Bonum Certa Men Certa

USPTO and EPO Openly Brag About Breaking the (Case)Law to Grant Software Patents That Courts Would Reject, Even the Very Highest Courts

Just like the EPO, the USPTO nowadays gloats and openly celebrates abandonment of patent quality (with a so-called 'Chief Economist' spinning that as a positive thing)

Patents, patents for everybody! Fill up the trolley!



Summary: The American (US) patent office, the world's most important patent office, admits that it grants loads of junk patents by devising a way (unlawful guidelines) for undermining caselaw and allowing patents courts would almost certainly reject (if it came to that)

THE LONG BATTLE against software patents carries on. Progress was made over the years, good news came our way on occasions, but amid some won battles there's still a lost war. The EPO and USPTO continue granting loads of software patents and many accused parties (defendants or those subjected to threats without an actual lawsuit) cannot afford lengthy legal battles and appeals. It can cost a couple million dollars for just one single patent if one considers the appeal routes in the US. When it comes to patents granted by the European Patent Office, the cost depends on the country or countries of enforcement.



"We've moved from professors of science to a bunch of so-called civil 'servants' who serve nobody but law firms, helping them hijack every aspect of a system originally envisioned as promoter of science."António Campinos and his appointer lack scientific background and they never created anything, not even code. They're just what they seem on the surface; they're cheap and dishonest politicians. They're manipulators.

Compared to them, the 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101-hostile Andrei Iancu is 'class act'. Sure, he got the job because of Donald Trump and his constant promotion of software patents (even before he netted this job) helped him. But at least he has some background in science. The same can be said about some past EPO presidents and past USPTO Directors, including Iancu's predecessors.

"What good are patent offices that boast incredible 'production' where that production is basically a production of rubbish?"What happened in Europe is rather sad. We've moved from professors of science to a bunch of so-called civil 'servants' who serve nobody but law firms, helping them hijack every aspect of a system originally envisioned as promoter of science. With the UPC dead the EPO now realises that it cannot fool justice or spit in Justices' faces. Sooner or later it spits down on them. It all comes crashing down, just like a growing number of European Patents (we're adding some new examples of these to Daily Links).

What good are patent offices that boast incredible 'production' where that production is basically a production of rubbish? What good are a million patents half or more of which are of dubious quality and likely not valid (formal invalidation takes a pricey process, which must be initiated by someone).

"Obviously the law firms love it; it's not "their problem" per se when a client gets fake patents, which turn out to be worthless."Earlier this week we saw Janal Kalis and others mentioning the latest nonsense from the USPTO, boasting what it really ought not boast about. Instead of demonstrating that courts increasingly affirm its decisions the USPTO brags about ignoring SCOTUS and the Federal Circuit, which is a really dumb thing to do. The USPTO is telling stakeholders and applicants that it will be easier to get bogus patents, no matter their toothlessness in actual courts. They actively reduce confidence or certainly, then misuse the concept of "predictability".

Obviously the law firms love it; it's not "their problem" per se when a client gets fake patents, which turn out to be worthless. We know who pays the price for such a fluke; it's not the law firms, which charge hourly...

A post by Charles Bieneman, a dedicated proponent of software patents (his whole blog is about that), said this:

According to a recent report by the USPTO’s Chief Economist, the Federal Circuit’s 2018 Berkheimer decision and the USPTO’s January 2019 patent-eligibility guidance have reduced both the frequency and uncertainty of examiners’ patent-eligibility rejections under and 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 and the Alice/Mayo test.

Anecdotally, for a number of months it has seemed that examiners were making fewer patent-eligibility rejections than they had been in the years following Alice. The January 2019 guidance in particular, as I wrote at the time, seemed designed to reduce Alice rejections. As this graph illustrates, that has proven to be true. Alice rejections peaked prior to Berkheimer; the USPTO points to its April 2018 memorandum modifying ۤ 101 examination procedure in light of Berkheimer as accelerating the downward trend. But again, the dramatic downturn in patent-eligibility rejections occurred after the January 2019 guidance.


