Bonum Certa Men Certa

Anything to Distract From the EPO's Plunging Patent Quality

A subject that mainstream media (large publishers) in Europe would dare not touch even though it alarms examiners

EPO delivery



Summary: Slowly but surely we're moving to the realm of patents being presumed invalid (not complying with the law), but somehow the European media doesn't consider it worth reporting on

THE media silence regarding EPO scandals is oftentimes depressing, but if the media refuses to participate in actual journalism, then it's leaving a vacuum others will gleefully fill. Take note of yesterday's EPO "news" -- a truly ridiculous puff piece (warning: epo.org link) with an António Campinos photo op. It's content-free nonsense. "Located opposite each other on the banks of the Isar river in Munich," it says, "the Deutsches Museum and European Patent Office (EPO) have strengthened their partnership by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This step enhances relations between the two technology organisations, and is also an invitation to other local institutions as well as Bavarian stakeholders to engage in an inspiring exchange on innovation."

"Under Battistelli the EPO followed the Chinese model of just granting as many patents (monopolies) as possible."It's like their artsy puff pieces from several months ago. Does Deutsches Museum not know that associating with the EPO is going to cost it dearly? Many people's reputation was harmed by association with Battistelli. The EPO added another photo op in Twitter (Campinos photo ops aplenty) and said: "The EPO and its technological neighbour the Deutsches Museum have strengthened their partnership to raise awareness of innovation and IP..."

It's typically liars and lawyers who say "innovation and IP," intentionally conflating patents with "property" (the EPO did this again yesterday) and patents with "innovation". Since technical people aren't running the Office, this is rather typical. It's troubling, too. It wasn't always this bad.

Golden Casino News has meanwhile pushed this spammy (promotional/marketing) piece stating that "Insplorion’s battery sensor patent “Battery with sensor” has today been granted by the European Patent Office, EPO. The patent will also be granted in China upon payment of the registration fees."

"At what stage can most patents be simple presumed invalid?"When will it be fair to say that because of corruption and violations of the law patent quality in Europe is as low as China's? Pilots suggest that the EPO hardly wants to do examination anymore. All those software patents in Europe (probably hundreds of thousands of them by now) are not valid, but few of these will be challenged in a court outside the EPO. We've sadly come to a point where injustice at the EPO is defended by further injustice. All that seems to matter is the number of patents, never their quality. Watchtroll, in yesterday's pieces, mocked challenges to validity (Daniel Hanson's "Don’t Let Experts Testify as to Obviousness") and Rob Sterne wrote about "How China Will Fundamentally Change the Global IP System," taking note of the "massive volume of filings at the Chinese Patent Office (CNIPA)..."

Under Battistelli the EPO followed the Chinese model of just granting as many patents (monopolies) as possible. This reduces the perceived value of each pertinent patent and discredits the patent system as a whole.

In our next daily links we'll included news about patents in the US. It certainly looks like reduced legal certainty associated with US patents has become an alarming issue. At what stage can most patents be simple presumed invalid? Each such patent is an act of injustice.

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