03.02.17
Gemini version available ♊︎EPO Budget Obscures and Distorts Facts About the Unitary Patent (UPC) in a Classic Antidemocratic Exercise by an Unaccountable Institution
The EPO keeps meddling in policy and corrupting the media, but it knows that it’s immune/exempted from the law
Reference: When Lobbyists Literally Write The Bill
Summary: Interference in politics and misinformation designed to mislead the public have both become a hallmark of the EPO under Battistelli, not just opportunistic legal firms which stand to benefit from the UPC (at everyone’s expense)
ADDITIONAL people are signing the petition against the UPC, but the vast majority of the public here in the UK still does not know what it is or what it is for (or who the UPC is really for). The EPO has gone as far as paying crates of money to publications in order to generate fake news [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] about the UPC, or to distort public perceptions. That’s just one among many abusive aspects of the EPO under Battistelli’s embarrassing ‘leadership’ (more like a reign of terror, in which even bloggers are being threatened).
“The EPO has gone as far as paying crates of money to publications in order to generate fake news about the UPC, or to distort public perceptions.”Dimitris Xenos wrote the other day [1, 2] that the “#unitarypatent is available to EUmember states only:‘this [ #UPC] Agreement should be open to accession by any Member State’ at 6 #Brexit [...] the term ‘member state(s)’ appears 127 times in the #UPC http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:42013A0620(01)&from=EN … #unitarypatent #Brexit”
It doesn’t take a genius to see that the UPC is inherently incompatible with Brexit, yet there has been a lot of lobbying and deception about it, courtesy of Team Battistelli and Team UPC (a marriage of convenience). Publications are moreover being paid to lie about it, at the expense of EPO budget. Last night we wrote about yet another event which will soon become a platform for the EPO's UPC propaganda. In some cases, such events are sponsored by the EPO's PR firm and supported by the EPO. It should be scandalous and covered in the media accordingly (as a scandal), but it certainly seems like the corporate media has become a willing if not also witting cooperator. Some of this supposedly ‘elite’ media is paid by the EPO, so why bite the hand that feeds?
According to this new post from IP Kat, there is an upcoming discussion about the issues associated with the UPC amid Brexit. To quote this short post:
This event is organised by the United Kingdom Association for European Law, and features three speakers who will be familiar to IPKat readers:
Dr Christopher Stothers, partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP
Dr Luke McDonagh, Lecturer in The City Law School at City, University of London
Prof Duncan Matthews, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London
This is being discussed elsewhere too, according to this new tweet as far as India. It says that “Dr Jonathan Atkinson & Martyn Fish presenting on #Brexit and the #UPC at @CPhI_PharmaIPR 2017 in Mumbai #IP #Pharma” (there is also a photo in there).
Pharmaceutical giants must be drooling over the UPC, which would enable them to bankrupt/embargo/control their competition. Understandably, their lawyers too are cautiously excited and they try to hide their motivation. Consider this new interview with patent law firms that want litigation Armageddon (more profit to them):
“The Unified Patent Court (UPC) without Britain is a far less potent idea,” says Nick McDonald, partner of Potter Clarkson.
In this video interview with LSIPR, McDonald explains that there are many good reasons why the UK should be part of the UPC and discusses the implications of Brexit.
What about those who don’t work for law firms? What about the more than 99% of the population, which would be subjected to the UPC if it ever became a reality?
Well, published earlier this week and found via David Pearce (Tufty the Cat) was this article titled “Patent law: Theresa May’s new Brexit battlefield” — an article that cites Douglas Carswell and pro-Brexit media:
The only people who really care about patent law are patent holders, patent lawyers and patent academics. And yet Theresa May’s rash promise to remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is about to turn this esoteric area into a major Brexit battleground. No matter how you approach it, there is no way to square what the government is doing on patents with its red line on the ECJ.
The fundamentalist fringe of the hard Brexit movement has started to notice too. A couple of weeks ago, Douglas Carswell put down an early day motion demanding a change on patent policy.
The Daily Express covered it with its usual restraint. “EXPOSED,” it said. “Secret plan to tie Britain to EU”. Ukip warned of a “stealth attempt” by ministers to carry out some sort of Brexit conspiracy.
Team UPC firms, e.g. Bristows in the UK, are still trying to effectively take over the law which governs them (like oil companies trying to write, by proxy, environmental regulations or telecommunication giants trying to remove limits on their operations). Watch this latest update from Bristows, an enemy of British democracy, working behind the curtains. “Unitary Software Patents like a letter through the post in Germany,” as Benjamin Henrion put it.
“Several days remain for concerned European citizens who can hopefully spare one minute to sign this petition.”If the UPC ever became a reality, a lot of small firms would receive a lot of letters through the post, not just from patent trolls that demand a lot of money but also from large competitors in other countries, threatening to take down small rivals all across Europe (one ruling, in one single city in Europe, affecting all “member states” in one fell swoop).
Several days remain for concerned European citizens who can hopefully spare one minute to sign this petition. █
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