Slashdot Mirror
Peek Into European Patent Examining Cancelled
We were going to run European Patent Examiner John Savage's answers to 10 Slashdot questions today, but he emailed us this morning and asked us to pull them back because he was was in trouble over the interview. What he had to say was informative, non-controversial, and would not have hurt his employer's reputation at all, but we don't want John to lose his job or face disciplinary action on our account. Anyway, get ready for a slightly unusual Slashdot interview guest next week: Celeb chef and self-described "culinary cartographer" Alton Brown.
I guess we can infer their stance on the issues: our decisions are definitive, reality is often in error.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Nice to know that informing and educating people about a legal process can put you in danger of losing your job.
"Prejudice is wrong; you should hate everyone the same."
It's too bad he can't answer our questions for fear of penalty, but I don't know what there is to say about it other than darn.
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
Looks like his employer was owned by big businesses and was not in the interest of the public.
Now, everyone will just be wondering what they're hiding...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
I was very interested A) to see what questions would be allowed to be asked, and B)to hear what he had to say. I guess their methods for patent approval are patented and, therefore, cannot be discussed in an open forum. Probably afraid the US Gov't would sue or bomb over pointed answers about the US system.
I'd like a better explanation of the cancellation.
Anything you say will be held against you.
That damn lameness filter! I don't think its caught a truely "lame" post yet!
-------rhad
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Any chance the interview will be an MP3 clip?
Would there be a way to put some pressure to the European Patent Office? After all we are thousands of voices...
And, no, I don't mean pressure in DoS style. More something like a petition.
Any chance the interview will be an MP3 clip?
Of course! After all, he didn't respond to an email with the questions answered, and asked for the previous story to be pulled. However, he will certainly get one of his buddies to read him the questions, answer them, record the whole session, and make it available to the world! Why didn't I think of that?
I guess now we'll realize that their patent system is just as screwed up as America's, but the hard way. :P
Chris 'coldacid' Charabaruk Meldstar Entertainment
It might be interesting to publish a list of the questions chosen for this. It would give us more insight into what they're trying to hide, even if we don't get to see the answers.
Teen Angel - a Ghost Story
do you think you could at least post the questions that you sent his way? mayne then we could all get an idea of what trouble might have been caused.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
This will really make his employer look great!
I stole this Sig
What the hell? Is /. slowly becoming the online equivalent of 'Good Morning America'?
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
He also said that the questions weren't very good either...
Don't you mean an Ogg Vorbis clip?
Don't use PATENT-ENCUMBERED software!
A lot of big organizations, such as corporations, government agencies, etc, and those smaller agencies descended from them, tend to want tight control over the information going out.
Not knowing anything about this situation in particular, but from my experience I'd say the trouble came about because the answers weren't gone over by their Public Affairs and Legal weenies before he sent them out.
If they HAD been white-washed by Legal and PA, then something in the answers must have worried someone. Don't forget that anything that comes from someone associated with an organization is assumed "expert opinion" and "official policy" even if the first two statements in the matter directly refute those assumptions.
Alternatively, someone's boss may have an excessively high cover-my-arse quotient and decided to play it by the safest method: Don't tell 'em nothin', and they won't have anythin' on yeh. We don't have a grand conspiracy here, just ordinary every day middle-management pucker factor.
(Speaking as a former gov't employee...)
"The best argument against democracy is a five minute chat with the average voter."
--Winston Churchill
Well could an anonymous coward take the interview instead? since an anonymous coward is not a representitive of a company.
I'm sure a few answers scattered arround the place wouldn't get noiticed.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I guess John's employer has something to be ashamed of, and wants to keep it under wrap...
This does not sound like a free world to me. Not at all. Too bad the goverments are too caught up in popularity contests and corruption to activly stand on the "little" mans side.
They all seemed very US Europe has a reasonably different patent system (you can't patent tieing a bow in you hair and crap like that)
Well lets have a look at the questions.
I can't wait for the QA session. I want to ask him why he hasn't been on Iron Chef yet, and if he thinks he has a good chance against those guys?
PS: I am glad that Alton does not teach us how to cook hot-dogs with an electrical plug and two forks.
