[governance] USPTO blocks web access to "Political/Activist Groups" including KEI, ACLU, EFF, Public Citizen, Redstate, DailyKos

[Riaz K Tayob]

  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 and 
publicknowledge.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 and talkingpointsmemo.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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