Quite shamelessly, and not just privately like Alcatel-Lucent and Technicolor

Summary: Academic paper from Dr. Thibault Schrepel‏ highlights the disturbing role played by French patent trolls that would certainly benefit from something like UPC in Paris (which Battistelli lobbies hard for)

THIS scholarly paper [PDF] from Dr. Thibault Schrepel‏ was sort of recalled yesterday when its author said that "the French state still has its public patent troll, @FranceBrevets. Let's not forget."

"As a reminder, IAM spent years whitewashing France Brevets, as it does pretty much every troll, including Technicolor (we wrote many article about that).""My paper on the subject," he said, is actually 3 years old. He then mentioned a written unanswered question on the subject. Here are the conclusions from the 9-page publication:

France Brevets is a public patent troll which, under the guise of protecting French innovation, creates well-€­–documented destructive effects on R&D. In sum, France Brevets reproduces the illusion of protectionism in the field of intellectual property.

In addition, its public nature reinforces the risk to see European states fight against each other, which would be extremely damaging to the European innovation. Plus, we believe that the creation of France Brevets is not only harmful, but illegal.

The initial endowment of France Brevets was conducted as part of the “future investment program”. Indeed, if the future is to kill innovation in Europe, France Brevets is a terrific investment.

Pay attention to how the patent trolls' lobby, IAM, then creeps into the comments and 'interrogates' the author. As a reminder, IAM spent years whitewashing France Brevets, as it does pretty much every troll, including Technicolor (we wrote many articles about that).

IAM's intervention there serves to suggest that Schrepel‏ strikes a nerve and it may or may not be related to the EPO under Battistelli (which works closely with IAM). As we mentioned in past years, Battistelli's helping hand to trolls' agenda cannot be ignored and it goes even further than the UPC. EPO staff ought to raise more questions about these matters. Who does Battistelli really work for and serves?

"IAM's intervention there serves to suggest that Schrepel‏ strikes a nerve and it may or may not be related to the EPO under Battistelli (which works closely with IAM)."As a side note/footnote, yesterday afternoon Alberto Casado (Team Battistelli) got mentioned in relation to EPI, which criticised Battistelli and then deleted its own criticism. Marks & Clerk, a bunch of UPC boosters, showed how EPI had reacted to the thug, Battistelli, along with his controversial (harmful) practices. Stephen Blake wrote: "An innovative economy is something to be celebrated, but increased numbers of patent applications can cause problems for intellectual property offices tasked with examining them. It has long been known that the European Patent Office (EPO) has a large backlog of patent applications to examine, with applicants waiting years to receive a first examination report. At the meeting of the EPI Council last week in Warsaw, I learned of a new proposal presented to Council by Alberto Casado, Vice President of the EPO, for tackling this backlog. If implemented in its proposed form then it is likely to have implications for applicants, but most notably for third parties who may be significantly disadvantaged. [...] Council discussed the matter at some length and the view of the current proposal was broadly negative. Indeed, many were against any form of deferment of examination at all. Chris Mercer, former (and likely next) Chairman of the European Patent Practice Committee of the EPI will be submitting a letter to the EPO giving Council’s views and requesting reconsideration of the proposals where necessary."

We eagerly await that. ⬆