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04.02.16

UPC Lobbying and Propaganda at the Fordham IP Think Tank (‘Conference’) 2016 in New York, With a Clear EPO Role

Posted in America, Europe, Law, Patents at 8:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Shaping EU law in the United States’ think tank [EN | ES], in front of an audience that is barely even European

Fordham IP Conference

Summary: Margot Fröhlinger of the EPO and few other ‘insiders’ (profiteers, not inventors) promote their horrific vision of Europe’s patent system, which would make it appealing to US-based patent trolls and proponents of software patents as well as patent aggression/extortion (such as Microsoft, the main sponsor of Fordham IP)

THE EPO has learned no lessons from the backlash that led to a crisis. Battistelli has been advised to keep a low profile (he’s widely loathed), but his troopers now inherit the role of UPC advocacy (Battistelli and his bodyguards will come to London later this month to do this too).

The UPC basically threatens to kill what’s left inside the EPO that actually combats software patents, namely the independent boards and other external factors (the EPO is just a money-making machine, recklessly ignoring the EPC whenever this suits the narrow-minded goals). As this one comment puts it:

Sir Robin imagines less use of opposition at the EPO, once the UPC is up and running.

Well, of course! A no-brainer, one might venture. Ever since the EPO started, in 1978, 70% of all oppositions have been filed by German speakers, all because of bifurcation in Germany of the issues of infringement and validity. Why bifurcation? The German basic law (Constitution) makes it unavoidable, right? But now? The UPC is going to sweep all that nonsense away, isn’t it.

In response to this, a patent lawyer wrote:

Yeah right. Opponents are going to abandon a low cost opposition for a high cost (with liability for costs) UPC. Both tracks will be used, and the added punch of a unitary patent will make opposition more compelling.

Then another patent lawyer said:

As ever, shrewd comment from Meldrew. Accepting that the unitary patent adds “punch”, what should be the business-like response of those going in fear of being punched, those who have seen the fist and fear its being used?

In Germany, up to now, it was to get their retaliation in first, and oppose whereas, in England, it was not. I venture to suggest that in England it made more sense, most of the time, to get one’s defence well organised but then wait for an attack which, mostly, would not happen. After all, litigation is supposed to be a last resort, isn’t it?

And if it were to happen, that an attack comes, and one really is sued in the unitary court for infringement, one would counter-claim for invalidity, would one not, as well as arguing non-infringement, all in the same court, the same action.

so, Meldrew, have times changed then, that you suppose pre-emptive opposition to be “compelling”?

And how about the “poor man’s opposition” namely filing at the EPO 3rd party observations on patentability? Hmmmmh, I doubt it. Why hasten the grant of the patent, with claims that enjoy a higher presumption of validity, claims paccking a greater “punch”?

And on it went:

Until the UPC has a track record it will not be clear whether it will encourage or discourage the fraternal enmity that occurs in Germany, but it is not that issue that concerns me.

It is the dramatically increased value of a European patent that will make it a more tempting target.

It is still possible at present to make a good living by selling products outside the holy trinity of DE-FR-GB and ignoring patents validated only in those countries. If the UP gets a big take up this option will decrease and there will be more people wanting to clear the path. To me this is very likely to result in an increase in oppositions.

As for 3POs, I use these a lot. My clients prefer early certainty to prolonged uncertainty, and would rather their competitors had strong patents my clients do not infringe, than uncertain patents my clients might infringe.

Far from being a “poor man’s opposition” 3POs are an essential part of an attorney’s toolkit, and they do not preclude later opposition. Perhaps this is why the number of 3POs is reported to have increased dramatically in recent years. Another factor here is the use of pre issuance submissions in the US. As our friends across the pond grow more familiar with such tools I would expect them to be used more. Particularly as you can say things in a 3PO you cannot say in a pre issuance submission..

The following should be expected from a site that attracts so many patent lawyers:

“From where I am sitting, EPO oppositions are going to continue, and are going to be the preferred option of weeding out bad patents. The speed of oppositions up to the OD is picking up, although the OD to TBA stretch is still too long. The, the EPO opposition route will remain cost effective compared to a UPC revocation action.”

Maybe Sir Robin was contributing his bit of Aprilfoolery before the due date? Unless the UPC starts systematically rejecting requests for stays of proceedings while oppositions are pending (and I don’t expect that), oppositions will remain interesting for alleged infringers if only as a delaying tactic. Tactically, the only drawback of an opposition vs. UPC invalidation is that the EPO is notoriously circumspect around evidence of public prior use. If your best attacks depend on such evidence, you may be well advised to go directly to the UPC to invalidate that patent. Otherwise, I’d start with an opposition.

Nice comments. Where do they leave us?

Horses for courses? There are WO and A publications best dealt with using a 3PO, others where that course would be contra-indicated. Then there are those cases which are more or less crying out to be opposed at the EPO. And then there are cases where one would hesitate to make the first move but would pile in to an opposition at the EPO if the patent owner makes the first move.

In short, every manufacturer ought to be actively keeping clear the path forward, by whatever means are best suited.

So, plenty of work for any European patent attorney with enough business acumen to help such clients arrive at the optimal strategy. And every reason to be confident, going forward, that the EU’s patent regime is fit, fair and economical, not only for patent owners but also for those bothered by patent owners.

As much as I admire Sir Robin, I cannot make much sense of the suggestion that litigation at the UPC might effectively do away with the need for EPO oppositions.

His suggestion may make sense for some litigants, but I doubt it will be all that many – at least not in the short term. This is because EPO oppositions will continue to make a great deal of sense for: (a) anyone seeking to knock out national validations in non-UPC countries (such as Spain); (b) those seeking to knock out opted-out EPs; (c) those of limited means who are seeking to “clear the path”; and (d) those with deeper pockets who want to play both systems.

To my mind, the majority of litigants will probably fall into at least one of those categories. However, it remains to be seen whether the balance changes once users become more familiar with how the UPC operates.

On that latter point, I suspect that the UPC will have a difficult time of it in the early years. This is because the legal system that the Court will need to apply simply has an astounding number of complexities and loopholes / gaps (and, arguably, is being improperly implemented by the Member States). In this respect, Ms Fröhlinger’s comments (if reported correctly) are potentially quite revealing. That is, if sorting out legal complexities is viewed in high circles as being “tedious”, it is no wonder that we are faced with a UPC system that currently looks to be half-baked at best.

“As a European Patent Office opposition needs to be filed within 9 months of grant,” noted one person, “it is only a useful process if third parties have a potential commercial interest in the patent at that time. Clearly, this will be the case in many instances, but not all, and it is technology dependent.”

The context of all the above was this article from a Bristows employee (massive boosters of the UPC). It helps show that Margot Fröhlinger of the EPO is an enemy of 99% (or more) of Europe’s population as she pushes for UPC with the same old attempts at self-fulfilling prophecies. To quote the relevant bit:

Margot Fröhlinger (Principal Director, Patent Law and Multilateral Affairs, EPO) was the first to take the podium to discuss outstanding issues about the unitary patent. Next year, Margot explained, we will hopefully have a unitary patent and a Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Europe. This means a one-stop shop for post-grant procedure for protection and enforcement. This will help remove the complexity of a fragmented market, but there are other issues that need to be addressed – some which are quite tedious and which need to be dealt with by agreement by Participating Member States or dealt with by the UPC. The first issue is in relation to Unitary Supplementary Protection Certificates (i.e. SPCs based on unitary patents). The European Commission has recently announced that they are going to create a unitary SPC. Margot wishes them good luck. The creation of a unitary SPC may be as complicated as the UPC (which took 40 years). There are number of legal and political issues – i.e. creating a European unitary title that only has effect in some EU Member States? Who is going to grant unitary SPCs and fix the fees? Who is going to get the fees for unitary SPCs? At the moment SPC fees are retained by national offices. It will be difficult to create, but pending the creation of a unitary SPC, national SPCs can be obtained on the basis of the unitary patent. The EU Commission will be clearly stating this. The second issue is what happens if request for unitary effect is rejected by the EPO or is overruled by the UPC at the time when the validation deadlines has already expired. Member States mainly agree that they should reopen the deadline for national validations. This has been implemented in Sweden, Finland, Netherlands and Germany. The UK considers that the patent holder should just pay the national renewal fees (and would be protected). A harmonized approach on this point may be difficult. The third difficulty is where prior national rights lead to a limitation or revocation of the patent for the territory of one of the participating Member States after the registration of unitary effect. There are different solutions – either revocation or limitation of the unitary effect only for the territory of the Member State concerned, or revocation or limitation of the entire unitary effect and reopening of the deadline for national validations or loss of the entire Patent. The UPC may have to deal with this issue as well. The final issue is the double protection for the same invention by Unitary Patents and national patents. There is no prohibition under the European Patent Convention. This is left to Member States. Member States have different approaches – some allow double protection, others prohibit it. German law which traditionally prohibits double protection has now provided for double protection in their new draft legislation. This adds another layer of complexity and may impact the opt-out strategies of patentees. In conclusion, Margot says we should not compare the UPC and unitary patent with what an ideal world may look like – it needs to be compared with what the fragmented system is like now. The UPC and unitary patent is an improvement.

Here is Managing IP (MIP) with its own take on this:

Margot Fröhlinger of the EPO (see our recent interview with her) runs through some outstanding questions on the Unitary Patent and UPC:

The European Commission is going to create a unitary SPC – “I wish them good luck” says Fröhlinger, saying there are a number of legal and political obstacles.

What happens if a request for unitary effect is rejected by the EPO or over-ruled by the UPC after the deadline for national validation has expired (deadline is normally three months). She reports “intensive” discussions on this point, with most member states considering that the deadline should be reopened.

What if a national earlier right is invoked against a Unitary Patent in the UPC? This complicated question may be one for the UPC to tackle.

Double protection by Unitary Patents and national patents – this issue is left open, member states have different approaches.

TPP and TTIP are named along with UPC in the same page. Just so people know who it's all for and about. It’s quite an extraordinary coup. It’s class war.

UPC critics, or sources that are actually familiar with the gory details, correctly stated the following:

The costs of the unitary patent

In a recent interview Mr Battistelli claimed that the unitary patent (UPP) “is going to be more accessible, less costly and simpler, especially for Europe’s small businesses, with cost reductions in the 70-80% range.” According to Mr Battistelli, the cost of applying for and maintaining a European patent across the EU is currently around €159,000 over 20 years. Under the new plans, this would drop to “around €35,500”. We do not know how Mr Battistelli comes to his “pre-UPP” sum of €159,000 which seems extremely high. What we do know is that applicants rarely, if ever, apply for all EU member states and that the average life-time of a patent is closer to 12 years than to 20 years. The figure mentioned – if correct – is therefore unrealistic. SC/D 2/156 gives us some information about the fees for the UPP. According to that document the renewal fees for the 2nd to the 20th year (page 5/18) add up to €35.555. That is suspiciously close to the “around €35,500″ that Mr Battistelli mentions. But those are only the renewal fees, i.e. the costs for maintaining a European patent across the EU over 20 years. If the costs of translation, legal representation and the EPO’s procedural fees are added, the minimum cost of “applying for and maintaining” a unitary patent will be closer to €55,000.

The more fundamental question that Mr Battistelli carefully avoids is, however: should patents (unitary or other) be cheap, in particular taking into account that two-thirds of the European patent applications are not of European origin? Do we really want to risk flooding Europe with a mass of cheap, mostly non-European patents?

So, in short, Battistelli is either misguided (self-deluding) or lying.

Using the patent system as an instrument by which to defend the wealth of the already-wealthy (with the antidemocratic UPC coup) isn’t acceptable. It defeats the purpose of the patent system. Here we have MIP’s latest “progress report” for the UPC (as it there’s no chance of it being derailed like previous such efforts with different names). To quote MIP: “The UK parliament has approved legislation to implement the Unitary Patent Regulations and UPC Agreement in the UK. Parliament also needs to pass legislation implementing the agreed Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the UPC before the UK can be fully ready to ratify. It not yet clear whether this will come before or after the EU referendum on June 23. Earlier this month, the UK IPO told Managing IP that the “referendum will have no effect on UK ratification”. Some will remain sceptical. Time will tell.”

“They’re making a complete mockery of democracy, much like the EPO which arrogantly views itself as being above the law.”The UK parliament never asked British people about this. They’re making a complete mockery of democracy, much like the EPO which arrogantly views itself as being above the law. Michael Loney, writing for MIP from New York, had this to say about Robin Jacob’s take on the UPC (which Brits never got told about or consulted about): “Sir Robin Jacob talks about his career in IP. When he started, “IP was asleep” around the world, then litigation took off. He adds that he believes the European Patent Convention is the best patent law in the world, and adds that there is a common law in Europe – but not common procedures. When parallel cases reach different conclusions in Europe, that is due to different evidence not different law, he says. [...] Asked to reflect on his career, Klaus Grabinski says the most interesting role is being a first instance judge. He agrees with Jacob that “material law” on patents is the same across Europe, and says the UPC will further that harmonisation…” (behind paywall)

The Bristows employee later added the following regarding Jacob:

“Sir Robin Jacob (UCL) was faced with the first question as to whether he would change anything about his career. Robin said no, that he was incredibly lucky, but noted that when he came to the bar, IP was a happy but quiet world. IP, he said was asleep, but he did not know why it was asleep especially as it was very much awake in the 19th Century. It woke up in England when an English judge started enforcing patents with the result that Americans, who were losing their patents in the US, started litigating in the UK. Hugh asked Sir Robin which patent law he considered to be the best patent law. Sir Robin said that the “European Patent Convention is the best written patent law in the world. It is clearly effective”. Hugh asked whether there was a difference between English patent law and European patent law. Sir Robin said there was not. English patent law is European patent law. Although the law is the same, it does not mean that judges of different national courts will apply the law the same. Often, he noted, a German and Dutch judge will likely apply the law similarly. The differences come when you look at procedural differences with the common law courts (UK) conducting a more intensive dive into the facts and evidence than the civil law courts (Dutch and German). Sir Robin commented that one area of IP law that no one has ever understood is trade mark law and particularly noted that smells should only ever be protected as a trade mark when consumers use their noses to walk around super markets to figure out what they are going to buy.”

Then comes the part about UPC:

“Justin Watts (Freshfields) was gifted with choosing who was the next judge to speak. He chose Judge Klaus Grabinski (Federal Supreme Court) who explained that being a first instance judge is far more fun than being a judge on the appellate court. This is because as a first instance judge you get to see how the case is being run on the front line and discover, like an inventor, the legal issues that need to be tackled. Echoing the comments from Sir Robin, Judge Grabinski stated the differences between European national courts are mostly procedural issues, not substantive. This could be seen, explained Judge Grabinski, at the judges symposium that is held every other year. The judges are split into groups by language to decide legal issues and often, the English and German groups would adopt more or less the same reasoning. The French groups would often come to a different result. Judge Grabinski considers that the German and UK courts are more harmonized as a direct result. The UPC will examine these differences in practice by virtue of the UPC procedural rules being a blend of common and civil law procedures. We will see what works and what does not work and whether there are issues that need to be harmonized further. Hugh asked whether or not the reputation of the first instance judge impacts how an appellate court deals views the first instance decision. He said no, that he did not have a blacklist of judges in mind. In the US, responded Hugh, it is sometimes better to have lost below and go up to the Court of Appeals on the basis of a decision from certain judges (ie. they are not well-respected so will be easier to overturn). ”

All the above wrongly assumes that UPC will become a reality, using overly optimistic projections of when it will happen (as if it’s a certainty that this will unavoidably happen and it’s just a matter of time).

Quite frankly, the UPC propaganda needs to stop and we urge all of our readers to put an end to it before it ever manages to leap beyond the gates like a Trojan bird catapulted by Battistelli and fellow barbarians. These are evidently a bunch of people drunk on power, wrongly assuming they’re above the law and also set the law (e.g. patent law a la UPC). In their own words… █

Willy Minnoye caricature

“The government is not trying to destroy Microsoft, it’s simply seeking to compel Microsoft to obey the law. It’s quite revealing that Mr. [Bill] Gates equates the two.”

–Government official

EUIPO and the Shady Relation to the EPO

Posted in Europe, Intellectual Monopoly, Patents at 7:40 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Too much secrecy for a supposedly democratic society

Men's shade

Summary: A lot of back room activity (limited access conferences, secret contracts, shady deals) muddies the water when it comes to EUIPO (formerly OHIM), EPO, and WIPO

FOR quite some time now we have been hearing about the EPO‘s relation to EUIPO, which is more or less a new name for an existing entity. It is always important to ensure that such European entities adhere to and comply with European interests, or more generally the interests of ordinary people all around the world rather than massive corporations (usually foreign). Recall the time patents were used to monopolise cancer treatments in Europe, harming cancer patients. As it turns out, based on new reports (e.g. [1, 2]), GSK considers not keeping a monopoly (using patents) on certain cancer treatments, at least in poorer nations. This is the kind of news people want to hear.

“It is always important to ensure that such European entities adhere to and comply with European interests, or more generally the interests of ordinary people all around the world rather than massive corporations (usually foreign).”IP Kat, which recently celebrated its 10,000th blog post, takes a look at this new book about law design and patents in Europe — an interesting and dangerous cocktail or mix (to reuse Battistelli’s words). It’s not always clear whether design ripoffs can be prevented using trademarks, copyrights, patents, or some weird combination thereof. That’s where EUIPO comes into play. Responding to this new article about Fordham 2016 (an event we mentioned critically in English last night and in Spanish this morning), one person wrote: “The most important outcome of such a get-together is what is the consensus on how we should be pronouncing EUIPO” (as if the name is what matters and as if it’s to be determined in some closed echo chamber in New York, not even in Europe).

To quote IP Kat:

Dimitris Botis (Deputy Director of Legal Affairs at the newly named EUIPO) was next to discus the future of the EU trade mark system in particular the recent trade marks reform package consisting of Directive 2015/2436 and Regulation 2015/2424. The biggest change in substantive trade mark law is the deletion of the graphic representation requirement which means that it will be easier to register non-traditional marks. The exact impact of this change on filing practice and types of marks that can be accepted will not be seen until the implementing rules are issued on 1 October 2017. The second biggest change is to the functionality prohibition to “other characteristics”. There is now also an express requirement for clarity and precision in specifying the goods and services that are specified for the mark. It will be based on the “natural and usual meaning” of terms (i.e .interpreted literally). The new fee structure and levels with a new “one-fee-per-class” system is also a big change. There has been a moderate reduction of the application fee and substantial reduction of renewal fees. Dimitris also pointed out that there is also new EU Certification mark which can be registered to ensure the certification of the quality, material, mode of manufacture etc, but cannot be used in relation to geographical origin. Institutionally, there will be changes in terminology – hello EUIPO! But its not just changes in terminology, there is a change in management structure. The changes will be taking on a more political taste (the EU Commission has two seats now). The new Regulation also requires more cooperation between the Member States. Trevor Cook from Wilmer Hale said the change are really only technical in nature and do not generate a huge impact on substantive trade mark law. Dimitris agreed but the technical changes will ensure more efficient operation.

Here is what Michael Loney wrote for MIP in New York:

Two firsts for Fordham: Dimitris Botis’s debut and the first talk by someone from EUIPO (as OHIM was renamed on March 23). He summarises the changes in the EU trade mark package, on which there is a detailed session tomorrow afternoon.

He says the changes were “targeted amendments” to improve predictability and accessibility, and the most important is the abolition of the graphic representation requirement (effective October 1 2017).

Next up is Antony Taubman of WTO, who describes his logjam as “well-entrenched” with no work on the GI project for five years (for example). He’s here in New York to “harvest ideas” he adds.

Interesting to know, as noted above, that OHIM was officially renamed on March 23rd as it was barely advertised. Judging by the name alone, the IPO might one day become an umbrella organisation for the Patent Office/Organisation, assuming that “IP” is really what it is (just an umbrella term for copyrights, trademarks, patents, and maybe also trade secrets).

“Interesting to know, as noted above, that OHIM was officially renamed on March 23rd as it was barely advertised.”Some people inside the EPO are comparing Battistelli to Gurry (now best known for the WIPO scandals) and Campinos, who is rumoured to be a replacement for Battistelli and currently heads OHIM, aka EUIPO.

As one person chose to put it, “WIPO, OHIM, EPO: three of a kind?”

OHIM is probably an old name now, but here’s how the analogy goes:

On 24 February, a US congressional hearing took place on the accountability of WIPO. The Head of WIPO, Francis Gurry, stands accused of serious misconduct and of retaliation against
whistle-blowers, among whom is the chairman of the WIPO’s Staff Union, who was summarily dismissed a year and a half ago 1. The head of the third international property office, Mr Campinos, has thus far managed to stay out of the public eye. This may, however, be only a matter of time. We hear from staff at OHIM that he has a management style and disrespect for the rule of law that are very similar to those of Mr Battistelli. The three international IP offices have very different structures: the EPO is fully independent, WIPO is a UN agency and OHIM is an EU agency. They nevertheless seem to suffer from the same problems. How come? Maybe because the underlying causes are the same: a governing body that is almost entirely dependent on the head of the office for its information, lots of money and a lack of transparency that enables the head of the organisation to use that money to increase his personal influence, the whole topped up with immunity. Since the same causes tend to lead to the same effect, removing the responsible managers would not solve the problems. What is needed is a reform of the governance of these organisations, starting with more transparency and accountability – to the governing body and to the public.

