04.15.20
British Government Again Confirms Death of the UPC, But Team UPC is Not Listening
Summary: The British government states very clearly that the UPC isn’t happening (as far as the UK is concerned); without the UK the UPC won’t exist (ever), but the spin carries on
MOVE over, António Campinos.
Drop the wine bottle, Mr. Battistelli.
There are liars even bigger than you two.
This new piece from Taylor Wessing’s Simon Cohen and Paul England openly asks what will follow the collapse of Europe’s plans for a UPC…
The headline is of course a lie, as usual…
“They weaponise or at least utilise this media to tell loads of lies, perpetuating that lingering illusion if not delusion about the EPO.”The media — The Global Legal Post in this case (rather malicious although the publication’s title clearly implies it’s by/for the legal domain/litigation matters) — is being hijacked by mouthpieces of patent trolls. They weaponise or at least utilise this media to tell loads of lies, perpetuating that lingering illusion if not delusion about the EPO‘s ‘darling’ — a ‘takeover’ of courts. We recently published a 20-part series about it (index here) and as we said in the last part (posted over the past weekend) we knew it would not stop there. The law firm calls the fall of the UPC “a backward step” (for trolls and lawyers) and they — the two authors — at least aren’t denying the severity of it. In their own words (taking into account Poland, Spain, Hungary and the Czech Republic — something Team UPC deliberately omits):
‘Null and void.’
So held the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany on 20 March 2020, delivering what could be the final blow to the pan-EU Unified Patent Court (UPC) project – nearly 50 years in the making.
In essence, the Bundestag did not use the correct two-thirds majority vote procedure when enacting this agreement into German law. It might be thought straightforward to remedy this problem: just re-enact the agreement using the necessary majority.
However, circumstances have moved on quickly in recent months. Poland and Spain declined to participate in the UPC early in the project, and they have recently been joined by Hungary and the Czech Republic, for constitutional and economic reasons, respectively.
Taylor Wessing’s Simon Cohen and Paul England pretend that the death of the UPC somehow makes it harder to handle a pandemic when it’s so obvious that the exact opposite is true! Lawyers lying for a quid. This is that typical nonsense; we saw similar lies spread in Germany, alarmingly implying we’ll all die from a virus unless UPC becomes a reality! In their words: “The demise of the UPC is therefore a backward step, particularly at a time of pandemic, when there is so much emphasis on the need for international solutions and cooperation. The differences in national patent law risks consolidating silos of innovation and creating trade friction, rather than increasing cooperation of R&D centres around the world.”
“The headline is of course a lie, as usual…”What on Earth were you guys smoking? The very opposite is true! It’s so obvious. Because “increasing cooperation of R&D centres around the world” is a lot easier in an atmosphere of reduced tensions over patents. UPC strives to do the exact opposite. As Benjamin Henrion recalled, citing and quoting an old article [1, 2]: “Schneider: “It will be a hermetic, self-governing system of technocratic experts, the EPO, patent attorneys and large firms, with hardly any control mechanisms. It will have a disregard of public interests and human rights.” [...] Schneider criticizes the lack of democratic control of parliaments and EU institutions on the UPC system and perceives a clear danger of tunnel vision and pro-patent bias.”
Henrion has also just taken note of JUVE’s obvious and blatant bias when he said: “JUVE interviews UPC software patent boosters such as Nokia/Ericsson/Siemens, an SME should probably be a patent applicant https://www.juve-patent.com/news-and-stories/legal-commentary/european-industry-reacts-to-german-upc-judgment/ … They forgot to mention that defense will be 3.5x more expensive in Germany.”
“To the JUVE “think tank” the “European industry” is only few conglomerates with loads of patents,” I responded. “How JUVE has fallen… and how fast.”
Earlier this week we noticed that Bristows’ Rich Pinckney reposted this… or the page got altered along with several others (their CMS is very weak/flaky, odd and quite likely arcane, just like the firm itself). Pinckney is editing or maybe tidying up all of his old but somewhat recent articles, maybe even hiding some false statements or inaccuracies in retrospect. Is the intention to save face? Or just a badly broken CMS? Would the UPC’s CMS be equally poor? Then good riddance.
“Taylor Wessing’s Simon Cohen and Paul England pretend that the death of the UPC somehow makes it harder to handle a pandemic when it’s so obvious that the exact opposite is true!”Meticulous comparisons with archived/cached pages would be needed to prove that there’s some kind of ‘coverup’ (sometimes they do edit old blog posts). Pinckney’s latest post says “IP Minister confirms UK’s non-participation in UPC” (they did back in February!) and I responded to their tweet with: “You cannot participate in things that do not exist..”
The post can be found here. Richard Pinckney said that the “IP” [sic] Minister had “confirmed that “the Government will not be seeking the UK’s continued participation in the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court.” Her explanation for that decision expanded slightly on that of the government spokesperson on 27 February (which the media had reported, i.e.“Participating in a court that applies EU law and bound by the CJEU is inconsistent with our aims of becoming an independent self-governing nation.”). She referred to the government’s approach to future relations with the EU published on 27 February (here) ruling out any obligation for UK laws to be aligned with the EU’s or for the EU’s institutions (including the CJEU) to have any jurisdiction in the UK, and explained that continued participation in the UPC would mean “ceding jurisdiction over key patent disputes in the UK to a court that is bound to apply and respect the supremacy of EU law, including judgments of the CJEU” would be incompatible with that approach.”
OK, would that be enough to shut down that blog or shut up the UPC boosters of Bristows? Not likely…
“All in all, hooray to yet more low-quality media, misleading publishers, lying law firms and people who “still want to believe” (like alien enthusiasts, where UPC is the extraterrestrial with antennas and all).”Over at IP Kat they’ve just spoken about “Katfriends Darren Meale (Simmons & Simmons),” so the ‘Kats’ are friends with the very worst of Team UPC; they still have Bristows staff among their staff (albeit she left Bristows some months ago).
All in all, hooray to yet more low-quality media, misleading publishers, lying law firms and people who “still want to believe” (like alien enthusiasts, where UPC is the extraterrestrial with antennas and all). █
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