decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
FBI Continues To Insist There's No Reason For Kim Dotcom To Be Able To See The Evidence | 210 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
FBI Continues To Insist There's No Reason For Kim Dotcom To Be Able To See The Evidence
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 06 2012 @ 02:03 PM EDT
We already noted that the New Zealand judicial system apparently isn't as willing as the US expected to rubber stamp approval of the extradition of Kim Dotcom. Part of that ruling was a requirement that the US turn over the evidence they're using against Dotcom, so that he can counter it in fighting against the extradition. However, it appears that the US is still fighting this, having the New Zealand prosecutor (who is fighting on their behalf) argue that Dotcom should only be allowed to see a single document out of the 22 million emails the FBI collected and that this really isn't a matter for the New Zealand courts to concern themselves with, as they should just let the Americans handle it.

Crown lawyer John Pike argued that there was no need for Dotcom to have access because he was not being tried in New Zealand.

The judge in the extradition case needed only to decide if there was a case for him to answer in the US, Mr Pike said, and that question was answered by the record of case.
Mike Masnick, Techdirt

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nokia share price going from bad to worse and beyond
Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, July 06 2012 @ 03:14 PM EDT

Nokia has slipped under the two dollar threshold - all the way down to $1.92. See Nokia Corporation Can't Find a Bottom

The latest hit came from China where phone vendors said they didn't want to sell domestic models running the Windows Phone, because they just struggle against the cheaper Android phones.

Previously, Nokia tried to deny the negative effect of the fact that users of current Lumia models won't be able to upgrade to Windows Phone 8 and said this shouldn't stop people from buying the line-up, but the fact of the matter is, in the world of smartphones, buying products that will be outdated in a so short a time just doesn't make much sense.

Wasn't Nokia trying to imply things were booming in China just a couple of months ago?

Their own government has given up on them. Moody's has written them off. See Nokia's Junk Status Is Spot On

Moody's decision shows that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop's turnaround efforts have been a dismal failure. Not even such drastic moves as announcing a plan to eliminate 10,000 jobs at Nokia have helped the company. Elop's alliance with his old employer, Microsoft (MSFT), has actually hurt Nokia and left it more vulnerable to Android-using competition.

The situation is likely to get worse because it is clear that Nokia no longer has the cash to enter the Tablet market. Nor does it seem to have the ability to successfully market new smartphones no matter how well-designed they are. That means its days as an industry leader are probably numbered.

The only real hope the company has is that Windows 8 will be a success. The problem with that line of thinking is that Windows 8 hasn't even been shipped yet. Even if Windows 8 is a success it will take several months for it to give a boost to Nokia. It doesn't seem possible that Nokia will be able to stay in operation long enough to see if Windows 8 will work with its current losses.

Even if Windows 8 works it might not help Nokia because Windows 8 is primarily a business operating system. It is hard to see a new PC operating system is going to help a phone manufacturer increase its sales. Even if it can be easily integrated with phones so can existing systems such as Android. So Mr. Elsop's line of reasoning is actually rather hard to swallow.

It is also hard to see Windows 8 giving any sort of boost to Nokia's stock. After all phone buyers are not familiar with it yet. That means there will be no boost in Nokia sales and cash flow from Windows 8. Instead the optimism about Windows 8 is probably going to drive down Nokia stock values because it is hard to see how the Microsoft operating system will translate into any additional cash flow.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Somebody Doesn't Like Samsung's Chromebox
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 06 2012 @ 04:36 PM EDT
the Register

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Patents problem visbility raised
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 06 2012 @ 11:00 PM EDT
Wrong solution undoubtedly but still

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Interesting: Samsung Is In It To Win It
Authored by: SilverWave on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 06:54 AM EDT
Samsung Is In It To Win It

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

www.patentlysilly.com
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 01:04 PM EDT
Oh My!
Somewhere between appalling and funny.
Patently Silly

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Def Leppard cuts off Universal Music, re-records "forgeries" of its own hits
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 02:50 PM EDT
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/06/def-leppard-cuts-off-universal.html

Def Leppard got screwed over by Universal Music on compensation for its digital downloads and refuses to have anything to do with them until they pay the band a fair share of the money from iTunes, the Amazon MP3 store, and other digital distribution systems. In order to cut the label out of its earnings, the band has gone back to the studio to re-record its most popular tunes, producing what it calls "forgeries" -- note for note reproductions of the original studio cuts.

