Bonum Certa Men Certa

Quality of Patents is Going Down the Drain and Courts Have Certainly Noticed

Judges don't participate in this toxic agenda

Down



Summary: Uncertainty or lack of confidence in the patent system has reached appalling levels because heads of patent offices are just striving to grant as many patents as possible, irrespective of the underlying law

TECHRIGHTS was never against patents. It was for patent quality -- something that slipped at the European Patent Office (EPO) over the past decade or so (we wrote about software patents in Europe as early as the Brimelow days) and at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) as well. 35 U.S.C. €§ 101/Alice has meant that many granted US patents got thrown out by courts and sometimes by PTAB.



"It's about legal firms, not about advancing science and technology."Director Iancu in the US and António Campinos in Europe are both patent maximalists. They devalue patents by granting far too many of them, but what else should be expected considering their professional background? It's about legal firms, not about advancing science and technology. It's about litigation, not improvement of living standards.

The collapse of software patents in the US leads to their collapse elsewhere; as noted by Daniel Law's Rana Gosain in this article (under software patents in Brazil):

The aftermath of the decision in the aftermath of the US Supreme Court decision in Alice v CLS Bank has brought about uncertainty and at the moment it appears difficult to propose substantial changes to the Brazilian IP law.


Good. What else is good? Even Donald Trump supporters recognise that Trump just put a patent trolls and litigation 'mole' inside the USPTO. As one supporter of Trump put it on Monday:

The previous director of the United States Patent & Trademark Office, Michelle Lee, had previously worked at Google and was well respected by all major product- and service-focused tech companies for her understanding of the need for a balance in the patent system: a balance between the interests of right holders in valid and enforceable intellectual property rights as well as the interest of the general public in preventing overbroad patents and, particularly, the enforcement of patents that should never have been granted in the first place.

Mrs. Lee's predecessor, David Kappos, came from IBM, a company that has for some time been known for rather aggressive patent monetization (though they rarely litigate) and has, since leaving the USPTO, been lobbying hard for broad and strong patents. That said, he respected legislative and judicial decisions without a doubt, and compared to the current USPTO director Andrei Iancu his actual decisions at the helm of the USPTO were the ones of a centrist, and clearly not those of an extremist. He had his views and beliefs, but a reasonable agenda.

Director Iancu used to be the managing partner of Irell & Manella, a renowned L.A. law firm with a particular focus on patent enforcement. Presuambly they also represent defendants, but interestingly, I've always heard of them only when they were counsel for plaintiffs.

There are various respects in which Director Iancu is trying hard to turn the legislative and judicial tide--which is an agenda that the executive branch of government shouldn't have, but sometimes that's unfortunately the way it is.

[...]

This is the mission statement of a patent radical and of someone who doesn't appear to understand that he has a responsibility not only for patentees and for litigation firms like the one he used to chair, but also--in fact, even more so--for the economy and society at large.

The unspecified reference to "the public alike" doesn't counterbalance his focus on "rights owners" and their interests.

The way Director Iancu modified the claim construction standard for post-grant reviews (by instructing PTAB judges to apply the narrower standard used in infringement proceedings) has nothing to do with greater predictability: decisions were equally predictable before, but it used to be harder to defend weak patents.

[...]

Those of us promoting a balanced patent system must keep a close eye on what's going on at the USPTO under Director Iancu. I anticipate more posts on the USPTO, and especially on inter partes reviews, going forward.


There's growing disdain and resistance against this. Earlier this month we wrote about the EPO using European Inventor Award to promote software patents and earlier this week Benjamin Henrion said: "The EPO's spending on the "European Inventor Award" has no legal basis in the EPC. The EPO should better spend this money on something more useful. Furthermore, patents on computer programs are forbidden by art52.2 EPC."

"Even Donald Trump supporters recognise that Trump just put a patent trolls and litigation 'mole' inside the USPTO."These are, in effect, illegal patents. Why offer rewards for these?

Meanwhile, as it turns out based on a new press release, the EPO admits, yet again, that it granted (or nearly granted) a fake European Patent; why the change of heart? The UK High Court:

Estar Medical has been successful in revoking Regenlab's original PRP patent in the European Patent Office (EPO) opposition proceedings. This ruling follows a recent judgment by the UK High Court which also found the Regenlab PRP patent invalid...


Courts are again stepping in, applying law unlike the Office. These courts do not measure their "success" in terms of revenue.

We're disturbed to see the EPO granting patents on life, on nature, on maths...

These patents are not legal. Granting these patents would be a violation of the EPC. But the EPO's management gives staff quite a dilemma: break the law or get fired.

"These patents are not legal. Granting these patents would be a violation of the EPC."The management of the EPO is trying to trick examiners into thinking that what they do is compliant, but it's not. They keep using all sorts of buzzwords and misleading semantics (which courts reject). Here's a report from yesterday in which "Kazuhiko Ishimaru, general manager of licensing at the multinational electronics company [Panasonic, feeder of patent trolls], shares insights on IP strategies in an age of AI, IoT and big data" (to quote the summary).

Panasonic is a patent parasite and it promotes abstract patents under guise of buzzwords, "AI, IoT and big data..."

Why not add "4IR", "blockchain" and "Industry 4.0"?

We've meanwhile noticed that Bardehle Pagenberg continues pushing the software patents agenda at the EPO (for profit regardless of the law). It's doing that in paid-for 'articles' and many tweets like this one. It's no secret that nowadays the EPO grants all sorts of dodgy patents (over 100,000 of them a year), so what is this company bragging about in this new press release? Presumption of invalidity is becoming reasonable as rates of validity have fallen sharply.

"The way things stand, European courts will continue to reject a lot of European Patents, putting in doubt just about all the work done by the EPO since the Battistelli years (fake 'production')."The only way for the EPO to survive a 'bloodbath' is to change the law or get rid of courts. Complicit media like IAM has been paid to help with that agenda. Watch what IAM has just paid to promote (lawyers put patent monopoly/greed ahead of public safety) and this other IAM piece about patents on plants at the EPO. These malicious people are hoping to just bypass courts, expanding the scope of patents and miraculously rendering fake patents "valid". Mind this latest UPC jingoism from Joff Wild and his paid-for (to promote UPC) colleagues. There's another new example from IP Law Galli's Cesare Galli, presumably what qualifies as "Team UPC". There's this new 'article' (actually lobbying by a law firm) titled "Unitary patent and UPC – Italy moves forward" [1, 2] and it's about as laughable as this year's necrophilia from Bristows. Italy Moves forward with a dead thing? Like Sam Gyimah did one year ago (just before resigning)? The UPC spin has taken new forms. Here's the opening sentence:

The government recently adopted provisions to coordinate national legislation with the EU Unitary Patent Regulation and the Unified Patent Court (UPC)…


That's the equivalent of marrying a dead partner posthumously because there's no UPC and barriers to it have only piled up. The way things stand, European courts will continue to reject a lot of European Patents, putting in doubt just about all the work done by the EPO since the Battistelli years (fake 'production').

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
 
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol