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<h1 class="title"><a href="http://keionline.org/node/1548"
class="active">USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist
Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate,
DailyKos</a></h1>
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<div class="node"> <span class="submitted">Submitted by James
Love on 18. September 2012 - 12:32</span>
<div class="content">
<blockquote>
<div class="say4"><strong>Update:</strong> 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. </div>
</blockquote>
<p>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 <a href="http://keionline.org"
title="http://keionline.org">http://keionline.org</a>, I
received this message:</p>
<blockquote>
<div class="say4">Access Denied (content_filter_denied)
<p>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.</p>
<p>For assistance, contact USPTO OCIO IT Service Desk.
(io-proxy4)</p>
</div>
</blockquote>
<p>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
and publicknowledge.org. Among the sites NOT BLOCKED were
the industry lobby groups BSA, MPPA, RIIA, and PhRMA. </p>
<p>The USPTO also selectively blocks certain blogs and new
sites, including, for example, dailykos.coms,
firedoglake.com, redstate.org, rushlimbaugh.com and
talkingpointsmemo.com., </p>
<p>Here are examples of what the USPTO blocks, and does not
block. </p>
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width="100"><strong>Blocked NGOs</strong></td>
<td>
aclu.org<br>
cdt.org<br>
citizen.org<br>
eff.org<br>
healthgap.org<br>
keionline.org<br>
publicknowledge.org
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>NGOs that are NOT blocked</strong></td>
<td>
bsa.org<br>
creativecommons.org<br>
iipa.com<br>
iipi.org<br>
ipi.org<br>
mpaa.org<br>
PhRMA.org<br>
pubpat.org<br>
RIIA.Org<br>
stockholm-network.org
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Blocked Blogs and news outlets</strong></td>
<td>
dailykos.coms<br>
firedoglake.com<br>
redstate.org<br>
rushlimbaugh.com<br>
talkingpointsmemo.com
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Blogs and new outlets that are NOT blocked </strong></td>
<td>
71patent.blogspot.com<br>
aljazeera.com<br>
boingboing.net<br>
dailycaller.com<br>
democracynow.org<br>
drudgereport.com<br>
groklaw.net<br>
huffingtonpost.com<br>
ip-watch.org<br>
itcblog.com<br>
lessig.org<br>
michaelgeist.ca<br>
nationalreview.com<br>
spicyipindia.blogspot.com<br>
techdirt.com<br>
washingtonmonthly.com
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
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<h3><a href="http://keionline.org/node/1548#comment-7970"
class="active">Cause of foul up</a></h3>
<div class="submitted"> Submitted by Anonymous dude or dudess
on 19. September 2012 - 12:02. </div>
<div class="content">
<p>'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.</p>
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