Bonum Certa Men Certa

António Campinos as German Sheriff Rather Than Office President

This isn't change, it's perpetuation of Battistelli

Klopp



Summary: A year after change of President the EPO remains a dictatorship where an autocrat antagonises the law and confronts facts with lies and denials; for things to actually improve perhaps it's time for António Campinos to go (and get replaced not by another appointee of Battistelli)

THE MUNICH-BASED European Patent Office (EPO) keeps tweeting support for software patents in Europe, even repeatedly bragging about software patents (monopolies on mathematics) granted to Qualcomm. It did so several times in the past couple of days alone, urging people to reward the culprit. The assault on the EPC arguably started (or escalated severely) with Battistelli, who now has a 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101 'sibling' in the US. Remember that the EPO was lobbying for software patents even in Australia (under the Battistelli regime), as was noted by mainstream media at the time, around 2011. The EPO states its intention to spread such a policy to the entire world in a new document issued by Campinos.



"Will the EPO learn to obey actual justice and respect courts (which incidentally keep striking down patents on life and mathematics)?"If Europe leads the world in something patent related, it's not patent quality but patent maximalism. That is a source of shame, not pride. Recently, or as late as last week (belatedly in our assessment, they gave him too long a 'grace period'), SUEPO 'declared war' on António Campinos along with a call for strike. Will that matter? Can that restore law and order? Will the EPO learn to obey actual justice and respect courts (which incidentally keep striking down patents on life and mathematics)? Or will it just obey orders from the dictator du jour (usually Frenchmen)?

It sadly seems as though a whole year was 'wasted' with Campinos; he did nothing. In fact, he might soon give about $50,000,000 to a Third Reich firm. Stay classy, Campinos...

Sometimes it seems like things only get worse -- not better -- under Campinos. Look at patent quality and what SUEPO published a few months ago. With the likes of Bergot still in charge of staff, what hope is there for real, substantial change? Not to mention the increasing levels of nepotism (EUIPO staff flocking to join their old boss, Campinos).

"Campinos actively and consciously violates the very 'constitution' of the EPO."On the technical side, what has Campinos offered? Nothing. A billion euros to be wasted on buildings? That alone would do nothing to improve working conditionS and quality of work. In fact, there are already empty buildings in the EPO's possession. Why build additional ones? The EPO even rents space in Haar in order to just punish and scare all of its judges. Campinos has done absolutely nothing to correct it and it's a gross violation of the EPC. Campinos actively and consciously violates the very 'constitution' of the EPO.

CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP's Jane Hollywood and Frances Denney have just written about the EPO's Technical Board of Appeal decision T 2136/15. The judges there still lack independence. They're controlled by people who break the law. So what can possibly come out of this which proves revolutionary?

The EPO Technical Board of Appeal (TBA) reviewed the law around novelty of use, and determined that in the case of CardioPolymer...


The rest is behind paywall, but notice how the Boards almost never rule in defiance of Office management. They can't. It's too risky. This new self-promotional post from Swati Gupta of LexOrbis, boosters of software patents in India and elsewhere [1, 2], says the following about the EPO:

With regard to the patentability of product by process claims, EPO has well defined guidelines which states that product defined in terms of process is allowable only if the claimed product full fills the requirement of patentability i.e. the product per se should be novel and inventive regardless of the fact that it is produced from a new process.

If the product is defined by the process than the burden of proof lies on the applicant to prove that the product defined by process is different from the known product and to provide evidence that the modification of the process has resulted in a modified product.


It often seems like patent scope no longer exists at the EPO. Throw in some words like "technical" and maybe add buzzwords like "AI" and voila! European Patent granted. What value do these patents have? Look no further than recent court rulings (on relatively new European Patents). Only the lawyers win. The patents perish in courts. We provide new examples almost every week and last did so weeks ago and days ago, even yesterday. Examples become more abundant every month.

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