BMW Patents Proprietary Screws That Only Dealerships Can Remove
https://carbuzz.com/bmw-roundel-logo-screw-patent/
#HackerNews #BMW #Patents #Proprietary #Screws #That #Only #Dealerships #Can #Remove
BMW #screws #proprietary #dealerships #automotive #patents #carnews
This is an absolutely wild story:
- a German inventor, unrelated to the defence industry, registers a patent
- the German military immediately classifies its contents as security related, including potentially endangering NATO’s nuclear deterrence, and forbids the inventor to discuss the patent with anyone
- a little while later, the patent office asks if he used any GenAI tooling to create the patent: he did
- the classification is immediately dropped as there is no more guarantee that those tools now keep a copy of that information, so there is nothing to be done about keeping this a secret
I don’t even know how to begin contemplating how completely bonkers this whole situation is.
"But consider this; the vast majority of medicines associated with new drug patents are not new. Nearly 8 out of 10 are for existing ones, like insulin or aspirin.
My organisation, a team of lawyers and scientists, recently conducted an investigation into the 12 best-selling drugs in [US]America. We found that on average, there are 125 patents filed on each medicine. Often for things we've known how to do for decades ..."
#PritiKrishtel, 2020
The U.S. patent for mp3 audio was granted on November 26 in 1996. This piece is kinda weird about it in spots, but it gives a decent history about how it laid the foundations for peer-to-peer music sharing, etc.
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/the-u-s-patent-for-mp3-audio-was-granted-on-this-day-in-1996-laying-the-foundations-for-peer-to-peer-music-sharing-itunes-and-todays-streaming-services
#mp3 #music #history #MusicHistory #tech #P2P #audio #90s #1990s #patents
(1/?)
@CatherineOrganic1
> Patent law in medicine means good medicines are dumped for the new and unproven
Indeed. Also there's a powerful incentive to fund research into novel chemicals or equipment that might get patents. But little or no incentive to research generic plant medicines, or non-medicinal treatments, which probably won't. Even where there's good reason to believe they might be more effective and cheaper to provide.
Sued by Nintendo
@bkuhn @mastohost @eruwero @maybeanerd well, I merely refer to the fact that most.companies I've had to deal with won't touch #AGPLv3 because it's provisions are incompatible with #IP laws and #patents as well as #licensing.
This... seems very interesting
#Bluesky is "...standardizing parts of #ATProtocol in an effort to establish long-term governance for the protocol."
"to establish long-term governance for the protocol"
Here: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/taking-at-to-ietf
Also see at #Github:
"Add patent pledge link to README (# 4246)"
"Bluesky Social PBC has committed to a software patent non-aggression pledge. For details see [the original announcement] (https://bsky.social/about/blog/10-01-2025-patent-pledge)."
Here: https://github.com/bluesky-social/atproto/commit/d239f0bcf5e7ed391c8ced32e13aaa4c1324a757
All that said, not sure exactly what it *means* long-term, but it is... interesting
Also Friday, #Commerce Secy Howard Lutnick sent a letter to Alan M. Garber, #Harvard’s president, claiming that the #university had not lived up to its obligations surrounding federally funded #patents, which are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Acc/to the letter, the agency will begin a comprehensive review of Harvard’s compliance w/federal #law.
The new pressures on Harvard come during a week when the govt had also taken significant steps to bring other schools into line with its agenda.
[The Trump admin filed a court motion Friday accusing] Harvard of failure to control crime, & claims that Harvard’s leadership has “shown itself to be incapable of properly hosting, monitoring, disciplining, & reporting on its foreign students.”
#law#AcademicFreedom #tyranny
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/us/trump-harvard-patent-investigation-international-students.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The UK Government has an open consultation on Standard Essential Patents underway.
@openuk will be responding to this and providing some guidance over the next few weeks for individuals and interested parties who wish to follow our approach to the response.
Very important to have the risks of these in open source flagged clearly to government as we see an increased focus on standards for global governance.
The UK Government has an open consultation on Standard Essential Patents underway.
@openuk will be responding to this and providing some guidance over the next few weeks for individuals and interested parties who wish to follow our approach to the response.
Very important to have the risks of these in open source flagged clearly to government as we see an increased focus on standards for global governance.
Update. "US conference boycott urged after French scientist deported"
https://archive.is/Wxwdg
"Academics say they are increasingly wary of travelling to conferences in the US after a French scientist was deported over text messages critical of Donald #Trump’s cuts to research funding … Space scientist Mark Wieczorek [@mrak], director of research at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, part of CNRS, said the situation was “very troubling” and, despite being a dual US-French citizen, he now would “only go to the US for the case of a family emergency”…Given the French scientist in question is a “permanent researcher employed by CNRS”, it is “unlikely that this person is a radicalised terrorist and it is unlikely that their hatred of Trump is greater than mine as a US citizen,” continued Wieczorek."
Update. New study: "#NIH investment in drugs approved from 2010 to 2019 was not less than investment by the #pharmaceutical industry, with comparable accounting for basic and applied research, failed clinical trials, and cost of capital or discount rates."
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama-health-forum/fullarticle/2804378
PS: Relevant to (1) #Trump admin cutbacks to NIH #funding and (2) industry #patents and licensing terms on approved drugs.
The patent-telecoms-complex has been granted its wish and the move by the EU to regulate #patents embedded in #standards ( #SEPs) has been killed. SEP holders prefer expensive, obscure, anti-competitive litigation and were afraid the transparency would harm them so lobbied Council into submission.
https://www.juve-patent.com/legal-commentary/eu-commission-withdraws-sep-regulation/
This doesn't mean action is not required however. SEPs embedded in the standards we have to obey to comply with the law have got to go. https://opensource.org/blog/standards-and-the-presumption-of-conformity