Proper “transparency and accountability” — as the above put it — would at least inform the public about what the heck is going on at OHIM. There’s just way too much secrecy. In the EPO, for example, contracts of top management are a closely-guarded secret, as are contracts with private companies such as Microsoft and Gemalto. These aren’t public bodies. They act like private bodies [1, 2] which enjoy immunity from the law.

Expanding on the European Union IP Office (EUIPO), which makes it sound like part of the EU (unlike the EPO, which the EPC brought into existence):

Soon after Mr Battistelli took over, staff and the public were informed that bilateral agreements had been signed between the EPO and WIPO, and between the EPO and OHIM. It seems that the content of these agreements has never been made public. Glimpses can be found in other documents, e.g. CA/24/14 (points 51-57), for example, explains that the EPO will continue to
participate as an observer in OHIM bodies and working group meetings. As far as we know, OHIM also has an observer in the meetings of the Administrative Council of the EPO.

On a more permanent basis, Mr Telmo Vilela, a former co-worker of Mr Campinos in the Portuguese patent office, was hired by the EPO in DG5 but was transferred to the President’s office as soon as the opportunity arose. Furthermore according to CA/24/14 (point 57) IT co-operation between the EPO and OHIM is foreseen with the aim of “paving the way for the implementation of projects and activities based on harmonization and interoperability”. Mr Campinos is also Mr Battistelli’s favorite candidate for his succession as President of the EPO. A final bit of information: OHIM will change its name to European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) later this month.

It is worth noting that Battistelli had attempted to be head of WIPO before he became ruler of EPO. There is certainly a great degree of overlap here, some potentially implicating Željko Topić, VP4 at EPO. One thing that Topić’s SIPO has in common with the EPO and WIPO is staff suicides (usually dissenting voices).

There remains so much secrecy around these institutions (and extreme abuse against critics or people who ‘dare’ to explore the truth) that one must dig deeper and deeper. There’s certainly a lot of material these people are eager to hide (because they’re already hiding it, even when there's a deepening crisis). █

David Kappos Lloriquea Porque La Corte Suprema Esta Cerrándo la Puerta a Varias Patentes de Software

Posted in America, Europe, IBM, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 6:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Original/English

Publicado en America, Europe, IBM, Law, Microsoft, Patentes at 4:10 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

¿De Director de la USPTO a Cabildero por Maximálismo y Patentes de Software?

Fordham IP Conference
Comentarios no son necesarios

Sumario: Reportajes de la Conferencia IP de Fordham sirven para mostra la siniestra parcialización que sirve sólo a los abogados de patentes y sus grandes clientes (como Microsof y IBM) pero también a las patentes de software (las que Microsoft y IBM han convertido ensu modelo de negocios ya que las ventas estan cayendo en picada)

LA Conferencia IP de Fordham (i.e. rellenada y/o empleada con abogados, no interes público, representantes) reciéntemente acabo y hubo material en ella relacionando a la EPO, la UPC, y patentes de software (que serán cubierto separadamente). A no ser que seas muy rico, no es posible para que tu atiendas y a menos que tu seas un maximálista de patentes, no tendrías una oportunidad de hablar allí, (sólo escuchar). Es una camara de eco, una reunión a puertas cerrads (casi), una conspiración o un grupo de interes (por ponerlo cortesmente). Es uno de varios de tales eventos (en grandes y sobrevaloradas ciudades) los cuales son esfuerzos para colectivamente moldear e influenciar leyes. Salidas/reportajes son como un poquito de ¨investigación¨ de grupos de interes. Voces disidentes no son permitidas, menos aún es permitido a los invitados hablar.

“Es uno de varios de tales eventos (en grandes y sobrevaloradas ciudades) los cuales son esfuerzos para colectivamente moldear e influenciar leyes.”Ahora mismo patentes de software en Europa son vaya cosa porque los Estados Unidos tales patentes están en retroceso, para disgusto de los abogados de patentes quienes se beneficiaron monetariamente de ellas (usualmente a costa de programadores como yo y millones de otros).

David Kappos, antiguamente de la USPTO y IBM (ahora cada vez más notoria por su agresión con patentes de software), esta actuándo como si el mismo estuviese arriba del dictámen de la Corte Suprema o como si SCOTUS estuviese equivocado (por sus propios intereses monetarios/personales). Uno debe recordar lo que Kappos hizo después de dejar la USPTO (ahora es una persona que está impulsando las patentes de software).

“David Kappos – no es un hincha de la decisión en sección 101 de la Corte Suprema,” dice la leyenda debajo de su cara. Cubrirémos los últimos desarrollos que pertenecen a la sección 101 en algun momento durante el fin de semana.

De acuerdo al perfil del evento, compuesto por un proponente de las patentes de software, Alice molesta a Kappos:

En términos de las decisiónes de la Corte Suprema, especialmente la decisión CLS versus Alice Bank, David dijo que es imposible hacer sentido de la Jurisprudencia de la Corte Suprema en sección 101. Tratándo de entender la sección 101, la PTO está atrapada por un set de decisiónes de la Corte Suprema que son incomprénsibles. Eso ha sido el arquitécto de la lucha real de la PTO para entender lo que es materia patentable.
El Juez O’Malley estuvo de acuerdo que es difícil de entender lo que es y noe es en términos de materia patentable, pero este desafío ha llevado a muchos más argumentos creativos de abogados quienes tratan de distinguir sus invenciones de la esfera de una situación CLS versus Alice Bank. Sir Robin intervino afirmando que en el mundo real la oficina de patentes no emite malos patentes – es inevitable Esto se debe a que es un proceso de examen unilateral llevada a cabo por un examinador que no se puede tener todo el estado de la técnica antes que él o ella y que es generalmente de escasos recursos. Esto se puede ver en Europa, donde una oposición tarda 10-15 años para decidir si una patente es válida. Se trata de un sistema que no funciona. La Ley de Estados Unidos inventa, Sir Robin, ve muy bien en comparación, ya que proporciona un más rápido, más eficiente régimen para hacer frente a la validez. También proporciona certeza, que es de enorme importancia.

David estuvo de acuerdo acerca de la inevitable de algunas patentes se concedieron indebidamente. En particular, esto es un problema cuando se le pide un examinador si una invención es abstracto – esa pregunta es totalmente subjetiva y, como se ha señalado Sir Robin, en una situación, por supuesto, patentes concedidas erróneamente serán inevitables.

Michael Loney, quién fue a Nueva York para cubrir este evento para MIP, escribió acerca del rol/papel de Kappos como sigue:

David Kappos quien, (como Hansen dice) todos saben, tiene 10 prióridades para quien sea el próximo president de los US:

Innovación = acción, progreso, liderázgo
US debe resumir su rol en el mundo como líder en innovación
El gobierno Federal guíara en campeonar y recompensar innovación
Gobierno necesita reconocer a los innovadores necesitán incentivos
El sistema de patentes es nuestro sistema para incentivar innovación – necesitamos un fuerte sistema de patentes
La Administración no debería alejarse del liderazgo en afinar el sistema de patentes, desde una posición de fuerza
Cortar abusos, pero con el punto de vista que los beneficios de patentes sobrepesan abusos ocasionales
El sistema de patentes debe tener precedencia en conflictos con otros sistemas de leyes especialmente la ley contra monopolios
Favoreceremos la creación de nuevas tecnologías y competición dinámica no protegiendo el estado de cosas (como las leyes antimonopolio lo hacen)
El sistema de patentes esta enmarcado en la constitución porque la innovación es acerca de lo que es lo próximo y no lo que es ahora.

El las Preguntas y Respuestas, dice que siente que la administración presente (Obama), en su segundo término, no ha sido apoyador de las patentes como fue antes o debería ser.

Sería mucho mas bonito si Kappos se mantuviera lejos de la política, no hable mamadas, y no contribuya a la impresión que los abogados de patentes y los agresores de patentes como IBM mueven la política a su favor, con ese dinero (billones de dólares) son pasados a sus bolsillos sin que ellos levanten un dedo y el resto de nosotros se joda. Ellos mismos desácreditan sus firmas y también desácreditan al sistema en su conjunto. No es mejor que lo que encontramos en ISDS. (e.g. en TTIP/TTP) o ACTA, pero hay menos cólera pública por que pocos miembros del público ‘grok’ las leyes de patentes. █

Nueva Campaña de Marketing de la EPO: Conduce to Audi a Casa

Posted in Europe, Humour, Marketing, Patents at 6:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en Europe, Humor, Marketing, Patentes at 1:57 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Audi EPO

Sumario: Audi fragua una relación de 5-años de marketing y mutualmete-exclusivo contrato con la Oficina Europea de Patentes, prestando su nombre al altamente credible, respetable cuerpo internacional, donde la calidad es inquestionamblemente excepcional

APR 1 2016 [para immediata publicación bajo embargo hasta la fecha especificada] — MUNICH: Aprovechando el éxito de Volkswagen, FTI Consulting, la empresa de relaciones públicas de la EPO, ha anunciado con bombos y platillos el lanzamiento sin precedentes de una nueva campaña publicitaria de 5 años con el fin de mejorar la imagen ya perfecta y eternamente-inmaculada de la OEP. “Conduce tu Audi Home” es el título de esta emocionante campaña, que tendrá como objetivo las audiencias de televisión en los Países Bajos y Alemania. Con el lema memorable “usted es el jefe de” FTI Consulting espera que los clientes valoran un rápido crecimiento tanto moral y la confianzaa.

“Nuestras relaciones son excelentes.”
      –Alto Oficial de la EPOEsta campaña de marketing es parte de una campaña en curso, que se extenderá a más países a través de Europa en su debido momento, dependiendo de la demanda de medios y de la percepción del mercado de productos finos de la OEP. Se esfuerza por tomar ventaja de la pobre demanda de vehículos de Volkswagen, que a pesar de figuras fantásticas y bajas emisiones (según lo confirmado por la Revista Internacional del Automóvil, IAM) no ha logrado establecer un lugar para sí en cualquier lugar fuera de Alemania.

En una declaración preparada, dijo un no-nombrado oficial de la EPO, ¨la nueva campaña llena un vacío y mejorará la imagen de la EPO.¨Comentando en el meollo del lema, el oficial explicó: ¨Nunca ha habido mejor tiempo para comprar un Audi. Nuestras relaciones son excelentes. Nuestra productividad esta más arriba que cualquier momento. Puedes manejar tu Audi como un jefe a cualquier lugar de Europa, tan lejos como Francia al Oeste y Croacia al Este.¨ █

Esperanza al Final del Tunel Mientras que Más Patentes de Software Son Aplastadas en los Estados Unidos

Posted in America, Europe, Patents at 6:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en America, Europe, Patents at 5:41 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Donde hay luz puede haber justiica (a diferencia de la USPTO, donde las ganancias pisotean la justicia)

Hope at the End
Esperanza al Final

Sumario: Un resumen de noticias acerca de software en particular, con preocupaciones acerca del control de cálidad en la USPTO y la EPO

A DISGUSTO pero inevitablemente la USPTO necesitará realinearse por los dictámenes de SCOTUS y dejar de emitir patentes abstractas en métodos de software. Esto definitivamente va a enojar a un montón de abogados de patentes, pero no son ellos que establecen las leyes (ellos no son objetivos, ya que tienen sus propias motivaciones, usualmente dinero, no ciencia). Gene Quinn se acaba de volver loco de nuevo. Él quiere que los examinadores de las oficinas de patentes sean reemplazado (casi) por sólo un sistema de archivos y basado en palabras de “sabiduría”, sostenidas por IAM hoy; la the EPO pueda estar hundiéndose frente a las normas de patentes Turcas, o en busca de punto medio en el que hay un “post -Grant sistema de oposición “(otorgar en primer lugar, hacer preguntas o reparar el desorden más tarde).

“Lo que tenemos en común aquí es la disminución de control de calidad en las oficinas de patentes.”Basado en este nuevo artículo por Jakob Pade Frederiksen en MIP, el “El Jurado de Apelacione de la EPO condena la demora en las examinaciones” (ese es el titular). ¿Cómo así despues de más de 12 años? Consideren el siguiente párrafo:”Mientras que las estadísticas de rendimiento de EPO publicadas recientemente para el año 2015 muestran un aumento en el número de otorgamiéntos en comparación con el año anterior y una disminución de la acumulación de búsquedas por dos tercios, retraso en el examen de los casos pendientes sigue siendo motivo de preocupación para algunos. Un reciente decisión de la apelación dictada en el campo de las invenciones implementadas en ordenador revela que los retrasos excesivos de examen no se entretienen las salas de recurso. Más específicamente, en la sentencia T 823/11 dictada en diciembre de 2015, la Junta 03/05/07 ha dictaminado que la duración de los procedimientos de examen de más de 12 años debe considerarse excesivo y equivale a una violación sustancial de procedimiento “.

Lo que tenemos en común aquí es la disminución de control de calidad en las oficinas de patentes. Es todo acerca del dinero! ¿Y de quién? Pero al mismo tiempo las cortes obligan a las oficinas a admitir sus errores. Miremos algunos más reciéntes casos de la corte. Hace 2 dias mencionamos Sequenom, al cual también mencionamos el año pasado y el 2014. Sequenom, sobre la base de este nuevo informe (“Sequenom Pide al Tribunal Supremo para clarificar los límites de la Sección 101″), se está volviendo loco después que SCOTUS eliminó muchas patentes abstractas. Basado en este abogado de patentes, por el contrario, “la patente estadounidense 8.180.858, sobrevivió el 101/ataque Alice en el estado de Delaware” (palabras como “sobrevivir” y “ataque” hacen que “Alicia” suene como un guerrero implacable en lugar de una patente de fijación ley de SCOTUS). “Estadísticas anteriores fueron 8/10 Muertes debido a Alice”, señala el mismo abogado de patentes, asociando que las patentes de software quedarón invalidadas (porque son falsas). Para citar la cosa en su totalidad: “J. Robinson, de Dist. Connecticut. Rechazado de Delaware 101 Argumentos/Alice en 4 decisiones emitidas en la semana pasada; Estadísticas anterior fueron 8/10 Alice Kills “(es decir, la gran mayoría de ellos están invalidadas debido a Alice cuando fueron llevadas adecuadamente en un tribunal de justicia). Una patente de software puede hacer mucho daño en los Estados Unidos; eso es lo que me dijo este abogado con respecto a este tweet (“la patente estadounidense 6.928.433, Apple pagó $ 100 millones por infringir; valer contra 7 Otros”), ya que me recordó otros casos similares de Apple (el propietario/concesionario de la patente es canadiense, en este caso, al igual que i4i). Con todo, escribió este abogado, “el reexamen de 11% de las patentes es un llamamiento a Pekín IP Ct. Fue al revés; 11% de las decisiones PTab hecho un llamamiento al Circuito Federal. Todo se ha invertido. “En realidad, consideramos que este abogado de patentes es un “buen tipo”, ya que es bastante honesto y mira a la amplitud de las cosas, a diferencia de las personas que leen o escriben el ‘magazine’ IAM.

“La USPTO no quiere desafíos legales porque ¿hey, de todas maneras quién necesita control de cálidad?”En otras noticias de interés, la Corte de Apelaciones del Distrito Federal (CAFC) ha reciéntemente demolido una patente de juegos basado en el criterio anterior. Para citar un sitio de abogados: “Bajo la 35 U.S.C. § 101, patemateria elegible de patentes es definida como cualquier nuevo y útil proceso, máquina, fabricación, o composición de materia, o cualquier mejora de ella, con la advertencia que las leyes naturales, fenómenos naturales, e ideas abstractas no son ideas patentables. El propósito de estas excepciones es prevenir que las patentes eviten accesso a las “herramienteas básicas de trabajo científico y tecnológico.” El examinador rechazó los reclamos como dirigidos a materia de inegibilidad de patentes bajo 35 USC § 101, tomando al posición de que los reclamos fueron dirigidos a una idea abstracta ya que los reclamos atentaron “reclamar un nuevo conjunto de reglas para jugar un juego de cartas.”

Por el otro lado, o por contraste, “Computer Modeling Breast Prosthesis Sobrevive el Desafío 12(b)(6) § 101,” dijo otro sitio, que también esta en el rebaño de los maximalistas de patentes. Hablando de este rebaño Lexology ha reciéntemente republicado dos artículos que nosotros mencionamos hace unos dias [1, 2]. Ellos amplifican los mensajes de los maximalistas de patentes (usualmente abogados de patentes). Patently-O ha estado relativamente quieto durante la Semana Santa, pero ayer encontramos esta actualización acerca de la USPTO donde el maximalismo de patentes esta imbuído por motivos de ganancias. Para citar a Patently-O: “El gobierno de los U.S. tambien ha llenado su breve méritos responsivos. La breve parece ser un esfuerzo conjunto del Procurador General (Departamento de Justicia) y la USPTO y hace un trabajo sólido de justificar sus posiciones [...] La toma de fuerza está buscando una fuerte decisión en este caso para detener la eficacia de la miríada de desafíos a los que se enfrenta actualmente.”

“Nos dicen que es bueno porque “R&D” o algo por el estilo, dejando de lado a señalar que una gran cantidad de los fondos de Merck en realidad provienen de los contribuyentes y los beneficios que se obtiene no se invierten en “R&D” (o incluso en marketing), pero se lo embolsan los multimillonarios que poseen la empresa o tienen interéses en ella.”La USPTO no quiere desafíos legales porque ¿hey, de todas maneras quién necesita control de cálidad? Un montón de abogados de patentes (o sus clientes) simplemente lo quieren todo fácil; ellos quieren bombardear el sistema con patentes (no aplicaciones) e incluso no enfrentarse al rechazo. El Oeste Salvaje. Ahora hay una nueva ‘industria’ de software dedicada a engañar a examinadores de patentes para aceptar esas aplicaciones falsas. Eso simplemente es otra carrera armamentista y el potencial de ganancias son grandes (a costas de alguién más). Para dare este nuevo ejemplo de MIP: “Un jurado en el Distrito de California del Norte ha ordenado Gilead Sciences a pagar $200 millones en daños por infringir las patentes de Merck y Ionis Pharmaceuticals por compuestos and métodos usados para desarrollar medicinas para el tratamiénto de hepatitis C, incluyendo Sovaldi y Harvoni.”

Así que una masiva compañía, Merck, conseguirá mantener sus precios artificialmente altos mientras al mismo tiempo destruye a una compañía pequeña a lo largo de esas línes, dejando de lado a señalar que una gran cantidad de los fondos de Merck en realidad provienen de los contribuyentes y los beneficios que se obtiene no se invierten en “R&D” (o incluso en marketing), pero se lo embolsan los multimillonarios que poseen la empresa o tienen interéses en ella. Tanto por ‘innovación’.

Remember what patent offices were conceived and created for. Have we not lost sight of that? █

IAM ‘Magazine’ No Puede Decir ‘Trolles de Patentes’

Posted in Deception, Patents at 5:48 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

English/Original

Publicado en Decepción, Patentes at 4:43 pm por el Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Talvez su finaciamiento de los trolles de patentes tenga algo que ver con ello.

Baby silence

Sumario: Cualquier cosa que IAM dig, nunica usa la palabra “T” (trolles) e incluso reconocer su existencia

El ´Sr.´ Wild, editor en jefe del IAM ‘magazine’ (básicamente un sitio Web), insiste el término troll de patentes no tiene significado, incluso cuando es dado una definición de el en Wikipedia. Podemos casi enfátizar porquue no es fácil easy para Wild, es parcialmente cubierto de pagos de los trolles de patentes, para reconocer el problema.

“IAM oculta la realidad del mismo bastante bien.”De acuerdo a Wikipedia, Openwave “ha cambiado su nombre a Unwired Planet” (por lo que escribimos acerca de Openwave vean estos resultados de búsqueda). Es esencialmente una clase de troll de patentes. Este nuevo artículo de Wild ignora decir que Unwired Planet es básicamente es un troll de patentes armado por Ericsson para hacer la ‘aplicación’ (EXTORSIÓN) sin arriesgarse de (contra) litigaciones. Es el mismo truco que Microsoft usa contra la competencia, notablemente contra GNU/Linux/Android. Lo que realmente encontramos asombroso/deslumbrante/remarcable es que mientras leemos IAM en general (como lo he hecho los últimos meses, casi exaústivamente) uno puede encontrárse con un montón de trolles de patentes y verlos bien acícalados – hasta el punto de que parecen compañías legítimas. IAM oculta la realidad del mismo bastante bien.

Hay buenas razones para boycotear a Rovi, por ejemplo, especialmente ahora que esta acosando a la competencia usando patentes de sofware y también trabaja con el troll de patentes más grande del mundo (troll de Microsoft), pero uno nunca conocería esto basado el el ´magazine´ IAM. Ellos incluso no llamarían troll a Intellectual Ventures. IAM se cree capaz de ocultar el sol con un dedo.

“Ellos incluso no llamarían troll a Intellectual Ventures.”En cuanto a trolles de patentes en China, para dar otro ejemplo, IAM dice casi nada con la palabra “T”; los llama NPEs para mejorar su imagen. Aquí mismo uno se entera de “la amenaza a compañías Taiwanesas de parte de NPEs de los US” (quieren decir Trolles de Patentes). ¿Dónde está la palabra “T”? Lo que el autor quiere decir es trolles de patentes de los Estados Unidos en Taiwan, incluyendo el “Licensing de Microsoft ” (e.g. versus Acer's Linux, basado en Taiwan), pero con medios como este, ¿Qué van a deducir los lectores? Para citar un párrafo entero: “Por supuesto, hacedores de políticas puedan simplemente haber concluído que un enfoque de esperar y ver tiene más sentido que una inversión masiva en la agregación de patentes en un momento de incertidumbre en el sistema de patentes – después de todo, la amenaza a las empresas taiwanesas de parte de las NPEs de los Estados Unidos ha disminuído recientemente un poco. Si la isla hace que otro esfuerzo en la creación de un SFP, que incluso puede ser aventajada por su comienzo tardío. Por lo que yo puedo ver, los FPSs existentes han centrado principalmente sus esfuerzos en la adquisición de patentes de Estados Unidos hasta este punto. Sería empezar un fondo para seguir la misma estrategia, dado el potencial que podríamos seguir viendo más litigios de NPEs en Europa y menos en los EE.UU.? Hay modelos ciertamente interesantes para estudiar en los países vecinos, y su registro público de éxitos y tropiezos seguirán creciendo este año “.

“Dinero sobre la mesa siempre contribuye a corromper a los medios de comunicación, ese es el porque, por ejemplo, nosotros nunca pedimos donaciones.”Lo que estamos tratándo de demostra aquí que IAM, habiéndo aceptado dinero de toda clase de trolles de patentes, no está diciéndo al lector toda la historia. Dinero sobre la mesa siempre contribuye a corromper a los medios de comunicación, ese es el porque, por ejemplo, nosotros nunca pedimos donaciones.

El ´Sr.´ Wild está tratándo duramente de desacreditarme en Twitter (usando su cuenta personal, no la de IAM), pero él debería en su lugar examinárse y luchar a brazo partido – dejarse de hipocresías – por lo que dirige la agenda en IAM. No debería simplemente atacar al mensajero que lo señala. █

“Talvez este mundo es el infierno de otro planeta.””

–Aldous Huxley

04.01.16

Links 1/4/2016: Zenwalk 8.0 Beta 3, pfSense 2.3 Release Candidate

Posted in News Roundup at 8:20 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

GNOME bluefish

Contents

GNU/Linux

Free Software/Open Source

  • BlazeMeter Adds Open Source Tools for Performance Testing
  • An open-source microprocessor for IoT devices
  • Tech for easier wearable microelectronic devices
  • Thoughts on Leaving the OSI Board

    After six years (two terms), this week marks the end of my time on the Board of Directors of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). While I plan to remain involved with open source issues and with the Board, the end of my service on the Board is a significant personal milestone, so I thought that I would briefly reflect on the past six years for open source, and especially the OSI.

    When I was nominated for the OSI Board in 2010, the Board was a small, select group whose early members made important contributions to the open source community, notably the Open Source Definition and the approval of licenses that conformed to that Definition. The Board’s activities were supported by a couple of corporate donations. Since all of the Board members had “day jobs” that brought in their personal incomes, everyone was quite busy and it was often difficult to make progress on various initiatives. It’s a testament to the hard work of the earliest members of the Board that the OSI was well-recognized as the steward of licenses and the OSD.

  • What happens to a great open source project when its creators are no longer using the tool themselves?

    PANDA, the four-year-old Knight News Challenge-winning newsroom application for storing and analyzing large data sets, still has a respectable community of users, but could now use a new longterm caretaker.

  • Web Browsers

  • Databases

  • Oracle/Java/LibreOffice

    • I hate Microsoft Office

      Here’s an example: The icon to delete emails in Outlook is a swooshy “χ” icon. That seems out of step with the smooth appearance that Microsoft seems to prefer. The swooshy “χ” is probably supposed to make Office look cool, but to me it just looks old. Like, that was a neat idea in the 1990s or early 2000s, but today that’s just clutter.

  • CMS

  • Pseudo-Open Source (Openwashing)

  • BSD

    • UbuntuBSD

      Regardless of your position on the systemd debate, projects such as the UbuntuBSD distribution offer a wider range of options to the FOSS community at large. And, there are cases where a BSD kernel will provide better performance than Linux.

    • [pfSense] 2.3 Release Candidate now available!

      We are proud to announce pfSense® software version 2.3 Release Candidate is now available!

      The most significant changes in this release are a rewrite of the webGUI utilizing Bootstrap, and the underlying system being converted entirely to FreeBSD pkg (including the base system and kernel). The pkg conversion enables us to update pieces of the system individually going forward, rather than the monolithic updates of the past.

    • LLVM Adds Intel Lakemont CPU Support

      The LLVM compiler infrastructure now has support for Intel’s Lakemont processor.

      Lakemont is the codename for the Quark processors that include the Quark X1000 SoC. The Lakemont hardware has been available for a while now but continues to be used in different applications and Intel continues improving its support.

  • Public Services/Government

    • Critics Say White House’s Open Source Software Policy Doesn’t Go Far Enough

      Members of 18F, the General Services Administration’s digital consultancy that shares all its code on public repository Github, argue that a more comprehensive, “open source by default” policy would allow agencies to reuse code instead of constantly re-developing it. Coding in the open would also let developers gather input from the public about potential glitches.

      Open source development “helps to encourage good documentation and coding practices,” an 18F statement posted on GitHub said. “Everyone is aware and following processes for open information from day one. There is no just-before-launch, last minute review of everything.”

    • France unveils source code of income tax application

      France has officially opened the source code of the fiscal calculator used by the French fiscal administration to calculate the income taxes of individuals in France. Taxes for businesses are not included in the code.

    • Election Tech: How big data pioneers use open source technology to win elections

      National Field’s PHP application, MySQL backend, Node.js technology was used during the Obama reelection campaign in 2012, and acquired by and integrated with NGP VAN in 2013. Today, the product is used up-ticket and down by every major Democratic candidate, and their technologies have been embraced by the GOP and several non-partisan data brokers as well.

    • MIT Media Lab Goes Open Source, And Doesn’t Forget To FLOSS

      The MIT Media Lab, a tech innovation center that has has a hand in numerous tech related products over the years, including Guitar Hero has revealed that going forward, the way it deals with its approach to software releases is to fundamentally change.

  • Licensing/Legal

    • Fair Source licensing is the worst thing to happen to open source-definitely maybe

      Fair Source attempts to bastardize open source to ensure companies get paid.

      [...]

      This seems true, but is actually false. Fair Source really offers none of the benefits of open source precisely because of that “ability to charge for the software.” While free software licensing (e.g., GNU General Public License) attempts to force freedom on downstream developers, true open source basically says, “Take this software, use it and improve it (or not), and license the resulting product as you wish.”

  • Programming/Development

    • Contribution graph can be harmful to contributors

      A common well-being issue in open-source communities is the tendency of people to over-commit. Many contributors care deeply, at the risk of saying yes too often harming their well-being. Open-source communities are especially at risk, because many contributors work next to a full-time job.

      The contribution graph and the statistics on it, prominent on everyone’s profile, basically rewards people for doing work on as many different days as possible, generally making more contributions, and making contributions on multiple days in a row without a break.

Leftovers

  • Kyiv Smart City: how Kiev wants to become one of the smartest cities in Europe

    This project is part of a more global project, called Kyiv Smart City, the goal of which is to transform the Ukrainian capital into a smart city, comparable with the top five smart cities in Europe: Paris, London, Barcelona, Copenhagen and Vienna, as mentioned in the description of the project.

  • How People Lost Their Jobs Due To Google’s April Fool’s Day Prank

    Google has killed one of its April Fool’s Day pranks as it caused outrage among Gmail users. According to various complaints and online posts, people lost their jobs and harmed professional relationships.

  • Health/Nutrition

    • Will Osborne’s Manchester ‘devolution’ fall flat on its face?

      Today, Manchester becomes the first English region to “take control of its health spending”, supposedly. But what do patients, NHS campaigners and junior doctors think?

    • Government ‘Ignored’ Environmental Threats When Approving GE Salmon, Lawsuit Claims

      Risk of escape is high on the list of worries for the environmental groups that filed the lawsuit. The fish are raised in land-based pens now, but if the industry takes off, there could be many more GE salmon being raised around the world, in different kinds of environments. The groups are concerned about “the risk that GE salmon will escape from the facilities where they are manufactured or grown and interbreed with wild endangered salmon, compete with them for food and space, or pass on infectious diseases; the interrelated impacts to salmon fisheries and the social and economic well-being of those who depend on them; and the risks to ecosystems from the introduction of an invasive species.”

    • Not an April Fool joke: UK pharma giant won’t patent its drugs in poorer countries

      The UK pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced that it will not be routinely patenting its drugs around the world. Instead of applying for patents on its medicines in all regions, it will now take into account the economic development of the country before deciding whether to seek monopoly protection there. As a result, a poorer country can encourage local manufacturers to create cheaper generic versions of GSK’s products, and thus provide them to a greater number of its population, potentially saving many lives.

      Specifically, GSK says: “For Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Low Income Countries (LICs), GSK will not file patents for its medicines, so as to give clarity and confidence to generic companies seeking to manufacture and supply generic versions of GSK medicines in those countries.”

      For slightly wealthier countries, “GSK will file for patents but will seek to offer and agree licences to allow supplies of generic versions of its medicines for 10 years. GSK intends to seek a small royalty on sales in those countries. This offer will apply even for those countries that move out of [Lower Middle Income Country] status due to increased economic growth during this period.” This should allow generic versions to be produced for a decade even in nations whose economies become more developed.

  • Security

  • Defence/Aggression

    • Reports: State Troopers, Civilians Shot At Virginia Bus Station
    • At Least 14 Dead In Overpass Collapse In India
    • How US-Backed War on Syria Helped ISIS

      By funneling TOW missiles and other weapons to Syrian jihadists for their “regime change” war, President Obama facilitated the rise of the Islamic State with the terrorist blowback now hitting Europe, says Daniel Lazare.

    • Americans Have Been Accidentally Shooting Themselves for Three Centuries

      Bad luck? Sure, in part. But this is really about stupidity on the part of adults. Today, thousands of Americans are shot accidentally each year, and that doesn’t even count the collateral damage—stray bullets that take out a toddler or some other innocent, resulting in an assault or homicide charge—nor does it factor in our 20,000-plus annual gun suicides. All of these unhappy accidents, as it turns out, are very, very costly.

    • The Ultimate Trial of Israeli Society

      Last Thursday, March 24th, an Israel defense force (IDF) soldier was filmed executing a wounded Palestinian man alleged to have carried out a stabbing attack against IDF soldiers in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron. The videographer responsible for the filming is Imad Abu Shamsiya, a Palestinian shoemaker who has since received death threats and intimidation from extreme right-wing Israeli settlers with the prospect of a potential lawsuit. Though the incident is part of a wave of extrajudicial killings of Palestinians carried out by Israeli soldiers, this particular case is different. Here, the film unambiguously shows that the wounded Palestinian man did not present a danger to his surrounding. Quite shockingly, not only does the film implicate the executioner; it also shows his IDF comrades as completely unfazed by the incident, including medical personnel. What’s more, the soldier has received a wave of public support that politicians from the right-wing have seized as an opportunity to further erode the moral fabric of Israeli society in a bid to serve their political and ideological interests.

    • U.S. Troops on Russia’s Borders

      Official Washington’s hype about “Russian aggression” has cloaked a U.S. military buildup on Russia’s borders, possibly increasing risks of escalation and even world war, explains ex-CIA analyst Paul R. Pillar.

    • Caveat Emptor, Canada: What the Acquisition of Lethal Drones Will Bring

      Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been shopping around for lethal drones for the Royal Canadian Air Force. The prospective acquisition is being downplayed as intended primarily for surveillance purposes. Of course, that’s how it always begins. The first step toward joining the bloody ranks of the avid drone killers – the United States, Israel and, increasingly, Britain – is obtaining the means to conduct surveillance. But these sophisticated machines were developed for use by the military, which is why they have the modular capacity to be armed. As their names have always implied, Predator and Reaper drones can be used not only for surveillance but also to kill by remote control. Snap on a couple of Hellfire missiles, and you’re good to go.

    • The Facade of Israel is Cracking

      For many more years than any intelligent person would want to count, Israel was the sacred cow of the United States. From its violent, bloody, genocidal inception that involved the ethnic cleansing of at least 750,000 Palestinians, and the murder of another 10,000, right through to the illegal, immoral occupation of the West Bank and blockade (aka occupation) of the Gaza Strip, Israel, in the view of U.S. governance and politics, could do no wrong. Anyone who dared to criticize Israel’s many crimes was accused of anti-Semitism; as Dr. Norman Finkelstein said, “whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle, its apologists sound the alarm that a ‘new anti-Semitism’ is upon us”. In the past, if a Jew, such as Dr. Finkelstein, was critical of Israel, Zionists raised the cry that he was ‘a self-hating Jew’, and U.S. politicians bought that ridiculous line. As a result, Israel became the beneficiary of the bulk of U.S. foreign aid, and has relied on the U.S. for years for protection from international accountability for its crimes, with the U.S always happy to veto any United Nations resolution condemning Israeli violations of human rights and international law.

    • Derailing Peace Deal in Colombia

      A resurgence of drug-connected right-wing terrorism in Colombia has undercut a historic peace deal between the government and the main leftist rebel group, writes Jonathan Marshall.

    • Obama in Arabia

      Like his predecessors, President Obama is putting cozy ties with the Saudi royals ahead of telling the truth to the American people about the Saudi role in 9/11, writes 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser.

      Why does President Obama think it’s okay for 15 Arabs (and four of their friends) to come into our country, hijack our planes, crash them into our buildings, and brutally kill 3,000 innocent people? Because those 15 Arabs were Saudis, that’s why. And, Saudis are special. Saudis are apparently allowed to get away with murder — or at least the financing of it.

      I am a 9/11 widow. My husband Ron was killed while he was working at his desk for Fiduciary Trust Company on the 94th floor of Tower 2. Ron was 39 years old, I was 30, and our daughter was two. I watched the horror unfold on live worldwide television as I stood in my kitchen speaking to Ron. Moments later, I watched Flight 175 slice into his building, exactly where he stood on the other end of the line talking to me.

      [...]

      There are 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry of Congress (an investigation into the U.S. government intelligence failures prior to 9/11) that have remained classified and hidden away from the American public by both the Bush and Obama Administrations. These 28 pages allegedly prove that the Saudis had a controlling hand in funding the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 innocent people.

    • What Do Terrorists Want?

      It’s not hard to fathom why officials and pundits do not acknowledge the full story of terrorism: it would draw attention to what the U.S. government and allied states have long been doing to people in the Muslim world. Nearly all Americans seem to think it’s a sheer coincidence that terrorism is most likely to be committed by people who profess some form of Islam and that the U.S. military has for decades been bombing, droning, occupying, torturing, etc. in multiple Islamic countries. Or perhaps they think U.S.-inflicted violence is just a defensive response to earlier terrorism. (I might be giving people too much credit by assuming they even know the U.S. government is doing any of this.)

  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting

    • Who’s the April Fool: Trying Out the Hillary Defenses

      “So, you know why I pulled you over, ma’am, right?”

      “Oh, I have no idea at all officer,” Hillary said.

      “You were speeding. Clocked you right here.”

      “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Hillary said.

      “Well, you did. You broke the law, you did something unsafe, you endangered others, you set a poor example for your whole organization, you compromised security.”

      “Well, everybody does it,” Hillary said.

      “No, they don’t. Most people drive safely.”

    • IMF Internal Meeting Predicts Greek ‘Disaster’, Threatens to Leave Troika

      Today, 2nd April 2016, WikiLeaks publishes the records of a 19 March 2016 teleconference between the top two IMF officials in charge of managing the Greek debt crisis – Poul Thomsen, the head of the IMF’s European Department, and Delia Velkouleskou, the IMF Mission Chief for Greece. The IMF anticipates a possible Greek default co-inciding with the United Kingdom’s referendum on whether it should leave the European Union (‘Brexit’).

  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature

    • Indonesian government threatens to deport Leonardo DiCaprio for palm oil criticism

      The Indonesian government has threatened to deport Leonardo DiCaprio after the Oscar-winning actor and film-maker made critical statements about the country’s palm oil industry during a visit.

      DiCaprio, an environmental campaigner, landed in Indonesia on 26 March from Japan. On Tuesday he posted a photograph to his Instagram highlighting the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s plans with local partners to establish a “mega-fauna sanctuary” in the Leuser rainforest ecosystem, a lowland Sumatran national park where palm oil plantations, mining, logging and other developments are endangering local populations of Sumatran elephants, orangutans, rhinos and tigers.

    • British Columbia’s Carbon Tax Has Been So Successful That Businesses Want To Increase It

      A carbon tax may be a controversial topic in the United States, but in one Canadian province, this eight-year-old policy has been such a success that on Wednesday more than 100 businesses said they support a tax increase.

      In a letter addressed to Premier Christy Clark, who governs the province of British Columbia, more than 150 companies said they back a plan to increase the carbon tax by $10 — about $7.70 U.S. — per metric ton a year starting in July 2018, an idea the government-sponsored Climate Leadership Team unveiled earlier this year.

    • Cantarow and Levy, Could Nuclear Disaster Come to America?

      Since the United States used nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, nuclear power has always had a fearsome aspect. In the 1950s, the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower began promoting “the peaceful atom” in an attempt to take some of the sting out of atomic power’s bad rep. (As part of that project, Eisenhower helped then-ally the Shah of Iran set up a “peaceful” nuclear program, the starting point for Washington’s more modern nuclear conflicts with that country.) Unfortunately, as we’ve been reminded, from Three Mile Island to Chernobyl to Fukushima, there is ultimately a side to nuclear power that couldn’t be less “peaceful,” even in a peacetime setting. As you think about the Indian Point nuclear power plant, the subject of today’s post, and its long history of problems and crises that only seem to be compounding, keep in mind how close Tokyo came to utter catastrophe and then think about the vast New York metropolitan area and what any of us would be able to do other than shelter in place if disaster were someday to strike up the Hudson River.

    • Environmentalists Call For No New Offshore Drilling, Period

      When the Obama administration scrapped leasing plans for drilling off the southeast Atlantic coast earlier this month, environmentalists praised the move, saying it was a win for the environment and the fight against climate change. But now some environmentalists and indigenous organizations from coastal regions say that’s not enough, and they’re calling on President Obama to use his executive power to end all new fossil fuel extraction in federal waters.

      In a petition filed Tuesday, more than 45 groups led by the Center for Biological Diversity say that ending offshore drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf is an important step to limit global warming, as agreed to by countries in Paris last year.

      “We saw the president react to the opposition to offshore drilling in the Atlantic and think that our public policy should be set forth by … the public demanding further action to address climate change,” Miyoko Sakashita, oceans director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told ThinkProgress.

  • Finance

    • Unaoil: THE COMPANY THAT BRIBED THE WORLD

      In the list of the world’s great companies, Unaoil is nowhere to be seen. But for the best part of the past two decades, the family business from Monaco has systematically corrupted the global oil industry, distributing many millions of dollars worth of bribes on behalf of corporate behemoths including Samsung, Rolls-Royce, Halliburton and Australia’s own Leighton Holdings.

    • China Hits Steel Made In UK With 46% Levy

      Beijing’s decision to clamp down on foreign imports while dumping cheap steel in the EU comes at a bad time for the UK Government.

    • Sen. Elizabeth Warren Calls for Total Overhaul of Student Loan System

      ‘Five simple principles. Everyone in government who is serious about standing up for the tens of millions of student loan borrowers in this country should embrace them.’

    • New York Reaches Deal to Raise Minimum Wage to $15

      Not to be outdone by its perennial rival on the west, New York announced on Thursday it had reached a deal to raise the minimum wage in New York City to $15 by 2018. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo hailed the agreement as the “best plan the state has produced in decades.”

      “We’re leaders in economic justice,” he said in an announcement outlining the state’s budget.

      But unlike California, where lawmakers approved a measure to hike its statewide minimum to $15, the Empire State failed to reach an agreement on a statewide minimum. Instead a hike will go into effect regionally: Areas outside of New York City, including New York’s wealthier suburbs in Westchester and Long Island, will have six years to implement the wage boost. The minimum wage in northern regions that are generally less affluent will only go up to $12.50 by 2021.

    • Most Americans Won’t Make $15 an Hour for Five Years—but Why Not Now, Like in This City?

      Newly adopted $15 minimum wage laws have been unveiled with great fanfare and media coverage. But lost in the headlines is the reality that because of phase-in schedules, workers won’t actually see $15/hour in their pay for three, five or even seven years—at which point the buying power will have been eroded by rent hikes and the rising cost of living.

    • The Clinton Myth and the Strange Case of Donald Trump

      The transition from Condoleezza Rice to Hillary was, all things considered, a step down. American foreign policy remained about the same, but at least Rice had no time for “humanitarian interveners” of the Samantha Power type.

    • The real poison pill in the TPP

      Canadians have many reasons to be concerned about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a massive international trade agreement that, if ratified, will result in restrictive new rules governing our daily lives, from how we use the Internet, to how much we pay for medicine.

      We already know the TPP will extend copyright terms for decades, keeping valuable cultural content out of the hands of new artists and the public. We know it will hamstring Canadian innovation, with top Canadian tech entrepreneurs telling us how it locks in the economic advantage U.S. firms already enjoy in the intellectual property sector.

      But the real poison pill in the TPP lies in its “investor-state dispute settlement” mechanism, or ISDS. Economists from all sides of the political spectrum have warned about how the TPP’s ISDS rules would allow foreign conglomerates to challenge our domestic laws and subject Canada to multi-million-dollar lawsuits.

    • Rio de Janeiro’s public health system on verge of collapse

      None of Brazil’s 27 states have found themselves in such a dire financial situation in the country’s recent history – even if the public health sector has been facing multiple chronic difficulties throughout the country.

