Apple's attempt to quash an effort to help the latest iPods and iPhones work with non-Apple software such as the Linux operating system is out of line, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said Tuesday.

Do you remember the horrible case against OLPC in Nigeria, where a company called Lancor claimed infringement of its design patent on a keyboard? They were asking for $20 million in damages. I have some happy news from OLPC News' recent newsletter:In the domestic Nigerian keyboard case, the court granted OLPC's motions to dismiss Lancor's claims.

Earlier this year, the last of the four major music labels offered its respective catalog for digital download to Amazon.com's music service in the MP3 format with no digital copy protections, giving users the ability to freely transfer songs to any portable MP3 music player.

In August, we wrote about the Law Project from Senator Azeredo (PSDB) in Brazil that will restrict the freedom of internet users in Brazil.

A public, Congressional hearing about the current Brazilian data retention bill will happen on November 13th, 2008 after months of political pressure by the civil society, especially the Brazilian free software movement.

I said I'd write next about Microsoft in my series of articles trying to explain what In Re Bilski means. I also said it would be the last in the series, but it's not.

Continuing our series on the In Re Bilski ruling [PDF], here is Judge Mayer's dissenting opinion as text, the one that points out how utterly damaging all business methods patents are. Also, a reader sent me this link to what I agree is the best overview of the ruling that we've seen yet, by the law firm of Ladas & Parry.

"As opinions form about the extent to which the Court ruling impacts the patenting of software, one thing is clear. The State Street ruling that in 1998 opened the flood gates to the patenting of business methods and software has been gutted, if not technically overturned..."