilation.
  - GNU Linux-libre 5.15 Released – More Deblobbing, Fixing “-Werror” Breakage – Phoronix
    
    Right after last night’s Linux 5.15 kernel release, the Free Software Foundation folks issued GNU Linux-libre 5.15-gnu as the newest version of their downstream that removes functionality dependent upon binary-only/non-free-software firmware/microcode as well as the ability to load closed kernel modules and other determined non-free-software restrictions.
    
    This cycle the Linux-libre developers have been dealing with the Linux kernel’s new -Werror Kconfig option to enable that compiler option that raises warnings to errors. While that option was set to not be enabled by default now for Linux 5.15, the Linux-libre folks have been trying to clean-up some of their machinery since when they go through the “deblobbing” process it often leaves unused arguments to functions and other changes that emit new compiler warnings. So the Linux-libre developers have been working to make changes there so such warnings won’t be raised to errors.
- Applications
  - Best Free and Open Source Alternatives to Adobe InDesign
    
    What if you are looking to move away from Adobe and embark on a new world of online freedom, where you are not tracked, monetised and attached to Adobe’s ecosystem. We only recommend free and open source alternatives. Our recommended software don’t necessarily replicate every feature of their Adobe counterparts but they offer sufficient functionality for many tasks.
    
    What are the best free and open source alternatives?
  - Audacity 3.1 Sound Editor Released
    
    The release of the free sound editor Audacity 3.1 has been published , which provides tools for editing sound files (Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, MP3 and WAV), recording and digitizing sound, changing the parameters of the sound file, overlaying tracks and applying effects (for example, noise suppression, changing the tempo and tone ). Audacity code is distributed under the GPL license, binaries are available for Linux, Windows and macOS.
    
    Audacity 3.1 was the first significant release to be formed after the project was taken over by the Muse Group. In preparing the new release, the main focus was on simplifying the audio editing operation.
- Instructionals/Technical
  - How To Install Krita on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot
    
    In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Krita on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, Krita is a free and open-source photo editing and digital painting application. Krita is a multi-platform application, and it offers a lot of features like designing illustrations, drawing texture arts, and much more.
    
    This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the Krita digital painting on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.
  - Migrate CentOS 7 To AlmaLinux 8, CentOS 8, Rocky Linux 8 – OSTechNix
    
    As you may already know, it was not possible to migrate between major version of RHEL-derivatives. Meaning – you can’t directly upgrade from CentOS 7.x to CentOS 8.x version. The only way was fresh installation. Not anymore! You can now easily migrate from CentOS 7.x to any 8.x of your choice using ELevate tool. This guide explains how to migrate CentOS 7 to AlmaLinux 8, CentOS Stream 8, Oracle Linux 8, and Rocky Linux 8 using AlmaLinux ELvate tool.
  - How I dynamically generate Jekyll config files | Opensource.com
    
    Jekyll, the static site generator, uses the _config.yml for configuration. The configurations are all Jekyll-specific. But you can also define variables with our own content in these files and use them throughout your website. In this article, I’ll highlight some advantages of dynamically creating Jekyll config files.
  - How to Install Java 14 on CentOS/RHEL 7/8 & Fedora [Ed: Newly updated]
    
    Java is a secure, stable, and well-known, general-purpose programming language and computing technology platform with many interconnected capabilities.
    
    To run Java-based applications, you must have Java installed on your server. You mostly need the Java Runtime Environment (JRE), a collection of software components used to run Java applications on the Linux machine.
    
    If you want to develop software applications for Java, you need to install the Oracle Java Development Kit (JDK), which comes with a complete JRE package with tools for developing, debugging, and monitoring Java applications and it is an Oracle’s supported Java SE (Standard Edition) version.
  - How to Install Skype on Rocky Linux / AlmaLinux [Ed: Bad idea either way, because it is spyware]
  - How to Repair File System Errors in Debian
    
    The Debian Linux distribution laid down the foundation for the creation of other popular Linux operating system platforms like Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and Kali Linux. The community-supported development of this GNU/Linux distribution attributes it as free and open-source software.
    
    Unfortunately, the prominence of the Linux operating system and its related distributions like Debian does not spare it from nagging file system errors. Fortunately, Linux ensures that you are never helpless when faced with such operating system performance challenges.
  - How to configure MPLS with tc in the Linux kernel | Enable Sysadmin
    
    Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a telecom routing technique that uses labels to direct data between nodes. It is supported by the Linux networking stack, and many articles and tutorials have been written about how to configure it with ip route. However, you can also handle MPLS at a lower level with tc.
    
    Real deployments typically use control plane software to configure MPLS dynamically. However, it’s useful to be able to execute tc commands manually for learning, experimenting, and testing Linux kernel features.
    
    This article explains how to match different fields in MPLS headers with tc-flower, covers the different MPLS actions that tc supports for adding, modifying, or removing MPLS headers, and finally shows how to encapsulate MPLS into the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).
    
    All commands are based on Linux v5.14 and iproute2 v5.10.0 (you can use an iproute2 version older than the kernel because v5.10.0 implements all the required Netlink features). Also, the upcoming Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8.5 will have these features in tech preview. Sysadmins will have to install the kernel-modules-extra package.
  - How to install & configure Redis 6 on OpenSUSE Leap 15.3
    
    Redis is an in-memory data structure store, used as a distributed, in-memory key–value database, cache and message broker, with optional durability. Redis supports different kinds of abstract data structures, such as strings, lists, maps, sets, sorted sets, HyperLogLogs, bitmaps, streams, and spatial indices.
  - Install PHPServerMon on Ubuntu with PHP-FPM, nginx, MySQL
- Games
  - Roblox is back online after an outage that lasted three days
    
    After an outage that began Thursday evening, Roblox finally came back online late Sunday . The company said in a tweet at about 4PM ET Sunday that it was “incrementally bringing regions back online.”
    
    A company spokesperson said in a statement emailed to The Verge that the outage “involved growth in the number of servers in our datacenters and was not due to any peak in external traffic or any particular experience.
  - Wrought Flesh is an upcoming FPS where you swap your organs | GamingOnLinux
    
    Developer Narayana Walters is close to releasing Wrought Flesh, a retro-styled first-person shooter that has a unique upgrade system where you swap-out your flesh for something a little better.
    
    “Rip out enemies organs and equip them in your own body. Fight biopunk monsters and drugged-up space bandits. You are a Gajeshian Cultist: A near-mythological being built from the bodies of long-dead saints. You have arrived on the partially terraformed planet of Colcol on a temple-ordained mission to find and kill someone. Explore the planet and trace your victims steps to the end.”
  - Roguelite FPS dungeon crawler Ziggurat 2 has left Early Access | GamingOnLinux
    
    Ziggurat 2 from Milkstone Studios is a fast-paced roguelite FPS dungeon crawler and the 1.0 release is out now. Another that has native Linux support, continuing like their previous releases.
  - Best Linux Distro for Gaming
    
    In this article, we’ll go through the best Linux distro for gaming. There are several to choose from, including special Linux distros dedicated to gaming only.
    
    Although you can play games on any Linux distro, there are still some distros that stand out for gaming. Most people will recommend that you use whatever distro you want to and just install the gaming software and emulators you need (there’s a list of them at the bottom of this article). There’s still a good use for these kinds of distros, especially if you need to turn a computer into a gaming console, or if you want to run a gaming distro in a live environment, without the need to set up and install everything. So, in this article, we won’t be featuring distros like Ubuntu, Manjaro, Arch, or any other daily drivers. If you need those kinds of recommendations, check our other Best Distros lists.
    
    We’ll jump straight to the best distros, but if you want to learn more about what makes a Linux distro “the best” for gaming, or the best software for gaming on Linux, scroll down to the bottom.
    
    [...]
    
    The requirements for Lakka are extremely low, hence being able to run it on an RPi.
    
    You can check a detailed list of supported mini PCs and Lakka’s requirements here. But generally, you can assume that your generic PC or laptop can run Lakka without an issue.
    
    Lakka turns your computer into a retro gaming console. If you want to turn your computer into a gaming console that you can play new games on, try ChimeraOS.
- Distributions
  - IBM/Red Hat/Fedora
    - Multiple Matrix sessions with Element on Fedora Linux
      
      Element is a Matrix protocol client which allows you to communicate end-to-end-encrypted (E2EE) with anyone else using the Matrix protocol. Matrix is “an open network for secure, decentralized communication” and Element is your gateway into this network.
      
      This article shows you how to operate multiple distinct sessions of the Element Matrix client on Fedora Linux.
- Devices/Embedded
  - Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications
- Free, Libre, and Open Source Software
  - Introducing to the Gemini protocol
    
    Today I’ll tell you a bit about the Gemini protocol which aims to be an alternative to HTTP for a more secure, lightweight, and text-focused web.
    
    Introducing to the Gemini protocol
    
    Gemini is an alternative protocol to HTTP and Gopher that aims to sell itself not as a replacement for HTTP and Gopher but more as a demonstration of what the web was meant to be.
    
    For the creators of Gemini, the current web is insecure, slow, cumbersome, invasive, overloaded with advertising, and above all lacking in privacy. Therefore, they want to revindicate the web as it was meant to be instead of the current one.
    
    For this protocol, a rather peculiar name has been chosen as it bears the same name as the NASA project of the 1960s. In general, Gemini pages come with a special document format, commonly called “gemtext”, which allows linking to other documents.
  - Programming/Development
    - How to count Unicode glyphs in Vala using Gtk
    - Shell/Bash/Zsh/Ksh
      - Bash functions are better than I thought
        
        I’ve been using Bash functions quite liberally over the past couple years, but last week I discovered that they can be much better than I thought. In this post, I’ll explain how I thought they worked, why I was wrong, and how that makes them better.
    - Rust
      - The Rust Programming Language Blog: Security advisory for rustc (CVE-2021-42574)

Leftovers
- Education
  - Scammers Are Creating Fake Students on Harvard.edu and Using Them to Shill Brands
    
    In short, swathes of Harvard.edu have become a spammer free-for-all where fake students and other accounts hawk an endless parade of dubious stuff: online casinos, synthetic urine, real estate in Florida, CBD, wireless speakers, coupons, tourism in Krakow, garage door openers, UV sanitizers, DUI attorneys, nutritional supplements, fitness supplements, orthodontists, pet products, more pet products, cannabis delivery, bathroom fixtures, a random moving company in New York, online therapy, concealed carry holsters, kitchen sinks, more kitchen sinks, more kitchen sinks, more kitchen sinks, bitcoin mining, vacuum cleaners, foot massagers, ob/gyn clinics, lawn decorations, bouncy castles, ottoman beds, automotive mechanics, seasonal depression lamps, exercise equipment, more exercise equipment, a realtor in Winnipeg, weighted blankets, home security alarms, roller skates, narration services, keto-friendly snacks, a site for hiring motivational speakers, flatscreen TVs, creatine supplements, fertility doctors, commercial power washing services, and many more incongruous yet trashy brands and services.
  - National Library to close reading rooms for five years
    
    The Estonian National Library closed its Tõnismäe reading rooms for renovation on October 30. The building’s lobby will remain open until December. The library closed to the tune of a concert by Jarek Kasar, Jaan Pehk and Vaiko Eplik.
- Health/Nutrition
  - COVID-19 Has Set Back the Fight Against Tuberculosis Across the Globe
- Integrity/Availability
  - Proprietary
    - Security
      - ‘Trojan Source’ Bug Threatens the Security of All Code
        
        Virtually all compilers — programs that transform human-readable source code into computer-executable machine code — are vulnerable to an insidious attack in which an adversary can introduce targeted vulnerabilities into any software without being detected, new research released today warns. The vulnerability disclosure was coordinated with multiple organizations, some of whom are now releasing updates to address the security weakness.
      - Privacy/Surveillance
        
        AI Regulation: The EU should not give in to the surveillance industry lobbies
        
        Although it claims to protect our liberties, the EU’s draft text on artificial intelligence (AI), presented by Margrethe Vestager, actually promotes the accelerated development of all aspects of AI, in particular for security purposes. Loaded with exceptions, resting on a stale risk-based approach, and picking up the French government’s rhetoric on the need for more experimentation, this text should be modified down to its foundation. In its current state it risks endangering the slim legal protections that European law holds out in face of the massive deployment of surveillance techniques in public space.
- Defence/Aggression
  - A.I. Is Not A-OK
    
    The first time I interviewed Eric Schmidt, a dozen years ago when he was the C.E.O. of Google, I had a simple question about the technology that has grown capable of spying on and monetizing all our movements, opinions, relationships and tastes.
    
    “Friend or foe?” I asked.
    
    “We claim we’re friends,” Schmidt replied coolly.
    
    Now that the former Google executive has a book out Tuesday on “The Age of AI,” written with Henry Kissinger and Daniel Huttenlocher, I wanted to ask him the same question about A.I.: “Friend or foe?”
  - PPA chief: We respond to all threatening social media posts
    
    The Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) says it will respond to all potentially threatening social media posts, including by contacting the original poster, amid reports of coronavirus-skeptic individuals issuing calls via the major platforms to disrupt the work of hospitals and businesses.
    
    Speaking to ETV current affairs show “Ringvaade” Friday, PPA northern district prefect Joosep Kaasik said that his authority: “Reacts to all threatening posts immediately. If a threat can be read into a post, then our task is to take preventative action on that threat as soon as possible, meaning we always contact the person behind the post.”
  - Afghan Crime Wave Adds to Taliban Dystopia
    
    Officials of the former government, intelligence service, and military have been snatched from their homes after applying for passports and providing biometric and other identification information, he said.
    
    The Taliban are also using lists of former officials and civil activists to pinpoint their children. “They took four such sons from a prominent school in Kabul. When the police station was asked, they said, ‘We don’t know who entered the school,’” the source said. “Life is broken.”
- Environment
  - Glasgow follies
    
    This coming weekend, representatives from 196 nations will gather in Glasgow for the 26th Conference of the Parties to the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change. Failure is assured, since addressing the fundamental causes of climate change isn’t on the agenda and all proposed national commitments are voluntary, with no penalties for not living up to them.
  - COP26: what’s the point of this year’s UN climate summit in Glasgow?
    
    Yet, there is hope. While many government proposals risk being empty words, the latest spike in European gas prices and the recent UK fuel shortages provide incentives for some governments, including the UK as COP host, to fast-track elements of their green growth strategies by electrifying home heating and transport. Similarly, the success of the Green Party in the recent German elections, with 14.8% of votes, sends an important signal of public support for climate action in a major economy.
  - COP26 Exposes Failure of Neoliberalism
    
    Prior to that august event, hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific papers evidenced an alarming fact that the climate system is broken, endangering all complex life. This fact is supported by the Alliance of World Scientists with over 15,000 signatories from 160 countries in support of the following declaration: World Scientists Warning of a Climate Emergency.
    
    As it happens, the UN climate conference extemporaneously puts the neoliberal brand of capitalism on public trial. Alas, the “free market” neoliberal brand of capitalism has miserably failed to address the global warming issue, thus failing to support civilization at large. After all, it’s established, on an anthropomorphic basis, neoliberalism is an economic model that people emulate.
  - Stop Trying to Find Magic Words to Convince Climate Opponents
  - Opinion | Dim Prospects for Climate Mitigation
    
    Just in time for the COP26 UN climate change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the Biden administration has released the National Intelligence Estimate: Climate Change and International Responses Increasing Challenges to US National Security Through 2040. The report, which relies on previous findings by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and other scientific bodies, assume that by 2030, a 1.5˚C rise in global temperature will be reached—the red line set by the Paris Agreement. To change that trajectory, “the IPCC estimates that global emissions would have to drop sharply in the next decade and reach net zero by around 2050 to limit warming to 1.5˚C, or reach net zero by about 2070 to limit warming to 2˚C.” Such a dramatic reversal of current trends is extremely unlikely, according to the NIE.
  - Growing Number of Indigenous People in US Are Becoming Climate Migrants
  - Opinion | Here Come the Abortion Bounty Hunters
    
    Texas’s cruel new anti-abortion law is more than just an unconstitutional restriction on reproductive choice. It’s also an egregious new frontier in late capitalism.
  - Haiti’s Humanitarian Crisis Reveals the Human Costs of US Interventionism
  - Energy
    - [Cryptocurrency] is ‘haram’, says Indonesian Islamic organisation
      
      Despite a booming [cryptocurrency] industry, the East Java branch of the Indonesian Islamic organisation Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) has declared cryptocurrency ‘haram’, or forbidden under Islamic law.
      
      The decision was reached through a ‘bahtsul masail’ which means a discussion in Javanese where members of the NU, as well as representatives of Islamic boarding schools, were involved in the deliberation.
    - [Old] David Graeber: After the Pandemic, We Can’t Go Back to Sleep
      
      The media and political classes will definitely encourage us to think of it this way. This is what happened after the 2008 financial crash. There was a brief moment of questioning. (What is “finance,” anyway? Isn’t it just other people’s debts? What is money? Is it just debt, too? What’s debt? Isn’t it just a promise? If money and debt are just a collection of promises we make to each other, then couldn’t we just as easily make different ones?) The window was almost instantly shut by those insisting we shut up, stop thinking, and get back to work, or at least start looking for it.
      
      Last time, most of us fell for it. This time, it is critical that we do not.
      
      Because, in reality, the crisis we just experienced was waking from a dream, a confrontation with the actual reality of human life, which is that we are a collection of fragile beings taking care of one another, and that those who do the lion’s share of this care work that keeps us alive are overtaxed, underpaid, and daily humiliated, and that a very large proportion of the population don’t do anything at all but spin fantasies, extract rents, and generally get in the way of those who are making, fixing, moving, and transporting things, or tending to the needs of other living beings. It is imperative that we not slip back into a reality where all this makes some sort of inexplicable sense, the way senseless things so often do in dreams.
      
      How about this: Why don’t we stop treating it as entirely normal that the more obviously one’s work benefits others, the less one is likely to be paid for it; or insisting that financial markets are the best way to direct long-term investment even as they are propelling us to destroy most life on Earth?
    - A new study argues that insufficient infrastructure doomed the first electric cars
      
      The study then used a statistical model to predict how automotive history might have differed if the power grid had developed faster. It finds that if the amount of electricity America produced by 1922 had been available in 1902, 71% of car models in 1920 would have been EVs (though long-distance motorists would still have chosen petrol cars). Accounting for the extra power generation such a fleet would need, this would have cut America’s carbon-dioxide emissions from cars in 1920 by 44%.
- AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics
  - [Old] China: Authorities raid church, confiscate Bibles, detain members
    
    In recent years, numerous reports have emerged of Chinese authorities replacing crosses with the CCP flag, and images of Jesus Christ with President Xi in addition to converting churches into buildings for political activities.
    
    The CCP has also increasingly pressured church leaders to infuse their sermons with political ideology. Additionally, censors have begun removing the words “Christ” and “Jesus” from some publications, including on Chinese social media networks.
  - The EU’s Dangerous Policy Towards Iran’s Mullahs
    
    For almost six years since the 2015 “nuclear deal,” the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was reached, the European Union has been appeasing Iran’s ruling mullahs. What the EU fails to see is that that its soft policy towards the mullahs has been a total disaster and dangerous.
    
    Right after the “nuclear deal” was reached — which by the way the Iranian regime never signed — the EU, alongside the Obama administration, lifted nearly all its economic sanctions. It was a gift that helped the Iranian regime to reintegrate into the global financial system. The EU also made many concessions to Iran, such as agreeing to include in the nuclear deal sunset clauses enabling the mullahs soon to have as many nuclear weapons as they like.
  - Tibet’s Long Fight for Freedom
    
    It would certainly be appropriate if the world were to turn its attention back to the story of Tenzin Gyatso and the stolen realm at the Roof of the World. Tibet is the scene of some of the Chinese Communist Party’s worst crimes—crimes that began in the days of Mao Zedong, in a China now unrecognisable, and continued ever since, right up until the present day.
    
    The CCP claims that the Tibetan Autonomous Region is part of China’s eternal and unchanging territory, but others, including the Dalai Lama, counter that Tibet is a distinct and ancient nation. Certainly it had its own empires in the past, one of which even managed to (briefly) conquer the Tang dynasty capital in what is now called China. While some later dynasties exercised administrative control of Tibet, they always left it alone politically, and the region was not directly controlled by any “Chinese” emperor until the Qing (the last dynasty). In fact, the emperors were considered students of the Dalai Lamas.
    
    After the Qing collapsed in 1912—and the entire dynastic system along with it—Tibetans remained free until mid-century. Then the Red Disaster fell upon them. Exactly one year after the Communists had taken Beijing, soldiers swarmed through the mountain passes onto the Tibetan plateau and subdued the Dalai Lama’s government. It would seem reasonable to surmise that the Party had at least one eye on the region’s large deposits of lead, zinc, silver, lithium, copper, and gold, not to mention some of the world’s most important uranium reserves (just one year later Beijing would sign an agreement with Moscow to provide uranium ore in exchange for Soviet help with developing nuclear technology).
- Misinformation/Disinformation
  - No mosque burnt, photos on social media fake: Tripura police
    
    Tripura police has denied that no mosque was burnt as was being made out in fake photographs posted on social media.
  - No mosque burnt, pictures fake: Tripura Police on alleged Panisagar incident
    
    The Tripura Police tweeted a few photographs of a mosque and said that the pictures circulating online were fake. “It is evident that masjid is safe and secure,” it tweeted.
    
    “During yesterday’s protest rally in Panisagar, no masjid (mosque) was burnt and the picture being shared of burning or damaged masjid or collection of sticks, etc, are all fake news,” Tripura Police tweeted.
  - Facebook puts tighter restrictions on vaccine misinformation targeted at children
    
    Meta says in a new blog post that it’s partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to take down harmful content related to children and the COVID-19 vaccine. This includes any posts that imply the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe, untested, or ineffective for children. Additionally, Meta will provide in-feed reminders in English and Spanish that the vaccine has been approved for kids, and will also provide information about where it’s available.
- Censorship/Free Speech
  - The University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case
    
    “It is important to note that the university did not deny the First Amendment rights or academic freedom of professors Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin,” the school said in an email to NPR. “Rather, the university denied requests of these full-time employees to undertake outside paid work that is adverse to the university’s interests as a state of Florida institution.”
    
    The university has strong ties to DeSantis. The chair of the board of trustees at the school, Mori Hosseini, is an adviser to DeSantis and a major Republican donor.
  - Taliban killed 13 to silence music at a wedding party in Nangarhar: Afghanistan’s ex-VP Amrullah Sale
    
    Former Vice President (VP) of Afghanistan, Amrullah Saleh, took to Twitter on Saturday to claim that the Taliban had killed thirteen people in Nangarhar province in order to silence music at a wedding party.
  - Taliban arrest 2 after 3 wedding guests killed over music in Nangarhar
    
    According to AFP, a relative of the victims said the Taliban men opened fire while music was being played. “The young men were playing music in a separate room and three Taliban fighters came and opened fire on them. The injuries of the two wounded are serious,” the witness told reporters.
    
    When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan the last time between 1996 and 2001, they banned music. While the new government has not yet issued such a decree, its leadership still frowns on its use in entertainment and sees it as a breach of Islamic law.
  - Afghanistan: Gunmen attack wedding to stop music being played
    
    Since the Taliban returned to power, the group has been accused of murdering a folk singer and smashing up instruments. Many singers and musicians have already fled Afghanistan.
- Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press
  - Journalist Survives Attack by Gunman in Kabul
    
    Gunmen on a motorcycle brandished small arms and fired on a broadcast journalist in his car in the Afghan capital of Kabul, lightly wounding him.
    
    Ali Reza Sharifi, a journalist for Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, survived the late Friday night attack, Taliban deputy spokesperson Bilal Karimi told The Associated Press.
  - Mexican journalist dies from wounds; 2nd slain in week
    
    Prosecutors in Acapulco said Friday that Cardoso, who worked for a news portal, had been found sitting on a city street with gunshot wounds and was taken to a hospital. According to the National Union of Press Editors and information from the family relayed by CPJ, Cardoso had been taken from his home earlier Friday by armed men.
- Civil Rights/Policing
  - Struggles for Voting Rights Will Shape the Fate of Abortion Access
  - Coalition Demands Biden Condemn Israel’s Crackdown on Palestinian Rights Groups
  - Opinion | Corporate Crime Woke Corporatism and the Rise of Law and Order Politics
    
    In late 2021, when Americans think of progressive or liberal politics, what do they think of?
  - Opinion | Refusing to Compromise on Human Progress
    
    The once ambitious “Build Back Better” legislation is being whittled down daily by right-wing democrats and their unwavering corporate loyalties. Progressives like Sanders have dug in refusing to let the bill be completely gutted – standing firm, for instance, on preserving Medicaid expansion. Progressive leader Nina Turner declared that “If Manchin and Sinema can push their will on the entire U.S. Senate and president, then the progressives—almost 100-strong—should damn sure be able to push their will too. They should not move. They got to hold. There’s too much at stake.”
  - Liberation or Bust
    
    We are primates. We should have no difficultly imagining how a macaque must feel, captured, detained, tormented. Why does our law permit it? If a corporation can be a legal person, can’t a macaque?
    
    Cases have been made for the personhood of nonhuman great apes, but this line of advocacy has yet to achieve broadly meaningful results. Imagine the state of the biosphere by the time we get to the case for gibbons or lemurs or macaques.
  - Taxi Drivers in New York City Are on Hunger Strike for Debt Forgiveness
  - Police ‘Laughed’ When Biden Staffers Pleaded for Help as Trump Train Harassed Campaign Bus, Lawsuit Says
    
    As a result of the harassment, which resulted in at least one traffic accident, the Biden campaign ended up canceling three events in the state, and the FBI opened an investigation into the incident. The suit claims the police department violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 because they were aware of “acts of violent political intimidation” that were taking place and yet did nothing to stop them. The suit requested compensatory and punitive damages, legal fees and a jury trial, citing “ongoing psychological and emotional injury” the plaintiffs still experience.
  - Germany: Afghan asylum seeker vandalises church because as a Muslim he “cannot accept Christians”
    
    Thursday noon at the Frauenberg Church in Nordhausen: Pastor Klemens Müller happens to look out of the window and observes a man carrying the movable furniture out of the church. Chairs, hymn books, the cross from the church wall and other altar objects have already been dragged to the forecourt and he does not seem to be finished with his work, reports nzz-online.de.
  - Ali al-Nimr: Saudi child protester who faced death penalty released
    
    Ali al-Nimr was 17 when he was detained in 2012 during anti-government protests by the kingdom’s Shia Muslim minority.
    
    In 2014, a court condemned him to death by “crucifixion” – beheading followed by the public display of his body.
  - The march of bigotry in Bangladesh
    
    Pogroms against Hindus in East Pakistan occurred regularly under state patronage. Insecurity induced by communal violence forced Hindus to migrate to India. This was repeated before and during the 1971 war. Grabbing Hindu-owned properties and land was and remains a major factor in Bangladesh, where violence against the community has occurred intermittently during the 50 per cent of the population in 1947, the Hindu population has dwindled to less than 9 per cent in Bangladesh today.
  - Trial to Open in Killing of 2 Anti-Racist Protesters in US
    
    The trial, beginning Monday with jury selection, seems certain to underscore the deep fractures in American society over gun rights and the Black Lives Matter movement.
    
    Prosecutors are expected to depict Rittenhouse as a right-wing extremist who had come to Kenosha with the specific intention of clashing with anti-racism demonstrators.
    