      Two health systems co-exist: the free and universal public sector system called the SUS (Sistema unico de saúde, designed along the lines of the French social security system) and the private sector financed by expensive health insurance schemes that 20 per cent of the population pay into to make sure they are taken care of more quickly.

      In Brazil public health funding remains relatively low: only 4 per cent of GDP as compared to 11 per cent in France. Government at all levels (the Federal State, the federalised states, districts and municipalities) contribute to the health budget.

    • Underpaid in the UK? The state probably isn’t going to help you

      The new £7.20 rate is still well below the real living wage — based on the cost of living — of £8.25 an hour. It’s only for over-25s, with younger people stuck on the old rate. Shareholders, CEOs and senior management of the corporations that dominate the economy will continue to accrue bumper payouts. Companies including Tesco, Wilko and B+Q have already cut other benefits to mitigate the impact of the new rate, while others are planning lay-offs.

      For the hundreds of thousands of workers currently paid below the minimum wage, its increase will mean little. Recent governments have shown little inclination to crack down on employers who are illegally underpaying their staff. The present one, for all its rhetoric, doesn’t seem set to change.

    • Chase Freezes Guy’s Bank Account For Paying His Dogwalker For Walking Dash The Dog

      It wasn’t so long ago that we were discussing the problems with the United States Treasury Department’s list of scary names and how it was being used to prevent completely innocent folks from using online services. The ultimate point of that post was that casting broad nets in which to turn suspicious eyes without applying any kind of checks or common sense was a recipe for calling a whole lot of people terrorists that aren’t actually terrorists.

    • Chase freezes man’s bank account because his dog’s name, ‘Dash,’ looked like ‘Daesh’

      The processors at Chase Bank thought that Dash might be a sneaky way of spelling Daesh (which is the mocking, insulting nickname used by critics to refer to “ISIS”), decided that this was possible terrorist money-laundering, and stopped the payment, froze his account, and notified the Treasury Department that he was a suspected terrorist.

      It’s hard to know what’s stupidest about this: that the bank thought that Daesh was the kind of thing that a terrorist sympathizer would use to help mark out laundered payments, that the bank subsequently insisted that “this is an important part of ensuring that crime does not filter through the US banking system,” or that Francis himself thinks that being put out and branded as a terrorist somehow made him safer.

    • Bank freezes online payment over dog’s ‘terrorist-sounding’ name

      Bruce Francis, who has multiple sclerosis, was transferring money from his Chase Bank account to his dogwalker and he put the 9-year-old pitbull’s moniker “Dash” in the memo line.

      Bank officials thought Dash sounded a little bit too much like Daesh, the Arabic term for the self-described Islamic State, and canceled the payment.

    • Elizabeth Warren Warns Banks Are Lying About Upcoming Rule Change, Potentially Breaking The Law

      On Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) sent a letter to the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accusing banks of lying about the pending rule requiring financial advisers to put clients’ interests ahead of their own, thus potentially violating securities laws.

    • Elizabeth Warren Slams Donald Trump’s Lies About Being a Business Success

      Fresh off of her delightful Twitter takedown listing all the ways she believes Donald Trump is a “loser,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared on the Late Show on Wednesday to shred the Republican frontrunner’s self-touted reputation as a successful businessman.

      “The truth is that he inherited a fortune from his father, he kept it going by cheating and defrauding people, and then he takes his creditors through Chapter 11,” Warren told host Stephen Colbert.

      “We have an economy that is in real trouble,” she added. “But when the economy is in this kind of trouble, calling on Donald Trump for help is like if your house is on fire, calling an arsonist to come help out.”

    • The Lies of Neoliberal Economics (or How America Became a Nation of Sharecroppers)

      Mortgages, with many houses now underwater because of 2008. I want to look first at the self-identified liberal class within the Democratic Party, including Barack Obama. It often uses the language of economic justice, and will even chastise Wall Street rhetorically, but has been as committed to this neoliberal project as the Republicans.

    • A Chicago Teacher Explains Why She’s Willing to Risk Arrest in Order to Strike Against the Destruction of Public Schools

      We got to this point because CPS has been starving our schools for years. It has been death by a thousand cuts. But recently it’s felt more like, I don’t know, chopping off our arms. We’ve seen over the years more layoffs, class sizes increasing, cuts to counsellors and clinicians, our schools being closed, private schools and charters opening up. It’s making the learning and working conditions very difficult in the schools.

      Just this school year, there’s been so many cuts to our schools that it’s hard to keep track of them. At the beginning of the year, there were millions of dollars in cuts to special ed. Our students with disabilities weren’t getting their services that were required by law; parents and teachers and community groups had to go fight the Board of Ed with lawyers to get services back.

      Then there were more special ed cuts in the middle of the year, then more general layoffs. A month or two ago, there were even more cuts. My school lost $100,000. Our budgets were already bare bones, and the principals had to cut even more.

      And then just two weeks ago, we had another round of cuts. They froze all the funds; my school lost another $80,000. For my school, they’ve cut almost all the before- and after-school programs—intervention programs for kids who were struggling, all types of clubs—plus most of our substitutes.

    • Why The Major Media Marginalize Bernie

      “Bernie did well last weekend but he can’t possibly win the nomination,” a friend told me for what seemed like the thousandth time, attaching an article from the Washington Post that shows how far behind Bernie remains in delegates.

      Wait a minute. Last Tuesday, Sanders won 78 percent of the vote in Idaho and 79 percent in Utah. This past Saturday, he took 82 percent of the vote in Alaska, 73 percent in Washington, and 70 percent in Hawaii.

      In fact, since mid-March, Bernie has won six out of the seven Democratic primary contests with an average margin of victory of 40 points. Those victories have given him roughly a one hundred additional pledged delegates.

      As of now, Hillary Clinton has 54.9 percent of the pledged delegates to Bernie Sanders’s 45.1 percent.That’s still a sizable gap – but it doesn’t make Bernie Sanders’s candidacy an impossibility.

      Moreover, there are 22 states to go with nearly 45 percent of pledged delegates still up for grabs – and Sanders has positive momentum in almost all of them.

      Hillary Clinton’s lead in superdelegates may vanish if Bernie gains a majority of pledged delegates.

      Bernie is outpacing Hillary Clinton in fundraising. In March, he raised $39 million. In February, he raised $42 million (from 1.4 million contributions, averaging $30 each), compared to Hillary Clinton’s $30 million. In January he raised $20 million to her $15 million.

    • Bernie’s Right. Wall Street’s Business Model Really Is Fraud.

      Fraud is an essential part of Wall Street’s DNA. A 2015 survey, commissioned by law firm Labaton Sucharow, found that a deeply immoral culture had taken root among British and American bankers.

  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

    • Bernie Sanders Flipping Presidential Script, Turning Democratic Race Into Epic Contest

      If not for a certain Manhattan billionaire, Bernie Sanders’ surprising strength and Hillary Clinton’s relative weakness would be the big political story of the year.

      Democrats are fortunate that bloody insurrection is roiling the Republican Party. Clinton—the likely Democratic nominee—will almost surely face either Donald Trump, who is toxic to most of the electorate, or an alternative chosen at the GOP convention and seen by Trumpistas as a usurper.

    • Elizabeth Warren: Electing Donald Trump President Is Like Calling an Arsonist to Put Out a Fire

      Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., told Stephen Colbert on Wednesday that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump got where he is by “cheating and defrauding people.”

      “He is not a business success,” she said on Colbert’s “The Late Show,” citing disasters that punctuate Trump’s professional life and the wealth he inherited from his father. “He is a business loser.”

    • Hillary Clinton’s Support Among Nonwhite Voters Has Collapsed

      On February 27th, Hillary Clinton led Bernie Sanders among African-American voters by 52 points.

      By March 26th, she led Sanders among African-Americans by just nine points.

      And on Thursday, Public Policy Polling, a widely respected polling organization, released a poll showing that Sanders leads Clinton among African-American voters in Wisconsin by 11 points.

    • Bernie Leads Hillary in Wisconsin, Slams Wall Street and NAFTA

      Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders currently has a 4-point lead over Hillary Clinton among Wisconsin voters. Of likely Wisconsin Democratic primary voters, 49.2 percent chose Sanders, while 44.9 percent went with Clinton. Five and a half percent are still undecided.

    • ‘The power to create a new world is… in our hands’

      DR JILL STEIN IS RUNNING FOR THE UNITED States presidency on the Green Party ticket. This will not be her first attempt. In 2012, Jill Stein’s Green Party ticket—with Cheri Honkala, the advocate for the homeless—won half a million votes. But running on a “third party” ticket in the U.S. is not easy. The two major parties, Democratic and Republican, keep a firm hold on the political process. It is hard to get on the ballot in all 50 States of the U.S., and it is impossible to join the candidates of the two major parties at their presidential debates. In fact, when Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala tried to enter the debate venue in New York during the 2012 election, they were both arrested. But arrests are not unusual for Jill Stein. During the 2012 election, she was arrested at a Philadelphia sit-in against home foreclosures and she was arrested while offering support to environmental activists in Texas who had camped out against the Keystone XL pipeline. Activism is the measure of Jill Stein’s politics.

    • Foreign Money Is Flowing Into U.S. Elections, Alito’s Lying Lips Notwithstanding

      IN HIS 2010 State of the Union address, Barack Obama attacked the then-new Citizens United Supreme Court decision for making it possible for U.S. elections to be bankrolled by “foreign entities.”

    • Is Hillary Clinton Running Away From Political Reality?

      As this new Wisconsin poll shows: Sanders leads Clinton 49% to 43%. Sanders leads among all African-Americans 51% to 40%. Sanders leads among 18 to 45 year olds 65% to 28%.]

    • “I’m Sick of It”: Climate Activist Touches Nerve, Clinton Responds with Finger

      ‘Clinton needs to listen to the people, not fossil fuel interests,’ says Greenpeace campaigner.

    • Hmm, That’s Strange… Why Would Clinton Use Trump Abortion Remarks to Attack Sanders?

      Even though Bernie Sanders immediately took to Twitter and called Donald Trump “shameful” for his comments on Wednesday regarding “punishment” for women who would have abortions, Hillary Clinton is now using the incident as an opportunity to attack her Democratic rival by suggesting to voters that Sanders does not take the issue of women’s choice seriously enough.

      “Last night, Sen. Sanders agreed Donald Trump’s comments were shameful,” Clinton said during a campaign rally in Purchase, New York on Thursday. “Then he said they were a distraction from the, and I quote, ‘serious discussion about serious issues facing America.’”

