11.04.19
Gemini version available ♊︎The European Courts Won’t be Receptive When European Patent (EP) Just Means Invalid Patent (IP)
…Like US courts after 35 U.S.C. § 101 — a fundamental change that US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) leadership too continues to ignore, granting invalid US patents that recipients won’t dare take to courts
Summary: The growing risk associated with lawlessness at the second-largest institution in Europe is a load of invalid patents that courts cannot throw out quickly enough (it’s also far too expensive)
THE PERSISTENT fight for patent quality in Europe is mirrored/followed by a similar fight in the US (politicians intervened last week, but we didn’t cover that; it’s in Daily Links instead). Examiners know that the longterm job prospects — theirs as well as others’ — depend on staying true to the original principles of patenting. Patents need to be granted when and where it’s demonstrable that the impact on innovation would be positive. That’s clearly not the case when it comes to software patents because copyright law covers code and patents on algorithms mean patents on algebra or maths. Statistics (stats) are nowadays framed as "hey hi" (AI) to somehow justify patents on them.
“Statistics (stats) are nowadays framed as “hey hi” (AI) to somehow justify patents on them.”Things aren’t any better when it comes to patents on life and nature. Yesterday we saw the loudest proponents of such patents (patent law firms, obviously) heralding the “Launch of New [sic] Diagnostics [sic] and Cancer [sic] Advocacy [sic] Group” and it’s pure evil. They call themselves “New Cures for Cancers” and it is a scam; it’s a poorly-named lobby group for patent maximalists, pretending that it cares for cancer patients. It kills cancer patients for corporate profits. So much for “cures”… maybe fiscal cures for their (billionaires’ and law firms’) financial worries. Remember that patents on cancer treatments may actually harm cancer patients [1, 2, 3]. They very well know this and now they lobby against the highest court, SCOTUS.
“So much for “cures”… maybe fiscal cures for their (billionaires’ and law firms’) financial worries.”Europe has the same problem. Patents on everything under the Sun are being granted by António Campinos. Even Battistelli mentioned the word “quality” more than Campinos has — albeit neither of them actually means quality for they conflate that with speed. The European Patent Office (EPO) strives to be just a rubber-stamping operation (while maintaining the minimal or sufficient perception that it is not).
Early this morning Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review (pushers of patents on life; the site’s name alone contains at least 3 lies) spoke about EP #2771468 — a subject we aren’t new to; we’ve covered it almost a dozen times and mentioned it as recently as last week. The Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) wastes time dealing with patents which very obviously must not be granted, based on the EPC and instructions from Parliament. Here’s what boosters of patents on life are saying today:
The Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has issued new communication summarising issues that will be discussed at a hearing on whether the EPO erred in its revocation of a patent owned by the Broad Institute.
The patent in dispute (European patent number 2,771,468) covers CRISPR/Cas9 technology for the “engineering of systems, methods and optimised guide compositions for sequence manipulation”.
The Board of Appeal lacks the independence it needs to thwart this patent like it should because the lawlessness of the EPO persists. How many people will need to die before this gross systemic injustice is tackled? █
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