Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO is a Mess Under Battistelli and Stakeholders Including Law Firms Will Suffer, Not Just EP Holders

Low-quality European Patents (EPs) are good for nobody, but they help Battistelli game the numbers while destroying the Office (this includes mass layoffs)

Burning ambulance
Battistelli sets the Office ablaze months before his departure; Not even Battistelli's daughter (an ambulance driver) can put out her dad's fire. Many firings are expected.



Summary: As one last 'gift' from Battistelli, appeals are becoming a lot more expensive -- the very opposite of what he does to applications, in effect ensuring a sharp increase in wrongly-granted patents

THIS is a rather shocking reversal; the USPTO is improving patent quality, whereas the EPO quickly becomes what the USPTO used to be. We can therefore expect more patent trolls to migrate to Europe (some already migrate to China).

Earlier today NLO released this sponsored IAM piece which for the most part parrots EPO lies/spin; yes, it's mostly repeating the EPO's Annual Report and reusing figures from it. We wrote some rebuttals to these:



"From 2016 to 2017 the absolute number of European Patent Office (EPO) oppositions grew," it said at the start. Grew? It skyrocketed? Because many bogus patents are being granted. This is a Battistelli policy. It'll backfire really badly in the long run.

"So the EPO yet again makes it harder (more expensive) to oppose its rushed decisions."Oliver Rosenthal from Haseltine Lake LLP wrote this piece earlier this week. His firm recently highlighted the surging/soaring number of oppositions [1, 2].

Rosenthal too is (re)using EPO charts and propaganda, basically copy-pasting lies from the EPO's press releases. Are they attempting to just suck up to Battistelli like the worst law firms did whenever they wrote about the UPC, occasionally promoting UPCA scams as well? What is this, legal advice or public relations?

"A granted European patent does not lead to a unitary right," it said, "but a bundle of independent national patents which are enforceable and revocable in each contracting state where protection is requested and the patent has been validated."

"Applications become cheaper and stopping erroneous grants is now the 'privilege' of the super-rich."Yes, Team UPC hopes to remove this 'barrier' in order to spur more litigation. Dehns (Team UPC) wrote this article earlier this week, noting that: "The appeal fee will increase from €1880 to €2255, except for SMEs."

So the EPO yet again makes it harder (more expensive) to oppose its rushed decisions. All this while reducing the price of applications in order to artificially inflate numbers (after they decreased). What better proof does one need that Battistelli intentionally sabotages the quality of patents? Applications become cheaper and stopping erroneous grants is now the 'privilege' of the super-rich.

Recent Techrights' Posts

SLAPP Censorship - Part 115 Out of 200: Spending the Next Decade Writing About SLAPPs and Trying to Fix the System
It's the same industry that got paid by corrupt EPO officials to try to cover up the corruption
 
Greece Ought to Curb the Threat of Social Control Media
its national discourse seems to be run by an American company called Facebook
State of the GNU/Linux Desktop (and Laptop)
The time to advocate GNU/Linux is now
The 'XBox Narrative' Distracts From Destructive Cuts Across the Whole of Microsoft
Microsoft is preparing to lay off a likely record-breaking number of people [...] this isn't just an XBox problem
Microsoft's Stock Fell Nearly $200, But the Real Problems Are Just About to Begin
if they dump slop, what will they tell shareholders?
The Cyber Show on Starmer and Software Freedom
The Cyber Show's Andy has just explained why our departing national leader wasn't all bad
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 22, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, June 22, 2026
Gemini Links 23/06/2026: Girlrotting, Homeworlds at BGA, Slop Ruins Sites
Links for the day
A Lifetime of Whistleblowing
Ellsberg did not have an easy life, but it was a rewarding life with a rich legacy focusing on justice
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Man With Many Missions...
Campinos – accompanied by Gilles Requena and Patrice Pellegrino
Links 22/06/2026: Ubisoft Co-founder Dies, Americans Have Turned Against Slop
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2026: "The Sycophancy Machine" and "Port 22 Open for 54 Days"
Links for the day
When People Who Make the Most Money Are the Best "Boot Lickers" (Sucking Up to Jeffrey Epstein's Circle and the Dictator)
Sucking up to rich people may pay off
The Aim is Not Fame
Reposted from schestowitz.com
"Internally Important, Externally Irrelevant": IBM in a Nutshell
Right now its debt spins out of control and its stock spirals down the drain
SLAPP Censorship - Part 114 Out of 200: Thousands of Long Articles to Come, Properly Covering the SLAPP Industry in the UK and Its Modus Operandi
"Stowell described SLAPPs as ‘a stain on our legal system’."
Finding a Way to Get Paid to Improve LibreJS
So now we have more people resurrecting LibreJS and improving it
Microsoft Can't Even Wait Until July, Shutdowns and Layoffs Already Happening
Mashable speak of "a grim picture for the state of Xbox."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 21, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, June 21, 2026
Gemini Links 22/06/2026: Appreciating Simple Things, Perfect Summer Evening, IRIX, Vim and so
Links for the day
Chad's Move to GNU/Linux or the Point of Exceeding 5% "Market Share"
experienced centuries of being colonised
Gemini Links 21/06/2026: Dating Oaks, Paying With Cash, and "More on Withered Technology"
Links for the day
GAFAM is Drowning in Debt, GAFAM is Clearly Not Sustainable Anymore (It Runs on Borrowed Money and Bailouts)
The war and surrender in Iran will deepen the debt; we'll see the GAFAM reports in late July
GAFAM Was Never an Ally to Europe
Only 1 in 10 Europeans see US as an ally — study [...] military providers in "tech" clothing cannot be trusted
GitHub, LinkedIn, and XBox Will Finish Like Skype (Sustainability Crisis)
Skype should become a verb. When Microsoft 'Skypes' something it means it basically shuts it down with some temporal excuse/s.
Drowning in Garbage: AUR Shows That Too Much Low-Quality Software (Including Slop) is Bad for Everybody
What happened in AUR had happened elsewhere before and will happen again in the future
Links 21/06/2026: EU on Patented (Monopolised) Crops, Microsoft Software "Narcs on You to Your Boss"
Links for the day
Microsoft at 50 Follows the General Trajectory of Skype
How many years does Microsoft have left before payroll becomes impossible?
A Year After a Microsofter Took Over The Register MS It is Effectively a Content Farm With News as a 'Side Dish'
This is not journalism, this is spam
IBM Pays the Media and Cons Some 'Journalists' Into Participating in "Quantum" Spam
"The Boy Who Cried Wolf"
You Don't Need an 'App' for Your Birdhouse (Slopfondlers Come for Birds)
That they sell those things as "AI" really says a lot about how dishonest slopfondlers really are
SLAPP Censorship - Part 113 Out of 200: The United Kingdom is Not Turkey
Turkey is ranked almost worst in the Western World for press freedom
Cybersecurity Does Not Mean Asking Microsoft for Permission to Boot
There were very good and timely reasons to speak about the matter, including impending antitrust complaints against Microsoft
Links 21/06/2026: Bots from Alibaba Do Harm and Many Xbox Games Are Being Cancelled
Links for the day
5 Years After Release of Vista 11 Not Even One in 5 People Use It (in the US)
It doesn't look like Vista 11 will ever be adopted like prior versions and announcing a Vista 12 will mostly upset companies/organisations that only recently "upgraded" to 11
Gemini Links 21/06/2026: Boca Raton, Perfect Summer Day, and LLM Doing Things Poorly
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 20, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 20, 2026