02.21.18
Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Retired Judge Siegfried Broß has long spoken out against the Unified Patent Court (UPC); and for good reasons…
Image courtesy: campact.de
Summary: The Unitary Patent fantasy (of mass litigation firms) is coming to an end; in fact, the German government and courts (Bundesverfassungsgericht to be specific) now deem the complaint to be admissible and thus likely legitimate in spite of many attempts to shoot it down
The European Patent Office (EPO) barely says anything about the UPC. It used to. A lot. But it rarely mentions it anymore. The closest thing to a mention was today’s tweet that said: “Read more about the impact of #patent protection on trade & FDI in innovative industries in this study…”
It’s like a ‘template’ tweet that they cyclically shuffle/revolve in order for the propaganda to broaden its reach. Propaganda? Yes, propaganda. What they don’t say is that they funded it. In the process, the EPO entered controversial territories; it really corrupted academia (we explained this before). This is a serious matter. The EPO not only corrupts the media but also academia; and guess who’s paying for all this…
“The EPO not only corrupts the media but also academia; and guess who’s paying for all this…”EPO staff is said to be prepared for ‘chopping’ while the management corrupts the press and universities. It’s not cheap. It also pays something like 5 million euros for events that last just one afternoon (that alone is a year’s salary of about 50 examiners). As the EPO implicitly acknowledges (by mention of two Twitter accounts), it paid money to LSE (UK) and the University of Colorado Boulder (US) for UPC propaganda. Sadly for them, however, the Unitary Patent is dead regardless. How dead? Check out what happened today (it’s in German by the way). The ‘unitary’ patent regime is over. It is dead. Team UPC will not admit this, obviously.
We have spent a lot of energy and almost 10 years to help end it, so this is a relief. We expect press coverage in German and then in English quite soon. Will the press be heavily influenced by the spin of Team UPC, as usual?
“We expect press coverage in German and then in English quite soon.”“UPCtracker” (a UPC booster, as even his username serves to suggest) wrote: “BREAKING: The complaint against the German UPC ratification law made it on the list of cases to be decided by the BVerfG. No details available yet (see linked list, Justice Prof Huber, # 11).”
Richard Pinckney from Bristows stopped short of sober analysis of it. No analysis at all. Here’s what he wrote: “The Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht, BVerfG) has today published here a list of cases which it intends to decide in 2018. The complaint against the legislation enabling Germany to ratify the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC), case reference 2 BvR 739/17, is included in cases to be decided by the Second Senate, with Justice Huber as rapporteur.”
Fair enough. Not much spin there for a change.
“Previously JUVE said it would likely take years, not even a single year, to decide on. There’s no deadline.”Christopher Weber (Team UPC) said that the “German Constitutional Court plans to decide within 2018 on #UPC and EPC complaints…”
IAM responded: “But when in 2018? If it is relatively early in the year and the complaint is rejected, there is an outside chance of German and UK UPC ratification before Brexit. Later on in the year and whatever the decision the UPC is dead in the water.”
Weber said: “Your guess is as good as mine. It’s No. 11 on a list of 26 for the 2nd Senate and No. 7 of 9 for reporting Judge Prof. Dr. Huber.”
“The very fact that IAM is pessimistic says a lot because IAM was actually paid to promote the UPC.”Previously JUVE said it would likely take years, not even a single year, to decide on. There’s no deadline.
I told IAM that UPC “has been dead in the water since a year ago, except for those who were asleep…”
The very fact that IAM is pessimistic says a lot because IAM was actually paid to promote the UPC. It’s like a lobbying group disguised as a publisher. Earlier today IAM published a self-promotional piece (that’s their business model) for Carpmaels & Ransford LLP in which the firm spoke of “Patent Box”. This sponsored ‘article’ actually trotted out an instrument of corporate tax evasion. To quote: “A wider awareness of the benefits of the Patent Box (a reduction in corporation tax available on the profits from patented inventions in the UK) may help to boost the number of patent applications filed.”