So... they're basically encouraged to ignore the highest US court and grant bogus patents anyway.

How is that a good thing?

"How is that a good thing?"We pointed this out earlier this year after the USPTO had reported its so-called 'results', which showed growth in low-quality patents.

Sounds familiar? Yes, the EPO.

Eileen McDermott of Watchtroll has just published "A Look at the Data: USPTO Chief Economist Analyzes Effects of Section 101 Guidance on Predictability in New Report"

Predictability in courts?

No.

The opposite.

"Predictability in courts? No. The opposite."Apart from parroting the talking points of Andrei Iancu, what these people do is celebrate violation of and deviation from the law.

Dennis Crouch wrote: "The chart above comes from the USPTO Chief Economist’s office and is explained in the USPTO’s new report on Post-Alice Examination of Eligibility."

That never names this Chief Economist. In the EPO it seems to be some prop of Battistelli, whom we wrote about many times before. They're docile and obedient to a particular agenda; neither independent nor objective. The whole thing is just a marketing charade. Their message is, send us more applications and we'll grant lots of them!

In Twitter the USPTO wrote: "Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice Corp. led to a rise in patent application rejections in certain tech areas (software). Our report shows how this trend was significantly reduced after issuance of revised patent examination guidelines in 2018 and 2019..."

"What are they hoping to accomplish here? They say nothing about the affirmation rates (as per US courts or even PTAB)."They have included a PR/marketing-type animation. Translation or meaning of it? Well, a Trump appointee is breaking the law to grant many illegal patents and fake 'growth'...

What are they hoping to accomplish here? They say nothing about the affirmation rates (as per US courts or even PTAB). The USPTO now mimics illegal behaviour of EPO management and hardly even hides this agenda. As this response to the USPTO put it: "Your illegal guidelines are not in line with Alice. Someone should submit them to Court for a legal challenge."

The original page says:

A new USPTO study finds that the 2014 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International significantly increased the percentage of Section 101 rejections in first office actions received by patent applicants and, importantly, increased the degree of uncertainty facing applicants in the examination process. In two subsequence examiner guidance documents, the USPTO largely reversed these effects. Read more about the image below.


So basically Iancu said, ignore all those court decisions that we don't like and only pay attention to ones that make it easy to allow software patents. How is that a good thing? This is in line with Trump era lawlessness. It's good for trolls who prey on poor and vulnerable companies/people -- a free ticket to the racket.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Debian GNU/Linux and Free Software Developer Daniel Pocock in Irish Elections This Month (Dublin Bay South)
Polling day in 15 days
Layoffs as Happy Stories in the Corporate Media
It's based on a longstanding pattern
In Switzerland, GNU/Linux Reaches Record Highs, But What About the Corruption?
Pocock is a disappointed citizen of Switzerland
 
Links 14/11/2024: Politics, Climate, and Instability
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2024: EmacsConf and Flounder
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2024: Science and the Demise of Microsoft-Connected USPTO Director
Links for the day
For "X" to Die the Media and Politicians Will Need to Quit (Then, Advertisers Will Lose Interest, Even for Political Ads)
Fewer people are still there anyway
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 13, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Bob Should Tell Alice About What GitHub (Which Linux Foundation Outsources Code to) Does to Entire Nations, Following Donald Trump's Policies
"What's next, preventing access to Linux from non-NATO countries? Putting NSA backdoors in the kernel?"
It Took The Guardian More Than 2 Years of Musk to Realise What Twitter Was and It Took Twitter 4 Years of a President Trump to Realise What Trump Was
Trump was deplatformed only a fortnight before Biden became president anyway
[Meme] Google 80%, Windows 2%
"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google."
Microsoft's Market Share Falls to 2% in Haiti
Throw in Android (now 80% of "the market") and Windows is down to 2%
Gemini Links 13/11/2024: Magic of Walking and Lest We Forget
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2024: USPTO Director Kathi Vidal ('Former' Microsoft Rep) Resigning, Censorship After Car Ramming Attack in China
Links for the day
Microsoft: Layoffs, Outsourcing, and R.T.O. as Cover for Mass Layoffs Without Severance Pay
Microsoft had mass layoffs pretty much every month this year
[Meme] The Addicted Lolicon Throwing Stones
"They've found my RMS attack site"
Jonathan Carter & Debian betrayed Joel Espy Klecker
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 13/11/2024: Red Tape War and Programming Experiences
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2024: "Make Your Laptop Last FOREVER" With GNU/Linux, 23andMe Mass Layoffs, Intel 'Resignations' Layoffs Loophole
Links for the day
More Than 3 Years After Vista 11's Release More Chinese Computer Users Still Use Vista 7 (Than "11")
it was "officially" released October 5, 2021
At BetaNews, "Most Commented Story" Is Not a Story But LLM Slop! (Readers Talking to Bots)
They make fake stories with provocative headlines and then boast that these get many comments
[Meme] Swiss Lawyers/Attorneys Who Fake Qualifications and Rob People
Switzerland mostly guards its reputation by censorship of media
Just How Slow Has the News Industry Become?
We're drowning in garbage from fake publishers
Things That Still Work OK (But We're Being Shamed for Using)
Using old stuff is nothing to be shamed of (or afraid to do)
Free Software is About Collaboration
WordPress limits it
Even the Managing Editor of BetaNews is Doing Slop and Spam
A Fish Rots From The Head Down
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 12, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 12, 2024
PERA Bill in US Senate Strives to Crush Caselaw, Making Patents on Mathematics and Algorithms 'Great Again'
Follow the money
BetaNews is Beta-Testing the Site as LLM Slop With Microsoft Propaganda Thrown In
Many of the people there are Microsoft boosters and they use slop as "filler" (for marketing)
Evolution of euthanasia & WIPO UDRP similarities exposed by W. Scott Blackmer
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 13/11/2024: Phasing Out 3G, Brian Kernighan Books, Tcl/Tk, Time to Ditch x86
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: A Lot of Censorship and SWNS at 50
Links for the day
BetaNews, Inc. Became a Spam Operation/Web Site, LLM Spew (Slop) for SEO Disguised as "Articles"
Published 5 minutes ago by Brian Fagioli...
Gemini Links 12/11/2024: Invidious Down and YouTube Addiction
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: Hey Hi (AI) Failures and COP29 Fakers
Links for the day
Latest Rumours of Red Hat Layoffs
Rumours or gossip is how almost everything starts
WordPress is for the 'Old Web'; the New Web Necessitates Static Pages
There are purely practical reasons to move away from WordPress and the likes of it
Biggest Debt Leap in Years, More Than Half a Trillion Dollars in Just One Month
We remind people (almost every year) that it's also "buynothingday"
Windows Falling to All-Time Lows and Microsoft Has Nothing to Replace It With
It's mostly Android (Linux) replacing Windows
Cybershow Has a New 81-Minute Episode on Digital Sovereignty and International Cyber-Relations
it is a high-quality show
Activism in the Digital Realm Can Never (and Must Never) Rely on GAFAM
This simply means that tech activists must completely abandon any hopes of finding allies in Google or IBM or whatever...
Golden Dawn(ald) and What GAFAM Means to Liberal Techies
In one single screenshot
IBM CEO Says Donald Trump as President-Elect is Good for IBM in New Interview With CNBC
most unprincipled CEO ever?
GNU/Linux Up to 6.1% in Finland (Almost 9% If One Counts ChromeOS Too)
Home of Linux (the kernel)
BetaNews Has Become a SPAM/Slop Factory, Brian Fagioli Publishes Fake 'Articles'
everything is now suspect in BetaNews
It's Morbid to Talk About Living People as If They're Dead
What happens to LLM slop when Brian Fagioli dies?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 11, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 11, 2024
Free Software and Love of Nature
It's not a coincidence that many Free software activists are also lovers of nature
Silicon Valley and GAFAM Were Never Liberal
spineless CEOs and founders aren't against Trump
Windows and 'The Desktop' Floundering
Microsoft should be extremely worried
WordPress is Bad for the Planet (Even If Many Still Use It)
the costs nobody wishes to talk about