Bonum Certa Men Certa

Not Enough Opposition/s to Wrongly-Granted European Patents

Examiners know there's a problem as justice cannot prevail

EPO quality letter



Summary: The relative lack of oppositions to patents which are being granted in a rush (and under pressure to met "targets") may mean that any sense of justice will be overlooked, not only inside the EPO but also outside the EPO

THE EPO is creating a legal minefield. European Patents (EPs) are granted too leniently -- a result of decline in patent quality -- basically emulating the same mistakes the USPTO made in recent decades (until patent reform). This means that access to justice in the patent sense will become as poor as EPO staff's access to justice. It means that mobs like patent trolls can harass European companies even if they do not infringe/touch a patent or the patent in question is just questionable (expensive to prove that in court though).

Yesterday an EPO insider wrote about the concept of "Floating in a legal vacuum," quoting documents that SUEPO had shared: "How can it be that while states are individually obliged to respect fundamental human rights, they can jointly create international institutions that are entitled to ignore them?"

"Are appeals and oppositions even possible when people like Battistelli can harass Board judges (appeals)? Or retaliate against Office staff (oppositions)?"SUEPO published two large documents recently; these pertain to exemptions from law for EPO management, but what about patents that get issued and those impacted by such patents? Are appeals and oppositions even possible when people like Battistelli can harass Board judges (appeals)? Or retaliate against Office staff (oppositions)?

Not too long ago there was a successful opposition to a patent on life. Yes, the EPO had been granting patents on life itself, but in one case (at least one) EPO staff rejected the patent. It was about CRISPR. Professor Jake Sherkow of New York Law School has just written about a CRISPR patent appeal in the US. He said that this "demonstrates that patents covering even revolutionary technology can be legally mundane and still have significant real-world impact," having not actually opposed this practice.

But another post on the subject of appeals came from the US yesterday. It was the CCIA writing about the EPO, which is rare. "Approximately 4% of European patents are opposed, and of those, approximately 32% of oppositions are not instituted," Josh Landau wrote yesterday. To quote the relevant paragraphs:

EPO Oppositions and Nullity Proceedings



In Europe, rather than inter partes review and district court litigation on validity, there are opposition proceedings at the European Patent Office (EPO) and nullity proceedings in European national courts.

Oppositions



Oppositions are the most similar European procedure to U.S. post-grant proceedings like IPR. So it’s instructive to examine how many European patents are opposed and the outcomes of those oppositions.

Fortunately, the EPO makes available detailed statistics on exactly these questions. Approximately 4% of European patents are opposed, and of those, approximately 32% of oppositions are not instituted. 27% of oppositions result in a final decision invalidating all claims of the patent, while the remaining 40% of patents are modified in some form and maintained as patents. (EPO opposition statistics appear to omit patents where the parties settled mid-proceeding.) Each year, the EPO handles approximately 4,000 oppositions, meaning that approximately 1,100 European patents are invalidated in their entirety on a yearly basis.


This means that about 96% of patents face no opposition; with Battistelli almost doubling the number of granted patents, how would that even be feasible? Even for companies to keep abreast of all those granted patents while still being productive at work...

What we see here is collective erosion of the notion of law or justice in the patent system. Yesterday we called it the "banana republic model"; it's a system gone awry. A lazy man with barely any experience in patents or sciences has been put in charge of a patent-printing machine.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October