09.24.19
Gemini version available ♊︎EPO Under Fire From EU Parliament, But Patent Trolls Already Storm Europe, Emboldened by Low Quality of European Patents
Earlier this month: European Patent Office’s Cooperation and Collaboration With Patent Trolls Instead of Science and Technology
Summary: There are further signs that the MEPs (European politicians) have at least taken an interest in EPO abuses, particularly the outrageous patent scope that renders many European Patents void and illegal (courts would almost certainly reject them if it reached that far; patent trolls try hard to settle outside them)
“Today is World Day Against Software Patents,” Benjamin Henrion jokingly declared (“Anyone can make up World Day of anything,” I responded). “Freedom of programming is under attack in the US, with the STRONGER patent act law proposal to restore software patents, and the pending EU Unitary Patent Court to validate the EPO practice to grant them…”
“The EPO does not want so-called ‘clients’ (“stakeholders”) to see this dissent as it may further harm confidence in European Patents.”Thankfully, the EPO recently came under fire from the European Parliament, as we mentioned in [1, 2] very recently. The EPO has said nothing about it. Not even mere “tweets”. The EPO does not want so-called ‘clients’ (“stakeholders”) to see this dissent as it may further harm confidence in European Patents. In other words, EPO management is trying to hide the damage its own decisions caused.
A Web site that exists to promote patents on life and nature (Life Sciences [sic] Intellectual [sic] Property [sic] Review) has just reacted to European authorities rightly opposing the aforementioned EPO abuse. From this ‘news’ (lobbying) site:
The European Parliament has said that the internal rules of the European Patent Office (EPO) “must not undermine democratic political control of European patent law”.
In a resolution passed last Thursday, September 19, the parliament urged the European Commission and EU member states to do “everything in their power” to obtain legal clarity from the EPO regarding the patentability of products obtained exclusively from biological processes.
The dispute between the parliament and the EPO originates in a December 2018 decision of the latter’s technical board, which established what the parliament called a position of “legal uncertainty”.
This “legal uncertainty” is legal dynamite for trolls! Companies shed off “low certainty” patents and sell them to parasites.
“10 of the 11 patent suits filed today were filed by patent trolls,” it has been reported this week, “according to RPX Corp. That’s 91%.”
Coming to Europe already. █
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