Bonum Certa Men Certa

Yesterday's UPC Event Was a Reminder That Team Battistelli is Still in Charge of the European Patent Organisation, Fronting for Team UPC

These sorts of UPC lobbying events are almost a monthly occurrence now and their tone keeps being escalated

Team UPC event
They think that a vendor capture of legislation is just a joke



Summary: Team Battistelli, which still comprises Margot Fröhlinger and now António Campinos, joins Team UPC in pressuring politicians and courts to introduce an unconstitutional patent trolls' fantasy, spurring a boon for litigation firms

THE Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is a great example of law being corrupted by greedy opportunists and legal thugs. When they say "industry" they mean the litigation 'industry', e.g. patent trolls. Consider this tweet from yesterday, quoting the EPO's liar (yes, Team Battistelli is still in charge): "the long term participation of the UK in the UPC is legally possible if there is political will. The clear view of industry should be listened to by DE, FR and other member states..."



Which industry, Margot Fröhlinger?

"They're not receptive or open to any critics. UPC is, to these people, just something to be shoved down people's throat."World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR) belatedly wrote some time yesterday about changes in Team Battistelli, coinciding with the above event. UPC promotion was the first step of António Campinos, which isn't a promising sigh. It indicates there's no profound change on the way. Basically the new President has revealed that he is another Battistelli as far as patent agenda goes (never mind social aspects or management style). "Yet another UPC echo chamber conference where they do not invite critics" is how Benjamin Henrion described the above. They always make it like that. They're not receptive or open to any critics. UPC is, to these people, just something to be shoved down people's throats. They did, after all, come up with and wrote UPCA. They are self-appointed 'lawmakers' whose sole motivation is self-enrichment.

It's hard to know what exactly happened there (without something like a transcript of the speech from Campinos), but live tweeting from the event shows that "Select Committee's Jerome Debrulle [said] If the UPC fails it will be a "political and economical failure for the EU.""

"They did, after all, come up with and wrote UPCA. They are self-appointed 'lawmakers' whose sole motivation is self-enrichment."Jerome Debrulle is a notorious Battistelli and abuses facilitator, whose government should (in our humble opinion) sack him for what he did last year. We have heard lots more about his special relationship with the UPC and his role in the appointment of Campinos with Battistelli pulling strings behind the scenes. Debrulle should be considered an extension of Team Battistelli along with the above propagandist (Margot Fröhlinger). They're inseparable.

Watch how Team UPC responded to constitutional challenges, all of which have thus far been successful. These are the sorts of people who also attended this event. It's not a debate but more of a battle plan. Alex Robinson, referring to himself/themselves as "#TeamUPC" yesterday, thinks this is funny. He spoke of needing to "resume our deliberations on taking over the world ;-)"

Ha, ha, ha. Not funny. And no, they just try to hijack Europe's patent system, including the courts, aided by their hero Battistelli. IAM's revisionism and whitewash about Battistelli is all one needs to see in order to understand that Team UPC is fully behind Team Battistelli. Just watch what happened to IP Kat after CIPA and Bristows had taken leading positions there. They're egging Team Battistelli on.

"...Team UPC is fully behind Team Battistelli. Just watch what happened to IP Kat after CIPA and Bristows had taken leading positions there. They're egging Team Battistelli on."Robinson has in fact just belittled the constitutional challenge to UPC (yet again) and his employer added: "The Hungarian Constitutional Court ruled that the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is contrary to the Hungarian constitution and therefore cannot be ratified by Hungary..."

Compare that to the actual headline. Bristows' was even worse, insinuating that Hungary should now change its Constitution to facilitate its Constitution being violated by Team UPC. These people are absolutely nuts. And it's dangerous. It's like the Battistelli mindset, wherein breaking the law is acceptable when the supposed ends justify any means. Team UPC is not just arrogant; it rigs the rules, it breaks the law, it corrupts politicians, and it seems to be absolutely OK with corruption and suicides at the EPO as long as they might get their 'precious' UPC. Robinson continued: "His personal views: a way will be found to allow UK to continue, because so many people want it to happen. But if that happens, it is likely there will be a legal challenge. And that could take some time to resolve. [...] Let's see what is quicker - Germany killing the UPC or the UK leaving the EU!"

This is nonsense because the sequence of this does not matter and they have several more serious obstacles to overcome, the least of which is Hungary.

"The goal is to cause a litigation Armageddon and overcome limits on patenting (scope)."Team UPC seems to become more radical as a function of how unlikely the UPC becomes. What next? Will they start openly bribing politicians? They already lobby them in the open and proudly associate -- even in photo ops -- with notorious crooks who belong in a prison.

