PUBLIC MARKS with search filed

"Doing more checking, Schoemaker found a LinkedIn profile where Farrell listed himself as working as a Google AdWords account strategist. That’s since changed (Schoemaker says it was changed the day he filed suit), but here’s how it looked from a screenshot that Schoemaker sent me:"

According to TMZ, legendary blues singer Syl Johnson filed a lawsuit against the hip-hop band claiming the music from his 1969 record "Is It Because I'm Black" were used without permission on Hill's "Lock Down (Interlude)."

Put this in the category of “you gotta be kidding me.” Microsoft has applied for and received a patent (U.S. Patent #7,415,666) that essentially patents “Page Up/Page Down” functionality. The patent (Timothy D Sellers, Heather L. Grantham, Joshua A. Dersch) that was filed in March 2005 is yet another proof that our patent system is as (if not more) dysfunctional as Britney Spears.

Re Firefox ! Filed under: — Tags: Firefox, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer 8, Microsoft, Mozilla, Software release life cycle, Web browser — Digtital Move's @ 11:30 am Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 vs. Firefox 3.0.1 by ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes — So, how does Microsoft’s latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 compare Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0.1 in terms of speed? Let’s find out in this quick head-to-head! Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 vs. Firefox 3.0.1 by ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes — So, how does Microsoft’s latest beta release of Internet Explorer 8 compare Mozilla’s Firefox 3.0.1 in terms of speed? Let’s find out in this quick head-to-head!

A charity operated by "Get Smart" actress Anne Hathaway's boyfriend is being investigated by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, the New York Post reported. Until recently, Hathaway's beau, 29-year-old Italian businessman Raffaello Follieri, sat on the children's charity's board of directors, The Post reported. Cuomo's office refused to tell the Post why it was investigating the Manhattan-based charity, which says its programs include vaccinating Third World children. Cuomo's probe comes two months after Follieri was arrested in Manhattan on charges that he bounced a $215,000 check — written against an account that a source said had just $39 in it — to a New Jersey man for services to his real-estate company, the Follieri Group. Charges were dropped in May. Earlier this year, Follieri settled a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle, who accused him and the Follieri Group of "systematically misappropriating" at least $1.3 million of more than $55 million that Burkle's company had contributed to a joint venture to buy and redevelop Catholic Church properties. Burkle's suit said Follieri used the money to fund an extravagant lifestyle that included private jet travel for himself and Hathaway, as well as for loans of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the foundation.

Lately, I've seen some people criticize Mozilla because a particular bug (often a request for a new feature) that they care a lot about hasn't been fixed, on the basis that the bug was filed some number of years ago (generally more than five). I think this line of criticism is undeserved and seriously misguided. People who make this argument are, effectively, criticizing us for our openness.

Hey David, We have exactly the same critics at W3C. When a spec takes a lot of time, or things are not solved right away. We have tons of reproaches, because the information is accessible.

Filed under art

In a brief filed in federal court yesterday, Universal Music Group (UMG) states that, when it comes to the millions of promotional CDs ('promo CDs') that it has sent out to music reviewers, radio stations, DJs, and other music industry insiders, throwing them away is 'an unauthorized distribution' that violates copyright law. Yes, you read that right -- if you've ever received a promo CD from UMG, and you don't still have it, UMG thinks you're a pirate."

Online history: The rise and rise of social networking Mid to Late 1990s First social networking sites emerge, such as sixdegrees.com and classmates.com. By 1999 MySpace is in operation; at the same time Hertfordshire couple Steve and Julie Pankhurst, devise Friends Reunited. 22 March 2002 Friendster is launched by Jonathan Abrams in California. For a while it is considered the No 1 social networking site. March 2003 MySpace, widely held to be the biggest social networking site of them all, is launched by Tom Anderson. 4 February 2004 Facebook is launched by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. Initially the network is only for Harvard students. Within two months all the Ivy League schools are included and over the next two years more universities, high schools and corporations are added. 2 September 2004 A lawsuit is filed against Zuckerberg by ConnectU founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, alleging that he illegally used the concept and codes for their site after he worked for it as a programmer. January 2005 Bebo launched by UK couple Michael and Xochi Birch. The site quickly climbs to the top of the social networking league. 23 August 2005 The domain facebook.com is purchased for $200,000. March 2006 Facebook reportedly turns down an offer to buy the site for $750m, allegedly claiming it should be able to fetch $2bn. September 2006 'Wall Street Journal' reports Yahoo is in talks with Facebook to buy the site for $1bn. 22 August 2006 Facebook signs a three-year US-based deal with Microsoft to be the exclusive provider of advertising on the site in return for a revenue split. 11 September 2006 Facebook opens to everybody 13 or over with an email address. 28 March 2007 ConnectU's lawsuit is dismissed without prejudice. They immediately refile and are granted a new hearing. 3 August 2007 Six major British firms, among them Vodafone, Halifax and Virgin Media, remove their adverts on Facebook after they appear on a rotating basis on a BNP-related page. October 2007 A Tory aide, Philip Clarke, is suspended from his job after posting pictures of him applying burnt cork to another aide along with racist comments on Facebook. 24 October 2007 Microsoft buys a 1.6 per cent share in Facebook for $240m and will now begin to sell advertising for Facebook internationally as well as in the US. December 2007 Zuckerberg publicly apologises for launching the dubious advertising system Beacon on Facebook.