    • The Clash of Trump, Bernie and Hillary Is About to Create a Huge Political Circus in New York

  • Censorship/Free Speech

    • Turkish President Comes To The US, Pretends That It Can Silence And Attack The Press Like It Does At Home

      We’ve written a whole bunch about the incredibly thin-skinned and litigious President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Erdogan took his show on the road to the US this week, and apparently that included pretending that he can treat press in the US as bad as he does at home. Erdogan spoke at the Brookings Institution yesterday, and there were protestors outside. That’s not that surprising, but rather than doing what basically anyone else does in that situation and ignore the protestors,

    • Removing ‘Vaxxed’ From Tribeca Festival Is Common Sense, Not Censorship

      On March 21, the Tribeca Film Festival announced its 2016 lineup. The festival, which runs from April 13 – 24, was started in 2001 as a way to revitalize lower Manhattan after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Now in its fifteenth year, TFF has garnered a reputation of celebrating independent filmmaking and storytelling through diverse and emerging voices.

      This year’s lineup, however, found the festival and one of its co-founders, Robert De Niro, caught in a firestorm of accusations of promoting lies and censorship.

      Scheduled to be screened on the last day of the festival was the documentary film “Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Controversy” by disgraced anti-vaccination zealot Andrew Wakefield. The film parrots the long disproven myth that vaccinations, particularly the MMR vaccine, causes autism. The theory was created by Wakefield who in 1998, then a gastroenterologist, published a fraudulent study suggesting the link.

    • MPAA Actually Steps Up To Defend Free Speech (Really!); Gets Attacked For It

      And “conduct, not merely speech” is the crux of the MPAA’s opposition to the bill. The MPAA doesn’t want revenge porn to go unpunished, but it only wants actual revenge porn punished — not everything else that might get pulled in by the broad wording and lack of a malicious intent requirement. Franks decision to excise the very element the MPAA was concerned about is completely disingenuous, as it places her on the side of the Supreme Court, even when the Supreme Court doesn’t agree with her assertions.

    • Today is your last day to comment on the Internet censorship through copyright abuse!

      Evan from Fight for the Future writes, “Hey Internet! Ever since SOPA we’ve all known that copyright laws have a huge impact on the Internet, free speech, innovation, creativity.”

    • How an underground hip hop artist and his book club threaten Angola’s regime

      This week 17 Angolan activists received jail sentences for participating in a book club. Here’s why.

    • Our Comment On DMCA Takedowns: Let’s Return To First Principles (And The First Amendment)

      As mentioned earlier, today’s the day to file comments with the Copyright Office over the DMCA’s notice and takedown provisions. We’ve already discussed the recent set of studies showing that there are way too many bogus takedown notices that are clogging the system, creating real problems for small service providers and censoring free speech. We also wrote about the patently ridiculous filing by the legacy players in the music industry, who whined about how the public is enjoying more content than ever before (which, you know, is the stated purpose of copyright law), but they’re upset that their business models are now obsolete. Finally, we wrote about the fantastic filing from Automattic, which gives many more real world examples of how the takedown process is abused (which the legacy industry pretends isn’t true, because people don’t file counternotices).

    • More Evidence That Tons Of DMCA Takedowns Are Bad News… And That People Are Afraid To Counternotice

      Earlier this week, we wrote about a major new study that revealed that a ton of DMCA takedown notices are clearly faulty, and how that shows just how messed up the DMCA’s notice-and-takedown provisions are in giving tremendous incentives to send notices with absolutely no punishment for filing bogus takedowns. The legacy music industry and its supporters keep claiming that the fact that there are so few counternotices is evidence that there’s almost no abuse. In fact, in the legacy music industry filing we wrote about earlier today, they even had the gall to claim that the real abuse is in the counternotices themselves.

    • Want To Tell The Copyright Office To Stop Abusive DMCA Takedowns? Here’s How

      So, today’s been DMCA 512 takedown day here at Techdirt. Today’s the day that comments are due at the Copyright Office concerning the effectiveness (or not) of the DMCA’s notice and takedown provisions. And, of course, no one’s entirely happy with the DMCA, but they’re unhappy in very different ways. We wrote about the legacy music industry whining that Google has built a successful service while they failed to adapt themselves. We wrote about Automattic reinforcing how DMCA takedowns are regularly abused to try to censor content (and how people are afraid to counternotice), and we wrote about our own filing, highlighting how the abuse of the DMCA process raises questions about how the current setup is Constitutional.

    • Slutface change name to SLØTFACE, share new single
    • Social media censorship forces Slutface to change name
    • Norwegian Band Slutface Changes Name Due to ‘Social Media Censorship’
    • China’s latest move to strengthen its grip on the Internet
    • China Domain Proposals Prompt Web Crackdown Fears

  • Privacy/Surveillance

  • Civil Rights/Policing

  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

    • Save The Internet: Final Consultation for the sake of Net Neutrality in Europe

      The BEREC is set to complete its guidelines on August 30, 2016, hereby settling the fate of an open and competitive Internet in Europe (the “Net neutrality”). It is therefore necessary that the principles laid down in EU legislation or in the “Open Internet Order” in the United States do not stay just wishful thinking: A failure of Net Neutrality in Europe would have dramatic consequences for citizens and European companies.

  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Copyrights

      • 50,000 People Protest DMCA Abuse, “Crash” Government Server

        A campaign launched by Fight for the Future and popular YouTube channel ChannelAwesome to protest DMCA abuse has generated 50,000 responses to the U.S. Copyright Office in less than 24 hours. The public interest is so overwhelming that the Government’s servers “crashed” under the heavy load.

      • Artists, Music Industry Urge Reform Of “Broken” DMCA

        Arguing that the copyright law in the United States intended to protect creative works while allowing access by the next creators is “broken”, hundreds of top artists, songwriters, managers and music associations are urging reforms to the law. Top performers like Katy Perry and Christina Aguilera joined the call.

      • RIAA: How Dare The Internet Use The DMCA That We Wrote To Build Useful Services!

        As we’ve mentioned, today is the day that comments are due to the Copyright Office on the effectiveness (or not) of Section 512 of the DMCA, better known as the “notice and takedown” safe harbor provisions. We’ll be posting the details of our own filing at some point (possibly not until Monday as we’re still finalizing a few things), but some of the other filings are starting to filter out, including a fairly astounding 97-page document from a bunch of legacy music industry organizations (about half of which is the actual filing, with the rest being appendices), including the RIAA, ASCAP, AFM, NMPA, SoundExchange and more. It’s basically every organization that represents the way the industry used to work — and the document reads like an angry polemic against the internet. It would have been much shorter, if they just wrote “our business used to be much better when we had more control and less competition — and we never bothered to adapt, so fuck Google and all those internet companies — and let’s change the DMCA to punish them and magically bring back the good old days.”

David Kappos Whines About the Supreme Court Shutting the Door on Many Software Patents

Posted in America, Europe, IBM, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 4:10 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

From USPTO Director to Lobbyist for Patent Maximalism and Software Patents?

Fordham IP Conference
No comment necessary

Summary: Reports from the Fordham IP Conference serve to show nefarious bias which serves not only patent lawyers and their large clients (like Microsoft or IBM) but also software patents (which Microsoft and IBM have turned into their business model as sales continue to nosedive)

THE Fordham IP Conference (i.e. stuffed and/or staffed with lawyers, no public interest representatives) has just ended and there was material in it which related to the EPO, the UPC, and software patents in Europe (to be covered separately). Unless you are very wealthy, you’re unlikely to have been able to attend and unless you are a patent maximalist, you wouldn’t have had a chance to speak there (just listen). It’s an echo chamber, a meeting behind closed doors (almost), a conspiracy or a think tank (to put it politely). It’s one of several such events (in big and overpriced cities) which are efforts to collectively shape the law and influence policy. Output/reports are like a think tank’s bit of “research”. Dissenting voices are not allowed, let alone invited to offer input.

“It’s one of several such events (in big and overpriced cities) which are efforts to collectively shape the law and influence policy.”Right now software patents in Europe are a big deal because the US basically pushes back against such patents, much to the chagrin of patent lawyers who profited from them (usually at the expense of programmers like myself and millions of others).

David Kappos, formerly of USPTO and IBM (now increasingly notorious for aggression with software patents), is acting as though he’s above a Supreme ruling or as if SCOTUS is wrong (because of his own financial interests). One must recall what Kappos did after leaving the USPTO (now a patent profiteering person, who is still pushing for software patents).

“David Kappos – not a fan of the Supreme Court’s decisions on section 101,” says the caption below his face. We will cover the latest developments regarding section 101 some time in the weekend.

According to this outline of the event, composed by a proponent of software patents, Alice upsets Kappos:

In terms of Supreme Court decisions, especially the CLS v Alice Bank decision, David said that it is impossible to make sense of the Supreme Court jurisprudence on section 101. In trying to make sense of section 101, the PTO is trapped by a set of Supreme Court decisions which are incomprehensible. That is has been the architect of PTO’s real struggle to get to grips with patentable subject matter. Judge O’Malley agreed that it is difficult to understand what is and is not left in terms of patentable subject matter, but this challenge has led to many more creative arguments from lawyers who try to distinguish their inventions from the realm of a CLS v Alice Bank situation. Sir Robin chimed in stating that in the real world the patent office does issue bad patents – it is inevitable This is because its a one-sided examination process conducted by an examiner who may not have all of the prior art before him or her and who is generally under-resourced. You can see this in Europe where an opposition takes 10-15 years to decide whether a patent is valid. This is a broken system. The America Invents Act, to Sir Robin, looks great in comparison as it provides a quicker, more efficient regime to address validity. It also provides certainty, which is hugely important.

David agreed about the inevitably of some patents being wrongly granted. In particular, this is an issue when an examiner is being asked whether an invention is abstract – that very question is entirely subjective and, as Sir Robin noted, in such a situation of course wrongly granted patents will be inevitable.

Michael Loney, who went to New York to cover this event for MIP, wrote about the role/input of Kappos as follows:

David Kappos who, (as Hansen says) everyone knows, has 10 priorities for whoever is the next US president:

Innovation = action, progress, leadership
US must resume its role as world leader in innovation
Federal government will lead in championing and rewarding innovation
Government needs to recognise innovators need incentives
Patent system is our system for incentivising innovation – we need a strong patent system
Administration should not shy away from leadership in tuning patent system, from a position of strength
Curtail abuses, but with the view that the benefits of patents far outweigh occasional misuses
Patent system must take precedence in conflicts with other systems of law, especially antitrust law
We will favour creation of new technologies and dynamic competition not protecting status quo (as antitrust law does)
Patent system is enshrined in the constitution because innovation is about exalting what’s next not what’s now.

In the Q&A, he says he feels the current (Obama) administration, in its second term, has not been as supportive of patents as it was before or should be.

It would be a lot nicer if Kappos just stayed out of policy and didn’t contribute to the impression that patent lawyers and patent aggressors such as IBM steer policy in their favour, such that money (billions of dollars) is passed into their pockets without them lifting a finger. They self-discredit their firms and also discredit this system as a whole. It’s no better than what we find in ISDS (e.g. in TTIP/TPP) or ACTA, but there’s less public outrage because few members of the public ‘grok’ patent law. █

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