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01.23.16

EPO President Battistelli and Vice-President Topić Are Having Political Problems

Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Some political news from France and from Croatia, where Benoît Battistelli and Željko Topić (respectively) come from

THE European Patent Office is under political fire from many directions these days. Some examples that are not publicly known (yet) may be shown here later this month or next month.

According to this new comment: “In a reaction of President Battistelli dated 20 November 2015 (http://www.pyleborgn.eu/2015/11/crise-a-loeb-reponse-du-president-battistelli/ ) on the letter of Pierre-Yves Le Borgn` député des Français de l`étranger dated 18 November 2015 send to Mr. Emmanuel Macron, Ministre de l`Economie et de l`Ìndustrie I read the following:

Battistell: ¨Tout d’abord, il est totalement faux d’affirmer que des « interrogatoires d’une rare violence » auraient été menés. Cela est d’autant plus facile à prouver que ces interviews sont enregistrées. Par ailleurs, il n’est pas acceptable de jeter ainsi le discrédit sur l’unité d’enquête de l’Office, composée de mères et de pères de familles dévoués a une tâche souvent bien difficile mais indispensable dans la lutte contre la fraude, le harcèlement et autres délits qui peuvent déstabiliser notre organisation.¨

In English ¨First of all, it is completely false to affirm that of them ” cross-examinations of a rare violence” would have been led. It is of as much easier to prove than these interviews are recorded. Otherwise, it is not acceptable to throw the discredit thus on the unit of investigation of the office, composed of mothers and fathers of devoted families having a task often very difficult but indispensable in struggle against the fraud, the harassment and other offenses that can destabilize our organization.¨

The commenter added this personal opinion: “Your behavior is disgusting Battistelli. You speak about fathers and mothers in the Investigation Unit. The disciplinary committee did not recommend dismissal for Ion Brumme because he has five children – one is just a baby – and a loan to pay on his house, but YOU Battistelli dismissed him. Shame shame shame. Battistelli writes further that these interviews of the Investigation Unit are recorded. Why was it not allowed to Mrs Els Hardon to make recordings? I am sure you have many things to hide. Of course you will never make public your, perhaps manipulated, recordings. The trial of Mrs Hardon of her disciplinary procedure is missing even elementary fundamental principles of the law.It also seems that Mr R. Lutz feels home in this dictatorial system.”

Not only Battistelli is having political problems.

Željko Topić, Battistelli’s right-hand man, is having his defamation case discontinued after it repeatedly collapsed (and caused great financial damage to the accused) while a new Croatian Government has just been announced.

“It looks like Mr. Topić’s old friend (the former minister Dragan Primorac),” one source told us, “did not make it into the new Croatian government.” (source: “Prime Minister-Designate Orešković Presents New Croatian Government”)

“He had originally been tipped as the most likely candidate for the Foreign Affairs Ministry,” we have been told, “but it could be that the whiff of scandal (relating to Topić) counted against him.”

“In case further prosecution is sought,” we replied, one can “guess there will be fewer strings left to pull from up above.”

We previously showed how Topić was, by the face of it, trying to select politically-connected lawyers for his case. “I am very curious about the other criminal charges allegedly or reportedly pressed against Topić,” I added. The mysteries surrounding Topić in Croatia can help explain union-busting, which seems to be the 'department' of Topić and Raimund Lutz these days. Recall what Topić did in Croatia when people expressed disagreement. █

01.22.16

Benoît Battistelli es Repréndido por Pierre-Yves Le Borgn’, Quien Ha Iniciado Acciones Políticas en Su Contra

Posted in Europe, News Roundup at 8:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado in Europe, Patents at 7:35 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“La justicia, señor, es de gran interés para hombre en la tierra. Es el ligamento que une seres civilizados y naciones civilizadas juntos.”

–Daniel Webster

Pierre-Yves Le Borgn'
Photo via Wikipedia

Sumario: ¨He apelado al gobierno francés inmediatamente,¨ escribió Pierre-Yves Le Borgn´ ayer, habiendo sigo testigo del engaño de Pinocho Battistelli así como de la manera como ignoró las decisiones del comite disciplinario.

Días despues que Pierre-Yves Le Borgn´ arremetió contra el presidente de la OEP Benoit Battistelli (vealo en Ingles o Español) recibimos una traddución de otra carta del señor Le Borgn´. En ella a pesar de amenazantes cartas del tirano Battistelli, Pierre-Yves Le Borgn´ señala correctamente que el presidente Battistelli ¨impuso estas sanciones más allá de las recomendaciones dadas a él por el comite disciplinario de la OEP,¨ como cubrimos hace unos días. ¿Qué clase de TIRANO es Battistelli y porqué MINTIÓ a sus empleados (mentiras diseminadas por los ¨periodistas¨ quienes han probablemente difamado y acusado a favor de los chacales de Battistelli)? Aquí esta una traducción de lo que el señor Le Borgn´ escribió:

Me he enterado con asombro la decisión anunciada esta mañana por el presidente de la Oficina Europea de Patentes (OEP), Benoit Battistelli, al castigar 3 empleados de la OEP, lideres de la SUEPO en Munich. Estoy profundamente consternado. Dos de esos representantes, el primer la presidenta de la unión en Munich, la otra el anterior presidente, fueron despedidos. La presidenta incluso fue deprivada de parte de sus derechos de pensión. Un degradamiento de quince años de trabajo para el tercero.

Noté que el presidente Battistelli puso estas sanciones más allá de las recomendaciones que les fueron dadas por el comite disciplinario de la OEP. La VOLUNTAD DE HACER MALDAD, de ASUSTAR, para ERRADICAR TODO CRITICISMO asi como cualquier poder intermediario lo caracteriza. Incluso lo asume Noté que el presidente Battistelli puso estas sanciones más allá de las recomendaciones que les fueron dadas por el comite disciplinario de la OEP. La VOLUNTAD DE HACER MALDAD, de ASUSTAR, para ERRADICAR TODO CRITICISMO asi como cualquier poder intermediario lo caracteriza. Incluso lo asume.

He apelado al gobierno francés immediatamente. Lo que esta pasando es una VERGUENZA e INJUSTICIA TREMENDA. Espero que los estados miembros de la OEP, comenzando con Francia, intervengan urgentemente para poner punto final a la arbitrariedad y este movimento que arruina vidas, destruye familias y socava el trabajo de toda la organización. No puede ser aceptado que la immunidad que goza esta organización lleve a tantas desviaciones del gobierno de ley en que esta basado, entre otras cosas, con respecto por los derechos de los representantes de uniones y empleados, independencia de los comites disciplinarios en relación a la gerencia, y la proporcionalidad de las sanciones: estas son tantas preguntas que fueron completamente ignoradas aquí.

Una organización sólo tiene futuro cuando sus empleados son reconocidos en su projecto, en su gobernalidad y su gerencia. Esto no es el caso de la OEP. Es urgente por los estados miembros reflejar en las razones que llevaron a esto. Y claramente considerar la renovación de la gobernacia de la OEP asi como de su gerencia.

Nos gustaría citar algunos nuevos comentarios de IP Kat por que ayudan a mostrar como la gente se siente acerca del régimen de Battistelli, qu el señor Le Borgn´ debe haber estado estudiando recientemente.

George Brock-Nannestad, no se preocupa por anonimato (tiene huevos para sosterner sus palabras sin temer por futuras retribuciones), escribió: ¨parece como si todas las iniciativas de la OEP estan dirigidas a reducir su competencia al respecto de decidir a costo bajo quien tiene el mejor derecho a una innovación. La OEP esta dirigiendo majormente sus esfuerzos para aumentar la resolución de conflictos a costos altísimos, por instancia por realizar busquedas que resultan en listing de patentes que tienen que haber sido analizadas en privado. Los resultados de estos análisis son usados en evaluacion de ganar casos en corte, y los prospectos de costos se estan convirtiéndo prohibitivos que un arreglo es preferible. La parte de la industria que más la necesita es incapaz de predecir un resultado de una inversión en tecnologías nuevas. El propósito del sistema de patentes era incentivar la innovación, no crear estorbo y estancamiento.

¨Uno de los intentos de estimular las tecnicas y legales competencias de la OEP es la propuesta re-organización del Jurado de Apelaciones. La más directa y bien sustentada oposición a las propuestas oficiales ha venido de UNION-IP, a NGO que tiene muchos EPI miembros. Su propuesta fué publicada en epi-Information No. 4 of 2015, pp. 120-22 (available en http://patentepi.com/assets/uploads/documents/epi-information/epi_Information_4_2015.pdf — do your own copy-and-paste). La expresión ¨casi con las justas en linea con una independencia judicial¨ es usada en relación con la reposición de leyes como estan, incluso antes de una revisión. Es de gran crédito de EPI que hayan publicado texto tan incisivo.

¨En differente pero igualmente detrimente materia un contribuyente al jornal, Sr. A Hards, expresa sus puntos de vista en la reorganización de la EQE. (haciendo papeles A y B combinados por ambos mecánica y química; mismo número pp. 142-43). Leo su contribución como si el considera que la reorganización como una diluición de la profesión total. Exclama su sorpresa: ¨No puedo entender, porque el sistema candidato aleman apoy unos 6 meses de entrenamiento en la Corte Alemana de Patentes con lecturas, participacion en el juzgado, y cursos de experimentados jueces, mientras que la OEP no tiene nada comparable. ¿Donde están los miembros del Jurado de Apelaciónes? ¿Dónde están los expertos legales de la OEP y sus examinadores veteranos? Estos son los guardianes de la OEP caso de patentes leyes y juicios y como tales son las mejores fuentes de conocimiento para entrenamiento desde abajo.¨

¨Es mi impresión que el sistema de la OEP este desarrollándose hacia un menos interes en ´OEP caso de ley´.

¨La supresión de profesionalismo de los examinadores de la OEP que esta expuesto a luz contribuye al mismo fin: Una reducción de la capacidad oficial de evitar conflictos. Esos profesionales quienes han actuado como reporteros encubieros de la tendencia (que descubrieron antes que nadie) están considerados soplones en el estilo de las compañías farmáceuticas y tabacaleras. Las infracciones de los derechos humanos de estas personas son escandalosas pero no hay culpable ante ninguna ley aplicable.

¨Es incomprehensible que la UE es capaz de prohibir el etiquetamiento de productos del Banco Oeste ocupado por Israel originandose en Israel o instituir observaciones contra Polonia cada vez de cualquier supresión de la libertad por hablar, pero la UE es todavía capaz de contratar un subproveedor para patentes con efectos unitarios por una entidad que suprime los derechos humanos peormente. Considero que cualquier contrato hecho sea anulado y renegociado, tomando en consideración completo respeto a los derechos humanos dentro de la OEP. Cualquier violacion a los derechos humanos que hayan ocurrido deben ser revertidas con una compensación p or daños. El respeto por la UE esta viniéndose abajo por la compañía que tiene.¨

He mencionado en respuesta a George en una no halagadora manera, sin aludir lo dicho que considero espectaculativo o insuficientemente sustanciado/exacto. Otra persona (anonima) escribió: Sólo puedo estar de acuerdo con George que todo en la OEP esta en la pared. La pregunta es simplemente ¿por el benefico de quien? No me gustan las teorías conspiratorias del Sr. Schestowitz, pero a pesar de la exageración mostrada, hay algo verdadero en ellas.¨

He estado escribiendo acerca de patentes por más de una decada y a diferencia de aquellos que siguen la materia por que tienen ganancias de ella, soy voluntariamente crítico y expreso mis observaciones personales incluso cuando estas son negativas y potencialmente ofenvas. No hay ¨ẗeorías conspirativas¨ [sic] a menos que alguien de ejemplos de ellas. George me llamó ¨estidente¨ (o la palabra danesa por ella), pero eso no es un término desacreditador. El comentador sigue en: ¨me pregunto si BB tuvo una agenda escondida. Esta descubierta. Lo discernible es: YO SOY EL JEFE Y HAGO LO QUE QUIERO, IRRESPECTIVAMENTE DE CUALQUIER PROPOSICIÓN O DECISIÓN de cualquier comite, empleados/gerencia. Es PERVERSIÓN de la ley. La OEP necesita una reforma como fue sustentada en muchas maneras, no se puede negar, pero no por ser drástico como cayó. No simplemente para satisfacer el ego de such a persona despreciable como BB. Tal vez es tiempo de una unidad investigadora, pero nadie, sólo el y sus chacales, adivinó como podía ser malusada.

La presión de los examinadores se han convertido en tal que a pesar de su orgullo y profesionalismo no tienen alternativa pero tratar rapidamente con busquedas y la siguiente examinación. Incluso no tienen la elección de archivar lo que puedan. Tienen que seguir lo que el ordenador dice! Es entendible que sucede como en una cadena de fábrica, incluso no cuando proviene de un trabajo intelectual. La ente que dirige la OEP no son incluso gerentes, son IDIOTAS pensando que lo son. En cualquier organización privada hubieran sido despedidos hace tiempo, pero los miembros de la AC son inmovibles por lo menos la mayoría.¨

¨Podría aumentar la producción tratar casos fáciles, pero serán difíciles las que tendrán que ser tratadas.¨

¨Lo que esta pasando con el Jurado de Apelaciones es un escandalo. Hacer una propuesta en la que el Jurado no tenga que dictar sus propias reglas de procedimiento es increíble. Como un alumno de una de las ¨mejores¨ escuelas de Francia, BB debería saber lo que significa separación de poderes. Convenientemente lo ha olvidado. Por lo menos ha mostrado profundo desprecio que tiene hacia aquellos que no bailen con su música.¨

Aquí viene la parte acerca del rol/envolvimiento frances: ¨Ese BB esta en contra de las actuales autoridades francesas es para verse on otra situación. BB organizó en Lyon una reunión para celebrar 30 años de cooperacion con la SIPO. Las autoridades francesas no fueron invitadas, incluso informadas. Miren en http://documents.epo.org/projects/babylon/eponot.nsf/0/7E1A61AB656965E2C1257E8F004CD6F8/$File/epo-sipo_symposium_programme_en.pdf

¨Esto tiene que ser analizado con las instrucciones dadas a los empleados de la OEP cuando visitan otros miembros estados para informar a la oficina de patentes nacionales. Haz lo que digo, pero no te atrevas a hacer lo que hago…¨

De nuevo otro ejemple de Battistelli ejerciendo autoridad sin supervisión.

¨Mejor paro ahora. Estoy hirviendo de rabia,¨ concluyo este comentador. █

Two More EPO Protests on Their Way, Thousands of Employees Projected to Attend Overall

Posted in Europe, Patents at 12:41 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Summary: Based on figures just publicly shared on the Web, once again almost half of all EPO staff is brave enough to exit the employer’s building to protest against this abusive employer

EARLIER today WIPR unleashed some details about the latest SUEPO-led protest against abusive EPO managers. The gist is, as the URL slug tacitly indicates, the most optimistic figures estimate 1,300 people in attendance in Munich alone. But that’s not all. There are more protests on their way, involving other sites where the EPO operates. As WIPR put it, the “demo was held with around 1,100 to 1,300 participants, SUEPO said. That demo also included a delegation from the EPO’s Vienna office.

“The demo began at the EPO’s Isar building in Munich and finished at the Bayerische Staatskanzlei, the office of the Bavarian minister-president Horst Seehofer. A petition was then handed over calling on the Bavarian government to step in.”

“Funnily enough, the EPO’s disconnected-from-reality PR department carries on yanking out the lies of the management (even this morning).”A lot of the rest in this article repeats what we already provided plenty of coverage of (mentioned here several times before with additional depth). Here is the new part (not yet covered in SUEPO’s public site): “On Thursday, January 28, staff in The Hague office of the EPO plan to march from the French embassy to the German embassy, and another demo will take place in Munich on February 17.”

The nature of the protest is similar to what we covered here before and so are the causes or motivations. Our Wiki breaks these down into categories; it’s summarised here. Funnily enough, the EPO’s disconnected-from-reality PR department carries on yanking out the lies of the management (even this morning). “Found on LinkedIn,” one person wrote in comments, is the following image from the EPO. Is the EPO trying to make people vomit? Is this some kind of sadistic mental game against existing EPO staff? They’re clearly misleading potential applicants.

EPO LinkedIn

The accompanying text allegedly says: “Respect For The Individual is one of five core Public Service Values that guide our actions and underlie the EPO’s mission. The Office recognises the individual value of each and every employee.”

Enjoy the weekend and pretend the above is just a joke (it’s not). We have a lot of articles coming (growing backlog due to a family visit). █

“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.”

–Martin Luther King Jr.

01.21.16

Links 21/1/2016: Linux Foundation, Gates Foundation Under Fire; OpenStack Foundation Event Coverage

Posted in News Roundup at 12:39 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

Leftovers

  • The State Of Meteor Part 1: Growing Pains

    The result of all this is that Meteor has ended up in an awkward place.

    New developers love how easy it is to get started with it, but can get discouraged when they start struggling with more complex apps. And purely from a financial standpoint, it’s hard to build a sustainable business on the back of new developers hacking on smaller apps.

  • Hardware

    • Can We Now Finally Agree that Smart Watches Were a Dumb Idea? – This is Apple’s Revenge on the Nerds

      Quick note to discuss the silly brief fad that was around smart watches. I said before they came that there was no real economy in it, and I said when the iToy sorry iWatch sorry Apple Watch was introduced, that it won’t set the world on fire, and that it will be a rare iFlop like the Newton and Lisa, not anything like total reinvention of tech such as the Mac was to PCs, iPod was to musicplayers and iPhone was to mobile phones (the last two, that I also predicted and discussed in my writing, including this, considered by many the best forecast about iPhone’s impact, by anyone who wrote about the iPhone before it launched). And when the Apple Watch was launched for sale, I wrote one more piece warning that there was nothing there. So now, the facts are slowly emerging. So lets take stock.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Michael Moore: Dear President Obama, please visit Flint

      I am writing this to you from the place where I was born—Flint, Michigan. Please consider this personal appeal from me and the 102,000 citizens of the city of Flint who have been poisoned, not by mistake or a natural disaster, but by a governor and his administration who, to cut costs, took over the city of Flint from its duly elected leaders, unhooked the city from its fresh water supply of Lake Huron, and then made the people drink toxic water from the Flint River. This was nearly two years ago.

      This week it was revealed that at least 10 people in Flint have been killed by these premeditated actions of the governor of Michigan. This governor, Rick Snyder, nullified the democratic election of this mostly African-American city—where 41% of the people live below the official poverty line—and replaced the elected mayor and city council with a crony who was instructed to take all his orders from the governor’s office.

    • Meet the Mom Who Helped Expose Flint’s Toxic Water Nightmare

      On a chilly evening last March in Flint, Michigan, LeeAnne Walters was getting ready for bed when she heard her daughter shriek from the bathroom of the family’s two-story clapboard house. She ran upstairs to find 18-year-old Kaylie standing in the shower, staring at a clump of long brown hair that had fallen from her head.

      Walters, a 37-year-old mother of four, was alarmed but not surprised—the entire family was losing hair. There had been other strange maladies over the previous few months: The twins, three-year-old Gavin and Garrett, kept breaking out in rashes. Gavin had stopped growing. On several occasions, 14-year-old JD had suffered abdominal pains so severe that Walters took him to the hospital. At one point, all of LeeAnne’s own eyelashes fell out.

  • Security

  • Defence/Police/Secrecy/Aggression

    • Why Won’t Iran Act Like Our Enemy?

      What a bad week for the war party. Darn you, Iran! The country that the armchair warriors most love to hate refuses to play the villain’s role assigned by the neoconservatives, “humanitarian” interventionists, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the establishment media.

    • The Story You Aren’t Being Told About Iran Capturing Two American Vessels

      The burning question now relates to whether or not Iran’s actions constitute an attack on the U.S. It’s not a simple question. Electronic warfare and cyber warfare have become common place. It is also worth noting the two US vessels were within just a few miles of Farsi Island. Farsi Island is the home of the Revolutionary Guards’ Navy (RGN). The RGN is Iran’s maritime unconventional warfare force. For comparison, imagine a scenario in which a nation that has attacked a US civilian airliner and whose political leaders have constantly threatened war sent two boats to pass extraordinarily close to the home base of a U.S. Seal Team. The reader can decide if Iran’s actions were appropriate.

      The most important takeaway from this incident is to remember the high-tech military of the United States has an exposed vulnerability. It’s a vulnerability that was exploited by Iran. Iran is not a nation many in military circles would see as technologically advanced. The drone warfare system has a fatal flaw. If Iran can exploit it, China and Russia certainly can. Even North Korea has been able to successfully disrupt the GPS system. Beyond simple navigation, the U.S. employs the GPS system to guide missiles. If the Iranians can jam and spoof their way into controlling a drone, it isn’t a huge leap to believe have the ability, or will soon have the ability, to do the same thing with guided missiles.

      It should be noted that GPS jammers are available on the civilian market and have been detected in use inside the United Kingdom. This revelation may also be the reasoning behind the U.S. decision to require drone operators to register their aircraft.

    • How Iraqis Remember The First Gulf War

      Twenty-five years after the first Iraq War, Operation Desert Storm is widely seen as a resounding American victory.

      “Desert Storm was probably the single most successful military campaign in the history of warfare,” retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey told Stars and Stripes. “It was an astonishing display by the country.”

      While the U.S. military successfully drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, the plight of Iraqi civilians — many of whom suffered under then-dictator Saddam Hussein before, during, and after Desert Storm — is often overlooked.

  • Transparency Reporting

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife

    • What’s Being Done to Stop Palm Oil Plantations from Destroying Indonesia’s Rainforests?

      Palm oil is everywhere. The cheap substitute for trans fats can be found in products ranging from soap to processed foods, butter to lipstick to detergent. It’s primarily produced on plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, and that’s the problem—for years, the palm oil industry has been destroying the rainforests in the region, sometimes breaking Indonesian laws in the process and committing acts of violence against the indigenous people who live in these places.

    • Oil Rout Threatens to Scupper Demand for Palm Oil in Biofuel

      Crude oil’s slump has been so severe that it’s now threatening the government-aided biodiesel programs in the world’s top producers of palm oil.

      Indonesia may miss its target of raising blending to 20 percent if crude stays below $30 a barrel, according to Fadhil Hasan, executive director at the country’s palm oil association. The slump in crude will impact the implementation of the biodiesel program in Malaysia, the nation’s Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Douglas Uggah Embas told an industry conference in Kuala Lumpur. The two nations account for 86 percent of the global palm oil supply.

      Oil is down about 21 percent this year amid volatility in Chinese markets and speculation the removal of restrictions that capped Iran’s crude sales will help to prolong a global glut. That’s sent the premium of crude palm oil over low sulphur gasoil futures to almost $290 a metric ton from the five-year average of a $13 discount. That’s clouded the outlook for palm oil prices, according to Thomas Mielke, executive director of Oil World, an industry researcher.

    • African elephants could be extinct ‘within a decade’

      African elephants could be extinct in the wild within the next decade, a major conservation conference in Botswana has been told.

      The Africa Elephant Summit, attended by delegates from around 20 countries including China – which is accused of fuelling the poaching trade – heard new figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature that showed the African elephant population fell from 550,000 to 470,000 between 2006 and 2013.

    • 2015 smashes record for hottest year, final figures confirm

      Experts warn that global warming is tipping climate into ‘uncharted territory’, as Met Office, Nasa and Noaa data all confirm record global temperatures for second year running

    • Pakistan turns to coal to keep factories running

      Till now, Pakistan has not used the bulk of its coal reserves – some of the largest in the world – for power generation. Not any more.

      Within the last month the government in Islamabad has signed a number of financial and technological agreements with China aimed at exploiting massive coal reserves at the Tharparkar mine in Sindh province, in the south of the country.

  • Finance

    • Domino’s delivery driver forced out for signing ‘minimum wage’ Change.org petition

      DOMINO’S is once again in hot water over its treatment of young employees after a delivery driver was forced to resign for sharing a link on Facebook.

      The 18-year-old driver, who did not wish to use his name, signed and shared a Change.org petition calling for better pay for Domino’s drivers.

      His regional manager, alerted to the post by a mutual friend, then shared the link to her own Facebook page, tagging the young driver.

      “What’s the go, mate?” she wrote, going on to single out another employee who had also signed the petition.

    • Gates Foundation accused of ‘dangerously skewing’ aid priorities by promoting ‘corporate globalisation’

      They are among the richest people on earth, have won plaudits for their fight to eradicate some of the world’s deadliest and prolific killers, and donated billions to better educate and feed the poorest on the planet.

      Despite this, Bill and Melinda Gates are facing calls for their philanthropic Foundation, through which they have donated billions worldwide, to be subject to an international investigation, according to a controversial new report.

      Far from a “neutral charitable strategy”, the Gates Foundation is about benefiting big business, especially in agriculture and health, through its “ideological commitment to promote neoliberal economic policies and corporate globalisation,” according to the report published by the campaign group Global Justice. Its influence is “dangerously skewing” aid priorities, the group says.

      [...]

      The group accuse the Gates Foundation of using its massive financial clout to silence international development experts and groups which would criticise its practices.

      Bill Gates, the report claims, “who has regular access to world leaders and is in effect personally bankrolling hundreds of universities, international organisations, NGOs and media outlets, has become the single most influential voice in international development.”

      [...]

      It accuses the Gates Foundation of promoting specific priorities through agriculture grants, some of which undermine the interests of small farmers. These include promoting industrial agriculture, use of chemical fertilisers and expensive, patented seeds, and a focus on genetically modified seeds. “Much of the Foundation’s work appears to bypass local knowledge,” the report claims.

      The criticism echoes the accusations made by the Indian scientist Vandana Shiva who called the Gates Foundation the “greatest threat to farmers in the developing world.”

    • TransCanada Corporation’s Arbitration Against the U.S. is Worrying for Democracy

      Each year companies lodge dozens of legal cases against governments under a little-known mechanism called investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). Few make headlines. But occasionally these cases do break through to the public’s attention, given the money at stake and the public interest involved.

      The latest case to fit that bill is by TransCanada Corporation—the Calgary-based energy firm—against the United States. The company seeks US$ 15 billion in damages over President Barack Obama’s decision to deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline.

    • CK*wirtschaftsfacts in conversation with Michael Hudson

      It meant that if other governments do not pay the United States they are outcasts.

    • Martin Luther King — Paul Craig Roberts

      Martin Luther King, like John F. Kennedy, was a victim of the paranoia of the Washington national security establishment. Kennedy rejected General Lyman Lemnitzer’s Northwoods Project for regime change in Cuba, opposed the CIA’s invasion plan for Cuba, nixed Lemnitzer’s plans for conflict with the Soviet Union over the Cuban missile crisis, removed Lemnitzer as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and negotiated behind the scenes with Khrushchev to tone down the Cold War. Consequently, members of the military/security complex had it in for Kennedy and convinced themselves that Kennedy’s softness toward communism made him a security threat to the United States. The Secret Service itself was drawn into the plot. The films of the assassination show that the protective Secret Service personnel were ordered away from the President’s car just before the fatal shots.

    • An Oligarchy Has Broken Our Democracy. It Must Be Dislodged

      The concept of a ‘Deep State’ has been around for a while, but rarely to describe the United States.The term, used in Kemalist Turkey by the political class, referred to an informal grouping of oligarchs, senior military and intelligence operatives and organized crime, who ran the state along anti-democratic lines regardless of who was formally in power.

      I define the American Deep State as a hybrid association of elements of government and top-level finance and industry that is able, through campaign financing of elected officials, influence networks and co-option via the promise of lucrative post-government careers, to govern the United States in spite of elections and without reference to the consent of the governed.

  • PR/AstroTurf/Lobbying

    • Bowie and the Beeb [2016]

      To me this is his last great gift, he couldn’t give everything away but he did give us an idea of what it would mean to be popular, accessible and weird, angelic and liberated. The infrastructure of a public service broadcaster such as the BBC had a role in making David Bowie’s world, our world. This is the light by which it could navigate its future.

    • CMD Submits Testimony to U.S. Senate on Koch Self-Interest in Criminal Justice Reform

      The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has submitted testimony to the U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee about the Koch-backed push to undermine corporate criminal accountability under the guise of “mens rea” reform. The testimony was submitted for the Committee’s January 20 hearing titled “The Adequacy of Criminal Intent Standards in Federal Prosecutions.”

      “Nobody should be above the law, no matter how rich, but the billionaire Koch Brothers have fueled a campaign through myriad groups they fund that would make it harder to prosecute corporate criminals for violating laws intended to protect American families from products or industrial practices that poison our water or air or that violate other environmental and financial laws,” said Lisa Graves, CMD’s Executive Director, who was previously served as the Chief Counsel for Nominations for Chairman Patrick Leahy of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice where she worked on criminal and civil justice policy.

    • VIDEO: Trevor Noah: British Debate on Barring Donald Trump Was Mostly an Excuse to Ridicule the Guy

      “The greatest part about this whole debate is that it actually wasn’t a debate,” says the “Daily Show” host about the U.K.’s recent discussion regarding a petition to bar Donald Trump from entering the U.K. “It turns out Parliament didn’t even hold a vote. They were all just there to sit around and make fun of Donald Trump.”

  • Censorship

    • After Auction House Censorship, Reporters Without Borders Cancels Benefit Art Sale

      An art auction intended to benefit the organization Reporters Without Borders (RWB) has been canceled after the Israeli embassy in Paris complained about one of the featured works. The piece in question, by French street artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest, included a drawing of the Palestinian politician Marwan Barghouti in handcuffs and a brief handwritten note comparing him to Nelson Mandela. (Barghouti, whom some have called “the Palestinian Mandela,” is currently serving five life sentences in Israel.)

    • Science and Censorship

      These acts represent an erosion of our constitutional rights to freedom of speech, inquiry and exchange of ideas. They create a “chilling effect” for scientists, textbook and other publishers who fear repercussions for producing data or advocating positions that are inconsistent with current political agendas or powerful corporate interests.

    • Fighting censorship with circumvention tools: Tor + Psiphon

      The censoring of information online is one of the greatest dangers to free speech on the Internet today. Many countries filter a wide variety of information of social and political significance, sometimes under the guise of ‘national security’. This problem is on the rise as the methods being used by governments have become more sophisticated and more resources are being allocated to the practice of censoring content.

      But activists and free expression advocates have not been sitting back. As the practice of Internet filtering spreads throughout the world, so does access to the “circumvention tools” that have been created, deployed and publicised by activists, programmers and volunteers The process of bypassing filtering and blocking websites is often called censorship circumvention, or simply circumvention. Some of these tools also allow users to share information securely and anonymously.

    • Censorship in the social media age

      Nearly half a million people had already seen the video before Dan Ilic tried to upload it to Facebook. A self-professed “investigative humorist,” Ilic manages the Facebook page for Hungry Beast, an Australian comedy show. The video—titled “The Labiaplasty Fad”—had been circulating on YouTube since the Hungry Beast released it in 2011, and Ilic wanted to repromote it after seeing mentions of labiaplasty in the news. But soon after clicking “Post,” he received a notice from the social site that the content had been removed and that he was banned from logging in for 24 hours. There was no additional explanation.

    • Disgraced Georgia Dentist Files Bogus Defamation Lawsuit To Go After Person Who Posted News Report To YouTube

      Years back, Georgia dentist Gordon Austin was indicted on 12 counts “with multiple counts of simple battery, aggravated assault, and cruelty to children.” The details of the case were pretty horrifying, involving claims of Medicare fraud, along with multiple claims that Austin hit his patients when they would complain loudly (apparently after the anesthesia did not work properly).

    • Facebook resorts to ‘like attacks’ on ISIS propaganda after losing censorship battle

      Facebook has resorted to pleading with its members to drown out hate filled propaganda messages from ISIS members with love after conceding defeat in its efforts to take offensive material offline.

      The switch in tactics will see people encouraged to mount ‘like attacks’ against pages professing support for the terror organisation after Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg admitted losing a game of whack-a-mole with terrorist sympathisers who simply post new messages for every disabled page or account.

    • Facebook “Likes” Can Stop ISIS Recruiters, Says Sheryl Sandberg

      Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said “counter-speech” is best way to combat terrorist propaganda.

    • Sheryl Sandberg Thinks Facebook Likes Can Help Stop ISIS

      At the World Economic Forum and international billionaire side-hug exercise Davos, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg cited “like attacks” and positivity as ways to fight hate groups online. I know tech companies are struggling to meet the US government’s increasingly forceful pleas to eradicate terrorist activity on the internet, but this is getting ridiculous.

    • People can stop terrorists by liking their Facebook pages: Sheryl Sandberg
    • Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg claims the ‘like button’ could be used to defeat ISIS
    • Pakistan unblocks access to YouTube
    • Internet Censorship in Pakistan is Not Just About YouTube

      When rights groups and citizens took the state to court over the blocking of YouTube, the presiding judge, Justice Mansoor Ali Shah, shared their anguish over the state’s ambiguity. The right to information cannot be crippled in the garb of national security, morality or religion. And if it must be done, the restrictions imposed must be “reasonable”.

    • Facebook adds support for app that can bypass China’s censors
    • Facebook makes an app that tries to bypass China’s censors

      A tweak that Facebook made to its Android app could allow mobile customers in restricted places like China and Iran to connect to the social network.

      It’s a big step forward for human rights activists — and it could greatly expand Facebook’s reach into countries where its services are banned.

    • Facebook makes an app that can bypass China’s censors
    • Facebook Makes App that Can Bypass China’s Censors

  • Privacy

    • Adblock Plus just got uninvited from the internet-advertising industry’s big conference

      Popular ad blocker Adblock Plus claims that it was uninvited from the US Interactive Advertising Bureau’s big conference.

      The IAB represents the biggest names in the digital-advertising industry: Google, Facebook, Twitter, online publishers, and ad-tech companies.

      Each year it holds its annual leadership meeting in Palm Desert, California. It’s where the biggest names in the online-advertising industry network and thrash out their ideas on the issues and trends of the day.

      This year they’ve got Oracle executive chairman Larry Ellison, Yahoo’s global revenue chief Lisa Utzschneider, and Google ads boss Sridhar Ramaswamy speaking.

      Adblock Plus won’t be attending, though.

      Last week, Adblock Plus received an email saying that the company’s registration fee was being returned and its registration had been canceled.

    • EFF Pries More Information on Zero Days from the Government’s Grasp

      Until just last week, the U.S. government kept up the charade that its use of a stockpile of security vulnerabilities for hacking was a closely held secret.1 In fact, in response to EFF’s FOIA suit to get access to the official U.S. policy on zero days, the government redacted every single reference to “offensive” use of vulnerabilities. To add insult to injury, the government’s claim was that even admitting to offensive use would cause damage to national security. Now, in the face of EFF’s brief marshaling overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the charade is over.

    • Chance for students to get feet in spy agency GCHQ door with £250-a-week summer job [Ed: Even today a free-of-charge job ad (recruitment) for GCHQ was published by corporate media]
    • Comparing Cell Phones To Houses Not Exactly Deterring Use Of Generalized Warrants, Court Finds

      Sometimes the courts realize today’s smartphones can’t be reasonably compared to anything else people have historically carried with them, like wallets, address books and the contents of their pockets. In the Supreme Court’s Riley decision, it noted that searching a smartphone is roughly analogous to searching someone’s house — people’s entire lives are contained in these devices. Hence, the warrant requirement, which turns phones from a “container” to the most sacrosanct domain under the Fourth Amendment.

    • GCHQ-developed phone security ‘open to surveillance’
    • Researcher warns of backdoor in GCHQ-developed encryption
    • UCL research says government-backed encryption has a big backdoor
    • The US Military Wants A Computer to Convert Your Brain Activity Into Binary Code

      As a part of DARPA’s programs to support President Obama’s brain initiative, this advanced research organization has announced a new program called Neural Engineering System Design (NESD). This program aims to create a new computer-brain interface (‘biocompatible’ device) that will support data transfer at super fast speed.

    • Thanks to our supporters, we can make our mass surveillance film

      Thanks to our supporters, we more than reached the target of our Indiegogo crowd-funder. With your help we raised £20,624, which we’re going to use to produce a high-quality campaign video to explain the implications of the Investigatory Powers Bill to people who may not be fully aware of it.

    • The White House Asked Social Media Companies to Look for Terrorists. Here’s Why They’d #Fail.

      An increasingly large proportion of terrorism investigations these days start with tweets or posts, generally flagged by family members or informants. Civil libertarians worry that the FBI is using protected speech to identify potential subjects of entrapment. But the FBI’s concern is that it’s not seeing everything it needs to see.

      And at the same time, there’s increased pressure for social media companies to deny radical groups an open platform for speech.

      No wonder the government wants an algorithm.

      But there are some major problems with trying to use computer code to find “terrorists” or “terrorist” content.

      First of all, it doesn’t work. Many experts, including people with law enforcement, academic, and scientific backgrounds, agree that it’s practically impossible to boil down the essential predictive markers that make up a terrorist who is willing and capable of carrying out an attack and then successfully pick him out of a crowd.

    • Does the government want to break encryption or not?

      As TechCrunch observes, however, this kind of threat of companies enabling internal backdoors is already displacing the technology used by ISIS to set ups that are not under the control of central platforms. So such an approach could end up with privacy for the criminals, but not for ordinary, law abiding ctiizens.

    • What Agency Is Claiming Hillary Received SAP Emails?

      Note, the letter makes clear that those reporting Hillary had two SAP emails may not be correct: Charles McCullough’s letter doesn’t say how many emails were SAP and how many were CONFIDENTIAL. And the letter is conveniently written in a form that can be shared with the press without key information that would allow us to test the claims made in it.

    • EFF Pries More Information on Zero Days from the Government’s Grasp

      Until just last week, the U.S. government kept up the charade that its use of a stockpile of security vulnerabilities for hacking was a closely held secret.1 In fact, in response to EFF’s FOIA suit to get access to the official U.S. policy on zero days, the government redacted every single reference to “offensive” use of vulnerabilities. To add insult to injury, the government’s claim was that even admitting to offensive use would cause damage to national security. Now, in the face of EFF’s brief marshaling overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the charade is over.

    • Pkware aims to take pain out of crypto (and give IT the golden key)

      One of the reasons that most people don’t use public key encryption to protect their e-mails is that the process is simply too arduous for everyday communications. Open source projects like GNU Privacy Guard and GPGTools have made it easier for individuals to use PGP encryption, but managing the keys used in OpenPGP and other public-key encryption formats still requires effort. And it’s even more of a challenge when you want to read encrypted messages on your phone. If you’re a company that has concerns about things like compliance and data loss, doing crypto without having some sort of key management can also create all sorts of risks.

    • French say ‘Non, merci’ to encryption backdoors

      The French government has rejected an amendment to its forthcoming Digital Republic law that required backdoors in encryption systems.

      Axelle Lemaire, the Euro nation’s digital affairs minister, shot down the amendment during the committee stage of the forthcoming omnibus digital bill, saying it would be counterproductive and would leave personal data unprotected.

      “Recent events show how the fact of introducing faults deliberately at the request – sometimes even without knowing – the intelligence agencies has an effect that is harming the whole community,” she said according to Numerama.

    • France Rejects Backdoors in Encryption Products
    • Groups want U.S. to adopt strong broadband privacy rules

      A coalition of U.S. groups on Wednesday urged the Federal Communications Commission to write sweeping privacy protections for the nation’s broadband users.

      The groups want providers of broadband internet services including mobile and landline phone, cable and satellite TV firms to be subject to tough privacy regulations.

      Among the firms that would be affected are AT&T Inc, Comcast Corp, Verizon Communications Inc and Cablevision Systems Corp.

    • These emails show how upset NSA spies were with the ‘Enemy of the State’ film

      Employees at the secretive National Security Agency were not too happy about the 1998 blockbuster film “Enemy of the State” that starred Will Smith.

      That shouldn’t come as a surprise — the spy agency was portrayed as the villain — but now BuzzFeed News has obtained internal emails that prove it.

      “I saw a preview for the new movie ‘Enemy of the State’ and to my surprise found out that NSA were the ‘bad guys’ in it,” wrote one NSA employee in a question to the agency’s public affairs team.

    • NSA Tried P.R. Effort With Film “Enemy Of The State,” Was Massively Disappointed

      The National Security Agency attempted a public relations makeover in 1998 via the Jerry Bruckheimer produced spy-thriller, Enemy of the State, but the agency was disappointed it was portrayed as the “bad guys” in the film, internal emails between agency officials obtained by BuzzFeed News through the Freedom of Information Act show.

      One employe wrote in 1998, “Unfortunately, the truth isn’t always as riveting as fiction and creative license may mean that ‘the NSA,’ as portrayed in a given production, bears little resemblance to the place where we all work.”

      In the 1998 blockbuster film starring Will Smith, Congress, pressed by the NSA, attempts to pass a bill expanding the agency’s surveillance powers. At the start of the film, several NSA agents kill a congressman opposing their efforts. However, they do not realized they were secretly recorded by a bird watcher. The bird watcher, chased by the NSA, passes the information along to Will Smith’s character, who subsequently finds his phones tapped, clothing bugged, and house burglarized.

  • Civil Rights

    • Jimmy Savile: BBC staff say corporation has ‘ingrained’ culture of quashing dissent

      The BBC has an “ingrained” culture of quashing dissent, staff said, as a leaked official report expressed concerns that “a predatory child abuser could be lurking undiscovered in the BBC even today”.

      A draft of the Dame Janet Smith Review of practices at the BBC found that the fear of whistle-blowing at the organisation was “even worse” in the current era than at the time Jimmy Savile was abusing children while working for the broadcaster.

    • Jimmy Savile inquiry leak reveals scathing criticism of BBC

      A draft report into the BBC’s practices at the time of the Jimmy Savile scandal has been leaked by the investigative news website, Exaro.

      The review led by Dame Janet Smith is said to include “devastating detail” of the broadcaster’s “sheer scale of awareness” of the late TV and radio star’s activities.

      It will criticise the corporation’s culture, according to Exaro, which says it has seen a leaked draft.

      The report is said to point to a “deferential culture”, “untouchable stars” and “above the law” managers at the corporation. However, the BBC cannot be criticised for failing to uncover Savile’s “sexual deviancy”, it says.

      The retired judge’s report outlines multiple rapes and indecent assaults on children by Savile which she claims were all “in some way associated with the BBC”.

    • How a Young American Escaped the No-Fly List

      YASEEN KADURA ARRIVED at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport more than four hours early for his flight to New York on January 15, hoping to ensure that security delays wouldn’t stop him from making his flight on time. Kadura had not been allowed to board a plane for roughly three-and-a-half years, but in his hand was a laminated copy of a letter from the Department of Homeland Security, which stated in writing that “the U.S. government knows of no reason Mr. Kadura should be unable to fly.”

      Kadura, an American citizen, was placed on the federal government’s no-fly list in 2012. Since then, in addition to being prevented from boarding flights, he has been detained, interrogated, and harassed at border crossings and pressured by authorities to become a government informant.

    • Web Exclusive: Drone War Protester Mary Anne Grady Flores Speaks Out Ahead of Six-Month Jail Term

      Peace activist Mary Anne Grady Flores gives an extended web-only interview just hours before she reports to jail to begin a six-month sentence for photographing a protest at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in New York, where U.S. drones are piloted remotely. We also speak with Jonathan Wallace, an attorney who has worked extensively with the drone resistance movement.

    • Two Americans Detained in Iran Are Not Coming Home

      After retiring from the FBI in 1998, Levinson worked as a CIA contractor. Levinson was supposed to produce academic papers for the agency, but operated much like a case officer. Levinson traveled the globe to meet with potential sources, sometimes using a fake name. CIA station chiefs in those countries were allegedly never notified of Levinson’s activities overseas, even though the agency reimbursed him for his travel.

    • DOJ’s Double Standard on Osama Bin Laden Trophy Photos

      I don’t defend Bissonnette if his side deals were corrupt. But this is bullshit on several levels.

      Of course, many people, including me, have noted that Bissonnette’s book was an attempt to push back on the information asymmetry — and with it, propaganda — that the government uses classification to pull off.

      [...]

      Bissonnette’s problem, I guess, is he was allegedly both, someone who shared information that undercut official propaganda, and someone who traded on his position.

    • When resting is resistance

      Activists fixate on the future: impatient for the world we want to see.

    • Let’s Put Prison Sentences on Probation

      You may have heard there’s a growing political movement against mass incarceration. Someone should clue in the judges.

      In the past 30 years, federal judges have turned to imprisonment — as opposed to probation — as the punishment of choice for even minor crimes, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts. During that same period, federal cases have tripled in number.

      The Pew study reports that “nine in 10 federal offenders received prison sentences in 2014, up from less than half in 1980, as the use of probation steadily declined.” Despite the ballooning number of cases in that time, 2014 saw 2,300 fewer probation sentences than 1980.

  • Internet/Net Neutrality

    • Numbers don’t lie—it’s time to build your own router

      I’ve noticed a trend lately. Rather than replacing a router when it literally stops working, I’ve needed to act earlier—swapping in new gear because an old router could no longer keep up with increasing Internet speeds available in the area. (Note, I am duly thankful for this problem.) As the latest example, a whole bunch of Netgear ProSafe 318G routers failed me for the last time as small businesses have upgraded from 1.5-9mbps traditional T1 connections to 50mbps coax (cable).

      Yes, coax—not fiber. Even coax has proved too much for the old ProSafe series. These devices didn’t just fail to keep up, they fell flat on their faces. Frequently, the old routers dropped speed test results from 9mbps with the old connection to 3mbps or less with the 50mbps connection. Obviously, that doesn’t fly.

    • VPN providers mad about Netflix crackdown but say they can evade it

      With Netflix saying it intends to disable video when customers use VPN services, VPN providers are criticizing the online video company and vowing to evade any measures designed to prevent their use.

      Under pressure from content owners, Netflix said last week that it will step up enforcement against subscribers who use VPNs, proxies, and unblocking services to view content not available in their countries. But even Netflix acknowledges that it’s “trivial” for VPN providers to avoid blocks by switching IP addresses, and VPN providers say they’re ready.

    • Netflix Is About To Get More Expensive for Some Users

      The company reiterated in a note to shareholders Tuesday that those lower-paying users will soon face a choice: Keep paying $7.99 a month but get downgraded to standard-definition streaming only, or fork over the $9.99 a month that new customers pay and get full high-definition content.

    • Netflix Applauds T-Mobile’s Binge On, Forgets It Opposed Zero Rating Just Last Year

      But as the EFF has pointed out, the fact that users can opt out is irrelevant. T-Mobile’s been throttling every shred of video that touches its network to 1.5 Mbps (streamed or direct downloaded) by default, and then lying about it. Critics like YouTube and the EFF have, quite correctly, pointed out that such a program should be opt-in, for both consumers and content partners. The other problem is simply one of precedent; let T-Mobile dick about with how content gets treated, and that opens the door to every carrier modifying traffic to their own benefit.

      By refusing to ban zero rating outright, the FCC has opened the door to a flood of similar ideas that are even worse and, cumulatively and aggressively, are eroding the idea of an open Internet. Worse, it’s happening to the thunderous applause of some consumers, who think they’re being given a gift when an ISP imposes utterly arbitrary usage caps, then graciously allows select content to bypass said caps. Make no mistake though; the act of fucking about with traffic in this fashion is an assault on net neutrality. That many people don’t understand this yet (or are eager to ignore the fact when it benefits them) doesn’t magically make it less true.

      A few years ago, Netflix’s Hastings went on a Facebook rant about how Comcast was unfairly letting its own streaming services bypass the company’s usage caps. But now that Netflix is seeing benefits from zero rating, it’s apparently willing to throw its principles in the toilet. Netflix may want to be careful where it treads. As some companies have discovered, zero rating isn’t your friend — and the special treatment that benefits you today may come back to bite you tomorrow.

    • 8 reasons to make the switch to IPv6

      Owen DeLong is a Senior Manager of Network Architecture at Akamai Technologies, a leader in content delivery network (CDN) services that help to make the Internet “fast, reliable, and secure.” He will be speaking at SCaLE 14x about IPv6 adoption (because we’re out of IPv4!). Owen is also a member of the ARIN Advisory Council—an advisory group to the Board of Trustees on Internet number resource policy and related matters—and is an active member of the systems administration, operations, and Internet Protocol policy communities.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • GM’s Newly Acquired Patent Could Be a Problem for Uber

      Two weeks after announcing it’s working with Lyft on a network of self-driving cars, General Motors is snapping up employees and intellectual property from the recently defunct ride sharing company Sidecar.

      The move, reported by Bloomberg Business, will bring about 20 former Sidecar employees to GM, including CTO Jahan Khanna. GM has confirmed it’s scooping up employees and IP from Sidecar, but declined to specify details.

      GM hasn’t said anything about what kind of work its new employees will be doing or how it will use the newly acquired IP. A spokesman says the move has nothing to do with the Lyft deal, and that the automaker simply jumped on a good opportunity to pick up some expertise in an area it’s starting to explore.

    • UK IP Office Unveils 5-Year Strategy to Make Businesses More IP-Aware

      The United Kingdom has a vibrant creative sector but many businesses don’t take full advantage of their intellectual property, IP Minister Baroness (Lucy) Neville-Rolfe said in her introduction to an Intellectual Property Office five-year strategy report released today. IPO research shows that over 90 percent of firms haven’t valued their IP, and small to mid-sized companies often don’t understand or know how to protect it, she said. Even a modest boost in those figures could have a significant impact on the UK economy, she said.

    • Trademarks

      • Sony On A Rampage Trademarking Common Terms: Attempted Registrations For ‘Let’s Play’ And ‘VRPG’

        It’s no secret that Sony has never been shy about wielding trademark like a cudgel. That said, there seems to be something new brewing with the company in its recent attempts to trademark fairly common terms, worrying some that it would use those trademarks in the same heavy-handed way. The first of those attempts was the recent Sony filing for a trademark on the term “Let’s Play”, which any gamer will recognize as the term for popular YouTube videos showing games being played, often offered by well-known YouTube personalities. While the USPTO had already refused the trademark on the grounds that a prior mark for “Let’z Play” had already been registered, a law firm that specializes in gaming law jumped in to try and have the court instead declare that “Let’s Play” is now a generic term.

      • Arnold J rules that shape of KitKat chocolate bar cannot be registered as a trade mark

        Can the shape of the KitKat chocolate bar be registered as a trade mark on grounds that it has acquired distinctiveness through use? What is required to prove that a trade mark has acquired distinctiveness through use?

        As IPKat readers will remember, these were some of the very issues that Arnold J had to address in the context of litigation between Nestlé and Cadbury over the shape of the (in)famous chocolate bar that the former had already attempted in vain to register as a UK trade mark in Class 30.

    • Copyrights

      • Linking to unlawful content: what will the CJEU say?

        In the meantime, Katfriend and IP enthusiast Nedim Malovic (Stockholm University) has provided a recap of what has happened since Svensson [Katposts here] and ventured to anticipate what the CJEU might say in the near future. His conclusion? The CJEU will likely regard linking to unlawful content as an act of communication to the public.

      • REPORT: Copyright royalties for streaming music to increase
      • Federal Judge MAY Set Up Pro Bono Legal Assistance For Defendants Sued By Voltage Pictures/Carl Crowell [UPDATED]

        Now, it appears Crowell has made an enemy in the federal court system. Unfortunately for him, this enemy is presiding over most of his Doe lawsuits. Fight Copyright Trolls reports federal judge Michael W. Mosman has set up Default Judgment Roadblock, Esq. in response to Crowell’s tactics.

      • Copyright Week 2016: Making Copyright Work For The Public

        It’s hard to believe we’re almost three years into the U.S. copyright reform process kicked off with a call to Congress for the Next Great Copyright Act—and that we’re kicking off the third annual Copyright Week to boot. Once again, we’re working alongside great partners in the copyright space to make sure that the public—from technology users, to readers, to fans, to artists—get their voice heard in debates that are all too often limited to a few industry lobbies.

        We’re entering a critical stage, too. It’s been four years this week since Internet users staged the largest ever online protest of a bad copyright law, the Stop Online Piracy Act, that would’ve curtailed online speech and created a system of blacklists for sites and users. Four years ago, millions of us spoke up and derailed that proposal. But a lot can change in four years, and indeed we’ve started to see Hollywood and others try to sneak elements of SOPA back into the debate, through private agreements with intermediaries, influence on state officials, extraordinary injunctions in court, and more.

      • Pirate Site Trial in Norway Ends in Record Sentence

        Together the studios went tough by demanding six months in jail plus more than $93,000 in damages.

        But despite agreeing that the main had illegally made available at least 1,200 films and TV shows, downloaded around 700 from The Pirate Bay and then made them available to the public, the ruling from Tønsberg District Court falls far short of those demands.

        According to information distributed to its members yesterday, Rights Alliance said that the Court handed the now 21-year-old a six month suspended sentence and ordered him to pay around $28,000.

      • ‘Arr!’ Forget Icesave, Iceland’s Next Scare Is the Pirate Party

        From Spain’s Podemos to France’s National Front, anti-establishment parties are clamoring for power across Europe. Up north in Iceland, it’s Pirates who are making the biggest ahoys.

        With just over a year until parliamentary elections are due, the Icelandic Pirate Party has been consistently topping opinion polls.

        Should that support translate into real votes, it would win more than a third of the ballots, making it the biggest party in a country traditionally governed by coalitions.

        That could have a revolutionary effect on a country that’s only now returning to normal after the 2008 collapse of its biggest banks. While the Pirates’ main focus is on direct democracy and less stringent copyright laws, they also want to introduce a 35-hour work week and split the investment and commercial units of banks.

        The country’s prime minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson, isn’t too concerned.

Microsoft’s Force-feeding of Vista 10 Continues to Upset Even the Biggest Fans

Posted in Microsoft, Vista 10, Windows at 8:13 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Treating users like babies isn’t helping Microsoft

Very delicious

Summary: Aggressive parental tendencies from Microsoft, such as the imposition of unwanted ‘upgrades’, don’t go down so well

Earlier this month we showed that even Microsoft boosters had become fed up with Microsoft’s force-feeding of Vista 10 (see January articles). Even Microsoft proponents at IDG are now openly complaining [1], calling this “strong-arm upgrade tactics” right there in the headline. “Beware hidden costs of Microsoft’s new Windows Server licensing,” says another IDG headline this week (there is also the hidden cost of NSA surveillance) and another new article explains why “you should not develop apps for Windows 10″ (“apps” usually means software with surveillance these days).

What’s most notable here is that even those whom we typically expect to bless everything which comes out of Microsoft are upset. It speaks volumes. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. You will upgrade to Windows 10: Inside Microsoft’s strong-arm upgrade tactics

    Microsoft wielded the latest stick just last week, when it declared that buyers of Intel’s new Skylake processors have to upgrade to Windows 10 in the next 18 months, or forgo all but the most critical security patches—and those will be available to Windows 7 and 8.1 users only if said patches don’t “risk the reliability or compatibility” on non-Skylake systems. Future processors from Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm will only be officially supported by Windows 10, not 7 or 8.

  2. Beware hidden costs of Microsoft’s new Windows Server licensing

    If you thought Oracle’s licensing practices were bad, Microsoft is preparing changes to its licensing that are nearly as unfriendly.

    Texas law firm Scott & Scott analyzed the changes Microsoft is making to licensing for Windows Server and found most troubling the switch from a per-processor licensing model to a per-core model.

  3. Why you should not develop apps for Windows 10

    I wrote a couple of apps for the Windows Store (I also blogged why it sucked, but I did it anyway). Most people never heard about it, but yes, there is an app store for Windows. It is quite empty, and IMO, most apps are low quality. My apps are in there since Windows 8, I then upgraded them to Windows 8.1, and now also one of them to Windows 10′s universal app platform.

The Linux Foundation Has Become Like a Corporate Think Tank, Microsoft Influence Included

Posted in Debian, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Microsoft at 7:54 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Linux Foundation funding

Summary: Words of warning about the direction taken by the Linux Foundation, where Microsoft impact has grown and community role has been diminished or completely decimated

TODAY is a special day. It’s Penguin Awareness Day, but putting aside the Linux and the Tux mascot, there’s not much to celebrate because the Linux Foundation reveals signs of rot. The FSF is to the Linux Foundation what astronomy (science) is to astrology (big business around pseudo-science) and having already attempted to delete GNU from history* (a common phenomenon), the Linux Foundation now deletes the role that individuals played in the development of the system. We’re meant or at least led to thinking that the kernel, Linux, was quietly ‘taken over’ by a consortium of corporations, many of which have mixed loyalties (not just to Linux).

“We’re meant or at least led to thinking that the kernel, Linux, was quietly ‘taken over’ by a consortium of corporations, many of which have mixed loyalties (not just to Linux).”EPO coverage has prevented us from covering as much about the Linux Foundation as we used to, including payments from Microsoft, services to Microsoft, and abandonment of GPL enforcement efforts because GPL enforcers went after a Microsoft executives-run VMware.

Matthew Garrett raised an important point and asked: “Did the Linux Foundation just drop all semblance of community representation because it’s afraid of GPL enforcement?”

There is already coverage stemming from the original rant [1], which has been mentioned by several news sites so far, e.g. [2,3]. We have received the above evidence which serves to reinforce these claims that the Linux Foundation keeps drifting away to wherever the big money is (usually companies that try to control or dominate Linux). The Linux Foundation does not represent Linux users (OSDL hardly ever pretended to do so) but mostly hardware companies that want to influence the development process/es. The Linux Foundation dumped support for GPL enforcement because of VMware. This is a good example of E.E.E. The latest Microsoft openwashing, for instance, reportedly helps it grab control/foothold at V8′s expense in the same way that a foot inside the Linux Foundation (with Novell’s helping hand) let Microsoft inject GPL-violating code into the kernel, promoting the proprietary Hyper-V at the expense of FOSS hypervisors.

“We have received the above evidence which serves to reinforce these claims that the Linux Foundation keeps drifting away to wherever the big money is (usually companies that try to control or dominate Linux).”There is no ‘new’ Microsoft. “Microsoft have not added support for OpenDocument Format to iOS and Mac OS X,” for instance. Microsoft only wants to promote proprietary Microsoft lock-in. That’s what Microsoft does inside Android, inside Linux, and even inside Debian these days. “There’s at least one Microsoft staff inside Debian,” iophk warned us, citing this page from Microsoft. “Jose Miguel Parrella,” it says, is “a Debian Developer and member of Microsoft’s Open Source Strategy team.” Remember that also the Linux Foundation is full of ‘former’ Microsoft staff, even at relatively high positions (like management). Debian, in light of some recent agreement with Microsoft (we didn’t find time to cover it), should definitely watch out as there’s E.E.E. going on. The Linux Foundation too is now at risk of becoming obsolete (loss of support from the public) because it publicly shows that it metaphorically “Says Let Them Eat Cake,” to quote today’s headline from Susan Linton, founder of Tux Machines. Sam Varghese says the Linux Foundation “backs corporates, not community,” to quote his own headline (below). To make the Linux Foundation a strong player for copyleft (e.g. GPL enforcement) help elect the FSF- and SFLC-connected Karen Sandler. She’s running for the Linux Foundation Board of Directors. █

Related/contextual items from the news:

  1. Linux Foundation quietly drops community representation

    The Linux Foundation is an industry organisation dedicated to “promoting, protecting and standardising Linux and open source software”[1]. The majority of its board is chosen by the member companies – 10 by platinum members (platinum membership costs $500,000 a year), 3 by gold members (gold membership costs $100,000 a year) and 1 by silver members (silver membership costs between $5,000 and $20,000 a year, depending on company size). Up until recently individual members ($99 a year) could also elect two board members, allowing for community perspectives to be represented at the board level.

  2. Garrett: Linux Foundation Says Let Them Eat Cake

    Matthew Garrett, kernel contributor and social activist, today posted of his discovery of a little change at the Linux Foundation. The foundation left regular users and individual developers behind for large corporate sponsors years ago, but today Garrett said they made it official. One little clause was removed from the by-laws, but it removes so much more from the foundation.

  3. Linux Foundation shows it backs corporates, not community

    The Linux Foundation has given its clearest indication yet that it caters to corporates rather than the community, by making it impossible for community representatives to be elected to its board.

____
* In a very recent Linux Foundation video, GNU is only mentioned as a joke (“they make me say it”).

01.20.16

In Unison, Nations Hop Aboard the Unitary Patent Train Wreck, For (Foreign) Corporate Gain at Europe’s Expense

Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:25 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

The truly horrible UPC (should stand for “Unlimited Power for Corporations”), which no European politician wants to even publicly talk about

UPC protest

Summary: The 1%’s (richest people’s) wishlist regarding patent enforcement (high damages, broad injunctions etc.) is quickly progressing without the public even made aware of it or honestly lectured on its consequences for ordinary Europeans

LAST week we spotted early signs of Britain falling deeper into the UPC trap, having already jumped the gun and set up courts as if unitary patent courts were inevitable. Days ago we wrote about what IP Kat now calls “BREAKING NEWS” (yes, all caps!) and we contacted some officials, who were of course stonewalling, pretending they don’t exist at all (or are blind/deaf). And they say we have a functioning democracy here in the UK… with elected officials, representatives, etc.

“And they say we have a functioning democracy here in the UK… with elected officials, representatives, etc.”In light of heavy EPO lobbying for UPC (in spite of backlash from many) we think that stopping the UPC in the UK has just gotten harder. It “now needs to receive approval from both Houses of Parliament,” IP Kat wrote. “Usually, this can be achieved quite quickly, and once the SI is approved, the UK will be in a position to ratify the UPC Agreement.”

As one among several comments put it (some from opportunistic patent lawyers in the UK), the “UK should not ratify until it is clear the rule of law applies within the EPO. The EU cannot and should not subcontract to an organisation that appears to flout laws on Human Rights.”

“Do we really want to give even more power and authority to thugs like Benoît Battistelli and Željko Topić, who treat their own staff like dirt?”As pointed out in numerous sites of patent lawyers (opportunistic and self-serving in this context) since Wednesday morning, Finland made a big mistake, giving more authority to these people who are immune from European law. As WIPR put it today: “Finland has become the latest country to ratify the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement, raising the total number of confirmed participants to nine.

“The country deposited its instrument of ratification yesterday, January 19. The development was confirmed on the European Council’s website.

“Finland is the latest country to approve the UPC deal since Portugal ratified the agreement last August.”

Do we really want to give even more power and authority to thugs like Benoît Battistelli and Željko Topić, who treat their own staff like dirt? Imagine how they’d treat Europe as a whole (it is already appalling enough as it is).