William Galvin, the Massachusetts secretary of state, filed a civil fraud complaint against Merrill a day after the firm took the unusual step of agreeing to reimburse Springfield for losses on the investments.

The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday rejected lawsuits filed by 21 Tokyo residents who demanded that a permit extension allowing Odakyu Railways Co. to finish building roads and elevated railways between Kitami and Setagaya-Daita stations in Setagaya Ward be canceled.

:(((

Reading the patent, you realize it describes the quite common smartphone. It's a patent for a mobile phone with removable storage, an internet connection, a camera and the ability to download audio or video files. The patent holding firm who has the rights to this patent wasted no time at all. At 12:01am Tuesday morning, it filed three separate lawsuits against just about everyone you can think of, including Apple, Nokia, RIM, Sprint, AT&T, HP, Motorola, Helio, HTC, Sony Ericsson, UTStarcomm, Samsung and a bunch of others.

Et après les gens du monde libre se demandent pourquoi les compagnies sont frileuses d'implémenter Ogg Theora. Tant qu'une technologie n'est pas implémentée par une société commerciale à larges revenus, il n'y a aucun moyen de savoir s'il existe un brevet même avec toutes les précautions possibles.

Plaintiff: International Information Systems Security Certifications Consortium Defendant: Miko Degraphenreed, Degrapheinread Information Systems Security Corporation, Google, Incorporated and Yahoo!, Incorporated Case Number: 2:2007cv01195 Filed: November 16, 2007 Court: Ohio Southern District Court Office: Columbus Office [ Court Info ] County: FRANKLIN Nature of Suit: Intellectual Property - Trademark Cause: 15:1114 Trademark Infringement Jurisdiction: Federal Question Jury Demanded By: None

Microsoft has already filed for a patent on the very elegant heuristics in the WPF DirectionalNavigation feature, so it would make a natural addition to a future version of Internet Explorer. I'd love to see a similar approach adopted by Firefox, or at least developed as a Firefox add-on.

Jan Miksovsky aimerait voir apparaître une meilleure façon de sélectionner les liens au clavier. Et pour lui, cette manière de procéder nous vient de WebTV, et a été intégrée de façon innovamment innovante dans .net 3.0. Alors, les navigateurs en retard par rapport à la prochaine version (haha) d'Internet Explorer ? Sauf que, w3m le fait déjà (entre autres)... Microsoft aura-t-il fait correctement ça recherche d'antériorité cette fois-ci ?

I couldn't agree more. In my 8 years in IBM Research, I first filed a patent an year or so after I joined I think. They have a whole system in place to reward you with cash and plaques on the wall based on how many patents you file and how many get issued. And the system makes it easy to do it- hired lawyers do most of the work and all the inventor does is fill a form and then edit the draft application done by the lawyers.

Le système, l'individu et ses (non) choix

"its European division [filed] new trademarks [applications] for unannounced software under the names Ember, SkyBlue, Carriage Return, Race Day, and Strings Attached."

The search giant has just published their patent application (filed Feb. 28, 2006) for an SMS text message-payment system, ostensibly called “GPay,” that would facilitate private transactions between a merchant and a customer for goos and services.

don't do evil? business is heaven.

"Pantera.com webmaster Leif Alfenas filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Western District Court on August 2, 2007 against the Pantera Partnership (consisting of Vincent Paul Abbott, Philip Hansen Anselmo, Rex Robert Brown, and the estate of Darell Lance ["Dimebag Darrell"] Abbott) over the domain, which has apparently been registered to Alfenas since 1998. The Pantera Partnership, meanwhile, filed a suit of their own in the Michigan Eastern District Court against Alfenas (who resides in Michigan) the very next day, August 3, 2007."

