09.18.18
Gemini version available ♊︎The EPO Has Quit Pretending That It Cares About Patent Quality, All It Cares About is Quantity of Lawsuits
Dark clouds over every legitimate (practicing) company in Europe
Summary: A new interview with Roberta Romano-Götsch, as well as the EPO’s promotion of software patents alongside CIPA (Team UPC), is an indication that the EPO has ceased caring about quality and hardly even pretends to care anymore
TODAY’S EPO is nothing like your father’s and grandfather’s EPO. It has become a lot more like the USPTO (one decade ago, predating much-needed reforms in the US).
“They conflate application pendency with patent quality and staff (as in patent examiners) isn’t happy about this lie.”The EPO’s Roberta Romano-Götsch, who will attend an event in Chicago in which the EPO (per its own words) will promote software patents under the guise of “automobiles” innovation, has done an interview with Gene Quinn (Watchtroll). The second part was published yesterday. It’s an event they organise with IPO, the pressure group of the litigation ‘industry’ (which also lobbies quite ferociously for software patents). EPO promoted this and “stay classy, EPO” was my response to them. “Associating with patent zealots who attack judges just like Battistelli did…”
Regular readers of ours are probably familiar with the tone and the agenda of Watchtroll. From the interview:
We then move on to discuss what the term “quality” means to the EPO, and then pivot into discussing the EPO’s upcoming Automotive and Mobility Seminar, which will take place in Chicago from September 26-27, 2018.
As usual, we prefer not to quote much — or anything at all — from Watchtroll because the site uses misleading terms like “efficient infringers” and insults those who stand for science. The interview reinforces the perception that what EPO means by “quality” is how fast it grants a patent! That’s it. Even if wrongly. They conflate application pendency with patent quality and staff (as in patent examiners) isn’t happy about this lie. Not even stakeholders are happy because what good are patents that would be rendered invalid if brought into a courtroom? The patent microcosm doesn’t care so much because it profits by the number of applications and any visit to the court is very “big money”, irrespective of the outcome of cases (frivolous or not).
We are very concerned that António Campinos is nothing but an extension of Team UPC because his first step as President, on his second day in Office, was UPC boosting. Campinos competed for the job with an actual judge (one who values justice and sports decades of experience, including at the ICC), but Battistelli intervened and stacked the deck as he always does. So now we have another ‘flavour’ of Battistelli — a quieter and more subtle one. “President @EPOorg António Campinos gives a master class to the new civil servant graduates of the #SPTO on IP future challenges,” the EPO quoted another account as saying yesterday. At least we now know how Campinos uses his time. So I asked them: “Did he teach them how to illegally sack workers like he does at the EPO?”
“Campinos competed for the job with an actual judge (one who values justice and sports decades of experience, including at the ICC), but Battistelli intervened and stacked the deck as he always does.”I cited this recent example of what he did at the EU-IPO although there are more recent examples from the EPO.
In another EPO tweet there was yet more of the usual advocacy of software patents — something that the EPO does 2-4 times per day (weekdays). This one explicitly names “computer-implemented inventions” (CII means exactly the same as software patents) and speaks of some “free-of-charge” brainwash from CIPA. To quote: “What’s the EPO’s approach to computer-implemented inventions? Daniel Closa, one of our senior experts, will explain at this free-of-charge seminar in London” (where such patents aren’t allowed “as such”).
The EPO’s liaison with CIPA is a subject we recently covered. The EPO typically associates with IPO, CIPA and Watchtroll these days. In other words, it’s all about the litigation ‘industry’.
“The EPO typically associates with IPO, CIPA and Watchtroll these days. In other words, it’s all about the litigation ‘industry’.”Speaking of this litigation ‘industry’, Managing IP is a site which targets it. It is a pro-UPC publisher (that organised lobbying events for UPC, sometimes directly connected to the EPO). Some media companies are lobbyists and think tanks disguised as “news” and Managing IP is a living reminder of this. Yesterday it published “CIPA urges UK government to stay in EUIPO after Brexit” and then tweeted “CIPA has sent a letter to the UK prime minister asking the government to negotiate continued participation in the EU trade marks and designs system after #Brexit” (Managing IP is being a megaphone of CIPA, as usual).
Even though this has nothing to do with the UPC (which is dead anyway) Team UPC tried to interject things. Thomas Adam wrote on Twitter: “CIPA trying to set an example for continued UPC participation of UK after Brexit?!”
“It’s like the main aim is to ‘generate’ more business for litigators rather than serve the public or acknowledge real innovation.”No, the article doesn’t even mention the UPC. Also published yesterday was this article from Rachel Havard (AA Thornton & Co) titled “Brexit: Considerations for European Union Trade Marks and Registered Community Designs” (UPC not mentioned here either).
The bottom line is that today’s EPO, more so with António Campinos in charge, is little more than an extension in cahoots with the litigation pipeline. It’s like the main aim is to ‘generate’ more business for litigators rather than serve the public or acknowledge real innovation. In our previous post we showed how a European Patent had been used by a notorious bully in Germany (the bully is from the US). No wonder examiners, who are basically scientists, are royally pissed off. █
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