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Submission + - UK software companies oppose Unitary Patent ratification (nounitarysoftwarepatents.uk)

Submitted by zoobab
zoobab writes: Companies across UK have expressed their opposition to an attempt to ratify the Unitary Patent treaty which is neither desirable for British software companies nor compatible with Brexit. They call for an urgent debate in the House of Lords and in the Scottish Parliament. Maurice Shakeshaft, CEO of CB Automation Ltd, from Newark: "The Unitary Patent will be the nail in the coffin for the european software industry. This court will be populated by members of the patent industry, which has broadened the scope of patents to software for the last 30 years."

Submission + - EPO admits the Unitary Patent is all about software patents (twitter.com)

Submitted by zoobab
zoobab writes: The European Patent Office (EPO) has recognised that the Unitary Patent Court will provide harmonisation across Europe on the issue of software patents. In a conference in London held few days ago, EPO’s Grant Philpott said "The UPC (Unitary Patent Court) will provide strong harmonisation in ICT applications that will play a dominant role in patent world". A recent leak by Techrights.org also shows that the EPO has been prioritizing patent applications for a few large non-European companies, such as Microsoft or Huawei. The leaked document and webpage is now made inacessible and filtered from the internet access within the EPO premises.
Ubuntu

Submission + - Richard Stallman Speaks About UEFI (bytesmedia.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Despite weaknesses in the Linux-hostile "secure boot" mechanism, both Fedora and Ubuntu decided to facilitate it, by essentially adopting two different approaches. Richard Stallman has finally spoken out on this subject. He notes that "if the user doesn’t control the keys, then it’s a kind of shackle, and that would be true no matter what system it is.” He notes that "Microsoft demands that ARM computers sold for Windows 8 be set up so that the user cannot change the keys; in other words, turn it into restricted boot." Furthermore, he notes, "this is not a security feature. This is abuse of the users. I think it ought to be illegal."
Software

Submission + - France to launch a national patent troll (numerama.com) 2

Submitted by
zoobab
zoobab writes: "France is creating a state sponsored patent fund, FranceBrevets, which primary focus will be to sponsor, acquire and license patents in the ICT (read software patents) sector. The patent fund is at the initiative of the minister of Research, Valérie Pécresse, the Ministry of Industry, Energy and digital economy, Eric Besson. The primary target of the fund is to collect licenses on those patents, which is already seen in France as the biggest patent troll of the country. France is also supporting the European Unitary Patent, which is seen by many at the final attempt to validate software patents in Europe."

Submission + - ACT Caught Subverting EU Pannels for M$ (javier-carrete.com) 2

Submitted by twitter
twitter writes: Wikileaks has published a document that exposes Microsoft efforts to harm free software in the EU through front groups. RAND is promoted, free software advocacy is removed and other changes are made on Microsoft's behalf. Anti-trust regulators should be alarmed.

The file is a draft for an expert panel formed by the European Commission. This panel is divided into workgroup (IPR, Open Source, digital life, etc.). ACT and Comptia have been infiltrating every workgroup, even the one on Open Source (WG 7). They are doing the best they can to drown any initiative that would not only promote OSS in Europe but also that could help Europe create a sucessful European software sector. ... [the document has] original and modified text (in glorious colour, so it's really worth downloading it and taking a look), which means that we can see what exactly an organisation sympathetic to Microsoft –and partly funded by them– is worried about

it is important to have the public know how actual policy making is being influenced by lobbies that are precisely under the legal scrutiny of the European Commission. The urgency of the publication of this document is real in the sense that outside pressure would force the Commission to "clean the committees"

This is an issue that Boycott Novell, aka Techrights has been tracking for some time.

Submission + - "No Power for the Parliament" warns EPO examiners 2

Submitted by zoobab
zoobab writes: The Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) sent a letter to the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, warning of risks for the European Parliament to be "circumvented" as a legislator when the EU will accede to the European Patent Convention (EPC). The European Patent Organisation is everything except a model of democracy: national patent offices are in power, there is no parliament involved in the decision making process, and diplomatic conferences are held behind closed doors. There are plans to create a central patent court in Europe, which would operate in a democratic vacuum, as it would not be counterbalanced by any legislative assembly, let alone the European Parliament. Such central patent court could also validate software patents via caselaw (as it was recently done with the Microsoft FAT patent by the German Supreme Court), and Microsoft, IBM or SAP are lobbying in Brussels not to reopen the software patent directive.

Submission + - EU-India treaty leaks with 3strikes provisions

Submitted by zoobab
zoobab writes: The draft agreement between Europe and India on Intellectual Property Rights has been leaked, and clearly mentions at its Article 34 the possibility for administrative tribunals, such as the ones currently being setup in France via the Hadopi, to shutdown internet access of suspected downloaders ("This article shall not affect the possibility for a court or administrative authority, in accordance with Parties' legal systems, of requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement"). The draft also contains provisions on ISPs liabilities. The European Commission is also pushing for ISPs liabilities for copyright infringements in the EU-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, which was criticised in the public hearing on ACTA on going beyond existing EU laws and the E-commerce directive.
Social Networks

Submission + - Battle.net set to integrate with Facebook (gamepron.com)

Submitted by dotarray
dotarray writes: In a move which combines the world’s most popular social platform with the world’s premier online gaming platform, Blizzard have just confirmed that their battle.net gaming service will be integrated with Facebook.
GNOME

Submission + - Collabora joins GNOME Foundatio Advisory Board (collabora.co.uk)

Submitted by Pauliea
Pauliea writes: UK-based open source software consultancy Collabora is joining the GNOME Foundation advisory board today. A long time supporter of GNOME and member of the GNOME community, Collabora contributes directly to GNOME projects like Empathy, PiTiVi, Totem and Epiphany.
GNOME

Submission + - Evangelism is War – The Mono/Moonlight Agend (pwnage.ca)

Submitted by blozza2070
blozza2070 writes: I was going over an old Groklaw posting that got me thinking about Microsoft and it’s .NET Agenda. I decided to do more research and took a look at the Comes vs Microsoft documents again but from the perspective of the current Mono issues. After reading the information contained in the documents I am even more convinced that Mono and Moonlight do nothing but help Microsoft win against competing platforms. I will quote and comment on a few relevant sections I found useful to prove my point.
Patents

Submission + - Intellectual Ventures' patent protection racket (timothyblee.com)

Submitted by
David Gerard
David Gerard writes: "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigous patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'"
Patents

Submission + - IBM says software patents drive OSS development (zoobab.com) 2

Submitted by
zoobab
zoobab writes: "In its Amicus Brief to the US Supreme Court on the Bilski case, IBM is arguing that "patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code [...] which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development." IBM also argue that the machine-or-tranformation test allow software to be patented, and that "software patent protection provides significant economic, technological, and societal benefits". IBM also "finds alarming decisions in the wake of Bilski concluding that software is excluded from patentable subject matter" making references to the BPAI decisions on Ex Parte Altman. IBM also says thet are "committed to ensuring that such technology [software] is and remains patentable"."

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