Bonum Certa Men Certa

If Battistelli Stayed and UPC Became a Reality, Patent Quality at the EPO Would Get a Lot Worse

Never mind a surge in litigation, often by entities outside Europe

Neoliberalism
For the uninitiated, this is what Battistelli does at the EPO



Summary: The vision that Team Battistelli has for the EPO is an ENA-inspired neoliberal and corporatist vision that would bring the legitimacy of the system down to zero and the European economy to the brink of collapse

THE DAYS OF THE EPO as a world leader are over. Battistelli demolished the Office and he can only rely on his mouthpieces to claim otherwise. He further misleads the public by presenting some numbers from inside the EPO (making claims about itself) -- dubious numbers as one might expect [1, 2, 3] -- and we're supposed to think that everything is fine. It's not. Everything is not fine and Battistelli may be fired next month, judging by his lack of progress on demands from his overseers.



"asically, the patents industry is protesting the changes made to address (tackle/eliminate) poor patent quality in the US."Nevertheless, pro-software patents sites would have us believe that the EPO, with its growing affinity for software patents, is a model of success -- all this while pro-software patents courts in the US latch onto EPO for the purpose of legitimaising software patents. "Constantly changing patent laws are taking a toll on American innovation," one shallow new pieces says, essentially bemoaning decisions like Alice (ended a lot of software patents in the US). Basically, the patents industry is protesting the changes made to address (tackle/eliminate) poor patent quality in the US. Nearly doubling the number of granted patents at the USPTO in a decade? Not enough! They want more! They make money out of it.

“Nice to see that the EPO has stooped to questioning the competence of European patent attorneys, in order to promote its courses...”
      --Anonymous
As longtime readers may know, our original concern about the EPO was patent scope, primarily the expansion to the domain of software patents. According to this new press release, TEVA's patent monopoly is about to be invalidated by the EPO, but it's not a software patent. To quote the announcement: "Jefferies analyst, Brian Abrahams, noted that EPO has released its prelim opinion that TEVA's broad patent claims are not supported by the priority application (are not novel) and TEVA's claims lack inventive step, a positive for Alder Biopharm (NASDAQ: ALDR)."

The sad thing is, if the UPC ever became a reality, the Boards of Appeal would possibly be made obsolete or redundant, making it even harder (or too expensive if not impractical) to challenge bogus patents -- those granted in error. As one comment recently put it:

I understand very well how the examiner's deal with unity - if the claim amendments mean they will have to do some more work, they will argue lack of unity. The applicant will either follow the examiner's line through lack of will to fight or will take it to appeal, whereupon the BoA will roundly criticize the examiner and allow the appeal.


A response said:

I think you mix up lack of unity and the introduction of unsearched subject matter. Having to search elsewhere may not be lacking unity but will refer to the second case.


Battistelli already crushes the independence of the boards (see what was done to that judge), so what future would there be to appeals and external challenges to EPO patents? The EPO is so arrogant and drunk on power. It even insults its stakeholders now.

Having noticed something that we too noticed beforehand, one commenter goes out of his/her way to say:

Nice to see that the EPO has stooped to questioning the competence of European patent attorneys, in order to promote its courses:

"Patent attorneys do not always understand how the EPO deals with non-unity. Discuss here: http://buzz.mw/b15ku_f #searchmatters"

https://twitter.com/EPOorg/status/730712544655097856

So is the idea that we qualified but nevertheless ignorant-of-the-law EPAs should rush to sign up and better ourselves?

I am sure that these courses are useful as continuing professional development, but this tweet certainly isn't a professional way to encourage attendance.


See what the EPO has become? It's totally out of control and one way to stop this is to stop the UPC and get rid of its #1 fan (who now visits nations that consider exiting the EU in order to push the UPC). That's Mr. Battistelli, who has promoted it for more than half a decade in spite of public disapproval (for nearly a whole decade now).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
 
People Don't Just Kill Themselves (Same for Other Animals)
And recent reports about Boeing whistleblower John Barnett
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 18, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, March 18, 2024
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day