The band can do this because of "compulsory licensing," which allows anyone to record and sell any song, on payment of a set royalty.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Rand and Ron Paul denounce net neutrality and the public domain
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 02:57 PM EDT
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/06/rand-and-ron-paul-denounce-net.html
Rand and Ron Paul have penned an Internet Freedom manifesto that is pretty terrible. It pans the idea of net neutrality, arguing that the phone companies who receive gigantic government handouts in the form of cheap (or free) rights of ways and hold natural monopolies over our connectivity should be able to use that government largesse to run a protection racket in which any website that doesn't pay for "premium carriage" will be slowed down when you or I try to visit them.

They also denounce the public domain as a collectivist plot, and argue that government monopolies over knowledge should be extended, and that tax-dollars should be used to enforce them.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Apple Exits "Green Hardware" Certification Program
Authored by: jesse on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 05:54 PM EDT
http://apple.slashdot.org/story/12/07/07/2140231/apple-exits-green-hardware-cert
ification-program

So the Apple closed hardware starts to run into recycling problems...

So what happens when the MS UEFI boot limitations prevent recycling of entire
systems...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Open source !ncest: GPL forked by its coauthor
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 08:05 PM EDT
Will licensing licentiousness rile Free Softies?

One of the principal authors of version 3 of the Gnu General Public License (GPL) has spun off his own version of the license without the participation of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), in a move that could ruffle feathers in the often-cantankerous free software community.

The new license has been dubbed GPL.next, and it's the brainchild of Robert Fontana, who along with Eben Moglen and Richard Stallman helped to draft the GPLv3, which debuted in 2007.

Fontana's free software credentials are solid. He currently serves as the open source and patent licensing counsel for Red Hat, though he says the Linux vendor is not involved or affiliated with the GPL.next effort in any way. Previously, he was legal counsel to the Software Freedom Law Center.

Neil McAllister, The Register

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

UEFI summit at Microsoft - Register by Monday
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 11:34 PM EDT
Link

UEFI Forum Releases UEFI 2.3.1 Specification Update and Schedules UEFI Summer Summit Interoperability & Education Event

Specification Update Benefits Windows 8 & Open Source OS Implementations

Microsoft to Host UEFI Summer Summit, July 16-20, 2012 in Redmond, WA

The UEFI Testing Work Group (UTWG) and the UEFI Industry Communications Work Group (ICWG) from the Unified EFI (UEFI) Forum invite you to register for the upcoming UEFI Summer Summit: An Interoperability and Education Workshop being held this July at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, WA.

Hosted by Microsoft, the event is sponsored by AMD, AMI, HP, Insyde, Intel, Microsoft & Phoenix.

Online registration for the UEFI Summer Summit can be found at: http://www.uefi.org/events/ and http://event.insydesw.com/insyde.swf?sid=13&op=enroll. Please note registration is scheduled to close on July 9th.

The organizers specifically wish to encourage add-in card vendors to attend the Summit. This is the last planned Forum-sponsored opportunity to test Secure Boot functionality and the interoperability of cards with UEFI-compliant systems for 2012. With the serious industry interest in Secure Boot functionality, this Summit is an excellent opportunity to test interoperability, as well as discuss the technology with other industry members.

It sure would be helpful if someone could go.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Tapping a link
Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Sunday, July 08 2012 @ 04:06 AM EDT
http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2012/07/05/slide-wars-uk-high-cou
rt-rules-against-apple-on-slide-to-unlock/

"HTC, meanwhile, found imports of their HTC One X superphone under threat
in the vital US market after the International Trade Commission ruled that its
operating system infringed a patent on “data tapping” – the ability to tap on a
phone number in a document, web page or email and have it open in a phone dialer
– and has undertaken to change its approach."


I have tapped web addresses for years in pdf:s and Word-documents. How can a
telephone number be that different?

---
______
IMANAL


.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Peter "Brokep" Sunde, railroaded into Swedish prison by Big Content
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 12:58 AM EDT
Peter "Brokep" Sunde was convicted in Sweden's notorious Pirate Bay
trial, and now faces prison time and a multimillion-euro fine.

As his imprisonment looms, he describes, in detail, the bizarre circumstances of
his conviction, which started with an illegal raid ordered by the US trade
representative, continued with an investigation led by a prosecutor who'd
already accepted a job with Warner Brothers as a copyright enforcer and was just
working through his notice period as he pursued Peter; and then a trial that
included a judge and multiple jurors who were literally getting paychecks from
the large copyright industry associations.

Peter was convicted on the thinnest of circumstantial evidence of having
configured a load-balancer in a data-centre used by The Pirate Bay (this
load-balancer was not plugged in at the time of the raid, and there's no
evidence it was ever plugged in).

On the basis of this corrupt, ugly, kangaroo court, the Swedish justice system
is ready to put him in jail for an "economic debt to some of the world’s
richest corporations," offshore bullies who have perverted the course of
justice in Sweden.

http://boingboing.net/2012/07/08/peter-brokep-sunde-railro.html

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Holding The USPTO Accountable
Authored by: sproggit on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 03:43 AM EDT
There is an interesting article over at geek.com, which basically asserts that crowd-sourced backlash against companies for using their patent arsenals may well be a bit misplaced.

I can't bring myself to agree 100% with the author's conclusions (because there me be a little selectivity going on with the facts) but I can support the sentiment that the USPTO and that organisation's willingness to grant a patent for just about anything might be a major source of trouble.

While we're on the lookout for constructive steps we can take to bring this hydra under control, how about instigating a policy at the USPTO that requires a very detailed and fast-track review of every patent exerted in a court case?

That might solve some of the problem, though perhaps it won't solve the type of behind-the-scenes coercion that we've witnessed between say Microsoft and the Android Handset manufacturers, or MS and Barnes&Noble.

If you do decide to follow the link and read that geek.com argument, take a little extra time and have a look at the comments being posted. They are a good example of highly polarized user communities. Never mind the tension between the companies themselves, this is just consumers who buy products from those companies...

We need to ratchet down the invective, across the board.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

off topic thread
Authored by: matth on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 08:13 AM EDT
<waylonjennings>Now if I didn't know better, I'd say someone had it in for the whole Android ecosystem</waylonjennings>
'The energy source responsible for generating the heat has been determined as external to the device... the device was not responsible for the cause of the fire,' FIUK said in a statement. 'The only way it was possible to produce damage similar to the damage recorded within the owner's damaged device was to place the devices or component parts within a domestic microwave.'

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

KDE on Qt
Authored by: odysseus on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 09:33 AM EDT
Statement from the KDE eV on recent developments around Qt and Nokia:

http://dot.kde.org/2012/07/09/kde-rely-qt-protect-qts-freedom-contribute-it

In short, KDE does not want to see a fork in the Qt community and will continue
to work within the Qt Open Governance project, but will stand by to enforce the
Free Qt agreement if really pushed.

Apologies it's not a linkie, Geeklog was barfing on it.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Galaxy Tab doesn't copy Apple designs, U.K. court rules
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 09 2012 @ 11:13 AM EDT
Apple declined to comment on the ruling, but reiterated its claims about the similarities between its products and Samsung's lineup.

"This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas," said an Apple representative.

Today's ruling affects three versions of the Samsung tablet: the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, and Galaxy Tab 7.7.

Roger Cheng, CNET

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )