Turmoil in the litigation 'industry' and a complicit EPO that's pushing the litigation agenda at the expense of public interests

Summary: The disturbing push for abstract patents on mathematics and algorithms continues unabated in Europe; scholars and journalists are being paid (EPO budget) to play along while judges and courts get muzzled and marginalised as they're the public's last line of defense from corporate greed

BOTH THE European Patent Office (EPO) and U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) nowadays use buzzwords aplenty. The buzzwords are sometimes identical. The EPO intentionally misinterprets the EPC (courts have already said so), whereas the USPTO tries hard to dodge 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101 (SCOTUS precedents). Isn't it incredible? Patent offices that we're constantly being told exist to serve the public ever so shamelessly break the law and harm the public.

"Patent offices that we’re constantly being told exist to serve the public ever so shamelessly break the law and harm the public."We no longer focus on the USPTO (a strategic choice, seeing that patents on software are still perishing there, especially in courts), so let's look at the latest from the EPO. The management of the EPO keeps calling fake patents on software "AI" and "4IR" (among other things). It tells applicants to use these misleading terms (a bunch of buzzwords promoted by EPO to advance illegal patents on algorithms under the guise of "novelty" or "miracles"). It gets even worse! The EPO literally paid the mainstream media for 'studies', in order to promote these buzzwords in relation to software patents in Europe. We covered this before. Some very big publishers in the UK and in Germany were among the recipients of this money. Good use of stakeholders' money? Bribing media and academicw? It is still being done by António Campinos (it actually started under Battistelli) and the EPO's Twitter account promotes this kind of bribery almost every single day (it did yesterday as well). Here is a tweet which was retweeted by the EPO this week: "Mr Gerard Owens of the European Patent Office @EPOorg giving the #standardays participants an insight of new trends in the European #patents system #4IR ..."

Yes, "4IR". Ask the EPO's 'economist' what that even means...

The EPO then tweeted: "The next opportunity to visit the EPO will be in Munich. If you want to know more about the EPO's approach to #artificialintelligence ..."

Yes, "AI". Nowadays a synonym for "computer" or "machine" or "algorithm" (provided it has some "logic" like if/else statements).

We've decided to add the above modified cartoon. It's not only us who are mocking the hype wave. When I write about it online I typically call it "HEY HI!" (AI). Because it's everywhere, ascribed even to things that have no statistics or anything sophisticated in them. Much of the same can be said about "IoT", "blockchain", "cloud", "smart" and so on...

The EPO has also just said: "We welcome your input. Submit your feedback on our goal of delivering high-quality products and services efficiently here..."

The EPO is not "delivering high-quality" anything. Neither "products" nor "services". Its own staff union, SUEPO, refuted this lie as recently as weeks ago. The EPO is very well aware of what's going on, yet it keeps misleading (lying to) the public about it. How long or how much longer can this carry on?

"How do you find out if your idea is novel? You do it by searching for prior art," the EPO wrote this week. Does the EPO give examiners sufficient time to search for prior art? No. And to make matters worse, the EPO actually blocks technical sites such as Techrights, artificially limiting examiners' ability to find/identify prior art. We have about 25,200 articles in Techrights and some of these are technical. Some shed light on old works in the areas of hardware and software. There are also like a million links in the blog and IRC logs (pointing to other sites).

Currently, the EPO is counting on being able to mask the collapse of patent quality. It's attacking the judges and the courts. That's an assault on justice itself. It's going to get really ugly.

Today's EPO (Team Campinos) is trying to bypass the courts themselves, sending the Boards of Appeal to 'exile' (as punishment and/or threat) and visiting ILO officials as if justice for staff isn't the goal, only some fake 'peace'. The judges internal to the EPO cannot function and World Intellectual Property Review has just cited their report, summarising with:

The number of cases settled by the Boards of Appeal at the European Patent Office increased by 22% last year, a new report shows.

Settlement. The new justice?

See the new comment by "Haar is not Munich" (approved last night by IP Kat, which censors some EPO criticism). It's about the 'exile' of the Boards of Appeal at the European Patent Organisation/Office:

It does not really help to start splitting hairs. The city of Munich and the Munich Landkreis are two different legal entities. They have their own, different administration units.

If you are resident in the Landkreis, and let's say you need a driving license or a passport, if you go to the city of Munich administrative unit, the so-called Kreisverwaltungsreferat, you will be send away. This is a reality which does not compare with London and its 32 boroughs.

Another comparison comes to light. At the well-known Oktoberfest, only breweries from Munich are allowed to sell their beer. If a brewery would relocate outside the boundaries of the city of Munich, i.e. in the Landkreis, they would be excluded from the Oktoberfest. Lots of breweries have moved partly from the centre of the city, but they always took great care not to move one inch over the boundary, exactly for this reason!

You may want to interpret the EPC, but nowhere in the mind of its fathers, had they ever envisaged to send part of the EPO outside the boundaries of the city of Munich. The decision was to locate the EPO next to the German Patent Office, in the so-called Isar building. There even used to be an underground passageway between the two buildings!

When the original EPO building became too small to take into account its growth, it has never been envisaged to lease or build anywhere else than within the boundaries of the city of Munich. You find nowadays the bulk of examiners in the vicinity of the main station. The mechanics principal directorate was temporarily relocated in a suburb, Neu-Perlach, but still within the boundaries of the city of Munich.

There would have been plenty of other buildings within the boundaries of Munich to relocate the Boards of Appeal, should the Isar building proved to be too small. It was pure retaliation to send the Boards of Appeal away to Haar, and in order to add insult to injury to claim that the move would increase the perception of their independence.

The EPO is meanwhile attempting to also replace the Boards of Appeal, basically putting them out of work. Illegal? Surely. Will the Constitutional folks realise this? The Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) in Germany still assesses a complaint about it; there are no signs of progress, but Team UPC can always make something up (as it has done for years). Yesterday we saw a chronically-lying UPC account pretending UPC is still on, citing a blog post by Team UPC (Bristows), adding: "[Asked about the future of the UPC] “According to Robin [Jacob] “it is still on at the moment. Unless it becomes impossible, it will happen.” Robin further stated “I predict you will have it on the program next year. It is this year or not at all.”

"We'll all be raptured before UPC happens," I replied to him jokingly. He's a Munich-based patent parasite, looking to profit from UPC litigation galore. Benjamin Henrion, who took note of the above, added this quote from Team UPC: "Klaus Grabinski (Federal Court of Justice) noted that he is “still confident that the UPC is going to happen.” He expects a decision about the complaint launched at the Federal Constitutional Court to be rendered this year..."

Now trace it back to the source. He spoke at an event of patent maximalists, telling the crowd what it wanted to hear. That's also citing a blog post by Team UPC (Bristows), relaying words from Alexander de Leeuw (Brinkhof). Here's the whole portion:

After congratulating Sir Robin Jacob (former Lord of Justice of Appeal of the Court of Appeal, London) on his birthday – and after Robin Jacob informed Hugh that a collection of judges is known as "a wisdom’ – Hugh asked him about the future of the UPC. According to Robin “it is still on at the moment. Unless it becomes impossible, it will happen.” Robin further stated “I predict you will have it on the program next year. It is this year or not at all.” During a later part of the session Klaus Grabinski (Federal Court of Justice) noted that he is “still confident that the UPC is going to happen.” He expects a decision about the complaint launched at the Federal Constitutional Court to be rendered this year.

Well, but the Federal Constitutional Court isn't his court. If there's true separation between courts, how would he know? The same sort of guesswork and false rumours that promised a decision by last Christmas? Probably. On another note, what the heck are judges doing in a corporations-funded think tank of patent extremists? It makes it looks like the courts are 'in bed' with industry and aren't working for the public. The previous chief judge of the Federal Circuit lost his job over it. ⬆