” It’s all about making the rich and the powerful richer and more powerful. Ordinary Europeans have nothing to gain from it.”It’s not clear why a country like Portugal might make such an error in light of the terrible treatment that its neighbour, Spain, has been receiving from the EPO (see Spanish translation). Taking into account previous names/labels for UPC, we have written many hundreds of articles about it over the years. Its effect on Europe is similar to that of TPP and/or TTIP. It’s all about making the rich and the powerful richer and more powerful. Ordinary Europeans have nothing to gain from it. They don’t even get to vote on it! If citizens were given the ability to make informed decisions and cast a vote on this, it would never pass. Remember ACTA? █

“None are so fond of secrets as those who do not mean to keep them.”

–Charles Caleb Colton

The EPO’s PR Team May be Trying a New ‘Damage Control’ Strategy Amid Historic Protests by Staff

Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:45 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

What (a lot of) PR money and determination to deceive can evidently achieve

EPO PR team

Summary: The latest EPO spin dissected in light of a new communiqué (serving to show highly selective reporting or bias by omission) and some nonsensical numbers that the PR team kept repeating amidst unprecedented unrest

TODAY there was a massive EPO protest in Munich (more details to come at a later date), but staff that chooses to live in a bubble may not have noticed. There was a media blackout, so to speak, as the management tried to pretend there was nothing except "social dialogue" or "union recognition" (even when additional representatives suffer salary cuts).

“There was a media blackout, so to speak, as the management tried to pretend there was nothing except “social dialogue” or “union recognition” (even when additional representatives suffer salary cuts).”We previously wrote about several instances in which EPO management was trying to cast SUEPO-led protests as a security risk. It tried to frame them as violent or negative outsiders, where usually the excuse/pretext happened to be racist or aggressive political protests (nothing to do with EPO or even to do with patents).

“There was an internal announcement concerning today’s demos,” a source told us earlier tonight. “But it wasn’t about SUEPO’s event scheduled at 12:30, a march leaving the Isar building and heading to the Staatskanzlei, which is the seat of the Bavarian executive. Nay, there is no such thing as a SUEPO demo, heck there isn’t even a SUEPO.

“The demo in question is one which was held before the EPO building complex near the Munich central railway station, where much of DG1 examination activities takes place. (The Isar building is home to DG3, DG3, and DG0). The occasion were opposition oral proceedings concerning European patent EP1962578. The scope of its claims includes naturally obtained melons.”

“We previously wrote about several instances in which EPO management was trying to cast SUEPO-led protests as a security risk.”Interestingly enough, only hours ago the article titled “European Patent Office revokes Monsanto patent on melons” got published. Surrendering to pressure? Is the EPO also saving face after Parliament fumed? Patents on life on their death throes? Either way, this new article says: “Monsanto was claiming melons with a natural resistance to plant viruses as its own invention, derived from breeding without genetic engineering. The resistance was detected in Indian melons. The patent was granted by the European Patent Office (EPO) even though European patent law does not allow patents on plant varieties and processes for conventional breeding. The Indian government supported the opposition from No Patents on Seeds! by a sending letter requesting the patent to be revoked. The letter was sent to the EPO just one day before the hearing. Essentially the application of the patent constituted an act of biopiracy – violating Indian law and international treaties.”

“Here’s a link to a German NGO organising the campaign,” our source told us. “The communiqué mentions 40 demonstrators without providing a source for this information. I suspect that this number is the number of the members of the public who were allowed to enter the rooms of the proceedings. I don’t know how many actually showed up.”

Here is the distraction effort:

Home -> Organisation -> DG 0 -> D External Communications -> Announcements

NGOs to demonstrate at PschorrHöfe

19.01.2016

On Wednesday, in front of the entrance at Bayerstrasse 34 until about 10.00 hrs

A group of patent-critical activists has announced it will demonstrate outside the PschorrHöfe I/IV building tomorrow, Wednesday 20 January on the occasion of public oral proceedings in Opposition related to a biotechnology patent. About 40 activists are expected to gather on the pavement in front of the main entrance at Bayerstrasse 34 until about 10.00 hrs. In view of this the EPO will step up its security measures to safeguard proper continuation of all operations.

As during earlier demonstrations of this kind, Facility Management and the Media Relations team will be on site to handle all queries and requests. Should you be approached by protesters, please remain calm and refer them to the Press Desk (extension xxxxxxx) or to the Press Spokesman on site (Rainer Osterwalder, xxxx).

Rainer Osterwalder External Communications

19.01.16 | Author Rainer Osterwalder – External Communications

Nice job, Rainer (shown at the top with the FTI Consulting logo). Painting protesters as anti-patents, i.e. antithetical to the EPO.

Rainer, from what we’ve heard, may be the worst of the whole bunch (the PR team). Come on, Team Battistelli, who are you kidding? Not a single word about the SUEPO-led protest? The PR team said nothing at all, not even in Twitter; they were exceptionally busy in Twitter when the protest took place (about 4 tweets in those 2 hours, which means they didn’t attend the protest).

“Nowadays, we see ever more cases in which the examiner has clearly not studied the cited prior art in enough depth, and gives a wrong and/or highly abbreviated analysis of patentability.”
      –AnonymousAnother noteworthy thing about the PR (or ‘damage control’) strategy is the effort to justify severe abuses by claiming high salaries (the management’s media strategy) and parroting some faked/twisted numbers. These help glorify the EPO and exploit gullible journalists who are unable to see they’re being bamboozled. There have been several discussions rebutting these claims. Regarding George Brock-Nannestad’s comment (highlighted in our previous post), one person writes: “As George Brock-Nannestad has pointed out, one important effect of the increased production pressure at the EPO has been a dramatic increase in costs for small European businesses. Take the examination procedure, for example. Until a few years ago, we could normally rely on the examiner to analyse cited documents carefully and to give reasonably complete arguments. Nowadays, we see ever more cases in which the examiner has clearly not studied the cited prior art in enough depth, and gives a wrong and/or highly abbreviated analysis of patentability. In the best case, such a deficit can be dealt with by a competent patent attorney, at a largely-avoidable cost to the applicant of a few thousand EUR up to grant. In the worst case, a small applicant may either give up (if the examiner’s assessment is overly negative) or proceed to grant with an inadequate patent (if the examiner has missed some important clarity or patentability issues). Here, the costs to the small applicant are incalculable.”

Another comment says: “The next step in that evolution is that examiners will be given less time to reply to the applicant’s submission. Expedite prosecution will be preferred for the sake of a number: mean prosecution time. In other words, applicant’s submissions will not be adequately heard and applications will be expeditely refused. Unless the applicant is so big to complain effectively. Of course.

“In the worst case, a small applicant may either give up (if the examiner’s assessment is overly negative) or proceed to grant with an inadequate patent (if the examiner has missed some important clarity or patentability issues).”
      –Anonymous“For doing this, control of the BoA would be necessary so that the clog to be produced by the increased number of appeals be dealt with in a proper manner, i.e according to the orders of the President.”

Now it gets funnier. One person says that the EPO’s PR is “comparable to the voting results at the meeting of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party!” To quote the whole comment: “Are you suggesting that the quality of examination at the EPO is down? This simply cannot be possible. According to the last message of the President, in 2015 quality in examination was 98,7%, and 98,6% in search. These results are comparable to the voting results at the meeting of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party! (cue to members of the Administrative Council of EPO giving a standing ovation).”

The EPO has been making up the most nonsensical numbers we have ever come across (worse than the USPTO’s, which doesn’t resort to such pretenses). Earlier today the EPO’s PR department repeated these claims yet again, stating that: “Our internal quality rates (CASE indices) were 98.6% for searches and 98.7% for examinations” (nonsense! We rebutted this before).

“Are you suggesting that the quality of examination at the EPO is down?”
      –AnonymousAs the above comment put it: “Are you suggesting that the quality of examination at the EPO is down?” EPO priorities have shifted in favour huge corporations (approval is faster for these, which means more lenient an examination process), so this question must be rhetorical.

As another person put it, “”productivity” results in a massive hike in costs for the EPO’s smaller applicants.”

Here is this comment in full:

Interesting points about quality. Those figures of 98.6% and 98.7% are a great deal more precise than they are accurate, I would venture to suggest.

Just to emphasise my point: a modest gain in examiner “productivity” results in a massive hike in costs for the EPO’s smaller applicants.

Larger applicants don’t suffer the same problem – they have internal attorneys who can sort things out.

“Last year VP1 was complaining about the number of areas giving 100% results as he considered that impossible,” said this shocking comment. “The figures are self-assessment where the errors spotted by your colleagues (friends or foes?) are counted. There are other figures which a separate department calculates which are less North Korean but less impressive in a presentation.”

“If true, then even North Korea seems more honest and sincere (to its citizens) than the EPO is to its own staff.”Now pick your jaws back up from the ground. If true, then even North Korea seems more honest and sincere (to its citizens) than the EPO is to its own staff.

We’ve said it before and we need to say it again just in case; the EPO’s management and the PR team are a bunch of liars. Do not believe anything they say. Whatever they say should be deemed suspect until proven otherwise (by a truly independent assessor, not so-called 'journalists' whom the EPO pays). █

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