Bonum Certa Men Certa

Digitalisation and Digital Technologies as a Ploy to Justify Illegal Software Patents

Hey hi! My name is "Digital"! I shall be your servant today.

Digital hello



Summary: Say "hello" to the next weasel word/s; from the "hey hi" hype wave we've now moved to something "digital" (which can mean just about anything, including algorithms of all sorts)

THE way the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) deals with 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 does not really determine the eligibility of software patents in the US. The way high courts such as the Federal Circuit (or above, namely SCOTUS) deal with such patents is what matters. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs) also play an important role, especially when decisions become examples or precedents. Here in Europe the appeals are dealt with not by impartial judges but 'glorified' (or elevated) examiners who are terrified of European Patent Office (EPO) presidents like António Campinos and 'Mafioso B' from Corsica. These under-qualified presidents not only allow software patents in Europe but actively advocate these; they even pressure judges to do the same. They gleefully violate the EPC and then they wonder why staff is dissenting? More than 80% of the EPO's staff is eager to go on strike, but 'Mafioso B' made it a lot harder.



"They gleefully violate the EPC and then they wonder why staff is dissenting? More than 80% of the EPO's staff is eager to go on strike, but 'Mafioso B' made it a lot harder."The UPC is dead (we have a lot more to publish about that), but software patents are not because the EPO keeps granting them. Sure, courts would typically throw them out and there will be no "unified" or "unitary" court to change that.

"Digital technologies" is one of the latest smokescreens EPO management uses to describe -- in rather broad and vague terms -- patents on algorithms. The EPO did that again just before the weekend when it tweeted: "Digitalisation is fuelling a growth in patenting. But who's filing the most European patent applications in this field? This analysis of our latest patent statistics provides some insight: https://bit.ly/DigitalisationIndex … #EPOPatentIndex"

DigitalisationIndex...

PatentIndex...

"First Campinos fell in love with "hey hi" (AI) and now it's "digi" this, "digi" that. The EPO keeps promoting illegal software patents disguised using "Digitalisation" or "Digital technologies"..."We've named all this nonsense before...

It's like a broken record/tune now...

First Campinos fell in love with "hey hi" (AI) and now it's "digi" this, "digi" that. The EPO keeps promoting illegal software patents disguised using "Digitalisation" or "Digital technologies"...

Pay attention, dear EPO examiners.

Less than half a year ago the EPO had introduced and then also imposed new guidelines which compel examiners to grant "hey hi" patents (algorithms with glorified buzz and novelty-inducing ambiance). So examiners are in a tough place; obey orders from EPO management or respect the EPC. Cannot do both (risk of unemployment in increasingly-uncertain times in Europe).

The other day we noticed that Slaughter and May's Catherine Cotter (whom we'll mention a lot in the coming week because of UPC lies) celebrates the EPO breaking the law with buzzwords and hype waves. "Digital technologies take top spot in EU patent applications in 2019" was her headline, pushed by her boss (Slaughter, aptly-named firm) in the patent microcosm's platforms.

"Less than half a year ago the EPO had introduced and then also imposed new guidelines which compel examiners to grant "hey hi" patents (algorithms with glorified buzz and novelty-inducing ambiance)."Another one of the patent microcosm's platforms published "Patenting CIIs: ‘no one knows where to draw the line’" -- a paywalled piece by Karry Lai who's pushing illegal software under the misleading guise of "CII" (the lie manifested by the EPO). "Australian in-house counsel and lawyers reveal their struggles with the “black hole” that computer-implemented inventions seem to fall into," the summary says. Well, Australian courts and to some degree the patent office as well reject these patents. There's no “black hole” per se. It's just the law.

Going back to the EPO again, watch this other tweet posted a couple of days ago. At the top of this page the EPO promotes illegal patents on software. They're so shameless about it.

Who are you kidding, Mr. Campinos? Take off the mask. You're another Battistelli and you'd even celebrate patents (monopolies) on basic and rudimentary masks at this time. We'll say more on the latest PR blunder in our next post. It's related to this.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day