By Phillip Rucker, May 10, 2015, WashingtonPost.com
MARRAKESH, Morocco — The scene that unfolded here last week as Bill Clinton convened world leaders for a philanthropic conference was hardly what his wife’s champion-for-everyday-Americans campaign would have ordered up.
Gathered in Marrakesh for a Clinton Global Initiative confab, foreign oligarchs and corporate titans mingled amid palm trees, decorative pools and dazzling tiled courtyards with the former president and his traveling delegation of foundation donors — many of whom are also donors to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.
When daughter Chelsea moderated a discussion on women’s empowerment, the only male panelist was Morocco’s richest person, Othman Benjelloun, whose BMCE Bank is a CGI sponsor. For the week’s biggest party, guests were chauffeured across the city to an opulent 56-room palace that boasts a private collection of Arabian horses, overlooks the snow-capped Atlas Mountains and serves a fine-dining menu of “biolight” cuisine.
Ahead of that event, Bill Clinton greeted Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal. “See you tonight, Turki,” he told his royal highness.
By Brian Fung, Apr. 10, 2015, WashingtonPost.com
When you're listening to your favorite podcast — This American Life, maybe, or Radiolab — patents are probably the last thing on your mind. But behind the scenes, the podcasting world has been living in fear of one particular patent that threatens to force many independent producers out of business.
Now, a government board has revoked key parts of that patent, handing a huge victory to podcasters.
The decision makes it a lot harder for producers to be hit with aggressive infringement lawsuits. The company that owns the patent in question, Personal Audio, says it invented podcasting. In 2013, it began going around to podcast-makers, threatening to take them to court unless they paid a licensing fee. Among those affected? TV personality and comedian Adam Carolla, who ultimately settled with Personal Audio but not before spending more than $650,000 defending himself.
"We’re glad the Patent Office recognized what we all knew: ‘podcasting’ had been around for many years and this company does not own it," said Daniel Nazer, an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called for the patent's invalidation.
