Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Misuses Patent-Granting Powers to Help Litigation, Not Science

Future and present science students won't view the EPO as a friend and might not bother applying for patents

Science students



Summary: The number of patent applications is declining at the EPO; patents run down like water, 'diluting' the very concept of what a patent is and what it takes to get one (courts obviously throw out many of these patents, rendering them less desirable)

THE previous post spoke of how the European Patent Office (EPO) had lost sight of its mission. That's an understatement because "lost sight" sounds too passive, whereas in practice Battistelli and then Campinos actively demolish that mission, rendering the Office nothing but a money-making machine by breaking the law and misusing the authority given to the Office (granting monopolies).



A couple of days ago UKIPO was seen linking to the EPO's site, then (soon) to be retweeted by EPO itself. It said: "Come and join us and the @EPOorg at the @TheCIPA in #London on 27 or 28 Nov. We will be providing an update on our latest and upcoming online service developments. Sign up now via the registration form here: https://www.epo.org/learning-events/events/search/details.html?eventid=13812 … pic.twitter.com/vhFyw22UJY"

"The EPO now travels to another country with few European Patents for some photo ops..."Completely and totally inappropriate. CIPA is a front group of patent litigation, software patents and UPC etc. and if a patents-granting authority is in bed with it -- like the British patent office (UKIPO) might be too -- whose system is it? Who does it exist to serve?

The EPO now travels to another country with few European Patents for some photo ops ("EPO signs reinforced partnership agreement with Indonesia" (warning: epo.org link) was published before the weekend). Indonesia isn't of strategic interest to the EPO; same for Malaysia (recently). They export loads of palm oil to Europe (less so in recent years, perhaps owing to boycotts), but their patents are a drop in the ocean to the EPO. So why this?

EPO President António Campinos and the head of the Directorate General of Intellectual Property (DGIP) of Indonesia, Freddy Harris, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Reinforced Partnership between their two offices at the EPO in Munich yesterday. The agreement is a result of a longstanding and fruitful co-operation between the EPO and Indonesia going back to the 1990s, and builds on previous MoUs on technical co-operation, the last one having been implemented from 2014 to 2018.


That's Battistelli. The EPO soon retweeted some EUIPO nonsense about their so-called 'study' (we wrote many responses to this) and added: "Negotiation is the preferred way to solve potential infringement issues; litigation is regarded as a last resort."

"Does the EPO have real SMEs in mind or just trolls and law firms?"They had the audacity to add #IPforSMEs to it. By granting loads and loads of fake patents, however, the EPO allows offending parties to leverage false claims, resulting in frivolous litigation and the EPO's management is aware of it.

Does the EPO have real SMEs in mind or just trolls and law firms? Maybe the EPO and EUIPO can bribe a few more scholars to issue some lies ("studies") about SMEs -- lies by which to googlebomb the term and wash away the truthful information. As Benjamin Henrion put it: "Tuning the court system for SMEs is useless, as we don't have the finances nor the time to defend ourselves" (with appeals too the prices can reach millions of euros).

"The EPO violates the EPC every day. So why even pretend that it cares about it?"The EPO tweeted: "Ever thought of waiving a further communication under Rule 71(3) EPC? Find out when you might want to..."

The EPO violates the EPC every day. So why even pretend that it cares about it? EPO management views the EPC as nothing but an obstacle, an obstruction to be worked around by cheating.

Rose Hughes (AstraZeneca) has meanwhile remarked on T 1299/15 -- a case that we mentioned here before. It concerned burden of proof and Hughes uses the typical, bogus narrative in which bogus patents being questioned is an "attack" (but not the party suing or blackmailing another). To quote:

The legal reasoning in this decision is similar to that of T 63/06, in which the opponent was able to shift the burden of proof with regards to the sufficiency to the patentee. In T 63/06 the Board found that the patentee was relying on only a weak presumption that the invention was sufficiently disclosed. The opponent was successfully able to shift the burden of proof by arguing that the skilled person would have difficult in putting the invention into practice.

The recent case T 1299/15 is similarly a reminder that insufficiency attacks may be applicable even to the mechanical field. As is often the case with insufficiency disputes, the issue of how much work would need to be done by the skilled person (and whether inventive endeavour would be required) was a key issue. Following on from this, if the patentee has not provided an embodiment of the claimed invention, the burden of proof is shifted to the patentee if there is serious doubt that a skilled person could perform the invention without inventive skill.


Hughes could point out, as IP Kat did before it got corrupted (several notable changes), that EPO Boards of Appeal still lack independence as EPO violates the EPC, rendering these decisions constitutionally invalid or at best questionable. Not the judges' fault by the way; they're besieged by corrupt Office management.

"Not the judges' fault by the way; they're besieged by corrupt Office management."Last but not least, will these boards soon approve yet another type of software patents? The President of the Office already pressures the judges in that direction and he also referred to them the ridiculous question as to whether the EPO can grant fake patents on life and nature in defiance of the law. This is about corporations stealing from nature, claiming a monopoly over our bodies. How far will patent scope bend for the EPO to fake 'production' (essentially by granting invalid patents)? This new press release says that "Cellectis Wins Patent Challenge in Europe for a Method Using CRISPR-Cas9 for Gene Editing in T-Cells" and the EPO's mouthpiece IAM (its main mouthpiece for patents on life, Adam Houldsworth) has published "Shorter EPO opposition process requires new approaches from life sciences patentees" -- the latest in a string of such 'reports' from patent maximalists. This is the patent trolls' lobby celebrating fake patents on life (it's almost certain courts would throw these out), granted only because patent examiners and those responsible for oppositions aren't given enough time to (re)evaluate. They also lack freedom; all they have is "quotas" or "targets".

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries