Bonum Certa Men Certa

How IP Kat Had Become a Patent Litigation Pressure Group Until the Site's Founder Left

Good example of how sites can lose direction and control when people (so-called 'HR') change

IP Kat's dawn



Summary: From "IPKat does not endorse or recommend any of the products or services" (in 2003) to the exact opposite; it became a litigation lawyers' nest, over time...

YESTERDAY we wrote a short rant about how poor debates regarding the European Patent Office (EPO) or how poorly-researched reporting can contribute to the issues. It doesn't help that Team Battistelli and António Campinos are liars who constantly churn out lies (e.g. press releases and "tweets") and pay people to produce propaganda under the guise of EPO 'studies'. They additionally bribe, threaten and censor the media. A short while ago a news site called Screen Rant published "AI Cannot Patent Their Creations Says EU Court" (EPO is not a court and not EU). We'll include that in the Daily Links; there's not much to be said as it's simply not accurate in a lot of other ways, beyond the truly ridiculous headline. Nowadays it's also quite common to see coverage about the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) alluding to patents as "inventions" or "innovation", sometimes also "property" that is "owned" and is a "right" (these are all conceptual misnomers and deliberate mischaracterisations). We see terms like "software inventions" instead of just "implementations" (which is what algorithms are) when the EPO reasons about granting software patents in Europe in defiance of the EPC (and USPTO does this in defiance of 35 U.S.C. €§ 101).



"Contributors who were scholars have mostly left by now. So now it's a lot of shameless self-promotion, a sort of 'sticky notes' board for a collective of law firms and even pressure groups like CIPA."A long time ago IP Kat habitually questioned some of these misnomers. Sometimes it still does, albeit not so often. Contributors who were scholars have mostly left by now. So now it's a lot of shameless self-promotion, a sort of 'sticky notes' board for a collective of law firms and even pressure groups like CIPA. The writers there often push the employers' agenda, the employers typically being law firms or some legal departments. It has gotten bad enough that at least one of them now justifies Battistelli's attacks on EPO judges, even under the name "Merpel" which constantly bemoaned this attack (when different people ran the same blog). So we've decided to do a quick survey of who was in charge of the blog and when. The results are shown below, with differences highlighted in yellow (spoiler: people who ran the blog between 2003 and 2010 are all gone, so there's a sort of 'shift of power' and the most 'senior' in the team is a Bristows LLP employee who is in favour of patent trolls and software patents).




Today (who's in charge, as per the introduction):

The team is Eleonora Rosati, Annsley Merelle Ward, Neil J. Wilkof, and Merpel.

The team is joined by GuestKats Léon Dijkman, Antonella Gentile, Ieva Giedrimaite, Rose Hughes, Thomas Key, Peter Ling, Nedim Malovic, Frantzeska Papadopolou, Tosshan Ramgolam, and Alex Woolgar.

SpecialKats: Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo (TechieKat), Hayleigh Bosher (Book Review Editor), Tian Lu (Asia Correspondent) and Chijioke Okorie (Africa Correspondent).

InternKats: Riana Harvey, Kan He, and Lucy Isaev.




Back in September 2019:

The team is Eleonora Rosati, Annsley Merelle Ward, Neil J. Wilkof, and Merpel.

The team is joined by GuestKats Léon Dijkman, Antonella Gentile, Ieva Giedrimaite, Rose Hughes, Thomas Key, Peter Ling, Nedim Malovic, Frantzeska Papadopolou, Mathilde Pavis, Tosshan Ramgolam, and Alex Woolgar.

SpecialKats: Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo (TechieKat), Hayleigh Bosher (Book Review Editor), Tian Lu (Asia Correspondent) and Chijioke Okorie (Africa Correspondent).

InternKats: Riana Harvey, Kan He, and Lucy Isaev.




August 2018 (starting to list people with as little as one guest article, sometimes self-promotional and/or lobbying-esque):

The team is Eleonora Rosati, Annsley Merelle Ward, Neil J. Wilkof, and Merpel. Nicola Searle is currently on sabbatical.

