● 02.07.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

● Links 7/2/2022: OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 Released and Lots About Patents

Posted in News Roundup at 6:03 am by Dr. Roy SchestowitzContentsGNU/LinuxDistributionsDevices/EmbeddedFree Software/Open SourceLeftovers

GNU/Linux

=> ↺ 9to5Linux Weekly Roundup: February 6th, 2022

• This week has been generous in Linux week as we got lots of cool stuff, starting with the launch of the LibreOffice 7.3 office suite, the end of life of the Linux 4.4 LTS kernel series, Education editions of Zorin OS 16, 64-bit edition of the official Raspberry Pi OS, major Slackware and Peppermint OS releases, and a new Linux laptop from System76.

• We also got new releases of the Linux Lite, Trisquel GNU/Linux, and Escuelas Linux distributions, as well as new updates to the KDE Falkon, NVIDIA graphics driver, KDE Gear, Raspberry Pi Imager, Inkscape, and GStreamer software.

Audiocasts/Shows

=> ↺ Much Ado About Ubuntu | LINUX Unplugged 444

• There’s just something off about Ubuntu these days, this week we put it all together.

=> ↺ Josh Bressers: Episode 309 – The bright future of open source secuirty

• Josh and Kurt talk about NPM requiring 2FA for the top 100 packages. We discuss the new Alpha and Omega projects from the OpenSSF and what it could mean for the future of open source security. Then we end on a note about the new Samba critical vulnerability.

Kernel Space

=> ↺ Kernel prepatch 5.17-rc3

• The 5.17-rc3 kernel prepatch is out for testing. Linus says: “Things look fairly normal so far, with a pretty average number of commits for an rc3 release”.

Graphics Stack

=> ↺ NVIDIA Adds GeForce RTX 2050, MX570 & MX550 Laptop GPU Support To Linux Through Latest Drivers

• Last December, NVIDIA launched three new mobility GPUs, the RTX 2050, MX550, and MX570. While the MX550 is a Turing variant for NVIDIA, the RTX 2050 and MX570 utilize identical GA107 cores, similar to the RTX 3050. Laptop manufacturers will use these new chips in their notebooks during this first quarter of 2022.

• [...]

• A new Linux driver (470.103.01) for the RTX 2050, MX570, and MX550 is available, offering more compatibility and capability in the open-source operating system.

Instructionals/Technical

=> ↺ How To Install Gnome Tweak on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS – idroot

• In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Gnome Tweak on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. For those of you who didn’t know, The Gnome Tweak Tool is a utility used to customize the overall look and behavior of elements on the Gnome Desktop Environment. Some of the things you can do with GNOME Tweaks are edit font colors and scaling, disable animations for desktop speed improvement, change themes, manage GNOME extensions, bar changes, and much more.

• This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you through the step-by-step installation of the Gnome Tweak on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa). You can follow the same instructions for Ubuntu 18.04, 16.04, and any other Debian-based distribution like Linux Mint.

=> ↺ Centralized log management by installing rsyslog on Debian 11!

• Hello, friends. In this post, we will talk a little about rsyslog on Debian 11. Besides that, we will show you how to install it and set it up, so you can work from the clients. Let’s get started.

=> ↺ Introduction to Powerline the statusline plugin for VIM

• Vim is one of most used and famous text editors on Linux and other Unix-based operating systems. It is free and open source software, based on the original Vi editor (Vim stands for Vi IMproved) and mainly developed by Bram Moolenaar. The editor can be setup by editing the ~/.vimrc configuration file, and by using a vast range of plugins. In this article we see how to improve and customize the Vim status bar by installing Powerline, a nice plugin written in Python which can be also used to customize the Bash and Zsh shell prompts.

=> ↺ Ubuntu mirrors

• People all over the world use Ubuntu Linux. In order to accommodate users from different regions of the world that wish to install updates or new software from Ubuntu’s official repositories, Canonical has “mirrors” all over the world.

• For example, if all the software is hosted on servers in North America, that will provide a fast connection for some users, but users in Asia will have much higher latency to the servers and their downloads will take longer. Therefore it is necessary to have the content hosted on multiple servers in multiple regions.

• On your Ubuntu system, your Ubuntu mirror should be selected automatically, but it is possible to change it manually. This can be useful if you notice that your system is connecting to a location that is far away, or your downloads are taking a long time. Let’s dive into the tutorial and see how this is configured via command line and GUI.

=> ↺ How To Move and Rename Files in Linux

• Moving and renaming files in the Linux terminal is quick and painless, but first you need to understand how to do it. Whether you are sat at the machine, or remotely connected via SSH, these are the commands that will move files around your machine.

• In this how-to we’ll learn the basics of mv, an command that moves, and renames files. We will also learn a few advanced arguments for this command, arguments which will enhance its use and make our lives easier.

=> ↺ How To Create A Bash Script, With Example Code • Python Land Tutorial

• With bash scripts, you can run sequences of commands. They prevent you from repeating yourself and allow you to store long and tedious to type commands for later usage. In this article, you’ll learn how to create a Bash script. You’ll also learn how to read arguments, use variables, and create for-loops to repeat actions.

• Before you start creating scripts, make sure you are familiar with the basic Linux commands.

Desktop Environments/WMs

=> ↺ JWM documentation now builtin

• I have started work on a radical change to the desktop user interface. ROX-Filer is more than just a file manager, in Easy it is also used to manage the icons on the desktop and the wallpaper. I am interested in taking that responsibility away from ROX, and reduce it to just being a file manager.

• The experiment is that the desktop icons will now be in the JWM (Joe’s Window Manager) systray. Hopefully, without the systray becoming too crowded.

Distributions

Reviews

=> ↺ Review: PlagueOS R3 and Ultramarine Linux 35

• This week I decided to dive into the DistroWatch waiting list and try out two projects selected at random. The first project my mouse pointer jumped to was something called PlagueOS. According to the project’s website, PlagueOS “Is designed to run as a hypervisor and launch guest virtual machines (VMs). The OS is designed to be a minimal build and have a restricted userspace. The guests are launched from virt-manager.”

• The PlagueOS documentation lists a number of security features the project provides. These include kernel hardening, driver blacklisting, hiding process IDs, locking the root account, using doas in place of sudo, randomized MAC addresses, more restrictive file permissions, and encrypted DNS. While other open source projects may provide many of these security options, most do not enable them out of the box.

• The ISO download for PlagueOS R3 is 959MB. This download can be verified using both a SHA512 checksum and a signature. The steps for fetching the verification key and checking the ISO file are laid out in detail and it’s nice to see this attention paid to security.

• I tested PlagueOS in a VirtualBox instance and on my laptop. In Legacy BIOS mode the operating system failed to boot with an error which read: “Failed to load ldlinux.c32″. When trying to start in UEFI mode the system began by displaying a GRUB prompt and was unable to continue.

• It’s difficult to argue against the security of an operating system which fails to boot on my test systems. However, it’s also difficult to accomplish anything with it, so I moved on to another project.

PCLinuxOS/Mageia/Mandriva/OpenMandriva Family

=> ↺ OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 released – OpenMandriva

• OpenMandriva Lx is a unique and independent linux distribution, a direct descendant of Mandriva Linux and the first Linux distribution utilise the LLVM compiler. This release keeps using the entire LLVM toolchain which completes the work that began in 2015. We hope that you find that this link time optimised desktop and its supporting applications to be bright and responsive in use. You can find out more about link time optimisation here: https://llvm.org/docs/LinkTimeOptimization.html

• The OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 operating system distribution is FREE and provides the user with all the software funtionality that is available on a proprietary system and then some. All this is supported by the world class KDE Plasma Desktop, a desktop user interface that provides comprehensive access to all the installed software toools. The Plasma desktop offers advanced feature such as multiple task based desktops, and a collection of desktop widgets that support a wide range of information gathering and display.

• We provide an OpenMandriva utility Desktop Presets (om-feeling-like) which offers a quick way to customize the appearance of your OpenMandriva Plasma desktop to look and feel similar to other systems you may be used to. We hope that this will help those who are new to OpenMandriva to feel at home with our desktop.

• We also provide an improved ‘OM-Welcome’ utility which guides you through initial setup and suggests some useful additional applications that you may wish to install other than those distributed of the iso.

• A third utility Software Repository Selector (om-repo-picker), to enable additional repositories with thousands of additional Free Software packages, updated and greatly improved.

=> ↺ OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 Released with Linux Kernel 5.16, PipeWire by Default, and More

• Almost a year in the works, OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 is powered by a Clang-compiled Linux 5.16 kernel to provide users with top-notch hardware support, and ships with the PipeWire low-level multimedia framework as default sound server and a replacement for PulseAudio.

• OpenMandriva Lx 4.3 features the latest (at the moment of writing) KDE Plasma 5.23 desktop environment, namely Plasma 5.23.5, which is accompanied by the KDE Frameworks 5.90 and KDE Gear 21.12.2 software suites, all compiled against Qt 5.15.3 with all patches proposed by the KDE Project.

Leftovers

=> ↺ Making Something Gorgeous From Framing Lumber | Hackaday

• Here at Hackaday, we typically cover things that blink, bleep, and occasionally they might even bloop. However, the name of the site is Hackaday. We’re about being clever, reusing things in new ways, and most importantly celebrating interesting projects. While not a traditional project that would grace the front page, we would argue that this nightstand made from framing lumber clearly belongs.

Hardware

=> ↺ The next microchip crisis will be bigger

• What’s happening: Right now, no U.S. company can manufacture the most advanced leading edge chips used in smartphones, laptops, servers, supercomputers, gaming consoles and other products.

• Instead, most of the supply for those chips are made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), and is concentrated in Asian countries.

Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

=> ↺ U.S. considers lengthening gap between first 2 COVID shots to 8 weeks

=> ↺ European Commission calls for evidence on anti-counterfeit toolbox initiative

• In the 2020 Commission IP Action Plan, the European Commission (‘EC’) announced that it would establish an EU Toolbox against counterfeiting. The EU Toolbox is part of the EU Strategy to tackle Organised Crime 2021-2025. The EC reports that despite efforts to battle counterfeit goods, the market is still thriving, with an increase of detained articles at EU borders. In 2019, the imports of counterfeit goods equaled 5.8 % of total EU imports, with a value of EUR 119 billion. The EC furthermore notes a surge in counterfeit COVID-19 related goods such as face masks, protective equipment and even vaccines.

• [...]

• Furthermore, the EC hopes that the toolbox will stimulate the use of new technologies to battle counterfeiting, such as data mining, AI powered image recognition and blockchain based solutions.

=> ↺ [Older] US legislators call for screws to be tightened on pharma patent strategies

• New report issued by Democrats in the House of Representatives indicates a change of tack in approaching potential reforms may be on the cards

Integrity/Availability

Proprietary

=> ↺ [Crackers] hit Fortune 500 service provider, data of over 500k people leaked

• The incident began on August 1, 2021, when Morley’s data became unavailable.

• Michigan-based Morley thereafter began collecting contact information needed to provide notice to potentially affected 521,046 individuals, which was completed in early 2022, the company said last week.

=> ↺ European Oil And Port Facilities Suffer Cyberattacks

• Oiltanking GmbH and Mabanaft GmbH, an oil supplier, were impacted, both of whom are subsidiaries of the Marquard & Bahls group.

• Oiltanking GmbH supplies the 1,995 Shell gas stations in Germany, but local officials have stressed there are no fuel shortages.

=> ↺ Oil terminals disrupted after European ports hit by cyberattack Access to the comments

• Port facilities in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands have been targeted by a large-scale cyberattack, authorities say.

• Officials say the hack began several days ago and has primarily disrupted operations at oil terminals, preventing tankers from delivering energy supplies.

Security

=> ↺ More than 1,000 malware packages found in NPM repository

Privacy/Surveillance

=> ↺ ‘No ordinary IT department’ – spy agencies seek tech strategy chief

• The post as director of strategy, portfolio and partnerships sits within a shared IT organisation that was established within GCHQ in 2019 to serve not only the cyber and signals intelligence outfit, but also the UK’s two other intelligence and security agencies: MI5 and MI6. The tech unit also offers support to “many other government departments where there is a requirement for operating at Top Secret”.

=> ↺ Meta threatens to pull Facebook and Instagram from Europe if it can’t target ads

• Meta states in an SEC filing it is considering leaving Europe if it can no longer exchange data from European users with the United States, following the Schrems II decision.

=> ↺ Google is turning search history tracking on for all Google Workspace customers

=> ↺ Facebook stock plummets: What it means for antitrust

=> ↺ Microsoft Edge may be running on your Windows PCs, even if you don’t use the browser

=> ↺ NSO Group Reportedly Offered ‘Bags of Cash’ for Access to U.S. Networks

Defence/Aggression

=> ↺ Wisconsin Is Ground Zero for the MAGA Effort to Steal the Next Election

• Nowhere is this crusade to subvert the 2020 election result more on display than in Wisconsin. Even though Republicans there do not control all the levers of power — the governor, Tony Evers, is a Democrat — they have launched a multifront effort to cast doubt on the 2020 election, intimidate local officials, and, in Ramthun’s case, throw out the state’s presidential-election result.

• Lawyers aligned with the Republican Party have filed suit after suit seeking to roll back reforms that made it easier to vote in the pandemic. A secretive investigation run by a conservative former judge with a controversial past has issued dozens of expansive subpoenas, demanded closed-door testimony of mayors and clerks, and sought jail time for those who didn’t cooperate. GOP candidates and elected officials have gone so far as to demand the elimination of the state’s bipartisan election commission — a body that Republicans created seven years ago — and potentially give the GOP-led Legislature the power to control elections. “Wisconsin is the ground zero for the fights over elections right now,” says Paul Nolette, a political-science professor at Marquette University.

=> ↺ Man Who Attempted to Provide Material Support to ISIS Sentenced to 16 Years in Federal Prison

• In 2019, law enforcement officers learned that Guerra Blanco was following widely distributed instructions from ISIS directing adherents to — on their own — publish ISIS propaganda, fundraising requests, recruitment material, justification for attacks on the United States, and all manner of material helpful to ISIS. Guerra Blanco attempted to provide material support to ISIS by translating the group’s materials into Spanish for his target audience. In addition, Guerra Blanco produced videos that he intended to use to recruit Spanish speakers to ISIS’s cause, as well as to terrorize regular citizens of Spain. Many of the videos that Guerra Blanco produced and distributed from his two ISIS media networks glorified the terrorist group’s violence and called for attacks on Spanish authorities.

=> ↺ Christian apologist beaten unconscious in Kampala, Uganda

• A resident of a town east of Kampala undisclosed for security reasons, Kamya on January 24 had debated Muslims in Jinja after going to the mosque there to buy a Quran on January 21, accompanied by a Muslim convert to Christianity, he said. He used the Koran in the January 24 debate, he said.

=> ↺ Who Is the ISIS Leader Killed in the U.S. Raid? Here’s What to Know

• Al-Qurayshi’s death may disrupt the group’s momentum in the short term, but is unlikely to hurt its operations in the long term.

• “It’s an organization not focused on charismatic leadership, but ideas, which is why its leaders have been pretty low-profile,” Aaron Y. Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. “I think the IS machine will continue with whoever the new leader is.”

• Al-Qurayshi’s real name was Amir Mohammed Saeed Abdul-Rahman al-Mawla. He was an Iraqi in his mid-40s, born in 1976 and believed to be an ethnic Turkman from the northern Iraqi town of Tel Afar. He held a degree in Islamic law from the University of Mosul.

=> ↺ How US-born Allison Fluke-Ekren went from science teacher to ISIS radical

• As a high-ranking member of ISIS, who trained in Egypt, Libya and Iraq before heading to Syria in 2012, Allison Fluke-Ekren planned to detonate explosives at an unidentified US college campus and “fantasized” about bombing a shopping mall, according to court records.

=> ↺ The Washington Post’s Public Relations For CAIR

• The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which calls itself a “civil rights organization,” though it is much more, in a sinister vein, than that, has been the beneficiary of journalistic malpractice. A recent example of this, at the Washington Post, is reported on here: “The Washington Post Gives CAIR a Boost,” by Sean Durns, Algemeiner, January 24, 2022: [...]

Environment

=> ↺ Opinion | It’s Time to Overhaul the Chemical Industry

• Climate change is quickly evolving into climate catastrophe, and there’s a narrow window of time to do something about it. While the world works on solutions, there’s surprisingly little focus on the chemical industry, which accounts for roughly 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions — as well as other environmental harms.

Energy

=> ↺ Finland unveils plan for electric aircraft routes across Lapland region

• An experimental project operating out of Enontekiö Airport in the northwest corner of Finland is set to test the viability of using electric airplanes to fly routes across the wider Lapland region.

=> ↺ New Study: Gas and Oil Drilling Doesn’t Create Very Many Jobs

• According to a new analysis by the corporate watchdog Food and Water Watch, the actual number of people directly employed by the fossil fuel industry is only about half a million. Moreover, the Food and Water Watch report shows that the fossil fuel industry has been shedding jobs for years, even with oil and gas output at record levels.

=> ↺ Botswana passes [cryptocurrency] bill, unlike Zim they want to stop the scams

• Botswana’s push for a [cryptocurrency] bill comes after it was removed from the Financial Action Task Force’s (FAFT) list for countries that need more monitoring in relation to money laundering and terrorist financing. A little sidenote, Zimbabwe is, as I am sure you have already guessed, on the list with the organisation stating that: [...]

=> ↺ El Salvador Has Ambitious Plans for Cryptocurrency

• “It’s not like an entire nation has been Bitcoin-ized and in two years everyone will be using Bitcoin,” says cryptocurrency expert Jeff Gallas, the founder of fulmo, a Berlin, Germany-based Bitcoin Lightning network startup. Still, he considers it to be a successful start, “considering how little time there was.” He says the government now needs to show that it can deliver on all its promises and fix the bugs in Chivo.

• Security flaws in the software allowed scam artists to collect the credit balances of hundreds of citizens. Sometimes, money transfers haven’t worked, either.

=> ↺ [Cryptocurrency] Has a Climate Problem

• Bitcoin—the world’s oldest and most popular form of cryptocurrency, with a total market value that topped $1.3 trillion—now eats up half a percentage point of all the electricity consumed in the world. That puts it on par with the usage of the entire country of Sweden. In fact, Google could power all of its global operations on that amount of energy, seven times over. In comparison with more traditional online banking, a single bitcoin has the same carbon footprint as 330,000 credit card transactions.

Wildlife/Nature

=> ↺ Shipping industry needs to do more to lessen underwater noise in Arctic, say NGOs

• “The workplan put in place at SDC 8 must be ambitious in scope and reflect the urgency needed to address underwater noise from ships as it continues to increase at alarming rates”, Bobbe said.

• “Advancements in new technologies such as quieter propellers have already been developed and can be installed on new ships and retrofitted on existing ships when in drydock for repairs. There are also very simple ways to reduce noise, like slowing ships down. This will bring co-benefits of reduced fuel use and emissions.”

Finance

=> ↺ Opinion | Labor Win in Mexico Augurs Greater Equality for Workers on Both Sides of the Border

• The U.S. labor movement, after a depressing January, needed some encouraging news. That encouraging news has just come — from Mexico.

=> ↺ Flood Insurance Premiums in Louisiana Are Rising. Help Us Investigate.

• Sweeping changes are coming to the National Flood Insurance Program, which will result in premium increases for many Louisiana policyholders starting April 1, 2022.

• ProPublica and The Times-Picayune | The Advocate could use your help in understanding how these changes affect homeowners, other property owners and the real estate market in Louisiana. If you’ve explored purchasing flood insurance in Louisiana in recent months, if you plan to, or if you are in the real estate, mortgage or insurance fields, we may have some questions as our reporting continues. If you’re willing to help, please sign up here by answering a few questions below.

=> ↺ Credit Monitoring services are mostly a scam.

• Have you seen an offer from your bank, credit card company, or Lifelock about credit monitoring?

• Are you thinking about buying it?

• Well, the good news is you can ignore their pushy sales tactics, and decline it when dark pattern dialog boxes pop up, and prevent fraud yourself.

• A while back, I was talking about using strong randomly generated passwords and an authenticator program, such as Google Authenticator and GNOME Authenticator to manage one time codes.

• It’s unlikely that anyone will sign into your accounts and rip you off if you do that, but there are still other ways to bilk you, like credit fraud.

• The truth is, the credit reporting bureaus are required by federal and state laws to allow you to manage fraud alerts and credit file freezes on your own, but they don’t want you to know that because they were hoping you’d buy it from them.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

=> ↺ Trump’s Political Depravity Sank to a New Level This Past Week

=> ↺ Joe Manchin Gives New Reason for Why He Torpedoed BBB

• As progressive activists continue to push for the stalled social and climate spending package, Sen. Joe Manchin claimed Sunday that his biggest opposition to his party’s Build Back Better legislation was that it didn’t go through committee.

• Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) remark came in an interview with CNN’s “State of the Union” in which he endorsed Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and brushed off the idea that he wouldn’t get the backing of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) if he faced a primary challenge. 

=> ↺ Manchin’s Likely Backing of Biden SCOTUS Pick Reflects Court’s Conservative Role

=> ↺ Claims Over Broken Promises About NATO Simmer at the Heart of the Ukraine Crisis

=> ↺ Opinion | 19 Facts About the Poverty-Busting Expanded Child Tax Credit

• Date when the expanded child tax credit, which Congress approved last year as part of the American Rescue Plan pandemic stimulus, expired because the closely divided U.S. Senate failed to renew it as part of the Build Back Better Act: 12/31/2021

=> ↺ The Movement Grows: Jayapal Heralds Record 120 Medicare for All Co-Sponsors

• Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Sunday welcomed a new record number of co-sponsors—120—for her Medicare for All legislation.

• The latest support came from Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), who was sworn in just two weeks ago.

=> ↺ Metamorphosis: Facebook and big-tech competition

• Since listing in 2012 Meta has exemplified big tech’s prowess and pitfalls. For a glimpse of the caricature, consider the American government’s antitrust case against it first launched in 2020. It describes an invincible company in a world where technology is perpetually frozen in the 2010s: “this unmatched position has provided Facebook with staggering profits,” America’s Federal Trade Commission wrote in its lawsuit.

=> ↺ Navalny ally in Murmansk flees Russia as aides face ‘terrorist’ labels

• Another activist linked to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has fled Russia, Reuters reported Thursday as the authorities’ year-long campaign to dismantle his network and label its leading figures “terrorists” showed little sign of slowing.

• Violetta Grudina, 32, was blocked from running for local office in the Arctic port city of Murmansk last year after being forcibly hospitalized despite testing negative for coronavirus. Grudina has said she faced an intimidation campaign that included several years of hefty fines and unknown people shooting at her office.

=> ↺ 20 Million Dollar Saudi Festival Organized by Vice Media

• Vice’s name was not used in any public marketing materials as the company’s name was kept out as much as possible. Both sides seem to be a good match, as Saudi Arabia is desperately attempting to whitewash its human rights abuses with entertainment and Vice is dealing with allegations of sexual harassment.

=> ↺ In the Netherlands, it’s ‘Civilized’ to Empower Terrorists

• Not until January 18 of this year did Sahla’s past become a problem. On that day, during a discussion in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, Wilders, who since 2006 has been head of the PVV (Freedom Party) and who since 2004 has had to live with round-the-clock security owing to jihadist death threats, raised the subject of Sahla, saying that someone who’d been issued a gun with which to kill him and Ayaan Hirsi Ali had no business in a leading position in the country’s ruling party. Wilders also mentioned Sahla’s sister Fonda, who, as it happens, is a politician for the centrist D66 and a colleague of Wilders’s in the Tweede Kamer, where she routinely wears a hijab.

=> ↺ Ankara demanded the impossible from the US for my release, pastor Brunson says

• Andrew Brunson, an American pastor who was jailed for two years in Turkey before his release in 2018, has said in a recent interview that Turkey’s demands from the US in exchange for his release were beyond what Washington could do, with the Turkish government using him as a bargaining chip to get its way on a number of issues.

=> ↺ Islam: Wave of the Future?

• “Islamism is the sole growing, developing, and truly popular populist ideology in the Middle East,” wrote House Taskforce on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare Director Yossef Bodansky in 1999. His book, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America, documented the enduring appeal in Muslim-majority societies of Islam as a political system as opposed to other ideological alternatives.

Misinformation/Disinformation

=> ↺ Austria: Left-wing Turks attack a mosque and Muslims and Leftists blame it on Islamophobes

• In a statement, the chairman of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) in the Vienna district of Favoriten, Stefan Berger, considers the radical left-wing and foreign PKK attack on the ATIB mosque to be proven on the basis of the video of the confession. Berger said: [...]

=> ↺ How a Butterfly Refuge at the Texas Border Became the Target of Far-Right Lies

• When people began showing up at the butterfly center, the nonprofit decided it needed to do more to provide security for staff members and visitors. It would remain closed, he said, until a plan could be developed for how to do so.

=> ↺ Ilhan Omar’s Husband Accuses Iranian Dissident of ‘Islamophobia’

• It all started last Tuesday, when human rights activist Masih Alinejad took to the Washington Post, of all places, to point out some of the risks involved in Omar’s “Islamophobia” bill. Alinejad, who was recently the target of a kidnapping plot launched by the Islamic Republic of Iran, wrote: “I should make clear: I have nothing against Omar personally. Like her, I have many relatives who are pious Muslims I love and respect.” Alinejad added: “My mother is a devout Muslim who wears hijab all the time. I, on the other hand, challenged clerical rule with my journalism until I was thrown out of Iran. I launched a campaign against compulsory hijab, demanding that Iranian women be given the freedom of choice to decide their own destiny. Will such criticism of compulsory hijab be labeled as Islamophobia?”

Censorship/Free Speech

=> ↺ ‘Message is clear, Turkey must release Osman Kavala’

• Amnesty International has released a statement about the infringement proceedings brought against Turkey by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe over rights advocate and businessperson Osman Kavala’s continued detention despite the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment of rights violation and immediate release.

=> ↺ Three Philippine media outlets face latest in a string of cyberattacks

• All three sites have been openly critical of the Duterte regime. The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines released a statement condemning the attacks and called for an investigation.

=> ↺ UK: British citizen found guilty of conspiring to kill exiled Pakistani blogger

• RSF representatives monitored the two-week trial both in-person and remotely. The defendant, who had been hired as a “hitman” by a middleman referred to as “MudZ,” who appeared to be based in Pakistan, refuted claims that he had intended to kill Goraya. The defence argued that Khan had only planned to extract money from MudZ while maintaining the appearance that he would carry out the killing. Khan created multiple false identities to give the appearance of a larger team, allowing him to bill £5,000 for operational expenses, which he received in advance. A total fee of £100,000 was agreed for the job, with Khan to receive £80,000 and £20,000 to go to MudZ after Goraya was killed. They also discussed the possibility of future jobs contingent on the successful completion of this one.

=> ↺ Tibetan monks sent to labor camps for spreading news of Buddhist statue’s destruction

• Eleven Tibetans beaten and arrested by Chinese authorities in January for spreading news of the destruction of a 99-foot-tall Buddha statue and dozens of prayer wheels in southwestern China’s Sichuan province have been sent to labor camps in the region, Tibetans with knowledge of the situation said Friday.

• Monks Tashi Dorjee, Tsering Samdup, Nyima Lhamo, and Abbot Pelga, along with Pelga’s assistant Nyima, and six other unidentified Tibetans were arrested following the destruction of the statue and 45 traditional prayer wheels in Drago (Luhuo) county of Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in December 2021, said a Tibetan in exile who declined to be named for safety reasons.

=> ↺ Original ‘Fight Club’ Ending Restored in China After Censorship Backlash

• But it would appear that the backlash has been deemed more troublesome than the fictional film’s ending, as Tencent has now restored 11 of the 12 minutes it originally cut from the 137-minute movie. The minute still missing is mostly comprised of brief nude sex scenes between Pitt’s and Bonham Carter’s characters.

• A spokesperson at Tencent didn’t respond to a request for comment.

• Reversals of censorship actions are extremely rare within China’s entertainment industry — but cuts to Hollywood movies are not.

Freedom of Information/Freedom of the Press

=> ↺ Iowa, Kansas lawmakers bar media from Senate floors, stymieing newsgathering

• CPJ interviewed Erin Murphy, the Des Moines bureau chief for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and president of the Iowa Capitol Press Association, and Sherman Smith, the editor in chief of the Kansas Reflector, a non-profit news website focused on Kansas politics, about the changes. The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

=> ↺ Taliban forces detain 2 journalists in undisclosed location

• On Monday, men who identified themselves as members of the Taliban arrested Hijab, a reporter, and Hasrat, manager of political programs and a political presenter, both with the independent broadcaster Ariana News TV, at the entrance of outlet’s headquarters in District 3 of Kabul, the capital, according to former Ariana News Director Sharif Hasanyar, who spoke to CPJ in a phone interview, and a statement by the independent press freedom group Free Speech Hub.

• The Taliban has not disclosed where the journalists are being held or any allegations against them, Hasanyar said. Ahmadullah Wasiq, a Taliban deputy spokesperson in Afghanistan, did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

=> ↺ Afghan journalists increasingly harassed by Taliban intelligence and new ministry

• The Istikhbarat is not just directly involved in arresting journalists. RSF has learned that several media outlets have received threatening phone calls and summonses for questioning from Istikhbarat officials. Javad Sargar, the senior Istikhbarat official in charge of Department 53, which handles the media, recently horrified journalists by “inviting” them to stop covering certain subjects and stop asking certain journalists to participate in TV discussions, “if you don’t want me to rip your tongue out.”

=> ↺ Convoy protesters threatened, harassed journalists at Friday’s demo

• Yle’s reporter and cameraperson on the scene say they were continually threatened verbally and physically. Some protesters attempted to prevent reporters from moving around freely.

• Journalists were abused and threatened, and one protester attempted to steal a bag containing the camera operator’s equipment.

=> ↺ Malian journalist who disappeared six years ago is very likely dead, RSF says

• After registering his upcoming marriage at Bamako’s city hall and spending the afternoon with his family, Touré, set off for home on his motorcycle on the night of 29 January 2016. None of his friends and relatives has seen him since then. Six years later, RSF is in a position to affirm not only that he was secretly detained at a clandestine prison run by Mali’s General Directorate for State Security (DGSE) but also that he most likely died as a result of being mistreated and tortured there, according to damning new testimony obtained in recent months.

=> ↺ French parliament votes against handing asylum to Wikileaks founder Assange

• After a long and intense debate, MPs in France’s national assembly (lower house) voted 31 against and 17 in support of a proposed text brought forward by MP Jennifer de Temmerman, from the opposition group known as Libertés et Territoires.

• According to the document, which is not legally binding, “Assange’s crime is that he told the truth and was engaged in journalism.”

Civil Rights/Policing

=> ↺ Opinion | Not Retreat But Resistance and Resilience: When Faced With Doomsday, Look to Community

• Sometimes at second hand books stores I find myself with an armful of books, thinking “These will come in handy if … If the internet goes away, if there is no more electricity, if there aren’t grocery stories anymore.” I cling to the books, push the nightmare scenarios out of my head and make for the cashier.

=> ↺ Uber Got a Sweetheart Deal With One of Canada’s Biggest Unions

• Close inspection of the agreement reveals that the deal is not the victory for workers that it initially appeared to be. It is a victory for Uber and other platform apps. Under the agreement, Uber drivers will not actually become UFCW members; they will simply be able to access some representation in the case of disputes about pay and deactivation. Uber drivers will have no say in electing their representation. This violates the commitment to democracy fundamental to all trade unionism.

=> ↺ We must listen to Iranian feminists who protest forced hijab – opinion

• In response, Alinejad launched the #LetUsTalk campaign, which pushes back against the censorship of Middle Eastern women fighting for women’s equality. However, despite the fact that Alinejad showed up to the Women’s March five years ago in solidarity, none of the women there would join her in her fight for freedom of choice. “I found that hardly anyone was willing to support my campaign against compulsory hijab, lest they be accused of promoting Islamophobia,” she wrote in The Washington Post.

Digital Restrictions (DRM)

=> ↺ Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirms removal of Joe Rogan episodes after n-word video resurfaces

• Spotify CEO Daniel Ek addressed staff in a late night memo addressing Joe Rogan’s use of the n-word and the mysterious removal of 70 podcast episodes earlier this week. The total number of deleted Joe Rogan Experience episodes is now 113, according to the website jremissing.com.

=> ↺ Spotify CEO Apologizes to Staff Over Joe Rogan N-Word Controversy

• According to Ek, Spotify has had conversations “with Joe and his team about some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language. Following these discussions and his own reflections, he chose to remove a number of episodes from Spotify. He also issued his own apology over the weekend.”

=> ↺ Spotify CEO Addresses Joe Rogan’s N-Word Use, Doubles Down on Keeping Podcaster on Platform

• In a letter sent to staff, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Ek acknowledged that Rogan’s comments were “incredibly hurtful” and confirmed that Rogan decided to remove multiple past episodes from Spotify but said he did not believe in removing the podcast from Spotify.

=> ↺ Disney, Netflix, Apple: is anyone winning the streaming wars?

• As revenue growth slows, costs swell. Media firms will spend more than $230bn on video content this year, nearly double the figure a decade ago, forecasts Ampere Analysis, a research firm. Netflix’s weak results came despite what it billed as its “strongest content slate ever”, including “Squid Game”, its most popular series, and “Red Notice”, its most successful film. Disney+ is doing far better than the company ever dreamed—but it is costing more, too. Three years ago Disney said it would spend about $2bn on streaming content in 2024. Mr Chapek recently said the figure would be more than $9bn.

Monopolies

=> ↺ Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard Acquisition Won’t Save the Games Industry

• Over the decades, Microsoft’s bid to consolidate more of the games industry for itself has only intensified. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced it will be acquiring Activision Blizzard. This deal — struck for a record-setting $68.7 billion — will give Microsoft control of some of the most popular gaming franchises in the world: StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Call of Duty, and Candy Crush.

• This acquisition is good for Microsoft, which will now be the third-largest firm in games behind Sony and Tencent. But it’s bad for game workers at Activision Blizzard, who are fighting for their rights at a company that is synonymous with workplace abuse in the games industry.

=> ↺ UK: Tarilian Laser Technologies – A Case Study In Due Diligence

• When deciding whether to invest in a company, an investor will inevitably have to decide the value of the company.

• Taking a simplified view, a company’s valuation can be considered to be made up of tangible assets (e.g. cash, inventory and fixed assets such as plant/machinery) and intangible assets (e.g. Intellectual Property (IP) and the skills and knowledge of the founders and key staff (Human Capital)). While it can be easier to place a monetary value on tangible assets, there is much more uncertainty regarding the monetary value of intangible assets. However, to decide on the value of a company, a monetary value must nonetheless be placed on these assets, in particular the IP portfolio of the company.

=> ↺ Swedish court applies C-762/19 CV-Online Latvia in parking app battle

• Content and service aggregation is big business in 2022. Why having seven different newspapers clogging up your mailbox, when you can have that content carefully selected and curated for you according to your interests and taste? Why having seven different apps for ordering takeout if you can aggregate all that sushi into one app? This dynamic is not lost on entrepreneurs and innovators around the world, sensing and opportunity to create value for users and perhaps birthing a unicorn in the process.

• But digital aggregation often involves the use of different data sets, including the use of data protected as databases, and the makers of databases often want to protect their own investment against aggregators that are perceived as free riders. Since one person’s entrepreneurial aggregator is often another person’s parasitical competitor, balancing these interests is no easy task for national courts.

• [...]

• The argument that the aggregator app created an additional layer between the claimant and its customers seems in principle to be applicable to most situations when a database maker battles a content or service aggregator, whether it is a parking app, an online CV database (CV-Online Latvia) or a meta search engine (C-202/12 Innoweb). To this author, it is not clear how a litigant could quantify the adverse effect of this “additional layer” on the database maker’s ability to recoup its investment, and it is therefore not obvious that this circumstance by itself motivates a finding of infringement under the principles set out in CV-Online Latvia. The court’s conclusion that the aggregator app resulted in the claimant selling less additional services to its customers through its parking app on the other hand seems to be a stronger argument in this regard, and one that can in practice more easily be substantiated by evidence. It will be interesting to see whether this balancing of interests between makers of databases and content and service aggregators is confirmed on appeal or by other national courts in future litigation.

=> ↺ Sunday Surprises

=> ↺ the lie of “IP”

• On February 3, 2022, the European Commission formally closed its investigation under the EU Trade Barriers Regulation (TBR) into Mexican measures against the export of “Tequila” after successfully resolving the matter. The complaint had been filed by Brewers of Europe, which argued that Mexico’s refusal to issue export certificates for “Tequila” was incompatible with WTO rules and caused significant economic harm to an EU company that relies on “Tequila” as an input. In the course of its investigation, the Commission expressed concerns to the Mexican authorities about the WTO compatibility of the measure. The measure was also challenged by the exporter concerned in domestic courts in Mexico. In October 2021, the complainant informed the Commission that the EU company concerned had reached a solution with the Mexican authorities that would allow the removal of the alleged trade barrier. As a result of this development, Brewers of Europe has withdrawn its TBR complaint. Read more about the background and the TBR complaint by the TechieKat here.

Patents

=> ↺ Guest Post: Assessing Responses to the PTO’s 2021 Patent Eligibility Study

• It should be no surprise to readers of Patently-O that many are unhappy with the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding patent eligibility under Section 101 of the Patent Act. In response to various calls for “reform” of patent eligibility jurisprudence, on March 5, 2021, Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Christopher Coons (D-DE) requested that the US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) conduct a study regarding public views on “how the current jurisprudence has adversely impacted investment and innovation in critical technologies like quantum computing, artificial intelligence, precision medicine, diagnostic methods, and pharmaceutical treatments.” The Senators also asked the PTO to evaluate the responses and provide a detailed summary of its findings by March 5, 2022. The PTO released its public request for information (RFI) on July 9, 2021. The original deadline for response was September 7, 2021, which the PTO extended until October 15, 2021. A total of 145 comments were submitted before the deadline. In advance of the official assessment, we have reviewed and tallied these public comments for those who are eager for the results in advance of the official release.

=> ↺ Multinationals and renewable energy: boosting innovation through foreign direct investments

=> ↺ greenwashing fluff designed to distract from the crimes

=> ↺ Sisvel suing Ford Motor Company over two 4G standard-essential patents in Munich; Ford’s answer to Delaware complaint due tomorrow

=> ↺ 1

=> ↺ 2

• The case numbers indicate that both Sisvel v. Ford cases in Munich have been assigned to the new 44th Civil Chamber under Presiding Judge Dr. Anne-Kristin Fricke, who replaced Presiding Judge Dr. Georg Werner yesterday as he moved on to head the court’s equally patent-specialized 21st Civil Chamber.

• In mid-December, Sisvel’s patent enforcement action against Ford Motor Company in the District of Delaware became known. The parties stipulated to an extension of time until tomorrow (February 3, 2022) for Ford to answer, or otherwise respond to, the complaint.

• It would have been out of character for Sisvel to enforce SEPs only in the U.S. and not also in Europe, and there, above all, in Germany, where it has already made history with two Sisvel v. Haier cases–case law that will come into play here as well unless they settle.

• In another case brought by an Avanci licensor–in that case, Japan’s IP Bridge–the Munich court will hold a hearing in three weeks unless the Federal Patent Court of Germany annulled the patent two weeks ago (haven’t been able to find out yet, but will know soon).

=> ↺ Neurim v. Mylan– the Illiad was shorter

• The Neurim v. Mylan saga, which started two years ago, is still going strong. The latest was a ruling by the High Court on 24 January 2022 (2022) EWHC 109 (Pat) (read here).

• The ups and downs, and the turns this dispute have taken, remind one of a rollercoaster. A year ago, Neurim was successful in the UK trial ([2020] EWHC 3270 (Pat)) when its claims of infringement were accepted by the court and counterclaims on the invalidation of its patent were rejected, only to shortly thereafter see its patent invalidated in the EPO (patent EP 1 441 702). For the sake of precision, the invalidity of the patent was the result of Neurim withdrawing its appeal to the Technical Board of Appeal (TBA), this in order to avoid an unfavorable decision.

• Some months ago, the court gave Neurim a new chance at obtaining injunctive relief against Mylan by agreeing that Neurim could have a expediated preliminary issue trial ([2021] EWHC 2198 (Pat)). On 24 January 2022, the court then ruled on preliminary issues of the case ((2022) EWHC 109 Pat).

=> ↺ Hungary Amends Patent Act

=> ↺ the corruption at HIPO will prevail

• Amendments to the Hungarian Patent Act entered into force on January 1, 2022, introducing changes regarding the Bolar exemption and affecting the bifurcation system and the grant of preliminary injunctions.

=> ↺ Patenting AI: the nature of inventorship and the mechanics of ownership

=> ↺ sheer fantasy world

• On 21 December 2021, the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) released its latest decision on the “Dabus” cases relating to identification of artificial intelligence as an inventor of a patentable invention. Adopting a similar approach to that taken by the UK Court of Appeal in September 2021, the EPO decided that “AI cannot be named as inventor on patent applications… under the European Patent Convention (EPC) an inventor designated in a patent application must be a human being”[i].

=> ↺ Description amendments: Will the EPO change its examination practice?

=> ↺ These tribunals are rigged

• In the recent decision T 1989/18 one of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) ruled that there is no legal basis for requiring amendment of the description to be in line with the allowed claims.

• This is in contrast to what is stated in the 2021 Guidelines for Examination in the EPO, which are non-legally binding instructions for Examiners working at the EPO as well as parties interacting with the EPO.

• BACKGROUND

• For many years it has been common practice for Examiners at the EPO to require applicants to adapt the description to be in line with the amended claims. In particular, the applicant is required to prepare and file an adapted description which is in line with the allowed claims.

=> ↺ Progress and promise for green plastics

=> ↺ its PR strategy

• In 2021, the European Patent Office (EPO) released a study investigating trends in plastic recycling and alternative plastics technologies. The report draws on the latest patent information available (particularly using patent filing data from 2010 to 2019) as well as the expertise of EPO Examiners to provide an analysis of the ways in which innovators are driving the transition towards a circular economy for plastics. In view of the global importance of the development of green technologies, Appleyard Lees (AL) has also recently produced its inaugural Inside Green Innovation: Progress Report 2021, which investigates patent trends in bioplastics and plastic recycling, as well as other green technologies including renewable energy storage and food production. The AL report reviews the impact of industrial activities on the environment and highlights how development of, and investment in, innovation can be used to tackle these serious problems. Here, we discuss the findings of these two reports.

=> ↺ [Older] PTO Will Transition to Electronic Issuance of Patents and Trademarks

• The US Patent & Trademark Office (PTO) announced on December 10, 2021, that it intends to transition to electronic issuance of patents and trademarks in 2022. Under the current rule (37 C.F.R § 1.315), the PTO must deliver or mail a patent “upon issuance to the correspondence address of record.” The PTO will soon issue a notice of proposed rulemaking to seek public feedback on revising the rules of practice to issue patents electronically. Under the proposed changes, the PTO would no longer mail patents to the applicant. Instead, the PTO would issue patents electronically via the Patent Center and Patent Application Image Retrieval, from which the patents could be downloaded and printed.

• While no changes to the trademark rules are necessary, the PTO will also issue a public request for comments on replacing paper registration certificates with digital versions.

• The PTO believes that electronic issuance will reduce the time it takes for a patent or trademark to issue by about two weeks.

• Once the transition is complete, applicants can still receive a paper copy of the issued patents and trademark registration certificates with an embossed gold seal and the director’s signature (i.e., a ribbon certificate) for a fee of $25 per copy.

=> ↺ [Older] A Whole Lot of “Cobbl[e]”-ty Gook After Wertheim

• Holding: In Indivior UK Ltd. v. Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories S.A., No. 20-2073 (Fed. Cir. 2021), the Federal Circuit issued an opinion (“Majority Opinion”) affirming a decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) holding all but one of the challenged claims unpatentable in IPR2019-00329. Judge Linn concurred-in-part and dissented-in-part (“Linn Opinion”).

=> ↺ Huawei inks its first Wi-Fi 6 patent licence with an overseas implementer

=> ↺ writers sponsored by this cartel

• Latest patent deals related to the next-gen wireless internet standard suggest patent owners spy monetisation opportunities

=> ↺ UK: Why Does My Start-Up Need Patents?

=> ↺ The litigation firms

• A patent is a legal monopoly granted by a government in return for public disclosure of an invention. A granted patent gives the proprietor the right to prevent others using the invention in the territory to which the patent applies.

=> ↺ Battery Innovation Enhances EV Technology, Generates Worldwide Patent Boom

=> ↺ EPO’s greenwashing

• Consider information from the joint study, “Innovation in batteries and electricity storage – a global analysis based on patent data,” published in 2020 by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the International Energy Agency. From 2005 through 2018, patents for electric storage technologies – primarily for lithium-ion batteries – increased annually by 14% worldwide. That’s four times as much as the average patent hike in all other technology industries.

=> ↺ Serbia Amends Patent Law

• Amendments to the Serbian Law on Patents entered into force on December 23, 2021 introducing important changes relating to Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) and utility models.

=> ↺ Supplementary Protection Certificates For Medicinal Products

• A Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) is an intellectual property right available for active ingredients of human and veterinary medicinal products requiring marketing authorisation.

=> ↺ Introduction To Supplementary Protection Certificates For Plant Protection Products

=> ↺ want you to think humans “invented” and “own” nature

• Plant protection products protect crops or desirable or useful plants. They are primarily used in the agricultural sector, but also in forestry, horticulture, amenity areas and in home gardens. Plant protection products are defined as active substances, or preparations containing one or more such active substances, put up in the form in which they are supplied to the user, which are intended to:

=> ↺ MediciNova nabs new patent in Korea for MN-001 for treatment of blood cholesterol

• Recently, MNOV secured Canadian and European patent for MN-001 for hepatic ballooning.

=> ↺ New Referral To The EPO Enlarged Board Of Appeal On The Entitlement To Priority

=> ↺ it clearly controls in direct and obvious violation of the EPC

• The Board of Appeal in consolidated cases T 1513/17 and T 2719/19 has referred two new questions to the Enlarged Board of Appeal on the issue of priority entitlement, in particular relating to the “joint applicants” approach to claiming priority.

=> ↺ USPTO Tells Fed. Circ. Only Humans Can Be Inventors

• The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has urged the Federal Circuit to uphold a Virginia federal judge’s ruling that artificial intelligence cannot be listed as an inventor on a patent application.

• The USPTO’s Thursday brief formally opposed AI researcher Stephen Thaler’s challenge to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema’s September decision that shut down his suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

• The USPTO said that Thaler was trying “to rewrite the Patent Act” and added that “the plain language Congress chose to incorporate in the Patent Act unequivocally resolves this question — only a human being can be an ‘inventor.’”

=> ↺ Federal Circuit: Did you get their digits?

=> ↺ Dennis Crouch

• In December 2021, the Federal Circuit sided with the accused-infringer Mylan on claim construction of the term “0.001%” — vacating the judgment of infringement. See Crouch, Rounding Errors in Patent Law, Patently-O (Dec 8, 2021). Now Astrazeneca has petitioned for en banc reconsideration–seeking “consistent precedent regarding significant digits.”

=> ↺ EU set to put spotlight on essentiality in new SEP policy

• In-house sources from both sides of the SEP licensing fence expect a new policy initiative to introduce further transparency in portfolios

=> ↺ PTAB Procedural Decisions Report: Non-Merits Based Decisions Rise, Denials Fall — Unified Patents

• It was another year of hundreds of procedural denials at the PTAB, as many as any other previous year, save 2020’s record high. At the same time, the Board ruled on Fintiv and discretionary issues in almost half of all decisions. The dip in the number of discretionary denials in 2021 from 2020’s record high likely reflects parties adjusting to the recent requirements by filing so-called Sotera stipulations, devoting petition space to briefing the Fintiv factors, and shifting to file ex parte reexaminations over IPRs (which increased by half, as shown below).

• And while grants were down and it is difficult to measure how much time, money, and effort have been expended responding to Fintiv, data shows the Board considered discretionary issues in approximately 500 of the institution decisions issued in 2021, or roughly more than a third of all the 1,249 decisions it made. In short, Fintiv affected at least half the cases on the Board’s docket in 2021.

• 2021 saw 179 institution decisions denied on procedural grounds, compared to 228 in 2020 and 162 in 2019.

• [...]

• Over the same period, companies began to revive ex parte reexaminations–an old, but nonetheless effective, tool. From 2020 to 2021, the number of reexaminations increased by 47%. Over 300 reexaminations were filed in 2021, as parties occasionally forwent IPRs that raised discretionary or stay-related issues.

=> ↺ Patent Litigation 2022 in Turkey

• Under Article 90 of the Constitution, in the event of a conflict between international agreements and national legislation relating to fundamental rights and freedoms, the provisions of international agreements prevail.

=> ↺ Broad Files Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 1 to Substitute the Count

• On December 3rd, Junior Party the Broad Institute, Harvard University, and MIT (collectively, Broad) filed its Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 1 in Interference No. 106,133 (which names Sigma-Aldrich as Senior Party), asking the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to substitute the interference Count, pursuant to the provisions of 37 C.F.R. §§ 41.121(a)(1)(i) and 41.208(a)(2). Broad’s Proposed Substitute Count takes the “McKelvey” format (comprising in the alternative a claim from one of each Party’s applications in interference); the proposed change is in the portion of the Count reciting Broad’s claims…

=> ↺ FOSS Patents: Apple opposes Ericsson motion to amend FRAND complaint in Eastern District of Texas, says its own FRAND case was first properly filed one

• The procedural tussle between Ericsson and Apple in the Eastern District of Texas over whether and how to go forward with their mutual complaints continues. There’s even a meta-procedural question–relating to procedures related to defining the actual procedures–they disagree on: whether Judge Rodney S. Gilstrap should hold an early case management conference, which Apple insists on.

• It’s interesting and a first achievement for Ericsson (owing to its strategy of forging ahead in the fall with a first FRAND action) that the discussion is all about the structure of their litigation in the Eastern District of Texas–as opposed to the usual venue fight over whether that district court has jurisdiction over any case targeting Apple, which even closed its local Apple Stores to have a stronger case for a transfer. If not for Ericsson’s early filing, Apple would already have requested a transfer to the Northern District of California.

=> ↺ Third Party Submissions

• In a prior post, I wrote about third party prior art submissions, but that post was only looking at issued patents. I have gone back and pulled-in data from all publicly-available applications, including those that have been abandoned or are still pending. The results: third parties have submitted prior art in about 7,000 applications over the past decade. This is about 0.2% of all the applications in my dataset.

=> ↺ FOSS Patents: EPICSSON: Apple makes public interest statement in Ericsson patent case that supports Epic’s antitrust market definition

• What Apple is telling the ITC there is this: even if patent infringements are identified, the iPhone can’t be banned because it’s a product category of its own. There’s nothing else quite like it. Android smartphones may also be smartphones, but they are not iPhones, so they are not “like” articles (which would count as a potential replacement under the ITC’s rules).

• In the Epic Games v. Apple App Store antitrust case, however, Apple argued that there was a broad market for game distribution. So, according to Apple, if Fortnite wasn’t available on the iPhone, who cares? It could still be played on an Xbox, a Windows PC, or a Samsung phone.

• The district court didn’t adopt that same market definition, but it did reject–as did Apple–Epic’s single-brand market definition, according to which there is a foremarket (mobile operating systems) and an aftermarket (app distribution for the iPhone). Single-brand markets are a rare exception, but this is such a case.

• Interestingly, when the question is whether iPhone imports could be excluded from the U.S. market (limited exclusion order, or colloquially “import ban”), Apple itself advances a single-brand market definition, claiming that the iPhone is a product category and Android phones are not capable of replacing any supply shortages or disruptions affecting the iPhone.

=> ↺ Status of US Utility Patent Applications.

• David Kappos quickly reset expectations. And, since then we have seen a steady rise in allowance rate.

=> ↺ FOSS Patents: Ericsson seeking preliminary injunction against Apple distributor in Brazil, filed second case in Belgium; Apple wants December trial in Texas, now challenging 10 Ericsson patents

• Ericsson keeps up the pressure on Apple. A filing made by Apple in the Eastern District of Texas on Monday (January 31) mentions that “[i]n Brazil [...], in addition to targeting Apple in a previous injunction request, Ericsson [...] filed for a second preliminary injunction on January 17 against Allied Tecnologia S.A., based on Ericsson’s claimed 4G cellular SEPs and merely because Allied resells Apple cellular products.” Apple is now intervening to protect its wholesaler.

• When I previously wrote about the preliminary injunction Ericsson is seeking against Apple itself in Brazil, I used the plural form “injunctions” though it appears to be a single motion for preliminary injunction involving three SEPs. And now there’s another such motion, also over three SEPs, targeting Allied Tecnologia because of its distribution of accused Apple products.

=> ↺ CVC Files Responsive Preliminary Motion No. 1 for Priority Benefit

• Pursuant to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board Order issued November 29, 2021, Junior Party the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna; and Emmanuelle Charpentier (collectively, “CVC”) on December 17, 2021 filed its Responsive Preliminary Motion No. 1 in Interference No. 106,132 (which names Sigma-Aldrich as Senior Party), asking the Board for benefit of priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/652,086, filed May 25, 2012 (“P1″), or in the alternative either U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/716,256, filed October 19, 2012 (“P2″); U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/757,640, filed January 28, 2013 (“P3″); U.S. Application No. 13/842,859, filed March 15, 2013; U.S. Application No. 14/685,504, filed April 13, 2015; or U.S. Application No. 15/138,604, filed April 26, 2016, pursuant to 37 C.F.R. §§ 41.121(a)(1)(ii) and 41.208(a)(3) and Standing Order ¶ 208.4.1, contingent on the Board granting Sigma-Aldrich’s Substantive Preliminary Motion No. 1 to Substitute the Count.

=> ↺ Patent Docs: Sen. Tillis Asks ACUS to Conduct Study on Creation of U.S. IP Office

• Last month, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Intellectual Property of the Senate Committee of the Judiciary, wrote to the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS) to request that the agency “conduct a study on whether Congress should create a unified, stand-alone, and independent Intellectual Property Office.” ACUS is an independent agency of the U.S. government, which was established in 1964 by the Administrative Conference Act, and which conducts research and issues reports concerning various aspects of the administrative process and, when warranted, makes recommendations to the President, Congress, particular departments and agencies, and the judiciary concerning the need for procedural reforms.

• Stating that “[t]he current fractured approach to intellectual property (IP) in the federal government, with multiple IP functions housed in different agencies, leads to conflicting policy agendas and unnecessary bureaucracy,” Sen. Tillis (above right) noted that he was exploring the possibility of creating an independent agency that would unite the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO), and perhaps also the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator and other relevant IP functions located in other agencies. The Senator indicated that he believed that “a single, Senate-confirmed, presidentially appointed Director should lead such an office and that it should have, at a minimum, separate Commissioners for Patent, Trademark, Copyright, and Policy Coordination that would report to the Director.” Before pursuing legislation to create a single agency, however, Sen. Tillis suggested that ACUS should contract with the USPTO and USCO to study the issue.

=> ↺ Tillis Floats Idea To Consolidate USPTO, Copyright Office

• The top Republican on the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Intellectual Property says there’s too much “unnecessary bureaucracy” in the federal government’s approach to patents, trademarks and copyright law and wants a study done on how to combine the agencies to create a “one stop shop.”

• In a letter dated Jan. 26, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., asked the Administrative Conference of the United States to launch an investigation into “whether Congress should create a unified, stand-alone and independent Intellectual Property Office.” The ACUS is an independent federal agency that makes process recommendations to the government.

=> ↺ PCT Direct Procedure – Opportunity To Comment On International Application

=> ↺ EPO is not for Europe

• If a new PCT application fulfils both of these criteria, the Applicant may file a “PCT Direct letter” providing informal comments with the application. The Search Examiner is obliged to consider those comments when preparing the International Search Report and the Written Opinion on patentability.

=> ↺ UPC: Is it finally here?

=> ↺ fake news lobbying strategy

• The European Patent Office (EPO) issued 3 new notices on 19 January 2022 about the Unitary Patent.

=> ↺ [Older] Shots Fired: Challenger Must Have Requisite Standing Before Appealing Unfavorable IPR Decisions

• The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found, in the context of an appeal from an inter partes review (IPR) decision, that the appellant had Article III standing and affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision, holding the challenged claims unpatentable as obvious. ModernaTX, Inc. v. Arbutus Biopharma Corporation, Case No. 20-2329 (Fed. Cir. Dec 2, 2021) (Lourie, J.)

• Arbutus owns a patent pertaining to “stable nucleic acid-lipid particles (SNALP) comprising a nucleic acid (such as one or more interfering RNA), methods of making the SNALP, and methods of delivering and/or administering the SNALP.” Moderna petitioned for IPR of the patent, asserting three grounds…

=> ↺ European Union: UPC: Costs And Fees

=> ↺ moreover illegal

• Following a lengthy consultation, the Preparatory Committee for the Unified Patent Court (UPC) published its Rules on Court fees and recoverable costs (the Rules) along with Guidelines for the determination of value-based Court fees and the ceiling of recoverable costs of the successful party (the Guidance).

=> ↺ Parties’ Duty To Keep The Patents Court Informed About EPO Proceedings

=> ↺ whose corruption it actively supports

• Mr Justice Meade recently handed down judgment in the ongoing Neurim v Mylan (now named Viatris) saga. This judgment followed an expedited three-day trial of preliminary issues (see “Neurim v Mylan: Take Two”). Dealing predominately with the principles of issue estoppel, abuse of process and competition law issues, this judgment is also notable for imposing a new duty on parties to litigation before the Patents Court to keep it informed about scheduling issues and changes to hearing dates in parallel EPO proceedings, regardless of whether they intend to make case management applications themselves.

=> ↺ Should AI Systems Be Eligible For Patents?

=> ↺ misleading terms such as “Hey Hi”

• The line between artificial intelligence (“AI”) and pure human innovation has blurred as technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace. Technological advances and the parallel progress of AI has resulted in several key innovations: robots can double as radiologists and have the ability to interpret CT scans and other imaging, vehicles can drive themselves with automated technology, and algorithms have the ability to create written and artistic bodies of work.

• AI advances have been front and center during the COVID-19 pandemic. Algorithms were established to determine which patients could be discharged from the hospital, unique symptoms like loss of smell were identified as a distinguishing factor from the flu, and future outbreaks could be predicted using AI. A human vaccine was exclusively generated by an AI program called SAM, and clinical trials recently began in the United States.

=> ↺ Competition Law Aspects of Patent Licensing & Enforcement in Israel

• The Supreme Court of Israel recently held that Sanofi intentionally deceived and failed to provide material information to the Israeli Patent Office during the prosecution of a patent application in respect of Sanofi’s drug Plavix (Clopidogrel Bisulfate)1. Though Sanofi eventually withdrew the patent application, the Supreme Court held that such deception and failure to provide material information were not consistent with fair competition in the marketplace, since Sanofi’s actions significantly impacted how Sanofi’s competitors brought generic alternatives to market. As such, the Supreme Court held Sanofi liable under claims of unjust enrichment.

=> ↺ Printed Publication Proof – Cross T’s And Dot I’s

• On November 30, the PTAB entered its final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. 2BCom, LLC on the patentability of the claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,127,210 (the ‘210 patent). The claims in question were directed to a wireless communication apparatus, reciting a method by which a wireless communication apparatus, after establishing a connection with at least a first wireless communication device, is inhibited from establishing a connection with a second wireless communication device. The petitioner, Unified Patents, LLC, challenged the claims as obvious in view of a number of articles, one of which was a Fall 2000 IEEE article, Bluetooth-based wireless connectivity in an automotive environment (the Nüsser reference).

=> ↺ [Older] Design Patent Prior Art Must Be From Same or Analogous Field as Claimed Article of Manufacture

=> ↺ design patents ought not even exist at all

• Finding that the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) applied an erroneous interpretation of claim scope, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Board decision, upholding an examiner’s rejection of a lip implant design patent as anticipated by a non-analogous art tool. In re: SurgiSil, Case No. 20-1940 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 4, 2021) (Moore, C.J.)

=> ↺ [Older] Ex Parte Reexamination Not Allowed After Failed IPR Challenge

• The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that ex parte reexamination was unavailable to a challenger who repeatedly tried and failed to raise the same arguments for the same patent in a prior inter partes review (IPR) proceeding. In re: Vivint, Inc., Case No. 20-1992 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 29, 2021) (Moore, C.J.)

• Vivint sued Alarm.com in 2015 for infringement of several patents. In response, Alarm requested that the Patent Trial & Appeal Board (PTAB) institute “a litany of post-issuance review proceedings,” including three separate IPR petitions directed to one of the patents. The PTAB refused to institute two of the petitions because Alarm failed show to a reasonable likelihood that it would prevail on at least one challenged claim and also refused to institute the third petition because it represented an example of “undesirable, incremental petitioning.” According to the PTAB, Alarm had “used prior Board decisions as a roadmap to correct past deficiencies” and allowing such “similar, serial challenges to the same patent” by the same challenger risked, not only harassment of patent owners, but also frustration of congressional intent behind the America Invents Act (AIA).

=> ↺ UK IPO announce new IP Counter-Infringement strategy

=> ↺ oligarchs’ protectors at UK-IPO

• The new strategy represents a step change in the IPO’s drive to protect IP rights. By partnering with others to set a global gold standard, it aims to make UK IP rights – and rights owned by UK businesses internationally – the best protected in the world.

• The strategy seeks to establish how enforcement agencies, government and industry can work together to build upon and improve current structures, ensuring that IP infringement is tackled coherently as a strategic economic and social threat – at home and internationally. It will be underpinned by a strong research plan, and the findings will be shared widely with partner organisations to build a robust evidence base to support and inform work.

Software Patents

=> ↺ [Older] Analysis indicates that Access Advance is currently the top HEVC patent pool

=> ↺ Software patents cartel

• Licensees get access to higher-quality rights via the platform than those available through Velos Media and MPEG-LA

Trademarks

=> ↺ NFTs and new tech to shake up domain disputes in 2022

• Sources explain how disruptive tech such as NFTs, blockchain and the metaverse will affect domain name protection and enforcement this year

=> ↺ TTABlog Test: Is “CRC BAKERY” Confusable with the “CRC” Kosher Certification Mark, Both for Food Products?

• The USPTO refused to register the proposed mark CRC BAKERY for various bakery products (Class 30), for wholesale food distributorship services (Class 35), and for bakery services (Class 40) [BAKERY disclaimed], finding confusion likely with the registered certification mark CRC & Design (shown below) for “fresh and processed foods for human consumption.” Applicant argued, inter alia, that the cited mark – used to certify rabbinical approval of food products as being kosher – limits the classes of consumers for those foods to sophisticated and discerning consumers. How do you think this came out? In re CRC Packaging, LLC, Serial No. 88696519 (January 28, 2022) [not precedential] (Opinion by Judge Elizabeth A. Dunn).

• The cited certification mark is owned by the Chicago Rabbinical Council, and states that the mark is “used by persons authorized by the certifier to certify a reliable rabbinical approval of food products as being kosher.”

• The Section 2(d) likelihood-of-confusion analysis does not change when the cited registration is for a certification mark; however, because the owner of a certification mark does not itself use the mark, the determination of likelihood of confusion is based on use of the cited mark by the certification mark users.

=> ↺ Additional “GARANIMALS” Evidence Yields District Court Reversal Of TTAB’s “MANIMAL” Opposition Dismissal

• The United States District Court for the District of Oregon reversed the Board’s decision dismissing an opposition to registration of the mark MANIMAL for a wide variety of clothing, including “children’s clothing.” [TTABlogged here]. The Board found that opposers failed to establish a likelihood of confusion with its registered mark GARANIMALS for children’s shirts and pants. Reviewing de novo the TTAB record as well as substantial additional evidence, the court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment on its cause of action for review under Section 1071 of the Trademark Act. Garan, Incorporated and Garan Services Corporation v. Manimal, LLC, Case No. 3:20-cv-00623-IM (D. Oregon January 25, 2022).

• Plaintiffs’ new evidence focused on establishing the fame of the GARANIMALS mark, including evidence of substantial media recognition. Plaintiffs also placed their sales and advertising figures in marketing context, “showing that it is the second largest children’s clothing brand by market share, second only to Carter’s and ahead of brands including Children’s Place, Old Navy, Gerber, OshKosh, Circo, Hanes, Wrangler, and Healthtex.”

=> ↺ New UAE Patent Law: What do you need to know?

• The UAE has issued Federal Law no. 11 of 2021 (“the Law”) concerning the regulation and protection of Industrial Property Rights. The Law will repeal the former Patent Law, Law No. 17 of 2002 and covers patents, industrial designs, integrated designs, undisclosed information and utility certificates. It was published in Official Gazette no. 703 on 31 May 2021 and is expected to come into force when the Executive Regulations publish.

=> ↺ UAE Joins Madrid Protocol International Trade Mark System

• The Madrid Protocol allows businesses located in one member country of the Madrid Protocol system to obtain trade mark protection in any of the other 108 member countries through the filing of a single trade mark application. The Madrid Protocol currently extends to many countries of general commercial importance, including the UK, EU, US, Japan and China. It is also possible for owners of Madrid Protocol trade mark registrations to extend their trade mark protection to other member countries within the system as their business needs change. Due to the flexibilities of the system, using the Madrid Protocol to obtain trade mark protection overseas can be a very cost-effective mechanism, and can also simplify management of the trade mark portfolio moving forward.

=> ↺ The Dark Pictures developer trademarks five future titles

• Supermassive Games, developer of Until Dawn and the ongoing The Dark Pictures anthology series, has trademarked logos and titles for five future projects.

• All five appear to be upcoming releases in The Dark Pictures series, are styled with the franchise’s logo, and were registered via the European patent office yesterday, 31st January (thanks, Gematsu).

=> ↺ The Dark Pictures Series Developer Trademarks Five More Games

• It seems more titles are coming to The Dark Pictures franchise as it got trademarked just recently. There were registered via the European Patent office.

Copyrights

=> ↺ Breaking: UKIPO outlines five-year IP enforcement plan

=> ↺ attack on the interests of the British public

• The office will rely on intelligence sharing and educational campaigns as it looks to highlight the human impact of IP crime

=> ↺ Metaverse could spark C-suite IP investment, say brands

• In-house counsel in the fashion, science and drinks industries say that, despite uncertainties, the metaverse may encourage top-level investment in IP

=> ↺ Piracy Icon ETTV Officially Shuts Down Due to a Lack of Funds

• ETTV has shut down and will not be coming back. The operator of the site informs TorrentFreak that he doesn’t have the funds to keep the site and upload bots going. The domain names are still registered for now but these won’t be renewed either. It’s the end of an era.

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