    His own lawyers will say he acted in self-defense, shooting only to protect himself from rioters pursuing him.
- Monopolies
  - Copyrights
    - Power to the people
      
      Good evening and welcome to this wonderful COP26 event. I’m Catherine Stihler, CEO of Creative Commons, and the elected Chair of University Court, the governing body of the university. So I stand before you this evening with my two distinct but related hats on.
    - All of science gets a general index
      
      It’s hard to overstate what a scam academic and scientific publishing is. It’s run by an oligopoly of wildly profitable companies that coerce academics into working for free for them, and then sell the product of their labors back to the academics’ employers (often public institutions) for eye-popping sums.
      
      Here’s how that works: a publicly funded researcher (often working for a public institution) does some research. In order to progress up the career ladder and secure more funding, they need to publish their research in a prestigious journal. That journal asks other publicly funded researchers (chosen by a volunteer editorial board of publicly funded researchers) to peer-review and edit the paper. If the paper is selected for publication, the researcher signs over their copyright in it – life plus 70 years – to the journal, for free.
      
      Then, the sales department of the journal pays a call on institutions that pays the salaries of the paper’s authors. They offer a “subscription” to the journal – that is, access to a database that costs almost nothing to maintain – that can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year. Journal subscriptions have experienced rapid, sustained price inflation for decades.
      
      If someone at that institution were to share the paper their colleague produced in the next lab over, they’d be committing copyright infringement – because their colleague had to give their copyright away to the publisher as a condition of publication, which is, in turn, a condition of career advancement.
      
      This is chokepoint capitalism at its finest: publishers’ primary “asset” is a legally defensible barrier between academics and their career prospects, so it can coerce them into accepting all kinds of abusive conduct.
      
      But as bad as it is that billion-dollar multinationals are extracting huge, parasitic rents from our publicly funded knowledge-creation system, that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. The real harms come from what this does to science and scholarship. Locking up all those papers means that researchers who aren’t affiliated with wealthy institutions are denied access to the raw materials of study and experimentation. (Naturally, this problem is most keenly felt in the Global South, which means that scientists and scholars in poor countries are denied access to the materials that might help them alleviate the scourges of poverty).
    - From a hidden Picasso nude to an unfinished Beethoven, AI uncovers lost art — and new challenges
      
      “Disclosing a work by Picasso is a matter of copyright and in particular moral rights,” she said. “It is a timeless right, which belongs only to the heirs of the author.
      
      “Moreover, this Artificial Intelligence that ‘learned’ to paint ‘like Picasso’ will never have the sensitivity of a painter whose creativity is expressed in front of each blank canvas,” Andrieu said.
      
      “The ‘result’ of this Artificial Intelligence is not a work and it is indecency to say otherwise,” she said. “A machine cannot replace an artist, nor complete the work of an artist who has abandoned it on the way of its creation.”
    - Dune Piracy Spiked After HBO Release, Due to Quality or PR?
      
      Last week, leaked copies of Dune appeared on pirate sites before the U.S. theatrical and HBO premieres. This is typically a recipe for a piracy surge. While there was indeed plenty of interest in pirated Dune copies, the biggest spike came after HBO leaks appeared days later. The unusual second wave was likely triggered by quality, PR, or perhaps a bit of both.

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[Meme] In 2022 We’re Back to 2014

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 4:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Incredibly enough, after all these years some sites still link to Bristows LLP — with its non-stop fake news and fabricated 'rumours' — as an authoritative source on UPC matters and Unitary Patent prospects

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[Meme] Microsoft: Always Blame the Victim (Failing That, Blame the Governments of Other Nations)

Posted in Deception, Microsoft, Security at 4:19 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Microsoft habitually uses the dishonest narrative wherein the victims of Microsoft’s own shoddy software (with NSA back doors) are in fact the culprits and it has become casual — not to mention popular in partisan media — to also blame “China” or “Russia” (even when neither is to blame; then the media frames the actual culprit, Microsoft, as the security expert)

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