06.09.19
Patent Quality Continues to Slip in Europe and We Know Who Will Profit From That (and Distract From It)
The “big litigation” lobby
Summary: The corporate media and large companies don’t speak about it (like Red Hat did before entering a relationship with IBM), but Europe is being littered and saturated with a lot of bogus software patents — abstract patents that European courts would almost certainly throw out; this utter failure of the media to do journalism gets exploited by the “big litigation” lobby and EPO management that’s granting loads of invalid European Patents (whose invalidation goes underreported or unreported in the media)
THE MEDIA coverage about patents is deeply depressing because the publication houses that cover the subject are either owned by law firms or have law firms as subscribers/sponsors. This means that rarely do we witness dissent/objection to the status quo, especially in the corporate media. It also censors comments.
Law Gazette and Managing IP's role in UPC promotion and patent maximlism was noted here previously and IAM is even worse than these; right now it’s glorifying Roche patents that are likely responsible for the deaths of many poor people. Yesterday we discovered that Max Walters now works for patent maximalists (Managing IP) rather than that law firm-owned ‘news’ site (Law Gazette); speaking only to lawyers, as usual, instead of for lawyers. “Germany’s top court has refused a request for a compulsory licence, a decision that reaffirms the high bar that must be met, according to German and UK lawyers,” says the summary. And according to everybody else, what is it? One of their writers recently confronted me about this, insisting that because their target audience is only lawyers then it’s OK to just ignore everybody’s views that don’t agree with lawyers’.
“We duly take note of the fact that Bristows continues its silent ‘takeover’ or exploitation of IP Kat in order to promote patent trolls’ agenda, including the UPC, usually through Annsley Merelle Ward.”Sadly, the same has happened to IP Kat for a number of years; they have less objectivity or fewer scholars and more lawyers as their writers. They’re now publishing lies for 4iP Council (via Bristows). It’s “courtesy of Axel Ferrazzini (Managing Director of 4iP Council)” says an article titled “The Higher District Court of Düsseldorf in [patent troll] Unwired Planet puts some further constraints on SEP owners” [sic] (the article is full of misnomers and euphemisms, just like the title).
We duly take note of the fact that Bristows continues its silent ‘takeover’ or exploitation of IP Kat in order to promote patent trolls’ agenda, including the UPC, usually through Annsley Merelle Ward. It’s very, very sad as IP Kat did some good work covering European Patents/EPO issues (years ago when it was composed by very different people). It routinely brought up patent quality as well. What is it now if not a parrot of the status quo? Over the past few months we saw only one comment about EPO scandals in there (it was posted a few days ago).
Remember Heise covering EPO scandals? Yes, they did that routinely. A German-speaking person brought this new article to my attention last night (it’s dated yesterday and has plenty of comments):
#NotNice #AI (sic!) as a #swpat #Backdoor ! cc: @schestowitz
Headline: more US pat’s on GER/EU
Künstliche Intelligenz: Deutschland weit hinter USA
US-Unternehmen reichten 2018 doppelt so viele KI-Patente in Deutschland ein wie einheimische Firmen, die in Fahrzeugtechnik und Erkennungssystemen führend sind.
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Kuenstliche-Intelligenz-Deutschland-weit-hinter-USA-4442899.html
Yes, “AI” again. Hey hi, hey hi, hey hi!
On Friday the EPO tweeted: “The Advanced Driver Assistance System developed by this Israeli computer scientist & his team at @Mobileye uses a single-lens camera & cutting-edge AI to spot & avoid traffic hazards in real time.”
“Those patents aren’t even valid (courts would reject them).”By “cutting-edge AI” they mean yet more software patents in Europe and nowadays they want to give awards for fake patents on software (not valid). It’s not just this tweet; there have been lots more like it over the past week or two (a bit repetitive even), wherein the EPO was glorifying such patents and offering special awards for these. Those patents aren’t even valid (courts would reject them). Will Battistelli think differently from courts? We shall find out soon.
EPO President António Campinos (or his ‘brilliant’ team) made Battistelli a judge (see image at the top, with the notorious politician suitably dressed for his cold heart)
Last night we caught Sara Moran’s summary of a decision from the Court of Appeal of England and Wales (Civil Division), we assume regarding a British patent (UK-IPO grants these) or more fake European Patents (typically rejected by courts only after lots of money had been wasted on predatory lawyers who love such litigation mess). Outside the paywall it uses language similar to what we often hear/read at the EPO (e.g. “added matter” and “inventive step”): “The Court of Appeal dismissed Synthon’s appeal against the Patent Court’s finding that the patent in suit did involve an inventive step over the prior art, and Teva’s appeal against the Court’s finding that certain claims of the patent were invalid for added matter.”
“Such outcomes don’t suit the agenda of patent maximalists, so they usually just look the other way, hoping that their clients won’t notice (as it would harm their confidence in such patents and lawsuits).”Every week we find at least one case of European Patents perishing in courts (at great expense to the defendant). But the media almost never covers that; we need to rely on press releases, sporadic blog posts and so on. Such outcomes don’t suit the agenda of patent maximalists, so they usually just look the other way, hoping that their clients won’t notice (as it would harm their confidence in such patents and lawsuits). █
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