Most people think about backing up data about 10 minutes after it's too late to do any good. If you realize that you really need a good backup program after your hard disk crashes or your teenager decides to clear out some of your files to make room for new music downloads, you're setting yourself up for a data disaster. Are you prepared to lose your e-mail address book (and all your messages)? What would you do if your entire collection of digital photos disappeared tomorrow in a puff of electrons? Do you have backup copies of your electronically-filed tax return or your crucial correspondence? Fortunately, backing up your essential files is neither difficult nor time-consuming. In fact, the whole process can take as little as 10 minutes a week, and you can let Windows XP do most of the work.

American Airlines v. Google, 4:07-cv-00487 (N.D. Tex. complaint filed Aug. 16, 2007) [Warning: 4.4MB file]

A grievance settlement between UPEI and its faculty is being described as a “victory” by the faculty association, but it is being described as “not a substantive change” by the university. The issue centres on who owns intellectual property, the ideas and research being carried out by the professors and researchers at UPEI. Wayne Peters, the president of the UPEI Faculty Association, says the university has agreed to include the faculty association in all third-party funded research contracts and grants that could lead to the development of intellectual property. “This grievance was never about who owned the (intellectual property) in the first place, that was not the primary issue,” Peters told The Guardian. “The issue was more about the union’s involvement in processes like this as the sole and exclusive bargaining agent for its members.” The initial grievance centred on a decision by the university to enter into discussions with ACOA regarding a research project that affected the faculty association’s collective agreement, without including the union. The university maintained it had ownership of the intellectual property. The faculty association felt the university had side-stepped the union, which has been in place for the past three years. “The big victory in this for the union is that there is a very strong recognition by the university of the union’s role in representing its members on issues that are clearly part of the collective agreement and intellectual property policy is one of those issues,” he said. But Katherine Schultz, vice-president of research and development at UPEI, described it as an “evolving” process as the university and the union work through its 100-page collective agreement, signed three years ago. She admits it will allow the faculty association to have a greater role in the “internal discussions.” “But it’s not a substantive change in the way our researchers work with partners in the community, with the private sector, with government agencies,” she said. Schultz said it will have no impact on the students. Peters said the faculty association can now “rewrite history” because it can now review all 100 contracts signed between the university and private funding partners since 2004. It also remains unclear now as to who would benefit if an idea is commercialized. For example, if a researcher finds a cure of a deadly disease like cancer, who benefits? Peters maintains it would be the faculty member while the university says it’s difficult to answer that because it could be several partners, from funding partners to faculty members to the university. Last year, the union walked off the job trying to secure its first agreement with the university. The intellectual property grievance was filed in 2005 and was not part of last year’s dispute.

Kyocera, a Japanese printer manufacturer, has filed an official complaint with Advertising Standards Authority in the US blaming recent HP advertisement of being “disingenuous”.

The big problem with your plan is that it's not going to happen. Let me be frank for a moment. Standards groups are not your opportunity to order browser vendors to majorly shift their development strategy, neither Microsoft (as we have seen) nor anyone else. It is a place to work together and negotiate, yes. But if you ask browser vendors to do something they are fundamentally unwilling to do, like break compatibility, they will just walk away from the process. That's how you end up with XHTML2. For those of us who do not have the limitless development resources and cash pile of Microsoft, making HTML5 a completely separate mode is an unacceptably high cost. So it's not going to happen. I know it's lots of fun to make up something pure and clean and new, with all the ugly rough edges of compatibility filed off. But you can't have both that and a spec that browsers will implement. Time to choose.

WordPress Makes Sense For Many Non-Blog Websites Filed under: wordpress, web. Tagged as: . A friend wants to develop a corporate web site and wanted to get my advice on what CMS he should use. As usual I asked him what did he want to do with it and got a judgement about his technical skill. The website he envisoned was one of the simple ones, with basic information and he was not exposed to any web site management before or to managing raw HTML. I advised him to use WordPress for it. However, he knew that WordPress was a blogging engine and felt that I was trying to tackle him cheaply. So here goes my justification for why WordPress makes a lot of sense for many simple web sites, including the non-blog ones. The shorter version is that WordPress provides good infrastructure of web publishing and gives you tools to build an interactive web site. And I think this is common knowledge in the WordPress community.