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.
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."
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.
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.
Not necissarily. Most companies actually require that employees not say anything publically that could be construed as being "from the company", even though they're just from an employee. Basically only marketting shmoes "trained in the process" can speak to the public.
Most all statements "from the company" are passed through PR people and lawyers to make sure the company doesn't get in trouble for liabelous comments made by an employee.
That's what more likely happened, just more sue-fearing rather than business manipulation.
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
He also said that the questions weren't very good either...
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.
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.
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.
sPh
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.
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He probably hasn't been on Iron Chef because the show hasn't been filmed for years; it's just that it's slowly making its way over here. Most anime takes 2 years to get here, and the dubbing on Iron Chef is (generally) higher quality (not that I think need it at all, but...)
He has said in an interview that he doesn't consider himself a chef, and holds master chefs in high regard as artists, but is annoyed that they publish cookbooks, because "ordinary" people will never be able to duplicate their efforts. He likens it to Picasso publishing a "Paint like Picasso" book. Check out www.goodeatsfanpage.com for that interview, as well as transcripts to every show, and all sorts of good stuff.
What I'd really like to ask Alton is how much control he has over the recipes that appear on foodtv.com. His herb spread recipe from "Good Milk Gone Bad" seems to have been altered quite a bit, and in fact, the spices he used are listed as an alternative! Also, two of the recipes from "Deep Purple" (eggplant) seem to have suffered similar fates. In the episode, he made a big deal about combining all the other ingredients for baba ghannouj first, and then adding the parsley last, because, "You don't want to pulverise that parsely" (or it will turn bitter). But the foodtv recipe listing just tosses it all in at once. It also shortenes the draining time (for removing bitter alkaloids) from 30 minutes to 10 minutes. And though it's nice that they doubled the Eggplant Pasta recipe to serve more people, they seem to have quadrupled the olive oil, tomatoes, and basil; and again, the prep time is reduced (purging time given in the show was 15 minutes + 1-3 hours; here, it's 30 minutes). As picky as AB is about methods, I find this very strange.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
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.
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