09.07.17
Personal Attacks, Censorship of Comments and More Nefarious Tricks Expected in the Wake of UPC Panic
Summary: Reactions from blogs occupied by Team UPC to the identity of the complainant in Germany, namely Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna
THE summer is over and the EPO scandals resume; in our next post we’ll show how the EPO keeps lobbying for the UPC even though (or because) the UPC is stuck in the middle of nowhere.
“As longtime readers already know, censorship of comments is nothing new at IP Kat, including (notably) comments about the UPC.”The latest development was covered here last night. Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna, whom we humorously dubbed “UPC slayer”, is in the headlines of patents-centric blogs today; we are anticipating personal attacks from Team UPC (however subtle) and so far we are seeing all sorts of other nefarious behaviour. It’s only to be expected from Team UPC; they have been consistent in that regard.
As longtime readers already know, censorship of comments is nothing new at IP Kat, including (notably) comments about the UPC. We gave some examples before. “This comment has been removed by a blog administrator,” said this comment when we checked in the evening, but the Internet never forgets. There are caches, for instance (at several different levels/layers).
See the above screenshot and notice how this post and comment section have developed since then. Mark Schweizer’s article no longer has the above comment. See the text of it; these people don’t care about legality, ethics, economics etc. (the common good); they’re just corrupting the entire system and then attack those who ‘dare’ point that out and do something about it.
The next comment (not deleted) alludes to the above (deleted) and says:
IPkat = CopyKat? Not nice for the mice.
A German minister had to resign as big chunks of his PhD Thesis were copied……
And then someone wrote: “Leaves me wondering whether some like-minded principled person is going to have the guts/money/determination to file a case in the hope of a referral by the Supreme Court in the UK as to the competence of the EUCJ over UK court decisions with regard to the UPC…any takers ?”
Yes, here in the UK the UPC is stuck as well. And it should be pulled down for similar reasons, ranging from nefarious lobbying to lack of public consultation.
Here is what the next comment said:
What kind of legal challenge were you envisaging?
Perhaps a potential litigant might want to consider raising the protection of legitimate expectations as a ground of objection. That might have some mileage, especially given the rather troubling decision to write the UP Regulation in such a way that it applies new / different laws of infringement to pre-existing situations. I am pretty sure that there ought to be at least something in the UK’s “constitution” that prevents a legal sanction being imposed in respect of acts that were perfectly legal at the time they were committed – which is a principle that the UP Regulation completely fails to respect.
“Quite clear that the UPC is excluded from consideration,” said another comment today, “since it is not mentioned in the list of relevant rights.” This comment was left in a short blog post, titled “Brexit: European Commission publishes guiding principles on Intellectual Property” [sic]
“…it should be pulled down for similar reasons, ranging from nefarious lobbying to lack of public consultation.”What’s interesting is that none of the above IP Kat blog posts came from Bristows (at least not directly). Bristows’ Annsley Merelle Ward barely writes there anymore and instead she wrote (for the first time in a long time) in her employer’s blog (the employer then promoted it). Here is what she wrote:
Dr Stjerna is a Düsseldorf intellectual property law attorney and his publications include The European Unified Patent Court: what can still go wrong? and The Parliamentary UPCA ratification proceedings in Germany (this article opening with ‘The Parliamentary proceedings on the ratification of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (“UPCA”) in Germany have revealed a state of political affairs which should cause concern to each citizen’).
It’s not quite an attack on him (at least not yet). We are aware of additional complaints/input/comments being pursued this week (details will be published at a later date). Not only Team UPC should be asked for participation in the process of judgment, for obvious reasons.
“Not only Team UPC should be asked for participation in the process of judgment, for obvious reasons.”As usual, Team UPC wants us to believe that nothing will come out of it; optimism for self-serving purposes (self-fulfilling prophecies and more selling of services) is the same old habit, so Ulrich Blumenröder of Grünecker, who is not a judge, decided that “there’s nothing to see here, move along” (something to that effect). As if he already knows the outcome of the case. Bristows did the same thing without even knowing the nature of the complaint!
As Managing IP put it a short while ago, “Ulrich Blumenröder of Grünecker has read the #upc constitutional challenge & predicts it will be resolved by end of 2017.”
They’re now on a showcase for the EPO and the UPC (Munich, Paris). Managing IP acts like some kind of “media partner”, which is a weasel term used by the EPO for cooperative ‘journalism’ (journalists who receive expensive gifts).
Mathieu Klos, who has been covering the UPC saga for quite some time, said about the interventions: “Not a surprise. @BVerfG requested German Bundestag to comment on the complaint as well #UPC…
“Managing IP acts like some kind of “media partner”, which is a weasel term used by the EPO for cooperative ‘journalism’ (journalists who receive expensive gifts).”It has become a political circle’s circus, driven by financial agenda of very few malicious actors. All they care about is how much they can profit from lawsuits, not who will be hurt by these lawsuits.
For those who wonder what Kluwer has written (for IP Kat to copy), here it is, taking stock of who is involved in commenting (the patent microcosm for the most part). It looks like Bristows has gone anonymous in this blog after several scandals (like deleting readers’ comments) and now links to its own site to give an illusion of UPC progress at the end (even though it’s about something from 2 months ago). Here is the relevant part (to us):
In answer to questions of Kluwer IP Law, a spokesperson of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection confirmed that the German Government was ‘approached by the Constitutional Court on August the 23rd with the opportunity to submit its observations in this matter’. The UPC Preparatory Committee was not contacted by the Court and the EPO couldn’t immediately react on the matter. According to the German legal website JUVE, the German Bar Association DAV and the European Patent Lawyers Association EPLAW were approached by the Constitutional Court as well.
In Twitter they said: “Court asks for comments on German complaint against Unified Patent Court Agreement; #stjerna plaintiff.”
We shall see if the Court will accept input from parties other than Team UPC and/or the patent microcosm. There have been contact attempts which we’ll cover in the future (once the outcome is known). The poor handling of this whole situation — from start to finish — does not bode well for the government (Stjerna named the parties to blame) ahead of the general election later this month. █
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