Showing headlines posted by BernardSwiss

A couple of months ago, we wrote about how publishing giant Elsevier had purchased the open access pre-publisher SSRN. SSRN is basically the place where lots of research that we regularly report on is published. Legal and economics academics quite frequently post their journal articles there. Of course, Elsevier has a well-known reputation for being extreme copyright maximalists in dangerous ways. Having Elsevier take over SSRN concerned a lot of academics, and even led to calls for alternatives, including many asking the famed arXiv to open a social science research operation as well.

Europe only has a few days left to ensure that its member countries are actually protected by real net neutrality rules. As we've been discussing, back in October the European Union passed net neutrality rules, but they were so packed with loopholes to not only be useful, but actively harmful in that they effectively legalize net neutrality violations by large telecom operators.

She's shown in the past a willingness to stand up and fight against government surveillance and for freedom of speech and access to information. Her positions on copyright are less clear, but as she's now in charge of the Copyright Office, hopefully she'll bring some much needed balance to that office, and a greater recognition, as a librarian, of the importance of access to information, rather than locking up all info.

It's no secret that Apple does not want you to monkey around with your device's innards or to take it anywhere but to its own stores for repairs. The company has continually screwed around with the screws that keep its hardware together in an effort to prevent DIYers and non-Apple-approved repair shops from opening its devices.

There are big “no trespassing” signs affixed to most of our electronics.If you own a gaming console, laptop, or computer, it’s likely you’ve seen one of these warnings in the form of a sticker placed over a screw or a seam: “Warranty void if removed.”

In addition, big manufacturers such as Sony, Microsoft, and Apple explicitly note or imply in their official agreements that their year-long manufacturer warranties—which entitle you to a replacement or repair if your device is defective—are void if consumers attempt to repair their gadgets or take them to a third party repair professional.

How do you store your paper files? Perhaps you leave them scattered on your desk or piled on the floor. If you’re more organized, you might keep them in a cabinet. This month’s stupid patent, US Patent No. 6,690,400 (the ’400 patent), claims the idea of using “virtual cabinets” to graphically represent data storage and organization. While this is bad, the worse news is that the patent’s owner is suing just about anyone who runs a website.

Researchers have encountered a denial-of-service botnet that's made up of more than 25,000 Internet-connected closed circuit TV devices...

The US Supreme Court has taken up its next patent case, which may well lead to another decision sharply overturning a ruling by the nation's top patent court.

Here's how the case made it to the high court:

The idea is that the "invention" in the case of design patents are supposed to be unique outputs of what might otherwise not be unique inventions that are then said to act as some sort of single-source invented thing. Honestly, the whole concept smells of a workaround on the actual purpose of patent law and it tends to function that way as well. How else do you explain the design patent granted on a toothpick with some lines carved into it, for instance? Or Apple's design patent on the animation of turning a page within an ebook? Rewarding exclusivity to these types of "inventions" that barely work up the sweat of an "inventor" should seem absurd to you, as should the frequency with which the public is left wondering where exactly the "invention" is in any of this.

But Linux is always about choice, and snap isn't the only contender to replace traditional packaging systems. Today, the developers of Flatpak (previously called xdg-app) announced general availability for several major Linux distributions, with a pointer to instructions for installing on Arch, Debian, Fedora, Mageia, and Ubuntu.

This one was so easy to predict. For the past couple of decades, completely clueless US politicians and bureaucrats (and tech company execs) have been screaming about how China "doesn't respect" our intellectual property. They demanded that China "get more serious" about patents and respecting IP. And for nearly a decade we've been warning those people to be careful what you wish for.

The lawyers who successfully got "Happy Birthday" put into the public domain and then sued two months ago over "We Shall Overcome" have a new target: Woody Guthrie’s "This Land."

Hardware that ships with Linux installed isn't as rare as it used to be. System 76, Purism, ZaReason, and others have been cranking out hardware with Linux pre-installed for quite a while now. But while those of us who use Linux may know these companies, there's only one household name that currently ships laptops with Linux installed—Dell.

Alsup notes that, of course Oracle is going to appeal, so as with last time, he adds some background potentially directed at the appeals court more than either of the parties in the case. Concerning the main line of attack that Oracle is expected to use on appeal -- over the instructions to the jury concerning fair use, Alsup notes that there was nothing wrong with the instructions at all, and that both parties had plenty of chances to weigh in on those instructions:

Alsup's stinging order [PDF], which rejects Oracle's argument [PDF] on every front, hardly comes as a surprise. But the document provides the first insights as to what Oracle might bring up in an appeal proceeding, which the company has said it will pursue. In the order, Alsup defends how he ran the trial. The evidence and instructions presented to the jury were a mix of mandates from the appeals court, which overruled Alsup on the key issue of API copyrightability, and modifications urged by both sides' lawyers.

A company that designs MIPS processors for networking hardware says it is developing technology that would allow installation of open source firmware on wireless routers while still complying with the US Federal Communications Commission's latest anti-interference rules.

It's been about seven months now since Valve officially got into the hardware business with its Steam Machines, a line of Linux-powered gaming console/PC hybrids paired with a unique dual touchpad Steam Controller. Today, we're getting our first concrete glimpse of the impact that hardware has had on the wider market for gaming machines—and the numbers don't look too good for Valve.

First, My Health’s stupid patent. The patent is generally directed to “a method and system for monitoring and treating a patient who has one or more diagnosed conditions and is located at a remote location from a treatment processing system.” If that sounds mundane, that’s because it is.

Annette Hurst, one of Oracle's lawyers, has recently argued recently that Google's victory will be harmful to open source developers. I have a great deal of respect for her as a lawyer, but this claim is not just greatly exaggerated. It's wrong. Here's why:

"The developer community may be celebrating today what it perceives as a victory in Oracle v. Google. Google won a verdict that an unauthorized, commercial, competitive, harmful use of software in billions of products is fair use. No copyright expert would have ever predicted such a use would be considered fair. Before celebrating, developers should take a closer look. Not only will creators everywhere suffer from this decision if it remains intact, but the free software movement itself now faces substantial jeopardy."