United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit short history 1982 to today and how the interpretation of patent law radically changed, leading to e.g. software patents. The pro-patent Federal Circuit has also "overruled" the Supreme Court.

After 1.5 month public consultation (launched mid December 2012) the EUPL v1.2 draft and its Working Paper were updated (31 Jan 2012) to consider remarks from forum users. The public consultation continues until 15 March 2013.

Large companies are spending more on patents than on research and development. The number of patent lawsuits is exploding. Software patents are extra toxic to free software because there cannot be per copy royalties. And they certainly are making the end user have less choices as demonstrated by blocking of several products because of patent suits around the world.

The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is calling for help from companies in Europe to help with a trademark problem with a UK company. The non-profit is setting out to oppose an EU community trademark application for the name "Python" for all computer-related uses, but needs the help of the Python community to do so.

Google's VP8 video codec, which the company has offered as royalty-free and unencumbered, could be heading for rougher terrain: Nokia has informed the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) that 64 of its existing patents and 22 patent applications could potentially be infringed by VP8.

Groklaw is 10 years old as of today. Over the years its community has worked as a group to explain technology to the legal world and explain the legal process to techies. The combined result has helped defend Free and Open Source Software from cynical copyright/patent/trademark attacks from the proprietary world.