Actually, if we look at the response that James Love got when he was blocked, it says that he was blocked according to the US PTO Policy. I would also love to see the Policy. The fact that they were blocked because of the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations is very very very telling. Yes, they may have lifted it - but the question is WHY DID THEY DO IT in the first place? I have highlighted the relevant bits.
*Update:* At 5 pm the USPTO called and said that the public access wifi
network was using a filter, provided by a contractor, to block "political activist" sites. This filter was not used by the network providing Internet access for the USPTO staff. After our meeting, the USPTO reviewed its policies, and has removed the filter. USPTO says the filter was implemented by a contractor, and no one we talked to at USPTO was aware of who was being blocked. In any event, the filter has been removed.
Today I was visiting the USPTO, for a high level meeting on global negotiations on intellectual property and access to medicine. The meeting was held in the Stockholm Room, on the 2nd floor of the USPTO library, at the main USPTO building at 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, VA. The USPTO also uses these meeting rooms for its Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA). The USPTO offers free Wifi for the visitors. But when I tried to login to http://keionline.org, I received this message:
Access Denied (content_filter_denied)
Your request was denied because this URL contains content that is categorized as: "Political/Activist Groups" which is blocked by USPTO policy. If you believe the categorization is inaccurate, please contact the USPTO Service Desk and request a manual review of the URL.
For assistance, contact USPTO OCIO IT Service Desk. (io-proxy4)
We checked and found that the USPTO blocks access to a number of groups that have followed SOPA and the TPP intellectual property negotiations, particularly those critical of the USPTO positions on intellectual property issues. Among the NGOs that were blocked were aclu.org, cdt.org, citizen.org , eff.org, healthgap.org, keionline.org andpublicknowledge.org. Among the
sites NOT BLOCKED were the industry lobby groups BSA, MPPA, RIIA, and PhRMA.
The USPTO also selectively blocks certain blogs and new sites, including, for example, dailykos.coms, firedoglake.com, redstate.org, rushlimbaugh.com andtalkingpointsmemo.com.,
Here are examples of what the USPTO blocks, and does not block. *Blocked NGOs* aclu.org
cdt.org citizen.org eff.org healthgap.org keionline.org publicknowledge.org*NGOs that are NOT blocked* bsa.org
creativecommons.org iipa.com iipi.org ipi.org mpaa.org PhRMA.org pubpat.org RIIA.Org stockholm-network.org *Blocked Blogs and news outlets*dailykos.coms firedoglake.com redstate.org rushlimbaugh.com talkingpointsmemo.com *Blogs and new outlets that are NOT blocked*
71patent.blogspot.com aljazeera.com boingboing.net dailycaller.com democracynow.org drudgereport.com groklaw.net huffingtonpost.com ip-watch.org itcblog.com lessig.org michaelgeist.ca nationalreview.com spicyipindia.blogspot.com techdirt.com washingtonmonthly.com
- James Love's blog <http://keionline.org/blog/jamie> - Add new comment < http://keionline.org/comment/reply/1548#comment-form> - Printer-friendly version <http://keionline.org/print/1548> - Send by email <http://keionline.org/printmail/1548>
Cause of foul up <http://keionline.org/node/1548#comment-7970>
Submitted by Anonymous dude or dudess on 19. September 2012 - 12:02.
'Ex-Patent Examiner here. If this was anything other than a contractor foul-up, I'll eat my hat. There were a dozen instances where I'd need to call the help desk to access a website that would enable me to do my job.' If true, this means no one at USPTO tried to access those sites and asked for the filter to be removed since it was implemented.
- reply <http://keionline.org/comment/reply/1548/7970>
_______________________________________________ lac-discuss-en mailing list lac-discuss-en@atlarge-lists.icann.org https://atlarge-lists.icann.org/mailman/listinfo/lac-discuss-en
-- Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala P.O. Box 17862 Suva Fiji
Twitter: @SalanietaT Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro Fiji Cell: +679 998 2851
-- Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro aka Sala P.O. Box 17862 Suva Fiji Twitter: @SalanietaT Skype:Salanieta.Tamanikaiwaimaro Fiji Cell: +679 998 2851