09.07.19
Gemini version available ♊︎Serco’s Censorship of Media or EPO’s Censorship of Media? Either Way, There’s a Profound Media Crisis in Europe.
All the articles below have been removed except Techrights’
Summary: Team UPC and other patent maximalists are in control of most coverage in the domain of patents; but they go even further than that and it extends to actual censorship of already-published articles
THE WRITINGS we have about the European Patent Office (EPO) are astounding in the sense that they’ve helped expose various levels of cover-up. EPO abuses aren’t covered by the media (there are now stronger and more effective suppressions of such coverage), coverage of the EPO’s suppression of the media is also suppressed, and announcements about deals of António Campinos are being deleted from the Web. Moreover, comments about Battistelli‘s abuses are being deleted. There’s an orchestrated media campaign to make the EPO look good, possibly because of the UPC lobby or patent maximalists’ interests, e.g. those who promote software patents in Europe.
The U.S. has the First Amendment the press there is generally exercising more freedom than in Europe, so American media does occasionally cover issues with the USPTO. Europe? Not as much… the Internet censorship agenda is still very strong (notoriously so) in Europe, including in the EU.
“There’s an orchestrated media campaign to make the EPO look good…”The greater the suppression of facts, the more attracted we become to these issues. If Europe does not have independent media, or if European media is easy to bribe, how are we expected to guard democracy? Or to ensure laws are being followed? There’s this implicit consent among some publishers that exposing abuses is bad for Europe’s image and is thus better avoided. It’s like brushing issues under a rug/carpet.
Serco seems to be deleting references (except Techrights, which cannot be censored) to its deal with the EPO — a subject we covered/recovered here the other day. We actually saw 5 ‘news’ articles about it in search results; but when you click? Empty pages or 404 errors, i.e. articles removed. What’s going on?! It is worth remembering that when corrupt EPO management sent law firms to censor me (after exposing their corruption) they chose censorship by intimidation — demanding takedowns of articles; later they managed to censor also reports about their acts of legal aggression — attempts to silence me. Sometimes proactively (spiked articles). Censorship of the censorship. Criminals tend to do such things aplenty. There’s a lot of money at stake and powerful interest groups are eager to do anything they can — even silence the media if necessary.
“They recently admitted to the media (FT) that they merely try to maintain the fiction of “progress”. They’ve been doing that for many years.”UPC interests are a good example of it because media is being paid to lie about it, quoting the likes of Bristows. And speaking of Bristows, only hours ago we saw so-called "Kluwer Patent blogger" (probably Bristows) publishing this piece entitled “Great uncertainty but preparations for Unitary Patent system continue”. Is this the latest propaganda piece from Bristows? They’re absolutely desperate! They recently admitted to the media (FT) that they merely try to maintain the fiction of “progress”. They’ve been doing that for many years. Here’s what EU News wrote 7 years: “What is the ‘unitary patent package’?”
And 7 years later it’s dead. This whole thing was a coup and it failed badly. Meanwhile, by their own admission, Bristows et al delete ‘dissenting’ comments about the UPC, both in IP Kat and in Kluwer Patent Blog. They have done this for years (we wrote about it and gave examples).
As per this post from Friday, the ‘Kat’ is now run by — and promotes interests of — Big Pharma monopolists (Rose Hughes and her employer). This blog is sick. It’s not what it used to be. Watch comments like this one: “We can’t allow liberalisation of the regime until all the full risks have been assessed properly, and the fact that CRISPR modifications are normally less than classic GMO ones is not a good enough reason to assume that CRISPR modified plants won’t cause the same problems as GMO ones. Your article has not mentioned these problems which are huge in the eyes of many (see for example https://www.earth.com/news/gmo-crops-real-problem/). At a time when destruction of the environment has been declared an ‘emergency’ in the UK I would suggest caution is the best approach…”
Comments in IP Kat are still miles better than the posts because the posts are mostly lobbying and marketing of litigation firms and monopolies. No wonder coverage of EPO scandals is now suppressed. The blog is compromised (sometimes authored by Team UPC). Hello Bristows!
“They call themselves lawyers and attorneys, but they’re clearly a major affront to the Rule of Law.”If we cannot have free press in Europe, we won’t have justice either. We hope that readers recognise the threat Team UPC poses not only to the press but also — by inference — to justice. They call themselves lawyers and attorneys, but they’re clearly a major affront to the Rule of Law.
On Friday the EPO once again tweeted promotion of its cooperation and event with a patent trolls’ front group. We know whose side EPO management is on.
As an aside, a month later the Web site epostaff4rights is still offline. Our attempts to find out why have not been successful. So many publications about EPO abuses have already vanished. █
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