New EU-wide patent system approved by the European Parliament
The European Parliament has voted to create a pan-European patent system with the goal of making it cheaper and simpler to obtain patents.
Stories by Loek Essers
US Congress passes another resolution opposing UN Internet takeover
The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution urging the U.S. government not to give the United Nations' International Telecommunication Union (ITU) control over the Internet.
German parliament to discuss controversial online copyright bill
The German parliament is set to discuss a controversial online copyright bill that is meant to allow news publishers to charge search engines such as Google for reproducing short snippets from their articles.
Ericsson sues Samsung in the US for patent infringement
Telecommunications equipment vendor Ericsson has asked a U.S. court to block sales of a variety of Samsung Electronics cameras, Blu-ray Disc players, televisions and phones, including the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Note II, alleging that they infringe its patents.
Parents not liable for their son's illegal music sharing, German court rules
A German couple are not liable for the filesharing activities of their 13-year old son because they told him unauthorized downloading and sharing of copyrighted material was illegal, and they were not aware the boy violated this prohibition, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled on Thursday.
Pirate Bay co-founder now suspected of serious fraud
Swedish authorities now suspects Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm Warg of serious fraud and another data intrusion in addition to the alleged hacking of IT company Logica that led to his arrest, public prosecutor Henrik Olin said Monday.
UK governments must comply with open standards
All governmental bodies in the U.K. must now comply with open standards to prevent vendor lock-in and stimulate interoperability of government IT, the Minister for Cabinet Office announced on Thursday.
France could start taxing Google for republishing news snippets, president warns
France may introduce a law to make Google pay to republish news snippets if it doesn't strike a deal with French news publishers before the end of the year, the office of French President François Hollande said on Monday.
Facebook prepares to use 'cold storage' to deal with vast amounts of data
Facebook is rethinking the way it stores data to cope with the 7 petabytes of new photos the social network's users upload every month. As the number of photos grows, Facebook needs find cheaper, less power-hungry ways to store them all, according to the company's vice-president of infrastructure engineering.
Medical privacy threatened by loophole in draft EU data protection law, professor warns
A "huge loophole" is being carved in the European Union's upcoming data protection regulation, according Ross Anderson, a professor of security engineering at the University of Cambridge in England.
Swedish police confiscated three servers during raid on former Pirate Bay host
Swedish police confiscated three servers allegedly connected to copyright infringements during a raid on PRQ, a hosting service that was once home to The Pirate Bay. The main target was the Swedish torrent site tankafett.nu, according to the hosting company's owner.
Former Pirate Bay hoster raided by police, goes down amidst DDoS-attack
Former Pirate Bay host PRQ.se went down in the middle of a police raid on Monday, affecting hundreds of hosted sites and thousands of users of PRQ's other services. But the raid and the outage are unlikely to be related, according to PRQ's owner.
Norway ends nine-month ban on Google Apps use by city authorities
After nine months of deliberations and some changes on Google's side, the Norwegian Data Protection Authority lifted a ban on the use of Google Apps by municipalities.
German court indicates Apple could lose bans on Samsung Galaxy Tabs
Apple could be on the verge of losing the bans on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab it has won in German courts. If the Düsseldorf lower regional court were to rule now, Samsung would be unlikely to be found infringing on Apple's design rights, which would overturn earlier rulings that halted sales of Galaxy tablets, a court spokesman said on Tuesday.
Android NFC hack enables travelers to ride US subways for free
Contactless fare cards in the New Jersey and San Francisco transit systems can be manipulated using an Android application, enabling travelers to reset their card balance and travel for free, researchers demonstrated on Thursday during the EUSecWest security conference in Amsterdam.