[lac-discuss-en] [At-Large] US PTO Blocks Access to Certain Websites

Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com
Thu Sep 20 19:55:13 UTC 2012


On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 3:57 AM, Evan Leibovitch <evan at telly.org> wrote:

> Ooops!!
>
> (from the same URL, edited:)
>
> 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.
>
>
> Makes you wonder what the contractor was doing creating the filter in the
> first place.
>
> - Evan
>

Excellent point Evan. Apparently it was done by Blue Coat and James Tyre
kindly provided this link
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/blue-coat-acknowledges-syrian-government-use-its-products


To see the categories they used for blocking, visit: http://goo.gl/UY4fz
[Thanks to James Love for providing the link]

James Love wrote about how they as political activists were blocked, see:

USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU,
EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos <http://keionline.org/node/1548>

   - View <http://keionline.org/node/1548>
   - What links here <http://keionline.org/node/1548/backlinks>

Submitted by James Love on 18. September 2012 - 12:32

*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>


>


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