Bonum Certa Men Certa

The European Patent Office Lost Its Way, Found Buzzwords Instead

Atlantic ocean



Summary: Patent leadership has been lost because quality has been abandoned; the only thing that Europe can nowadays take pride in is leadership in buzzwords like "4IR" and "AI"

THE European Patent Office (EPO) under António Campinos is a propaganda machine for software patents in Europe. Not a day goes by without the EPO promoting/advocating software patents ever so shamelessly.



Example from yesterday? Here's one: "If you didn’t get the chance to attend the EPO’s conference on #patenting #artificialintelligence, you can read the highlights here: http://bit.ly/AIpatents"

"They never get tired of those stupid buzzwords, such as "AI".""AIpatents" is just a new (or newspeak) term for software patents.

IP Kat is now promoting (with "discounts" even) a lobbying event of large corporations looking to impose software patents on Free software and standards (those are not compatible). It's happening next month ("held in London on 5 and 6 December 2018.") and look who leads with obligatory buzzwords like "AI":

The agenda tackles topics such as AI, Open Source, and the future of patents. Speakers include leading in-house authorities (eg, Nokia, Ericsson, and Cisco) external counsel, IP management experts, and members of the judiciary.


They never get tired of those stupid buzzwords, such as "AI".

Yesterday we saw Watermark Intellectual Property's Christian Schieber relying on paid placements of self-promotional puff pieces that piggyback news to attract clients (this one was titled "Patenting of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the European Patent Office"). We had seen a couple/several dozens like these earlier this autumn. They're just googlebombing "EPO" and "AI".

J A Kemp, which promotes patents on life (we mentioned this before), has just published this piece about WIPO ("EPO Joins WIPO"). The EPO and WIPO already have much in common when it becomes to lies, corruption and human rights abuses, so this collaboration is as natural as can be. So natural one might even get a patent on it (nature is patent-eligible now, right?). To quote: "With regard to this latter benefit, it is worth noting that the EPO has existing arrangements in place for exchange of priority applications with the US, Chinese, Japanese and Korean patent offices and those arrangements will remain in place notwithstanding the EPO joining DAS. Consequently, the EPO will continue to obtain automatically copies of US, Chinese, Japanese and Korean priority applications via its existing arrangements, even without a DAS access code being supplied. Likewise, if the priority application is a European patent application or PCT application filed at the EPO as receiving office, the EPO will automatically add a copy of that priority application to the file. Accordingly, it will be necessary to make use of the new DAS mechanism only if the “office of first filing” is not the European, US, Chinese, Japanese or Korean patent office. The new DAS mechanism is therefore likely to be most commonly used by European applicants who first-file at a participating European national office (e.g. the UK Intellectual Property Office), but will also be useful for some other applicants, such as Indian applicants who first-file at the Indian patent office."

"They try hard to hide the sharp decline in patent quality."Priority documents like these might only prove to be a burden/nuisance to already-overworked and hughly overburdened examiners; they lack time to properly assess applications and this is why many patents (like algorithms disguised as "AI") get granted. It is really bad.

How about this press release from yesterday, alluding to the EPO Technical Board of Appeal (besieged by Office management), EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal, and EPO Opposition Division (under extremely heavy load, albeit predating Battistelli in this case)?

Litens Automotive Group is the proprietor of patented Smartsprocket€® automotive timing drive components and systems. The Smartsprocket€® technology enhances timing drive systems by counteracting camshaft torque pulses, resulting in reduced torsional vibration, reduced camshaft timing error and improved belt life. The technology has been utilized in dozens of engine platforms around the world.

[...]

Many attempts have been made by Gates and others to invalidate Smartsprocket€® patents before European, German and Chinese authorities. Litens has successfully defended the Smartsprocket€® patents in all instances, resulting in no changes to the originally granted claims. The validity decisions are listed below:

2018 May 29 – German Federal Supreme Court – case no. X ZR 51/16 2016 Feb 02 – German Federal Patent Court – case no. 4 Ni 29/14 (EP) 2013 May 29 – China Patent Reexamination Board – case no. 20785 2012 Oct 02 – EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal – case no. R 19/11 2011 Dec 18 – Beijing First Intermediate People's Court – case no. (2011-1801) 2011 July 07 – EPO Technical Board of Appeal – case no. T 0248/10-3208 2011 Jan 20 – China Patent Reexamination Board – case no. 15956 2009 Nov 25 – EPO Opposition Division – European patent no. 1448916


