Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Does the EPO Keep Praising People Who Promote Software Patents, Rewarding Them for Patent Thickets That Harm Software Developers?

Free mainboard



Summary: The EPO continues its troubling tradition of not only granting software patents but also offering glamour and prizes to people who are responsible for such an abomination

THE last post spoke of the EPO's strategy document from António Campinos. In it, software patents are being promoted, so why not rewarded as well?



We quickly alluded to "finalists for the European Inventor Award 2019" (warning: epo.org link). As the EPO put it in Twitter: "They revolutionise the world with ground-breaking inventions. They are the 2019 European #InventorAward finalists: http://bit.ly/EIAPopularPrize19 … Congratulations!"

"Some of them were responsible for fraud that killed a lot of people," I responded, pointing to coverage about Holmes (the EPO had since then deleted any traces of this connection).

Soon came a press release and some puff pieces, as well as videos like this one. Nationalism blinds corporate media, which overlooked corruption associated with these "awards". But to make matters worse, the EPO is once again (like last year; we covered it back then as well) rewarding/granting awards to people (or making them finalists) for software patents. As Henrion put it, quoting one of the finalists from the video: ""This is good for developers, because improvements for codecs are transparently shared" patents are toxic for software developers, there is code they are not allowed to write..."

In relation to the employer, Qualcomm, he wrote: "Qualcomm is probably the worst patent troll ever, 130 patents over "video compression", while those are just software patents... [...] EPO inventors and Math you cannot write on your keyboard..."

The EPO has meanwhile just called patents “IP”, a deliberate misnomer. This is how the EPO put it: "In recent years, we've witnessed strong demand for business-oriented IP training. That's why we're organising this seminar together with @IPRHelpdesk and @dkpto..." (Kongstad's old office, which apparently fired him months after we had studied his dodgy dealings).

"This is even more cynical than some of the recipients of Nobel prizes for peace."This morning the EPO kept retweeting all sorts of "media partners" and patent maximalists who mentioned its publicity stunt, whose finalists in past years were criminals, literally. As one put it: "The @EPOorg nominated Alexander van der Lely (CEO) and Karel van den Berg (Director Innovations) for the European Inventor Award 2019 in the category “Industry” for their fully automated milking system, Astronaut."

We have meanwhile noticed that the EPO organised an event in Portugal. How convenient for Mr. Campinos, who can probably visit some family on his way there, not to mention pass some EPO money to former colleagues and friends (maybe some day they will pay back somehow). About half of the Inventor Award ceremonies of Battistelli were held in France, including Battistelli's very own theatre. The selection criteria may seem spooky; it was like a one man's decision, there was nothing in the meeting minutes to suggest oversight existed.

The EPO later retweeted UK-IPO as saying: "Congratulations to British #engineers Richard Palmer & Philip Green who have been nominated for the European #InventorAward's Popular Prize."

Do they realise what this prize is now associated with? EPO corruption and politics, not science. See who got in last year [1, 2, 3]. It's frightening to see how poorly EPO budget gets managed and who is being awarded what (which prizes). Sometimes frauds and charlatans, sometimes criminals. In the process, moreover, there's money laundering and theft, too. Battistelli is lucky to have avoided jail until now; he's still housed in CEIPI, an institution which claims to be teaching laws, where he holds the highest position. This is even more cynical than some of the recipients of Nobel prizes for peace.

Recent Techrights' Posts

In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
 
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025