04.06.20
The Fall of the UPC – Part XII: Doing the Unthinkable by Blaming the Judge’s (Justice’s) Wife?
When you cannot discredit the messenger (or the decision), look at his or her family?
Stay classy, JUVE (context)
Summary: Team UPC and its media partners never cease to amaze us; anybody who stands in their way is either portrayed as a Russian stooge or too ignorant to be worth talking to
TEAM UPC is in ‘damage control’ mode. ‘Locked up’ inside the house, these people probably still worry a lot more about the FCC’s decision than about Coronavirus.
The European Patent Office (EPO) has said nothing about it except one misleading statement in the “news” section, quoting António Campinos who isn’t a jurist (neither was Battistelli). It’s really, really pathetic.
I was rather shocked but not entirely surprised to see the ad hominem attacks on the (presumed) chief judge in this case, Justice Huber. This wouldn’t be the first time, so I was prepared for such a spectacle.
The main spectator, for me at least, was Benjamin Henrion, who read many articles and comments at the time. He did a fine job highlighting all sorts of seemingly minor things. We took note and it’s worth reporting on that, even if a fortnight or so belatedly.
“I really struggle to understand why JUVE threw away its credibility like this, in effect becoming a mouthpiece of EPO management. It was a slow process.”First of all, JUVE called the decision “dark day” even though it’s a very good decision that’s beneficial to the vast majority of the population. Who did JUVE quote? Winfried Tilmann. What on Earth are they thinking? We’ll mention him and his firm in later parts of this series about the UPC’s fall. This is what JUVE quoted: “This formal objection can be eliminated by a new vote with a two-thirds majority. Fortunately, the Federal Constitutional Court has rejected all factual objections to the constitutional complaint as inadmissible or unfounded.”
This is patently false, as we shall explain in later parts that also mention Tilmann et al. I am neither a lawyer nor a judge, but this is very basic. You don’t need a law degree to understand that this is a lie. It is a blatant falsehood from Team UPC, but JUVE is OK with it; it’s printing lies, as it has done for at least 2 years (prior to that it did some decent work). I really struggle to understand why JUVE threw away its credibility like this, in effect becoming a mouthpiece of EPO management. It was a slow process.
Who else did JUVE quote? As noted here, “Kevin Mooney, long-time proponent of the UPC and partner at the London office of Simmons and Simmons…”
He said: “We must wait to see how great a priority this for the German Parliament. The UPC is not dead.”
JUVE printed this nonsense. Did JUVE contact UPC critics? No. Other than the complainant JUVE spoke to nobody. It’s like critics of the UPC don’t even exist to them.
“JUVE printed this nonsense. Did JUVE contact UPC critics? No. Other than the complainant JUVE spoke to nobody. It’s like critics of the UPC don’t even exist to them.”Mooney lied to our Parliament, so why not lie to pro-UPC media as well?
Speaking of pro-UPC media, we have not lost sight of Patrick Wingrove, who ‘entrapped’ Justice Huber. He’s still writing for Managing IP, a pro-UPC think tank, where as recently as days ago he acted as cheerleader for patent trolls in Texas [1, 2] (several times in succession).
JUVE did something similar to what Managing IP had done. It put the Justice inside the media. Here’s JUVE’s editor writing a tweet: “Friday’s decision was a huge setback for the #UPC. The trial focused on two main parties. JUVE Patent was lucky to speak to judge rapporteur Peter Huber, and complainant Ingve Stjerna. Read all about the judge and the lawyer, beginning with the judge: https://bit.ly/the-judge-behind-the-decision … pic.twitter.com/710A3m8Cfa”
So we see that the judge is again speaking to a publication that’s very blatantly an extension of the UPC coup. First Managing IP and now this. As we said in three articles a few months ago, judges ought not participate in this… it harms the perception of the court’s independence. Trials by media should be tossed out; they’re like online lynch mobs. They want people to focus on sentiments rather than factual substance.
“So we see that the judge is again speaking to a publication that’s very blatantly an extension of the UPC coup.”But wait. It gets worse.
Just when we thought JUVE was losing its credibility as an impartial publication it came up with this piece calling Justice Huber “the mastermind” (connotation with a crime).
Christina Schulze wrote: “Today the German Constitutional Court declared the German UPC Act of Approval void. Peter Huber, as judge rapporteur, is the mastermind behind the decision. Up to now, his contacts to the patent scene have been mainly private and through his family. This has changed with the UPC case. The issues involved fit perfectly into Huber’s legal history.”
Schulze did some splendid work when SUEPO’s conflict with Battistelli ‘boiled over’, so she should know better. Why does she start to involve the wife of the judge? They’re personifying the decision quite needlessly to discredit it. That’s like UPC zealots looking for ‘dirt’ on my wife to discourage me from writing. Some things ought not be done. Henrion sort of played along by tweeting: “You wonder if they were discussing about patents in bed: “His wife had made a career in Jena, and there were no suitable openings in the Bavarian justice system. In the end she moved to the Federal Patent Court.” https://www.juve-patent.com/news-and-stories/people-and-business/straight-shooter-the-judge-behind-the-german-upc-decision/ …”
“Schulze did some splendid work when SUEPO’s conflict with Battistelli ‘boiled over’, so she should know better. Why does she start to involve the wife of the judge?”Various outspoken Team UPC cranks and nuts went further than Henrion. This is tabloid-level reporting and it serves to discredit the professionalism of JUVE. What next? Paparazzi photos?
Schulze’s ‘boss’ Mathieu Klos did a non-step ‘marathon’ of UPC advocacy for at least a week after that, with misleading headlines like these (this isn’t reporting, it’s lobbying amplified) and selectively quoting in tweets, e.g.: “The UPC needs an unlikely majority to survive” “Hubris could finish off the UPC” “The UPC needs a will, as well as a way” and “The UK will move on without the UPC” Read JUVE Patent’s opinions on the future of the #UPC: https://bit.ly/39rMzAR”
JUVE is just selling agenda here. The UPC is illegal and unconstitutional. It’s also promoted by a ‘Mafia’, people who commit serious crimes at the EPO with complete impunity if not complicity of the EU. The FCC might look at a small portion of these abuses later this year and maybe issue further decisions as well.
Henrion quoted from JUVE: “Less visible is a growing lack of interest in the European integration project among the population as a whole, which the new patent court would stand for.”
“JUVE is just selling agenda here. The UPC is illegal and unconstitutional. It’s also promoted by a ‘Mafia’, people who commit serious crimes at the EPO with complete impunity if not complicity of the EU.”That has nothing to do with patents.
“Normal,” Henrion said, but “the UPC is not an EU agency, nor an EU project” (it’s another supranatural court living or floating in a vacuum).
Henrion went on to quoting further issues with the UPC, citing the legal experts (not Team UPC): “The UPC also violated Art. 3 (2) TFEU, the rule of law (Art. 2 sentence 1 TEU) and the right to effective defense (Art. 47 (2), Art. 48 (2) GRCh).” #RuleOfLaw @dreynders https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheidungen/DE/2020/02/rs20200213_2bvr073917.html […] “The Unitary Patent Court does not meet these requirements, so the UPC affects the autonomy of Union law and the system of legal remedies.” […] German Ministry of Justice: “The Federal Government issued an opinion on 15 December 2017. It considers the constitutional complaint to be inadmissible (a), but in any case unfounded (b).” […] “Article 262 TFEU already provides for the possibility of transferring sovereign powers to the EU, but instead the decision was taken to establish a patent court on an international legal basis that is outside the institutional framework of the European Union will” […] “The German Bundestag gave its opinion on the procedure by letter of 22 January 2018. He also considers the constitutional complaint to be inadmissible (a), or at least unfounded (b), due to the lack of the right to appeal and a sufficiently substantiated justification.” […] “The institutions to be set up by the Convention should not become independent because it was ensured that changes to the agreement by the Administrative Committee would not be made without the consent of the Bundestag” [...]” (there are further grounds upon which the UPC/A should be thrown out).
“When media and academia are bribed — unlike judges — we can typically discard their output. It’s stained.”Now, we’ve said a lot of negative stuff about JUVE. It never quotes us, it never reaches out to any UPC critics, but at least it did speak to Stjerna, whom it mentioned and quoted (“If, despite these problems, the German government continues to adhere to the Convention, a new constitutional review by the Constitutional Court will have to be considered, possibly of a complaint from a company. [...] The court did not even rule on the substantive complaints and even hinted at further constitutional deficits of the agreement.”) as noted by Henrion. The typical excuse for not quoting any UPC critics is to say something like, “they don’t understand!!!”
There remain a bunch of other complaints about the EPO; but the media might — probably will — look the other way (EPO paid it to ignore EPO scandals). When media and academis are bribed — unlike judges — we can typically discard their output. It’s stained.
As noted here in a tweet, even the Watchtroll pundits said that “Stjerna’s analysis shows that for first instance litigation, reimbursable cost under the UPC exceed reimbursable cost under the German regime by a factor of 3.64 on average…”
“Sir Henry Carr, QC,” Henrion noted, “summed it up in his testimony to parliament: “This complex structure is likely to be far more costly and burdensome for SMEs than the existing system in the UK.” https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2020/03/24/death-funeral-birth-german-courts-decision-upc-may-not-end/id=120104/ …”
“So-called ‘studies’. You know who paid for these studies. The same patent office which also pays various European publishers to lie to everyone about the UPC.”Suffice to say, the old lies regarding “SMEs” will prevail. Team UPC will keep telling us that “SMEs” stand to benefit from the UPC. The very opposite is what’s true.
A few days ago the EPO wrote: “When filing a patent application, you’ll want to consider not just the countries you want to target, but the ones most important to your competitors too. Why? Find out in our SME case studies…”
“The UPC push,” I’ve responded, “means that the so-called ‘SMEs’ you like to speak of are vulnerable everywhere and won’t benefit in any way from increased breadth…”
The EPO also wrote (again with the #IPforSMEs hashtag) that “[a] patent application can have significant business value, even though the patent is still pending. It was the case for one of the companies in our SME case studies…”
So-called ‘studies’. You know who paid for these studies. The same patent office which also pays various European publishers to lie to everyone about the UPC. █
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