Liars rewarded, scientists being lied about (or bribed to participate in the lying)

Summary: Even repressed voices that have been co-opted by threats and intrusions wind up explaining that the EU and its sibling in Munich intentionally lie to the public, assisted by media that does not value basic fact-checking (or is being paid to not check the deeply flawed claims)

THE corrupt EPOnia is a threat to scholarly research that is honest. It bribes scholars. It also bribes media and it shows. It breaks every rule as we last explained on Saturday. The media has repeated lots of propaganda over the past week. Nothing at all is being said about EPOnia scandals. Nothing at all.

"To Léon Dijkman's credit there's extensive mention of the fact that this so-called 'study' is deeply flawed."Yesterday Léon Dijkman of IP Kat relayed but partly rebutted the latest propaganda from the Campinos/Battistelli (EUIPO/EPO) duo. It has been years in the making, parroted annually, while the EPO passes bribes to media companies that then repeat lies, attributed to the European Patent Office and the EU.

Two hours ago the EPO retweeted an EU account as saying (lying): "IPR-intensive industries and economic performance in the #EU: The Europan Patent Office @EPOorg and @EU_IPO have just published the 3rd edition of their report covering all major IP rights and identifying which industries make above-average use of them..."

EPO lies (originally Battistelli/Campinos) are quickly becoming a liability to the EU's integrity and reputation/credibility. One hour ago the EPO tweeted more or less the same paid-for lies: "We have just published a new joint study with @EU_IPO. See the impact of industries that make intensive use of IP rights on economic activity in Europe..."

They've been doing this for a whole week now. Two thirds of today's EPO tweets (so far) are paid-for lies and this third one is pure lobbying. They refuse to improve in any way. Campinos is just Battistelli with a different face.

To Léon Dijkman's credit there's extensive mention of the fact that this so-called 'study' is deeply flawed. It's explained rather clearly, especially towards the end. To quote:

Number two on the list is 'Manufacture of communication equipment' and number three is 'Research and experimental development on biotechnology'. According to the EPO's most recent annual report, these are indeed the technical fields where the most patent applications are filed [see here]. But those same applications are the subject of considerable controversy. The automotive industry – incidentally Europe's biggest contributor to GDP among patent-intensive industries, as we saw – feels increasingly threatened by telecoms patents and claims they threaten the viability of their business. And in the field of biotech, there is concern that the growing number of patent applications will foreclose access to next-generation gene-editing techniques such as CRISPR-Cas9.

[...]

Much more could be said about the report, e.g. that it would have been interesting to include the tax revenue obtained from IPR-intensive industries [Merpel notes that this could end up disappointing readers, with one IP-heavy tech giant allegedly owing as much as $14.3 billion in back taxes…]. But the most important observation should be that the report contains no evidence of a causal relation between IPR and the studied variables, even if they appear to be correlated. The question of how IP causally relates to economic growth has been studied for decades. In footnote 24, the report itself notes that there "is a rich body of economic literature dedicated to patents", making it all the more surprising that it does not engage with this literature at all.

This Kat's criticism may suggest a lack of appreciation for the hard work of the economists at the EPO and the EUIPO. Not so: as stated above, studies on the real-world effects of IP are very badly needed, and any attempt at it is welcome. But these reports form the basis for EU policy, for instance the European Commission's extremely important 2017 Communication on a balanced IP enforcement system [see footnote 2]. That means critical assessment of these findings by academics – and, ideally, the public – is very important, and it is hoped that this post may form a humble contribution to this debate.

Using that same laughable 'logic' they might claim that because software patents were granted in Europe every software company in Europe only ever saw success because of these patents, not despite of that nuisance (which software companies generally reject).

"In the process they corrupt institutions outside the EU and outside EPOnia."The first comment in IP Kat says: "These reports are purely pro domo and should be taken for what they are: advertising."

Even worse: lying. In the process they corrupt institutions outside the EU and outside EPOnia. ⬆