Nowadays it's a lot harder to reach the challenges (as above) because EPO management made it easier to dismiss, a lot more expensive, less independent and so on. They try hard to hide the sharp decline in patent quality.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Thailand: GNU/Linux Up to 6% of Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
Desktop Operating System Market Share Thailand
António Campinos is Still 'The Fucking President' (in His Own Words) After a Fake 'Election' in 2022 (He Bribed All the Voters to Keep His Seat)
António Campinos and the Administrative Council, whose delegates he clearly bribed with EPO budget in exchange for votes
Adrian von Bidder, homeworking & Debian unexplained deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Sainsbury’s Epic Downtime Seems to be Microsoft's Fault and Might Even Constitute a Data Breach (Legal Liability)
one of Britain's largest groceries (and beyond) chains
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE analogous to identity fraud
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Comparing U.E.F.I. to B.I.O.S. (Bloat and Insecurity to K.I.S.S.)
By Sami Tikkanen
New 'Slides' From Stallman Support (stallmansupport.org) Site
"In celebration of RMS's birthday, we've been playing a bit. We extracted some quotes from the various articles, comments, letters, writings, etc. and put them in the form of a slideshow in the home page."
Suicide Cluster Cover-up tactics & Debian exposed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/03/2024: A Society That Lost Focus and Abandoning Social Control Media
Links for the day
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE: Plagiarism & Child labour in YH4F
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Linux Foundation Boasting About Being Connected to Bill Gates
Examples of boasting about the association
Alexandre Oliva's Article on Monstering Cults
"I'm told an earlier draft version of this post got published elsewhere. Please consider this IMHO improved version instead."
[Meme] 'Russian' Elections in Munich (Bavaria, Germany)
fake elections
Sainsbury's to Techrights: Yes, Our Web Site Broke Down, But We Cannot Say Which Part or Why
Windows TCO?
Plagiarism: Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich) & Debian Developer list hacking
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2024: Putin Cements Power
Links for the day
Flashback 2003: Debian has always had a toxic culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] You Know You're Winning the Argument When...
EPO management starts cursing at everybody (which is what's happening)
Catspaw With Attitude
The posts "they" complain about merely point out the facts about this harassment and doxing
'Clown Computing' Businesses Are Waning and the Same Will Happen to 'G.A.I.' Businesses (the 'Hey Hi' Fame)
decrease in "HEY HI" (AI) hype
Free Software Needs Watchdogs, Too
Gentle lapdogs prevent self-regulation and transparency
Gemini Links 18/03/2024: LLM Inference and Can We Survive Technology?
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 17, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, March 17, 2024
Links 17/03/2024: Microsoft Windows Shoves Ads Into Third-Party Software, More Countries Explore TikTok Ban
Links for the day
Molly Russell suicide & Debian Frans Pop, Lucy Wayland, social media deaths
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Our Plans for Spring
Later this year we turn 18 and a few months from now our IRC community turns 16
Open Invention Network (OIN) Fails to Explain If Linux is Safe From Microsoft's Software Patent Royalties (Charges)
Keith Bergelt has not replied to queries on this very important matter
RedHat.com, Brought to You by Microsoft Staff
This is totally normal, right?
USPTO Corruption: People Who Don't Use Microsoft Will Be Penalised ~$400 for Each Patent Filing
Not joking!
The Hobbyists of Mozilla, Where the CEO is a Bigger Liability Than All Liabilities Combined
the hobbyist in chief earns much more than colleagues, to say the least; the number quadrupled in a matter of years
Jim Zemlin Says Linux Foundation Should Combat Fraud Together With the Gates Foundation. Maybe They Should Start With Jim's Wife.
There's a class action lawsuit for securities fraud
Not About Linux at All!
nobody bothers with the site anymore; it's marketing, and now even Linux
Links 17/03/2024: Abuses Against Human Rights, Tesla Settlement (and Crash)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 16, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, March 16, 2024
Under Taliban, GNU/Linux Share Nearly Doubled in Afghanistan, Windows Sank From About 90% to 68.5%
Suffice to say, we're not meaning to imply Taliban is "good"
Debian aggression: woman asked about her profession
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 17/03/2024: Winter Can't Hurt Us Anymore and Playstation Plus
Links for the day