12.09.18
Gemini version available ♊︎Team UPC is Still Spreading False Rumours in an Effort to Trick Politicians and Pressure Judges
The EPO wrote this (below) almost three years ago
Summary: Abuses at the European Patent Office, political turmoil and an obvious legislative coup by a self-serving occupation that produces nothing have already doomed the Unitary Patent or Unified Patent Court (UPC); so now we deal with complete fabrications from Team UPC as they’re struggling to make something out of nothing, anonymously smearing opposition to the UPC and anonymously making stuff up
LAST WEEKEND the person who ratified something that cannot in principle be ratified (or become functional) decided to publicly announce his resignation. There were some reports that mentioned this in relation to the UPC as well (even though there’s more to his decision, primarily Brexit itself). Science Minister (or whatever his job title was at the time; it kept changing) Sam Gyimah wasn’t the first to resign and his predecessor too kept changing job titles until resignation (for similar reasons). We can only imagine how Germany’s constitutional court views this turmoil. Not too favourably…
“The UPCA is dying in its sleep, the EPO already ignores it (the subject is almost never brought up), and Team UPC blogs are more or less dead (no new posts).”With only a couple of weeks left before Christmas it seems pretty clear that the UPC is more “dead” than it has ever been. There will be some more restful weekends soon. As for weekdays? Don’t expect any oral hearings as none are even scheduled. In two or three weeks’ time Team UPC will need to explain why it floated totally false (fabricated) ‘unitary’ rumours. The UPCA is dying in its sleep, the EPO already ignores it (the subject is almost never brought up), and Team UPC blogs are more or less dead (no new posts).
Days after Ramona Livera (Elias Neocleous & Co LLC) published lies and distortions about the UPC in Cypriot press she apparently paid money for more sites to carry these ‘unitary’ lies (self promotion rather). It says more about the integrity and honesty of such firms (than it says about UPC/A itself).
A few days ago Hogan Lovells’ Joseph Raffetto and Steffen Steininger decided to relay some more falsehoods. Perpetuating false rumours of Team UPC is nowadays seen as a virtue, surely?
Here is what they wrote:
While the German Federal Court (FCC) has still not officially announced when it will issue a decision regarding the constitutional complaint against the German law that ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA), rumors about a possible decision in December are circulating the German patent community. The FCC, however, officially has not acknowledged a decision date at this point. Across the channel, in the meantime, two UK patent practitioners argued before the House of Lord’s EU Justice Sub-Committee in favor of a UK participation in the Unitary Patent system during the transitional period agreed upon in a withdrawal agreement following Brexit and beyond that period.
When they say “rumors about a possible decision in December are circulating the German patent community” they don’t cite any sources. Because there are none. There’s no basis for this.
Where are those sources? They’re not even being named. It’s like a self-serving whispering campaign.
“When they say “rumors about a possible decision in December are circulating the German patent community” they don’t cite any sources. Because there are none. There’s no basis for this.”Alan Johnson has meanwhile had nothing to say on the subject. He and his colleagues are among those who spread these false rumours the most. Days ago he wrote in their UPC Blog about SPCs, not UPC (Bristows are big boosters of SPCs). So the UPC Blog is not even about UPC anymore! And on the same day Kluwer Patent Blog (where Bristows often writes) published “SPCs under friendly fire“ (overly dramatic headline).
Why does nobody mention anything of substance about UPC or UPCA? Because there’s nothing.
JUVE, which likes patent trolls (and therefore the UPC as well), still calls patent trolls by a euphemism (“NPE”) and seems happy that they choose to troll companies that actually make something… in the country where JUVE itself is based. JUVE’s subscribers are profiting from these trolls and they hope to profit even more from something like the UPC (which would be inviting to trolls). As JUVE put it: “For NPEs, Germany will continue to be the court location in Europe. This is demonstrated by Data Scape’s lawsuits against none other than Apple, Amazon and Spotify at the Regional Court Düsseldorf…”
More money for lawyers would mean more money for the publisher (JUVE), but the UPC isn’t happening and JUVE isn’t writing about it anymore. It’s almost as if they’ve given up completely.
“More money for lawyers would mean more money for the publisher (JUVE), but the UPC isn’t happening and JUVE isn’t writing about it anymore.”Benjamin Henrion has meanwhile said about UPC that: “Defining how courts are established (130 pages of the rules of procedure) should be the only privilege of Parliaments, not outsourced to biased patent experts like Mr Mooney” (citing an old article from JUVE, which amplifies Team UPC itself).
“Mooney is a symptom of the problem,” I told him, as UPC “is a legislative coup.” It’s a bunch of lawyers attempting to hijack the law and enrich themselves. The constitutional court’s judges can hopefully see that because it’s not difficult to see that and it would be an utter embarrassment to Germany if it ever went ahead; it would also be a political crisis and possibly lead to legal action. █
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