Bonum Certa Men Certa

Demand for European Patents Will Continue to Decrease If a Lot of European Patents Turn Out to be Invalid, Worthless



“No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expediency.”

--Theodore Roosevelt



Theodore Roosevelt



Summary: The EPO's abandonment of patent justice and quality (in pursuit of so-called 'production' targets) is likely to doom the Office as the whole or render it vastly less relevant to the rest of the world

Patent quality has been severely compromised by the EPO -- to the point of being totally detached from the EPC and several other things. The Battistelli-appointed (de facto) António Campinos actively promotes software patents in Europe (using some buzzwords) and there's now this pilot (CQI) to further lower patent quality while the EPO publicly lies about its concerns on the matter.



"We know whose side the law is on, but the EPO quit obeying the law several years ago."The EPO cannot eternally rely on terrorising its judges and then covering it up. Sooner or later more and more European Patents will come under scrutiny outside EPOnia (or Haar, which is obviously outside EPOnia and thus unsuitable a venue, according to the EPC). What happens then? Can the EPO continue until eternity (or its end of life) to disregard judges' precedents (except internal judgments which are constitutionally invalid) and carry on granting fake patents? Applications will decrease in number as soon as applicants spot these trends. This is already happening.

Earlier on this week, or yesterday, Bart van Wezenbeek wrote about a District Court of The Hague case (this case's date is exactly one month ago, June 19th) in which dubious patents were assessed in European courts. To quote:

In the present case, it appeared from the prosecution file that the limitation had been introduced with a purpose, and the patentee had accepted the limiting examiner’s amendments. Taken together with the fact that the patentee could be considered a professional party with sufficient knowledge in the field of patents, this means that the scope of the claim was determined more by the literal interpretation of the claim than by the concept of the invention behind it.


In this particular case it's an American 'pharma vulture' doing the litigation against a Dutch company. Annsley Merelle Ward from a firm that boosts patent predators (Bristows LLP) wrote about it last month, whereupon we also wrote about it, noting that "European Patents are already being leveraged by foreign (US) giants, which claim to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars based on exploitative monopolies, to bully generics out of the market. Courts decide the lawsuits are baseless, frivolous."

It's not a sole example. According to this new report, "European Patent Office Revokes Second Pacific Biosciences Patent" (from GenomeWeb), the EPO has once again admitted that it granted a fake patent and it's only being 'actioned' because someone invested in correcting it:

NEW YORK – The European Patent Office this week revoked another patent held by Pacific Biosciences, according to Oxford Nanopore, the firm's main competitor.


Not even the first time!

Awful patent quality is the direct result of unprecedented pressure being put on examiners, who probably do the best they can under the unreasonable conditions/circumstances. But if this carries on, why would companies still apply for European Patents? Fewer of them would. Juve very recently took note of the decline in demand for European Patents. It's not hypothetical; it's already happening.

We've just spotted this new comment in IP Kat, published about a day ago after some IP Kat puff piece about EQEs (separate thread). To quote:

No-body serious considers the EQEs to be a gold-standard of practice. Since they are time-limited exams they will necessarily not award points in Paper C for novelty/inventive step arguments against claims that are already dealt with as added matter, but this is not real life.

In real life, added matter is included as an objection in probably the majority of oppositions, but the sensible attorney will also make arguments on novelty/inventive step and other grounds if these are viable. In real life only deciding that there is added matter, and not even considering novelty/inventive step in case your decision on added matter is incorrect, will simply waste time in the long run in the majority of cases.

One of the criticisms regularly levelled at both the PEB exams and the EQEs is that they ignore commercial realities. Typcially this is because they require you to do things that the client doesn't normally want. P6/FD4 is criticised for requiring integer-by-integer claim construction analysis that no sane client wants you to do, whilst Paper B requires you to cover-off points that no-one writing a response in real life would think worth the cost of responding to.

However, here we have an example of the exams requiring that you do not do something that the client actually typically wants - to make novelty/inventive step argument just in case your cleverly-drafted added matter arguments fail. Attorneys know that commercial reality demands this - it is only good when courts also realise this in making their decisions.


Courts should disregard this "commercial reality" and instead focus on what underlying laws (e.g. EPC, caselaw) say. The EPO likes to pretend that it is business-friendly, but the only business it's friendly to is the litigation 'industry'. To ordinary European SMEs the EPO became nothing but a liability and a menace. We know whose side the law is on, but the EPO quit obeying the law several years ago.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
 
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 02/07/2025: Deep Microsoft Cuts, Macron Speaks to Putin
Links for the day
Confirmed: Microsoft Shutdowns Today, Not Only Mass Layoffs
"The Initiative is the only studio closure planned today, although some other teams have seen cuts of varying degrees."
Microsoft Windows Nosedives in Switzerland While GNU/Linux Leaps Above 6%
sooner or later they might have to make the move anyway
Anxiety at Microsoft: Many Workers (Maybe Over 10,000) Still Don't Know They're Being Laid Off Just Before US Independence Day
"Has anyone gotten the notification yet?"
Microsoft "Declined to Say How Many People Would be Laid Off," According to Associated Press
Some other prominent publications said they reached out for comment from Microsoft and received none
The X War is Over and the "Wayland People" Lost
People will gravitate towards what works for them
20 Years Since My Thesis
It's still online
GNU/Linux is Replacing Windows in Laptops/Desktops
The world will move on while Windows and Microsoft shrink
Now Comes the Expected Webspam, Framing Microsoft Layoffs as "Hey Hi" Success Story (False Marketing That's Piggybacking the Layoffs)
falsely marketed as "intelligence"
Hungary: Microsoft Windows Sinks to 17% "Market Share"
In many nations in Europe it seems like the era of Windows is coming to an end
Microsoft Media Operatives and Bill Epsteingate-Funded Sites Said Microsoft Lays Off 9,000, But Other Sites Say More (Including 2,300 in Redmond Alone)
We might never know the real number/s (Microsoft will keep the cards close to its chest) until there are leakers or unless there are whistleblowers with hard proof
Microsoft Layoffs in Spain, Portugal Record for GNU/Linux
in Portugal we see GNU/Linux at record levels
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in the United States of America
Windows is trending down
Yes, Microsoft is Again Using Its Favourite Liars (Stenographers) to Seed Fake Layoff Numbers, Much Lower Than What's Really Happening
It is Jordan Novet again, just as we predicted
Will Microsoft Once Again Choose Its Favourite Liar to Spread Lies About Today's Layoffs, Quickly to be Replicated and Spread by Slopfarms?
What lies is Microsoft briefing its media moles to tell today?
"OSS Fetishism" Wins After Ferenc Zsolt Szabó Ousted (Microsoft Mole From Capgemini)
Many people said 2025 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
There is Nothing That LLMs Can Offer Honest People
LLMs are a passing fad; they're expensive and offer poor "value" for energy; they usually offer no value at all unless you are a cheater, spammer, and liar
What statCounter Shows Today Helps Explain Microsoft's Helplessness, Mass Layoffs
Since many US journalists are already away on holiday almost nobody will dare ask the difficult questions or give a voice to whistleblowers
Microsoft Gets the Chop in South America
The notion of digital sovereignty gained a lot of popularity
Europe Has an 'Exit'
Let's see what happens the rest of this year
El Presidente Talks, Canada Walks (Away From Windows)
GNU/Linux rising
Cities in France and Germany Move to GNU/Linux and statCounter Detects Big Differences
Will governments lead by example?
Microsoft Lost Its Foothold in Africa
How many of these are "old" Windows machines converted to GNU/Linux? Probably a lot.
Led by Europe, GNU/Linux Makes Big Gains This Month
statCounter started showing new/fresh stats
Links 02/07/2025: Massive Microsoft Layoffs About to Commence, "Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing"
Links for the day
Why the Microsoft People Who Started SLAPPs Against Techrights Could Very Well be Sent Back to Prison
White-collar crime is also a crime
The Company Run by Former (and Last Proper) Red Hat CEO, Promoting Microsoft Mono, Faces Shock as Senior Partner Jailed for 33 Sexual Offenses Including Pedophilia
"As reported by The Oxford Mail in April 2025, the offenses include rape, sexual assault, engaging in non-penetrative activity with a child, and more."
Microsoft Lost 29% of Windows Users, Based on Microsoft, Now Come Massive Layoffs
Microsoft collapse is today
Slopwatch: Google Serves to People Linux Slop and Linux FUD (Made by Bots)
"Slopwatch" finds it difficult to ignore Google's role in encouraging LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 01, 2025
"Wayland People" Behave Like the Googles and Microsofts of This World
Published yesterday by Igor Ljubuncic
Gemini Links 02/07/2025: Arch Linux and Fulfillment in Gemini
Links for the day