Instead of a "Peek Into European Patent Examining " story, how about a "Peek Into European Panty Examining" story? I would love to find out who "Inspector 12" is.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
I'm also working at the EPO, as an external contractor. It is interesting to see that he has been forced to pull his interview, but there may be some good reasons for this. And probably none of them has anything to do with the questions per se. ;) or any other company getting lots of media coverage. Imagine you, as 'just another worker' would start answering questions from the press and so on. No matter how much you would state that you do not represent them or their opinion etc. etc., try thinking how easy it is for a newspaper, website, radio station, etc. to simply edit those statements away.. Not only would you risk ending up having your statements treated as if they were 'authoritative', you would, with good reason, piss your boss off.
Imagine you working for a huuuuge company, say IBM, Microsoft, WorldCom
One thing is to talk to your friends about the good and bad things happening at your job. An entirely different thing is to publically make statements about it when you really have NO authority to do so. If you are working for someone, you need to be able to trust your employer, AND your employer needs to be able to trust you.
I could have said a lot of interesting things about how the EPO works, both positive and negative, but I won't do so in a public forum simply because it is not my job!
If you want answers from the EPO, or any other company or organization, there are usually public relations departments or the like. They are not always too helpful, but that should always be the place to start. And I wouldn't be all too surprised if they would indeed agree to do an interview with the slashdot crowd. After all the EPO takes pride in saying it's an organization of scientists, fundamentally differently organized than the american patent office, and atleast some people in high places do identify with our kind.
Love over Gold.
can we please please get his employers email address to write protest emails? (specially interesting for citiziens of the European Union, since I guess his employer is funded by OUR taxes and should act in OUR interests!)
Is this where we submit questions? Or is an editor going to setup a separate article?
It looks like most of this thread is rants on the cancled responce.
I'm volunteering to do the interview this week in lieu of the European patent examiner who unfortunately could not do the interview.
Go ahead, ask me anything.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
While the USPO will happily grant patents for software algorithms, the EPO does not do this, and clearly states so in its material, and when questioned. (I've asked the EPO myself.) No, the EPO does not allow such blatant exploitation by twisted business. No... you have to be much more sneaky, describing your algorithm as a 'machine' that just happens to be implemented as software.
As so often in Europe, we have the same dirt as everywhere else, but it's cloaked in bureaucratic verbage.
It would have been fun to rip into an EPO spokesman, but it would have to be someone with the authority so actually answer questions such as "How many US firms have already registered software patents while the EPO is refusing these from little European software firms?"
You can tell I've not much hope for the EPO. They may be scientists, but that does not stop them being fools.
My blog
I was hoping for an interview with a Nutritional Anthropologist, but I guess we'll have to settle for Alton.
slashdot broke my sig
The EPO invoked the DCMA to prevent employee J. Savage from exposing the inner workings of the EPO's patent approval process, saying "we consider the EPO's approval process to be a trade secret protected through our jargonising encryption machine (pat.pend), and any public discussion of this process would violate upcoming EuroDCMA legislation."
Independent sources from said that Sony was working on a new jargon-compliant DRM package - OpenPatentOffice/MG - that would control and monitor all use of patented inventions automatically.
My blog
I'd be suprised if he had been allowed to answer questions. It's just plain old SOP that release of information from government agencies must go through the agencies' procedures. This means that the garbage man isn't able to tell me how he drives the truck and works the trash compactor without a policy statement from the mayor's office saying what to tell me. Is there still a bank secrets law that keeps bankers from saying how much cash reserve they have to maintain, etc? Maybe there's secrecy laws for patent offices? And their probably secret too.
Supra et Ultra
"Don't talk to the press without permission" or "divert all media inquiries to the communications office" are boilerplate phrases from most every employee manual.
/. headlines "Microsoft says..." that should be "A single Microsoft peon says...", or the recent Saudi pentagon leak, etc. etc.).
:)
It's a control issue, for fear that every statement released will appear to be official company policy (cf. those "my opinions alone" email sigs, or
If you think this level of control isn't necessary for communications reps to do their job, why don't you give everyone root access and see what happens.
Quick! Somebody file a patent through them that gives you credit for thinking up cancelling slashdot interviews! Then you can tell them that they have to pay you $10,000 to cancel the interview... that'll learn 'em. They'll probably approve the patent anyhow knowing what other patents have been filed in the past...
No more circular swinging, no more phone dialing music, no more wheel... durn...
Somebody who is recently retired would still have a fresh view, yet not be at risk of being fired (unless they can yank your pension if you make them look bad).
Table-ized A.I.
This is Europe, you'd get in hell almight shit if you done something like that.
The next logical question then is why doesn't slashdot submit the questions using the proper channels?
This has the two-fold benefit of having "our" questions answered and making them look good. That way I can glide past all the "look at how secretive and curropt the EPO is!" posts...
Its a litigious(sp?) world we live in, and it would be horrible for a blatantly bad patent application (you know, the kind that get approved in the US everyday?) to take the EPO to court based upon some answer that a guy (who just so happens to be employed by the EPO, therefor acts as their agent) gave, forcing the patent to be granted, and set the precedent for bad patents!
just becuase we are geeks doesn't mean we can't follow some rules.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Mr. Alton Brown,
I'll be doing an annual turkey fry with a couple buddies before summer's end and the question of brining has come up. What exactly does the brining process do to the bird? What part does the sugar vs. the salt vs. H2O play? I've observed that brined chicken breasts develop a nice brown color and are juicy but would like a more scientific perspective, especially with respect to brining + frying. One concern is that the sugar on the skin may carbonize under the high cooking temperature.
I plan on brining the turkey for a day, followed by a day of sitting outside the brine, but injected with a buttery mix of herbs and spices. I'm also a little concerned that the effects of brining may be lost if the bird is left outside the brine so long before cooking. A scientific perspective would help me in better approximating the ideal way to go about this. Thanks! I really enjoy and look forward to your shows, the bee puppets in the honey episode were hillarious!
shutup, norman
Personally, I think it was just this guy's unique way of pissing off the patent office when his original patent application was rejected.
SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE A_WINNER = "YUO";
No the point about a troll is that they have to know something. The idea of trolling IMHO is to get convince people that you compleate and utter bolx argument is the truth. I think that trolls are funny and always have them set at +2 in my stats.
A good troll can make for a good read, and be quite insitefull at times.
The one with the homemade bacon - Scrap Iron Chef...took on both Iron Chef and Junkyard Wars at once. Clever show!
I doub't anyone would be allowed to talk about a specific case/argument only the general argument.
Will you come over to my place and fix dinner for me and my family?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't you just want to kick emerill's ass?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why mod this down? It's not clear if the interview will be posted next week or if questions will be accepted next week. I really wanted this one answered!
so exactly what do they have to hide? Somehow I doubt this is a case of just idioticus managerus
The fact that an EU bureaucrat tries to hide/censor something doesn't necessarily mean that he has something to hide. Even normal things that interest no one get censored from time to time. It's really annoying, I know. But as long as most of these people remain conditioned to the French-style govermental culture they'll keep thinking that hiding everything thinkable is good for their institution.
God damn it, that was the funniest thing I've read all day.
I'd say that his manager needs to read items 1 through 95 of the Clue Train Manifesto. He seems to be under the mistaken assumption that preventing conversations maintains the secrecy of the Guy Behind the Curtain, when in fact all it does is point out that he has no clothes on.
(Woohoo, a new low in mixed metaphors! *grin*)
"The purpose of argument is to change the nature of truth." -- Bene Gesserit Precept
I understand the risks that some sources make pickup statements as an authority. My concern is: Why should the patent office, a PUBLIC institution that grants lucritive temporary monopolies on IDEAS, not be subjected to public scrutany???
What are the REAL risks? What's the worse that could happen if our friend was allowed to talk freely? Maybe people would lose confidence with current policy!!! Oh no!!!
The people who silenced this guy should be held liable. He has every right to talk about his experience and role in public policy, without fearing losing his job. This isn't a corporation, and it isn't the military. It's a PUBLIC institution.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
Iron Chef and Good Eats are the only two good shows on the Food Network.
The dubs on Iron Chef are pretty darn good, but they tend to use the same phrases over and over again. How many times does someone use, "It's sooo luxurious!" in normal conversation? I guess maybe because the judges are dumb actors? Why do they have an actors as food judges? Or politicians or a fortune teller? That bitch is a complete idiot. I would rather see that Jamaican woman on TV that reads tarot cards up there. I hate that "scholar" old dude the most. He is so arrogant, and full of bs it's incredible.
"I see what you are trying to say when you mixed the foie gras in with the sake. I appreciate the subtle message in the harmonious blending and it truly accentuates the key ingredient."
I don't think that allowing human beings to speak to each other about what they do is equivalent in any way to giving people root.
Having root is equivalent to having power. Speaking is only speaking. Only in a democracy does power accrue to those who speak convincingly. Corperate and Government bureacracies are not democratic.
Standard-issue boilerplate aside, we are all smart enough to recognize when we are speaking with a corperate mouthpiece, and when we are speaking with an actual human being. Advertizing sounds nothing like a conversation.
I prefer to hear people, not cleverly crafted almost-lies.
Hi,
the EPO's site obscure JS contact form for general questions sends mail to infowien@epo.nl.
We do have general questions, don't we?
Bye.
Oh, so the best way to help this guy is to compound his mistake by bringing forth a barrage of criticism from the public? That will simply confirm their worst fears about someone taking the organization's PR into their own hands, and will almost definitely worsten things for him.
This Clue Train jingoism touting "The end of business as usual" was concocted back in 1999 when everyone thought that the internet would shift the capital assets of the fortune 100 to information/transaction trading/providing (i.e. internet) companies such as yahoo, amazon and commerce one.
It's exactly this kind of pass-the-buck mentality (i.e. "It's not my job") that often leads to tragedy. It's sad ready. Think about the experiments where research assistents were asked to give people electric shocks *even* when they thought the person might be dead...
That would be why he's behind the curtain, then.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Or perhaps one that was recently fired and might be bitter??? Though it's absolutely true what was said above...there's FIRM policies in government agencies regarding speaking to the media...so i'm frankly not that surprised...though i *am* upset
I used to think that too, but here's what I heard from one of our EPO associates:
/. are way off.
I wrote:
Our client....may be interested in nationalizing the below PCT application in Europe... Because we understand that the European Patent Office is not receptive to software patents, we are interested in obtaining your advice on whether the referenced PCT application may be successfully prosecuted in Europe, either in its current form or as amended to specifically avoid EPO rejection with respect to its software content. Additionally, if you are aware of any substantively different treatment of software patent applications in the national offices of Germany or the United Kingdom, we would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
He replied:
I do not know from which source you have received your information regarding the problems in prosecution of software patents before the EPO. The desicions of the Boards of Appeal within the last three years clearly demonstrate that the criteria set by the EPO are in line with those made by the USPTO (the harmonization aspect is here very important). It is possible that the prosecution period at the EPO was relatively long in the past for reasons of waiting for principal decisions in this field that were, however, made in the meantime. In Germany (national) we can see more restrictions at the moment but here the situation is also changing. Therfore, filing the application at the EPO or in UK or Germany will make no difference from our present knowledge.
Anyway, unless there's something I misunderstand, the frequent EP anti-software-patent comments on
I last saw the Cluetrain Manifesto in the $1 book bin, with a pile of other "make money on dotcoms" books, at a book remainder dealer in a dying shopping mall.
Just in case we're doing questions...
Alton, great book. However, why would a chef who copies recipes out of books produce a book where the hardware/software parts of the recipes are in dark green (not a friendly copier color)?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
I'm not a regular /. user but this time I've read some posts, and would like to answer some together.
I can understand organizations not wanting employees talking to the press, and I can undand anger at this form of censorship. I'm upset the interview couldn't be answered even though the questions weren't so absolutely great.
I believe the EPO is up to worse things than that, though. There is no democratic control on it . Please read
English/German European Patent Office: High Above Legality
Catalan A can Ribot malcrien el porc
There was a nice statement from the workers union, but it's no longer online (sounds familiar?)
It was at
http://www.usoeb.org/Suepo/kontrol.htm
Does anybody have a cached copy?
Anyway. There are more productive things to do than complaining in Slashdot or email bombing the EPO.
There are a lot of organisations fighting to stop the patent system from running even more insane than it is, and there's lot of info around.
Please think of spending some time helping these people before it's too late, instead of using slashdot, watching TV or hacking. Every bit of help is useful. You can inform yourself and talk to politicians or have your company press your government (but please do your homework first and make an informed opinion before facing people whose income and career depends on making it seem there is no problem). If you don't want to do that, you can translate text, offer technical help, gather data, produce art work, research or summarize facts, publish articles, place links in your website, etc. (even contribute money).
No fight is lost until it ends, there is a lot of work to be done, but we are many and they are few.
If everybody learns and teaches a little, and spends time on useful tasks, we'll have the patent system reformed.
This winter will be decisive in Europe, as the
software patentability directive will be in the European Parliament and Council. Please read
CEC & BSA 2002-02-20: proposal to make all useful ideas patentable
For those in the US, beside altruistically helping
Europeans, you can also try to be heard by the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Comission, who are holding a debate on competition law and intellectual property. Please take your time to learn and think about the issues, so that your contribution is both solid and useful. See:
Competition and IP law and policy in the knowledge
based economy
For those in Japan, I don't know, but I believe the patent system has also recently lost bearings and political pressure would be needed. For those elsewhere I don't know, check for yourselves or help us so that this disease does not expand to where you are.
You'll find more links to information sources (a bit Europe centric) at
this slide
Ah!. And for those thinking the EPO is better than the USPTO, see
European Software Patent Horror Gallery
The EU likes to pretend that it's an oh so noble institution, whereas the US is run by mobsters. Well, most Europeans are fully aware that the EU and the European Parliament are staffed by some of the laziest, overly bureaucratic morons and crooks that this planet has ever seen.
Infact, the politicians behind the EU are somewhat like Nazis. They were NOT ELECTED BY THE PUBLIC, and have just taken power by blinding the governments of member states with nonsense about 'improved trade' and 'less economic barriers'.
Countries that are in the EU are forced to take on the laws as the EU dictates. Britain has a say in what laws it wants to take, but if the other states vote against it.. then 60,000,000 British citizens will be subject to a law that even their government opposes!
The EU parliament are nothing but Nazis in liberal clothing.
mogorific carpentry experiments
The second question is why?
The third question is whom should we direct these valid questions to?
The fourth question is what excuse do the proper authorities have for not answering public questions?
The fifth question is which question was it that trigered all this mess?
The sixth question is what *are* they hiding?
The seventh question is whose interests really matter
The final question is how many newspapers, websites, etc. we can get to comment on this way of refusing the public to learn what is going on.
In Murphy We Turst
Jesus have the mods lost the plot or what...
I got a funny for mentioning that the WWF and WWF
are now the WWF and WWE
and now someone gets an overrated for a great comment.
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Your search - Monitaianism - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "monitaianism".
-Google
I'm so disappointed.
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Scrutiny.
Get a real job before saying such nonsense.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Is it Meistergeek of the NT and UNIX department? Good, go to your cave and carry on making your IT concoctions.
./ as long as he asks permission first and he explains to the relevant person the nature of the interview.
There are many valid reason why any big organization needs to handle media relations in an organized manner. Most probably this guy may be able to give an interview even to
Think liabilty here, big organizations have to be extremely careful about what and who says what.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Scrutiny does not mean allowing any Joe Employee to say whatever it wants about the organization. There are many channels to scrutinize such an organization, interviews with unathorized employees of the organization is one of the worst I can think of (unless he/she is blowing the whistle about some improperty, which clearly was not the case here).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
It would not seem so.
In todays litigious society, where you are sued or at least criticized for the smallest of slips, where journalists are scavenging for every single bit of news to check where somebody is contradicting himself, why so many people wonder why is that organizations of any kind require to organize the way they talk to the public at large?
Common people, those of you that are actually employed know quite well why this is necessary (I did not say desirable). Any one here complaining that has actually held a job knows that you can't go and talk about what your employer do without clearance. Deal with it properly and grow up.
Scrutiny does not have anything to do here: ask the same questions to the relevant person in the same organization and lets see what happens. If they refuse to answer then you may have a point about the organization attempting to elude scrutiny.
To those of you complaining without ever having had a job or the responsibility of working for a complex organization: get some life experience before pontificating. Or are you trolling?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That way you post at +1.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Scrutiny DOES mean allowing any Joe Employee to say whatever he wants (minus libel) about the organization without having it going through channels who's sole purpose is to censor and omit corruption and incompetence.
Doing otherwise only makes it more difficult for the rest of us to detect corruption, incompetence in a public institution whose purpose is to promote the advancement of technology by providing an incentive, not act as the corrupt wing of government who lines the pockets of IP attorneys and other patent cartels.
I don't know about you, but I don't trust corrupt beaurcrats as much as I trust as WorldCom/Enron executive.
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
That guy's awesome.
I remember one time he said something like "It's like there's a Proletariat workers' class of taste rebelling against stern factory owners who..." and it just went on like that for nigh on five minutes... It was a quote on par with "I haven't seen bloodline's THIS murky since the house of Plantaginate." on monday night football and "Some muthafucka's always tryin' to iceskate uphill." from Blade.
Institutions and companies of all kinds have legal responsibilities, they can't allow people that do not speak officially in they behalf to say whatever they want regarding the innerworkings of the entity.
There are proper channels to scrutinize public institutions, and whistleblowers can always use anonymity to open the Pandora box when needed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.