Swiss Government Blows Off Turkish President's Demands For Prosecution After He's 'Insulted' By A Local Tabloid
Furnished content.
Perhaps the thinnest skinned politician on the planet -- Recip "Gollum" Erdogan -- is at it again. His legacy of injunctions, legal threats, and even copyright abuse continues. The latest to draw Erdogan's wrath is Switzerland, which, to be fair, has drawn his wrath in the past. The repeat "offender" was targeted by Erdogan in 2016 for an art exhibit he didn't care for. This wouldn't have happened if Switzerland didn't have a law on the books forbidding insulting foreign leaders. Erdogan has the uncanny ability to sniff out foreign laws that might help him remain un-insulted, but so far has only managed to Streisand himself into infamy.This time around, it's a Swiss tabloid earning the Turkish president's disdain/threats of prosecution.The Zurich-based tabloid Blick made Turkish television on Monday night when the country’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan held up an edition of the Swiss paper with the front-page headline ‘Vote no to Erdogan’s dictatorship’.The article in German and Turkish called for Turks in Switzerland to vote no in the April 16th referendum which, if successful, would give more powers to Erdogan. Seems like a logical stance. Erdogan has abused every power he's been given. There's really no reason for other countries to give him more powers to abuse, even indirectly. The Turkish government went full Godwin in response, comparing this editorial's call for a "no" vote to Nazism.Obviously, the Turkish government saw no irony in immediately demanding the Switzerland government do something about the tabloid's "insults." It has sent four requests for "legal aid," presumably in hopes of getting the tabloid's writers/publishers locked up for saying bad things about the Turkish president.The Swiss government has responded, telling Turkey to stick to bullying its own citizens.On Thursday a spokesman from the Swiss justice office, Folco Galli, told broadcaster SRF that four requests lodged by Turkey in mid January had been rejected, citing free speech.Switzerland would only be obliged to cooperate if the act concerned was considered a crime in both Turkey and Switzerland, he said.Speaking to the SRF Galli said: “If similar criticisms had been expressed in Switzerland against a federal councillor in the course of a political debate, they would of course have been tolerated as an expression of free speech.” Which is precisely why the pending referendum should be shot down. The tabloid has perfectly demonstrated why such a law should not be instituted in Switzerland. If it had already been law, Switzerland's government might have been more inclined to assist Erdogan in pushing the editorial's writer.The statement by the Swiss official is a healthy affirmation of Swiss citizens' protections, but is likely unintelligible to those it's directed at. "Tolerance" and "free speech" are concepts the Turkish president is completely unfamiliar with. As is pointed out in the article, the Turkish government is currently pursuing 2,000 domestic prosecutions over "insulting" social media posts and cartoons. Apparently Erdogan feels his persecution success at home should translate easily abroad. Fortunately for citizens in other countries, it doesn't.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Read more here
posted at: 12:00am on 23-Mar-2017
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)
Supreme Court Says Patent Trolls Can Wait A While Before Suing
Furnished content.
In a ruling this week that will cheer up patent trolls, the Supreme Court said patent owners can lie in wait for years before suing. This will allow trolls to sit around while others independently develop and build technology. The troll can then jump out from under the bridge and demand payment for work it had nothing to do with.The 7-1 decision arrives in a case called SCA Hygiene v. First Quality Baby Products. This case involves a patent on adult diapers but has a much broader reach. The court considered whether the legal doctrine of "laches" applies in patent cases. Laches is a principle that penalizes a rightsholder who "sleeps on their rights" by waiting a long time to file a lawsuit after learning of a possible infringement. It protects those that would be harmed by the assertion of rights after a lengthy delay. For example, laches would work against a patent owner that saw an infringing product emerge yet waited a decade to sue, after significant investment of time and resources had been put into the product.The ruling in SCA follows a similar decision in Petrella v. MGM holding that laches is not available as a defense in copyright cases. The Supreme Court has generally rejected "patent exceptionalism" and has often reversed the Federal Circuit for creating special rules for patent law. So this week's decision was not especially surprising. In our view, however, there were compelling historical and policy arguments for retaining a laches defense in patent law.Together with Public Knowledge, EFF filed an amicus brief at the Supreme Court explaining the many ways that companies accused of patent infringement can be harmed if the patent owner sleeps on its rights. For example, evidence relevant to invalidity can disappear. This is especially true for software and Internet-related patents. In his dissent, Justice Breyer cited our brief and explained:[T]he passage of time may well harm patent defendants who wish to show a patent invalid by raising defenses of anticipation, obviousness, or insufficiency. These kinds of defenses can depend upon contemporaneous evidence that may be lost over time, and they arise far more frequently in patent cases than any of their counterparts do in copyright cases. The seven justices in the majority suggested that patent defendants might be able to assert "equitable estoppel" instead of laches. But that would likely require showing that the patent owner somehow encouraged the defendant to infringe. In most cases, especially patent troll cases, the defendant has never even heard of the patent or the patent owner before receiving a demand. This means estoppel is unlikely to be much help. Ultimately, today's ruling is a victory for trolls who would wait in the shadows for years before using an obscure patent to tax those who do the hard work of bringing products and services to market.Republished from the EFF's Deeplinks Blog
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
Read more here
posted at: 12:00am on 23-Mar-2017
path: /Policy | permalink | edit (requires password)
|
|