UPC is a scam. Patent Box is a scam. Earlier today we received new material about the EPO and INPI; that scam too will soon be covered here. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:26 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
“The draft “reform” proposal CA/3/18 will, if it is allowed to enter into force, put an end to permanent employment at the EPO.” –EPO insiders
Reference: Most of the world’s workers have insecure jobs, ILO report reveals
Summary: The latest plot twist, as odd as that may seem, is that the attack on the rights of thousands of workers (many of whom are rumoured to be on their way out) is curtailed somewhat, at least for the time being
The European Patent Office’s (EPO) demise is worrying. It’s inevitable, but it’s still worrying (layoffs are probably coming very soon, based on insiders). CA/3/18 was covered here yesterday, based on the words of insiders.
World Intellectual Property Review has just written about this: [via SUEPO]
The European Patent Office’s (EPO) supervisory body, the Administrative Council (AC), will deliberate an employment proposal put forward by EPO president Benoît Battistelli to recruit staff on renewable contracts of five years in March.
Battistelli and Elodie Bergot, principal director of human resources, added the motion to discuss permanent employment at the EPO during a budget and finance committee meeting in October last year.
At the time, a spokesperson for the EPO said that the office is in a “unique situation” with 97% of its staff hired on a permanent basis.
A first discussion of the proposal, which is called the “Modernisation of the employment framework of the EPO”, took place during the AC’s meeting in December.
The proposal has since been amended.
The latest on this suggests further amendments. An EPO insider wrote:
Breaking news: during Board 28 today the proposed Article 53 in CA/3/18 is dropped (withdrawn) – a revised version of CA/3/18 (without Article 53) will be published at the latest tomorrow. Rumor has it that the King himself withdraw the document. Yes, you read that correctly!
What is going on? Are rumours and panic influencing the plan? Will the management potentially rethink its utterly destructive actions?
“I was reading an article about the corruption ranking by Transparency International when I came across this short video,” one reader told us. “This reminds me of something, a kind of deja vu at the EPO…”
Transparency International’s connections to the EPO scandals [1, 2] are noteworthy. It’s like there’s nobody left to properly investigate and then press for actual enforcement against the EPO. Certainly not ILO (UN), the EU/EC, the German authorities, or even the Dutch government. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents, Rumour at 5:51 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
While Team Battistelli gives itself major bonuses
Just don’t mention anything about luxury cars of top-level management or bars built secretly at the 10th floor (among other ludicrous spendings on media influence, Eurovision-type festivals, plenty of personal bodyguards and so on)
Summary: While the Administrative Council of the EPO praises Battistelli for his financial accomplishments (as laughable as it may seem) a lot of families stuck in a foreign country may soon see their breadwinner unemployed, according to rumours
THE EPO is in trouble/peril; insiders started to insinuate that something wrong and very major was brewing at the Office yesterday. We’ve waited long enough and we now hear it from multiple sources. So here it goes.
“According to rumours heard at the EPO’s canteen,” one source told us, “the EPO seems to be planning dismissals of 700 to 1000 employees.”
“If they have as much money as they claim, why would the Office shrink this much?”This does not surprise us. We wrote about layoffs just earlier this week and many imminent changes seem to be hinting at that. Battistelli is just planting the seeds of catastrophe, which no doubt already causes super-hard-working examiners to panic.
Now that we hear these things we can’t help but recall some recent comments. One such comment said that “the only bells to which the Administrative Council of the EPO usually reacts to are the cash register bells operated by Mr. Battistelli.”
What cash register?
If they have as much money as they claim, why would the Office shrink this much? This is unprecedented; the Office grew over time rather than shrink.
Here is another interesting new comment:
” If the Freie Wähler stand up and file a pretty sensible and non-ideological resolution like this one, then I would not be surprised if it will actually be passed by the state parliament on 20/2/2018.”
Dear Dr. Bausch, far be it from me to question your optimism about Bavarian democracy.
But I wouldn’t count on the motion passing if the CSU gets its way.
But I suggest that you take a look at the contribution from Mr. Taubeneder (CSU) during the last debate on EPO affairs back in March 2017:
https://www1.bayern.landtag.de/www/player/index.html?playlist=https://www1.bayern.landtag.de/lisp/res/metafiles/wp17/17_346/meta_vod_24176.json&startId=
Maybe it is just me, but he gives the impression of singing off the same hymn sheet as the EPO management.
It would not surprise me if the EPO PR department wrote the speech for him.
We wrote about that at the time. People said the same thing to us (that the EPO seems to be ‘operating’ some politicians behind the scenes).
Thorsten Bausch responded by noting that he “heard that today’s [yesterday's] session was postponed to March due to sickness of Ms. Schmidt.”
Schmidt is a key figure in all this. Fantastic politician.
“As to your comments about Mr. Taubeneder,” Bausch continued, “you may indeed be right. Some of the language he used was clearly not his own (but the same is true for Ms. Schmidt, to be fair). Mr. Taubeneder’s main argument in 2017 was that the Bavarian Parliament is not competent to judge about such matters, which are in the very capable hands of the Administrative Council (sarcasm added by me, but not much). If I were Mr. Taubeneder or any of his CSU fellows, I would rather argue that it is the failure of the SPD-led Federal Ministry of Justice to apply more pressure on the Administrative Council to change things at the EPO to the better.”
Where is the German state when all these abuses are happening, culminating in the likely dismissal of many public servants living and working abroad with their families? Can the sessions wait another month?
Here is another new comment from another thread. This one too is about the supine Administrative Council:
Introducing the provision to “terminate the service of an employee if the exigencies of the service require abolition of their post or a reduction in staff” looks like a classic (“dead cat”) strategy from the EPO management.
Getting feedback that nobody likes the proposal to change to 5 year contracts? Starting to worry that the proposal might not be passed? No problem, we have the answer for you: just introduce a proposal that is far more outrageous an objectionable and then everyone will expend their energy and time fighting that instead.
So here’s my prediction: unless the AC has become completely supine, the “dead cat” proposal will draw objections, at which point the EPO management (with a theatrical show of exasperation and reluctance) will agree to withdraw it, but only if the AC agrees to rubber-stamp all of the other proposals (including the expansion of 5-year contracts).
It will be interesting to see how accurate this prediction turns out to be.
If the rumours are true, it all makes sense now. And as a followup comment put it: “Our salaries at the USPTO are even more competitive than the EPO’s [...] Conclusion: the overall better employment conditions at the USPTO allows USPTO examiners to provide much higher quality than that provided by the EPO. Hence, applicants would be better advised to file first in the US to get value for money…”
It’s hardly surprising that under Battistelli, e.g. last year, the number of patent applications (for EPs) actually fell slightly. Battistelli doomed the Office. Whether it was intentional or not (UPC in mind) we’ll let readers decide.
The demise of the EPO threatens Europe’s competitiveness. One might say, “so they’ll turn to NPOs…”
Well, not necessarily. Some people now go abroad for their patents.
As a side note, earlier this month EPLAW wrote about the ‘Drum Unit’ case that relates to the NPO:
With its milestone ‘Drum Unit’ decision, the German Federal Supreme Court revisits its case law on the exhaustion of patent rights, and in particular, on the delimitation of ‘permissible use’ on the one hand and the ‘unlawful (re-)making’ of a patented product on the other.
What would exhaustion of a patent office itself mean to stakeholders? Has it ever happened?
We have, on numerous occasions, been told that an EPO career should be lifelong because finding a job after the EPO is hard (there are several different reasons for this). It pains us to think that many EPO workers, some of whom were supportive of us over the years, are not in a state of shock if not additional stress (as it things weren’t already stressful enough). █
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