Bonum Certa Men Certa

Cheapening of Patents at the EPO, Cheapening of Staff of the EPO, and Emergence of Large Corporations' Tax Evasion Using Piles of Patents

Whose system is it anyway?

Patent box Reference: "The “Patent Box” – Proof That the UK is a Rogue State in Corporate Tax"



Summary: Patents are, over time, becoming not about innovation but about passage of heaps of monopolies to large corporations that then use them to evade tax (the patent box loophole)

TODAY we became aware of this blog post from just two days ago. "USPTO Memo Indicates a ‘European’ Approach to Software Inventions," says the headline, tacitly implying that the EPO is strict on software patents even though the opposite is true (especially in recent years). Lawyers' favourite CAFC cases are presented as evidence. For instance:

Earlier this month, the USPTO issued a memorandum to patent examiners discussing recent court decisions regarding the patentability of software inventions. The memo refers to three federal circuit decisions in which software inventions were found to be eligible for patent protection. The three decisions mentioned in the memo are McRo v. Bandai (Sept. 2016), BASCOM v. AT&T (Jun. 2016) and Amdocs v. Openet (Nov. 2016).

Recently, I summarised the McRo and BASCOM decisions in a blog post for Cambridge Wireless. The Amdocs decision was issued only a day before the USPTO published its memo to examiners on this issue. Therefore, Amdocs is not considered in detail in the memo. However, the USPTO states that further guidance on the Amdocs decision will be given at a later date.


The USPTO is always behind the times when it comes to regulating patent quality. We saw that as recently as this year because it took 2-2.5 years for the USPTO to truly come to grips with Alice. In the mean time, the EPO went in the opposite direction and insiders tell us that they grant software patents because there is growing pressure to keep up with 'production' demands (where grants are rewarded, not proper/thorough examination). A new Central Staff Committee report [PDF] was also leaked to us today. The Central Staff Committee is concerned that 15% increase in so-called 'production' results in reductions for staff. Figures are shown to support this claim and also some 'missing money' becomes the subject of inquiry. One has to wonder where all that money comes from and how this so-called 'production' is attained without increases in staffing. Of course, all it means is that patent quality continues to nosedive.

Speaking of fiscal irregularities and low patent quality, Benjamin Henrion highlight this new article about "patent boxes" -- a subject we wrote about before. "Race to the bottom and Apple fiscal evasion via patents will continue with the blessing of Europe," Henrion noted, as it's quite common and increasingly 'normal' for large corporations to dodge (or evade) tax with patents as a hidden instrument of some kind of "money laundering" . Here is what the Wall Street media said this week:

Adoption of legislation for a common consolidated corporate tax base by 27 EU member states would resolve current patent box conflicts and end transfer pricing disputes that cost multinational companies hundreds of millions of dollars in double taxation, according to EU and industry officials.

Speaking at a Nov. 15 conference hosted by the Federation of European Accountants, Uwe Ihli, the chief architect of the October CCCTB proposal unveiled in October, said tax credits for research and development in the pending legislation are seen as a way to prevent harmful tax competition, triggered by the rush to attract investment by high-tech companies via tax breaks on intellectual property profits.

“We believe the research and development tax breaks in the new proposal will not only be a major attraction for businesses but they will also help resolve the divisions in the EU over patent box tax regimes,” Ihli said.

He added that the R&D terms are based on EU state aid rules and in line with the OECD’s modified nexus approach.


If a process patent-granting en masse can become just an instrument for the benefit of large corporations, and patents are made a lot easier to get, what does that say about the real beneficiaries of today's EPO? Regarding Apple's patents, we are planning some articles about those. The EPO is doing a terrible job and it's not hard to guess who will pay the price.

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries