11.05.19
António Campinos and Comrade Iancu (US) Both Push Software Patents Into Europe to the Detriment of Small Businesses and Developers
Summary: The EPO continues its war on European companies and the European public; to alleviate public worries the EPO publishes yet another lying ‘study’ (one of many EPO-commissioned ‘studies’) — one that claims the very opposite of what’s true
SOMETIMES it feels like the European patent system exists to serve American multinationals, not the European public (or even European businesses). Look no further than the policy being advanced. Ask simple questions like, “who benefits the most from this?”
“When European law firms call American companies their “biggest clients” we have yet additional conflicts.”It’s all tilted! It’s corrupt. It’s lobbied for. It’s not neutral. It’s rigged by design.
When European law firms call American companies their “biggest clients” we have yet additional conflicts.
Mondaq has just propped up this article from Phillips & Leigh, where the firm says that “the current Enlarged Board of Appeal referral on simulations has the potential to reinforce current practice on computer-implemented inventions or reframe it entirely.” The President of the European Patent Office (EPO) has already meddled — even openly — in this case. We covered this at the time. This reaffirms the notion that the Office totally corrupted the concept of separation of powers. He’s pushing for the judges to approve software patents — by extension — in this very important case. The “Guidelines” he put forth already use nonsensical terms like “AI” to achieve the same and here’s what the firm wrote this week:
The Guidelines reflect only those decisions of the Boards of Appeal incorporated into the EPO’s general practice due to their general procedural significance, but there may on occasion be diverging decisions of Boards of Appeal; and in such cases EPO examiners and formalities officers will, as a rule, follow the common practice as described in the Guidelines, which applies until further notice. However examiners must follow the law and so the Guidelines are not the last word.
While changes to legal provisions are clearly flagged by notices on the EPO website, it is somewhat more difficult to determine whether case law is leading to a change in practice, particularly when Boards of Appeal reach contrary positions.
It is for precisely this reason that we, as professional representatives before the EPO, find it important to keep up with the case law, especially when it coincides with the particular areas of interest of our clients. For instance, the current Enlarged Board of Appeal referral on simulations has the potential to reinforce current practice on computer-implemented inventions or reframe it entirely.
Whilst it is always helpful if the patentability of your application is supported by the Guidelines, it’s part of the nature of innovation to come up with new and unexpected approaches which previous precedent didn’t necessarily expect. Assessing an application in the light of the Guidelines is often only the beginning of the process of arguing a case, not the be-all and end-all of it.
So it doesn’t seem to matter that the EPC, the courts, the Parliament and so on say no software patents in Europe; the new US Director, Andrei Iancu, similarly ignores or distorts the record of SCOTUS, the Federal Circuit, and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). He’s trying to resume granting bogus software patents — weak patents which he very well knows courts would throw out. Meanwhile, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Web site quotes Iancu's EPOPIC lies. Here’s one portion of interest:
For example: what level of detail is necessary in a patent disclosure as to the structure and functioning of the algorithm that underlines a new AI tool? An AI algorithm, that by definition is capable to learn on its own, sometimes performs certain tasks in ways unknown to the programmers. So, how can the inner workings be disclosed such that one of ordinary skill can replicate the invention without undue experimentation (a requirement of our patent system)?
He merely suggests working around 35 U.S.C. § 101 (or put another way — working to violate it). Such a policy would definitely be harming software companies in Europe (usually relatively small ones) in favour of US-based software monopolies like Microsoft and IBM.
“This will, in due course, become an irreversible damage factor to the EPO’s credibility among scientists. Their morality and integrity levels match those of patent trolls.”A few days ago SUEPO linked to a relatively new paper, “RRI and Patenting: a Study of European Patent Governance” — a paper which unlike everything that the EPO’s management funds isn’t mere propaganda for Campinos and Battistelli, with the likes of Gene Quinn quoting Battistelli’s liar Yann Ménière (all of them are very vocal proponents of software patents). This has just been amplified by Watchtroll (“European Patent Office Study Shows Patents Matter for SMEs, Economic Growth“), published within hours after the EPO’s “European patents help SMEs commercialise high-potential inventions, new study shows” (warning: epo.org link); Watchtroll’s role here isn’t hard to see as they’re close to and have been helping corrupt EPO management for a number of years now, e.g. puff pieces, so-called ‘interviews’, promotions of “CII” in Europe and much more. The latest is more of the old propaganda (same lie with a more recent year stamped on it). It’s that “SME” nonsense again; while working for law firms and monopolies they’re looking for corruptible people to do ‘studies’ for them and help warp perceptions, whereupon “tweets” can be posted every day (or every other day), repeating the same lie over and over again, then googlebombing the term “SMEs” to mislead everyone. Here’s what they wrote yesterday:
A new study published today by the European Patent Office (EPO) finds that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) rely on European patents to protect their high-potential inventions and that two thirds of these inventions are commercially exploited.
The study, entitled “Market success for inventions – Patent commercialisation scoreboard: European SMEs”, finds that SMEs depend heavily on partnerships with domestic or foreign partners. The report shows that half of all commercialised inventions protected either by a European patent application or a granted European patent are exploited in collaboration with an external partner via a licencing agreement (62% of the respondents), co-operation (49%) or spin-off (32%). Moreover, the partner is usually from another European country. This reveals how resource-constrained SMEs use partnerships as a way of entering new markets or sharing the financial burden of innovation.
Now the misleading tweets can carry on every day for a year. The Office that harms SMEs will remind us every day just how much it adores SMEs, citing its very own ‘study’…
Who funded the ‘study’? Better not ask. Generally speaking, every report and ‘study’ which comes out of the EPO in recent years is as reliable as Big Oil-commissioned ‘studies’ on global warming. This will, in due course, become an irreversible damage factor to the EPO’s credibility among scientists. Their morality and integrity levels match those of patent trolls. Nowadays the EPO openly and proudly associates with infamous trolls. █
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