Build Date: Wed May 21 09:30:13 2025 UTC
I am not Spock.
-- Leonard Nimoy
Freedom Needs a Champion
2001-04-10 01:21:11
Well, they've opened up the nominations again, folks. And once again FREEDOM needs your help. Just a second of your time, a brief email, and the shackles holding down the INNURNET can be BROKEN. Do your job for liberty!
Long-time readers (do you really exist? Freaks!) will remember the open nominations for citizen members of the United States Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Public Advisory Committee ("USPTO-PPAC" -- take THAT acronym to the fuckin' bank!). PPAC is the main input point for actual non-bureaucrat human beings to make changes in patent policy in the US. Well, OK, PPAC, and buying a senator. But senators aren't as cheap as they used to be -- even the ones from pig-raising states of the Midwest are getting pretty damn pricey. So PPAC is pretty much the main input point for real humans.
Anyways, you can imagine how this board is normally packed -- with IP lawyers, CEOs, business-friendly university professors and the like. I mean, check out last year's committee. Anyone on there look like they understand Shit One about Information Freedom? Or that they would care if they did?
The fact is that the PPAC is like practically the ONLY POSSIBILITY of getting the voice of reason and liberty heard in the halls of the US-PTO. Patents are killing free information, and enemies of freedom have already said that they're setting PATENT TRAPS to undermine Free Software, limit free expression, and generally FUCK YOUR LIBERTY in the ear like a LATEX SEX DOLL. 13,000 patents per year are given out by the US-PTO! Software patents are going through the roof! Business-plan patents! All kinds of patents! It's horrible!
The HORROR is that granting of patents, and expecially intellectual property patents, is giving away a monopoly on a corner of the infosphere. It gives one group of people the right to put up fences around ideas, concepts, and practices, and keep the rest of us out. In a perfect world, this would be bad enough, but in the real world, patents are given out for practically anything under the sun. It's like someone's putting a fence around YOUR HOUSE and YOUR SCHOOL and YOUR LAUNDROMAT and not letting you in or out or around and it's wrong and there's nothing you can do.
Not only that, but software and other IP patents make a powerful tool for the powerful. Patent threats are a BIG STICK and even if the patent is lame and wrong, individuals and small groups will always have a hard time defending themselves in court, either against infringement suits or to challenge the patents. It's just one more tool in the toolbox of litigious bastardos to SHUT YOU UP. Fuck that! Fuck software patents!
Last year, around this time, I published another article describing how to nominate people for the PPAC. It had all the necessary information for people to nominate. This year, the info has changed slightly, so you should check out the instructions linked at the bottom of this page.
Basically, all you have to do is send the nomination with a name, brief description, and URL or text of a resume to PPACnomination@uspto.gov. Just an EMAIL! You probably send 30 to 40 of these things a day. How about sending one to some stooge at the US-PTO, eh? Just one or two? Hell, it's quick and easy.
Can't think of who to nominate? Here's the list of people I suggested last year, with resume links:
- Richard Stallman, head of the GNU project and the League for Programming Freedom His home page is here.
- Eric Raymond, the Open Source guy. His resume is here.
- Tim O'Reilly, big kahuna at O'Reilly and Associates who recently had a big ol' dialog with Jeff Bezos about the Amazon patent. His bio is here.
- Don Marti, king of Burn All Gifs and patent agitator extraordinaire. His resume is here.
- Pamela Samuelson is director of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and a specialist in intellectual property law. Her bio is here, and her resume is here.
- Lawrence Lessig is Professor of Law at Stanford University. His book Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace covers (very nicely) issues of intellectual property in a digital world. His bio is here, and his CV is here.
I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who can think of more, and if you do, send me some mail with their name and resume/bio URL, and I'll add their name to this list for other people.
The deadline for submissions is APRIL 12th, 2001, which means that you should get that mail out RIGHT NOW. NOW! Do it! Schnell, schnell! Freedom's window closes quick!
T O P S T O R I E S
California Glory Hole attracts huge crowds
A glory hole at Napa's Lake Berryessa is drawing huge crowds. According to Chris Lee, the general manager for the Solano County Water Agency, the glory hole hasn't been active since 2019, and only restarted operations on Feb 4. (More...)
Republican State Senator busted after soliciting a teenage girl
Republican State Senator Justin Eichorn of Minnesota was arrested for soliciting a teen girl on Monday just hours after he introduced a bill proposing "Trump derangement syndrome" (TDS) as a form of mental illness. (More...)
Parents claim measles is not that bad after having only one child die
The parents of a Texas girl who died from the measles are defending their decision not to vaccinate their daughter. "She says they would still say 'Don't do the shots,'" an unidentified translator for the parents said. "They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be." (More...)
Delusional rich man tries to fire town staff
"I'm mayor now" said write-in mayoral candidate and founder of Pirate’s Booty Snacks Robert Ehrlich after losing the election for Mayor of Sea Cliff, NY. Then he tried to take over the Village Hall and fire everyone. (More...)
Musk claims Xitter security is staffed by idiots
Earlier this month Xitter experienced a massive outage. In an interview, Musk told Fox Business that he believes the attack came from "IP addresses originating in the Ukraine area." (More...)
The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
Ideas have taken horrifying shape and rooted into our modern reality. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
A Day in the Life of a Beverotologist
It was starting to look like a very boring Saturday, trapped as I was in the suburban wastelands of the outer Bay Area, so I called my Able Assistant (AA) and proposed that we perform some Spocktail field tests. For some time I've been working on creating the quintessential cinematic beverage and even tho' SMRL does most of its testing during nocturnal hours, this seemed an opportune time to roll up the sleeves of our labcoats and get some science done. While the beverotology creation tested this day (The Neurotoxin) must be deemed a success, this article focuses more the journey of the experimenters, rather then the science of beverotology. (More...)
Brother Wayne Lays Down the Truth
Flesh interviews Wayne Kramer of MC5. (More...)
During a magnificent sunny day in a fast receding autumn, the Spock Science Monitor reporters once again blew the playa dust off of their computers and covered the 2002 Burning Man Decompression – held every year just east of Portola Hill in beautiful San Francisco. Both an afternoon and evening issues were released to the unsuspecting crowd of freaks attempting to in some small way experience the euphoria of the playa – if but for a brief afternoon far from the desolation of Northern Nevada. (More...)
Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions. (More...)
Three Days and 25 Spocktails: A Cautionary Tale
Johnnie Royale picked me up from the dental surgery. I felt warm, safe, cradled in the anathesia's loving embrace. The pharmacy downstairs gave me a bottle of Vicodin and a few instructions: take it with food, don't mix with alcohol, don't operate heavy machinery. I put it in my pocket and we left. "Do you want to go home, or do you want to go to a bar?" asked Johnnie. (More...)