Cats upsetThe team is joined by GuestKats Mirko Brüß, Rosie Burbidge, Nedim Malovic, Frantzeska Papadopolou, Mathilde Pavis, and Eibhlin Vardy.

SpecialKats: Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo (TechieKat), Hayleigh Bosher (Book Review Editor), and Tian Lu (Asia Correspondent).

InternKats: Rose Hughes, Ieva Giedrimaite, and Cecilia Sbrolli.




July 2017:

The team is Neil J. Wilkof, Annsley Merelle Ward, Nicola Searle, Eleonora Rosati, and Merpel, with contributions from Mark Schweizer.




May 2016:

The team is Neil J. Wilkof, Annsley Merelle Ward, Darren Smyth, Nicola Searle, Eleonora Rosati, David Brophy, Alberto Bellan and Merpel, with contributions from Mark Schweizer.




April 2015:

The team is David Brophy, Birgit Clark, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Eleonora Rosati, Darren Smyth, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof.




March 2014:

The team is Birgit Clark, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Eleonora Rosati, Darren Smyth, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof.




March 2013:

The team is David Brophy, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Eleonora Rosati, Darren Smyth, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof.




March 2012:

The team is David Brophy, Birgit Clark, Catherine Lee, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof.




March 2011:

The IPKat team is Birgit Clark, Matt Fisher, Merpel, Jeremy Phillips, Mark Schweizer, Annsley Merelle Ward and Neil J. Wilkof.




March 2010:

The IPKat team is Birgit Clark, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips, Mark Schweizer, Tufty the Cat and Annsley Merelle Ward.




July 2008:

The IPKat team is Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips, Ilanah Simon Fhima and Tufty the Cat.




July 2007:

The IPKat team is Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon Fhima




June 2006:

The IPKat weblog, founded by Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon in June 2003, covers copyright, patent, trade mark and privacy/confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspective.




Same (as above) in 2005:




July 2004:

Welcome! We're Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon from London and this is our intellectual property blog.




October 2003: (first snapshot)

IPKat does not endorse or recommend any of the products or services for which advertisements may be displayed on this site by Blogger




The oldest post we're able to see (oldest snapshot still publicly accessible) says that IAM was promoting Microsoft: "Law publishers Globe White Page have just sent the IPKat a free copy of issue two of Intellectual Asset Management (September/October 2003). The cover story is “Microsoft gets serious about IP”. This may be startling news for those of us who have just returned from a distant galaxy, but for the rest of us it's about as surprising as "Rain sometimes falls in England". The article is however quite informative, giving a good account of how Marshall Phelps plans to rework Microsoft’s IP strategy in the coming years. Ed Kahn’s piece on patent mining and Joff Wild’s review of the nanotech patent market are also worth a read."

“[The EPO] can’t distinguish between hardware and software so the patents get issued anyway."

--Marshall Phelps, Microsoft

Recent Techrights' Posts

Peter Moon's (Computerworld) Interview With Richard Stallman
Stallman: If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
At What Point Does Outsourcing Constitute Malpractice?
Brett Wilson LLP's new staff page is misleading
From Do Your Own Research to Do Your Own Search
The Web is full of garbage; search engines amplify this garbage
 
Law Firm Burgess Mee Does Not Fully Deny Participating in Abusive Litigation for Serial Strangler From Microsoft
I am not unfamiliar with these tactics
The Modus Operandi of Wayland Pushers: Make It Political
do what I say or you're a nazi...
Links 23/06/2025: RFE/RL Contributor Vladyslav Yesypenko Released, Recording Industry Cutbacks
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Solicitors (M): Over 99.9% of Our E-mail is Self-Marketing, We Send You 3.5MB E-mails for Less Than 1KB of Text
Why would tech people entrust legal matters to such people?
United Arab Emirates (UAE) Sailing to GNU/Linux, According to statCounter
countries in that region will quickly learn the price of neglecting digital sovereignty
More People Moving to Geminispace?
at age 6+ Gemini Protocol seems to have gained some maturity and it seems like more people use it
Permutation in LLMs Does, Inevitably, Change Meanings and Therefore LLMs Cannot Properly Rephrase or Summarise Texts
LLMs lack actual grasp or comprehension of what they spew out
Links 23/06/2025: Many Security Breaches, Population Declines
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/06/2025: "America at the Crossroads" and OpenWRT Surgery
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 22, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 22, 2025
Pure Dove
Different means different, and sometimes those who "deviate" from "the norm" have a point
Censorship is a Sign of Weakness Which Invites More Censorship Attempts
revolutionaries don't succumb to pressure from bullies
Why It's Unlikely That LLM Slop Will Dominate the Web in the Long Run
Slopfarms will eventually perish (they have no actual value) and "survivors" on the Web will be sites that never depended on search engines and social control media
GNU/Linux in Argentina Now Measured Near 5%
Like in central Europe, they must be seeing an increasingly hostile US
BetaNews is Fake News, Composed by LLM Slop
nothing in BetaNews is written by humans anymore
Links 22/06/2025: Giving Up on Smartphones and 'Jaws' at 50
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Furniture Construction and Bubble for Comments
Links for the day
Links 22/06/2025: Windows TCO Tales and YouTube Getting More Hostile to Users
Links for the day
The FSF Board and FSF Beard
So the FSF's Board has grown
Law Firms Facing the Consequences for Patently Abusive Litigation on Behalf of Microsoft Employees Who Got Arrested for Strangulation and Had Done Even Worse Things
Having spent 1.5 years bullying me with patronising letters on behalf of Microsofters, last week they got served a massive bill and, in effect, lost the Hearing
New Report From the EPO's Staff Representatives in The Hague (LSCTH) Reveals Many Unsolved Issues
Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) wrote to staff just before the weekend
LLMs Breaking Everything
Computing and the Net became a playground for scammers and "bros", like people who "invented" fake currencies and also try to tell us that LLMs spewing out things will have some real value
Links 22/06/2025: More Slop Lawsuits (Copyrights) and "America’s Oligarch Problem"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/06/2025: Gigantic Toolchest and Annoying Bots
Links for the day
The Calling
Persist and persevere, justice will come your way
So Far Every BetaNews 'Article' is LLM Slop, So BetaNews is Officially Just a Slopfarm
They just don't seem to value what they have
IBM Rumour: Mass Layoffs (RAs) Lists Being Made for Consulting, With Effect in July 2025
Bogus companies with no viable products and no world-leading (in their field) staff are doomed to perish
Links 21/06/2025: Data Breach With 16 Billion Passwords, Dutch Government Recommends Children Under 15 Stay off TikTok and Instagram
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Notes about Typst (and LaTeX) and Opos
Links for the day
Microsoft's Competition Tactics: Sabotage GNU/Linux Installs, Block Chrome
Edge is dying
1989: Free Software as "Open" Software (OSI Didn't Coin "Open Source", It Also Predates Linux)
"One man's fight for Free software"
The Microsoft OOXML Modus Operandi: Throw 1,000 Pages of Other People's Work for a Judge to Read Ahead of a One-Hour Meeting
No time to discuss this - that's the point
Formalities Officers (FOs) at the EPO Are in Trouble, Reveals Internal Report
We already know, based on an HR pattern we saw at IBM and elsewhere, that reallocating roles can be prerequisite for dismissal and those who do so expect many to resign anyway
The Web is Slop and FUD, Let's Go to Gemini Protocol
Lupa sees self-signed capsules at 92.4%
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 20, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 20, 2025
Links 21/06/2025: Phone Bans for Concerts, Tensions in Taiwan Strait
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/06/2025: Spoilers, Public Yggdrasil Node, Changes to AuraGem Search
Links for the day