The geeks are up in arms because Microsoft has won approval of its much maligned Office Open XML (OOXML) format as an open standard. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has finally allowed OOXML to become an international standard after its initial rejection last year, but the decision still can Read more
(via Out-Law) Who should be liable if a consumer is the subject of a phishing attack? At least in the UK, the common banking practice has been to assume some or all of the losses incurred by the customer. This is about to change with the new Banking Code. The Read more
(via Ray Corrigan) I have been following the saga of U.S. Patent 6,988,138 protecting “Internet-based education support system and methods”. After winning an injunction in a Texas court, Blackboard has seen 44 of its claims knocked out in a preliminary injunction by the USPTO. Ray has a comprehensive report, so Read more
The British press is going through a feeding frenzy, as tabloids and mainstream media outlets try to outdo each other in reporting the threats posed to children online. The Daily Mail warns us that “Millions of girls using Facebook, Bebo and Myspace ‘at risk’ from paedophiles and bullies“. Even by Read more
The Internet is broken. You may have noticed some of the signs: slow connections, sluggish downloads, constant disconnections, lost emails, tons of spam. Who broke it, and how can we fix it? This was part of a very interesting talk by Chris Marsden at BILETA 2008, an earlier version of Read more
Habitual readers may be interested in knowing that I will soon be joining the ranks of Newstex, a blog syndication service that aggregates content and sells it to legal information services such as LexisNexis, EBSCO, CanWest MediaWorks, Thomson Financial, and Thomson Business Intelligence. I am quite chuffed by their invitation Read more
Second COMMUNIA workshop: Vilnius, Lithuania, 31/03/08 Ethical Public Domain: Debate of Questionable Practices – this is the title for the Second COMMUNIA workshop to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania on Monday 31 March 2008 from 8:30 to 18. The morning session will be held at ELTA press center, with registration Read more
(via Guardian Blogs) It seems just like yesterday that Darl McBride wrote his infamous letter to Congress, where he came narrowly close of calling open source as tantamount to anti-Americanism, communism and abolition of intellectual property rights. Bill Gates famously called open source a modern form of communism. What do Read more
(via TerraNova) Blizzard, the makers of World of Warcraft, are involved in copyright litigation against MDY, the makers of a cheat program called Glider. This program allows users to run the game on autopilot by becoming a bot that allows the user to kill monsters and farm their loot without Read more
I mentioned yesterday the new case in the High Court of England and Wales regarding software patents, Symbian Ltd v Comptroller General Of Patents. Symbian Ltd is a UK company which produces a mobile operating system, and in 2004 made a PCT application for “Mapping of dynamic link libraries in Read more