The UPC is a threat not because of the stench of Battistelli; it's objectively terrible for Europe, unless one is a prosecutor for one's living. The goal is to cause a litigation Armageddon and overcome limits on patenting (scope). As someone put it last night in IP Kat comments: "On numerous occasions, EPO decisions have (usually when UK practitioners have argued on the basis of EPO case law) stated that, unlike Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence, the instances of the EPO are not bound by precedent case law, but only by the provisions of the EPC. Therefore there appears to be no good reason why the UK courts should feel obliged to follow EPO case law when such case law does not bind the EPO itself."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Don't Use the Future Tense to Discuss the Slop Bubble
Wall Street does not react to reality; it reacts to panic, which is related to expectations
The Broken Window Industry and Its Ongoing Desires to Make Technology Less Dependable
Reliable computing is becoming harder to find
New XBox CEO Typecast in Social Control Media
Microsoft apologists will fall back on (or shuffle between) the "racist" and "sexist" angle
Sites Without JavaScript Deserve Your Visits
We're not arguing that the Web should be as simple or barebones like Gemini Protocol/GemText
EPO Strikes Are Already Working
Campinos is already going "into hiding"
 
IBM Layoffs Definitely Still Happening
Contrary to what some apologists try to say
More and More Projects Quit Microsoft GitHub This Year, XBox Will See the Same
Microsoft GitHub's embrace of slop as "strategic" gives us a clue of what'll happen to XBox very soon
Google "Intelligence": Despite Slam-Dunk or "Smoking Gun" Proof, Drug Abuse in EPO Leadership is "Unverified Allegations"
Google's slop (so-called 'AI') lacks intelligence
8,000 Pages/Articles Per Year
We're eager to maintain a good production/publication pace and illuminate the sinister attempts to interfere with Freedom of the Press in the UK
Gemini Links 22/02/2026: Okonomiyaki and Midcrunch Crisis
Links for the day
Freedom Means Accepting He or She Who is Different
In the Debian community we're sadly seeing some authoritarian overreach this month
Microsoft Windows Falls to Another New All-Time Low in Guatemala, It is a Bottomless Pit
Maybe users come to realise that Windows means back doors and those doors are open to a regime that ought not be trusted
"XBox" Will Become Slop After Mass Layoffs
When all else fails, "AI it"
Links 22/02/2026: Hardware Price Hikes Across the Board, "Microsoft Issues Statement on Potential Layoffs"
Links for the day
Microsoft "Layoffs Incoming"
This transition isn't about promoting games; it's about canning the console
Links 22/02/2026: "Bloat of Modern Fitness Apps" and Wikipedia Deprecates Archive.today
Links for the day
Our IRC 5-Year Anniversary (for Self-Hosted) is Fast Approaching
A week from now it's March already
Gemini Links 22/02/2026: Dream Job Gone and Slop in Taskwarrior
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 21, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, February 21, 2026
GNU/Linux Grew a Lot in Nicaragua
We've not noticed until today
Techrights Has Over 1,000 Good Articles 'in the Tank'
Drafts, notes, and lengthy documents
New Article Challenges Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Choosing the Wrong SLAPP Cases to Investigate
The one point we can agree on is that SRA does not know how to correctly select the worst culprits/offenders
The Brand 'Watsonx' is a Terrible Name for IBM 'Hey Hi' (Chatbots) Because Watson Agreed With Adolf Hitler
Almost a century has passed and IBM still believes that selling "intelligence", chatbots in particular, should be done under the name "Watson"
Why IBM is Still Scary and Dangerous
Keep a distance from "Big Blue" Bully
Measuring the Growth of Our Mission and Community
Something between experiment and prototype
Richard Stallman in the United States - Part III - Georgia Tech Did a Fine Job Upholding Free Speech Principles
The real problem was social control media (toxic)
Debian's Master is Deleting Criticism of SystemD and Other Things (On-Topic and Published by Debian Developers), Resorts to the Excuse Messages Are "Too Long"
Censorship serves nobody except the masters that control this censorship
Digg's Latest Incarnation Already Failed, It's Infested With LLM Slop
Many submissions go to slopfarms and some get summarised by slop
Gemini Links 21/02/2026: Veganism and DeskPi RackMate T0
Links for the day
On The Web, XBox Already a Dying Breed
Down to about 0.05% on large machines, based on statCounter [...] Microsoft will never publicly admit or say how many billions it lost on the XBox
2026 a Year of 'Top-Down' Microsoft Layoffs (Management First)
Stay tuned for what comes next
Your "Likes" Aren't Yours and They're Mostly "Worthless Clicks"
Social hermits are not popular, irrespective of how many "Facebook friends" or "likes" they get
Waggener Edstrom/Frank Shaw Lied, There Are Definitely Microsoft Layoffs
Microsoft never issued a formal statement, it made allusions by proxy
Microsoft-Controlled Media With Embargo and Press Operatives
This won't be the last example of media manipulation for narrative control or face-saving "damage control"
Slop Hype Makes Our Core Technology Less Reliable and Far Less Resilient (We Pay for the Catastrophe That Follows)
Only slop-free projects can be trusted
Going for 1,000 (Days of Uptime)
universal records are vastly better
Firefox is No-Go in China, Not Even 1% "Market Share" Anymore
Given Mozilla's utterly rubbish marketing these days (politics over technical aspects), set aside the cheerleading for slop, there's hardly a chance of Mozilla Firefox reaching or exceeding 10% again
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part III - It's in His Eyes
Workers are free to draw their own conclusions
Links 21/02/2026: Tensions Over Iran and Illegal Cheeto Tariffs, Presidential Approval Sags
Links for the day
Links 21/02/2026: "Moving Away From Cloudflare", Many Layoffs or Shutdowns in Games (Including XBox/Microsoft)
Links for the day
GNU Linux-libre is a Grown-Up Today
"before that, every distro that wanted to respect its users' freedom had to remove itself all of the binary blobs that were distributed as part of the kernel Linux's so-called sources"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 20, 2026
Gemini Links 21/02/2026: "The Evil of Action" and Slop Bots Causing Great Harm Online (Not Just the Web)
Links for the day
Like a Shell
Overreactions can backfire
Not Only Leaders of XBox Got Sacked (Layoffs)
Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond got laid off
9PM on a Friday Night: Microsoft Says the Layoffs Are Not Layoffs
We've said for a long time that XBox is doomed this year
Gemini Links 20/02/2026: Misfin Server and Magic in Programming
Links for the day
Former Debian Project Leader Branden Robinson Cautions Against Cover-up and Censorship in Debian
Debian drama. Again.
analytics.usa.gov Reckons Windows "Market Share" Fell to Just 38%, Vista 11 Not Even a Third of Windows Users
This coming summer Vista 11 turns 5
The New Digg.com is Slop
Slop "summaries" and Serial Sloppers are drowning out the site with fake 'articles' (plagiarism)
Linus Torvalds: Bill Epsteingate Good Enough for Me to Wine and Dine With
Torvalds is more connected to Jeffrey Epstein than Richard Stallman ever was
Our Uptimes Are Always Better Than Any Site That Uses Clownflare
Clownflare as a company operates like a cult
GNU/Linux Apparently Rose to 6% in Uzbekistan
If accurate, this represents a new problem for Microsoft and a big win for Software Freedom
Sponsored Videos and 'Articles' in The Register MS, Stenography as a Service/Product
They should more accurately label these actors
It's Friday Again and Many People Leave IBM for Good (IBM Should be Reported for Illegal NDAs That Hide Layoffs)
we very seldom see anyone deviating a lot from the "template-like" narrative, let alone mentioning "layoffs" or "RA" or some other term that implies non-consensual departure
The Little Clique of Sloppers/Spammers About "Linux" Got Even Smaller
Thankfully there are still genuine and legit GNU/Linux sites out there
Links 20/02/2026: Microsoft Intentionally Kills Older Hardware, "The Story of XBox" Shows How Defective Microsoft Hardware Really Was
Links for the day
Turkmenistan One of Many Countries Where Microsoft Fell to Distant Third in Search
We expect many layoffs in Bing some time soon
Don't Wait for "Red Hat Layoffs" Because After Bluewashing They're IBM RAs and Don't Wait for "IBM Layoffs" Because They're Perpetual
IBM layoffs are silent and "forever" (small trickle that never ends and is widespread - after all IBM is a very global and ubiquitous firm)
Links 20/02/2026: Standards, Science, and Politics
Links for the day
What Do People Ever Buy From Microsoft Anyway (Not PCs)?
Microsoft sells two things these days: 1) vapourware/promises. 2) its stock.
Gemini Links 20/02/2026: "Mainstream Unix, Underground Unix", Slop Staging DDoS Attacks Against Small Sites
Links for the day
IBM Inclusivity: Red Hat Summit is for Rich Sponsors Like Microsoft and Rich Guests Who Pay $500 a Day
Nothing signals societal tolerance more than paying a large military contractor
GNU/Linux Adoption is Higher in Richer Countries
Is it because freedom is actually expensive - something that only privileged people can pursue?
Links 20/02/2026: Windows TCO Versus Deutsche Bahn, Europe Seeks More Independent Digital Future
Links for the day
IBM, Red Hat and Fedora: Don't Say "Master", It Offends People. Also IBM, Red Hat and Fedora: "Master Podman".
The hypocrisy at Red Hat and Fedora shows no boundaries
IBM Layoffs Aren't Just in IBM 'Proper'
Who is still using Lotus after the HCL move?
The Register MS Gets Paid by Gartner to Promote a Ponzi Scheme for Gartner, Microsoft, and Others
The credibility of that site will suffer because it tries to sell a major scam to its audience
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 19, 2026