06.04.20
The Huge Damage (Except for Patent Lawyers’ Bottom Line) Caused by Fake European Patents
Invalid patents that should never have existed at all
Summary: The European Patent Office (EPO) keeps granting fake patents that cause a lot of real harm (examiners are pressured to play along and participate in this unlawful agenda); nobody is happy except those who profit from needless, frivolous lawsuits
THE LIARS from IAM have of course told us as recently as days ago that quality of European Patents — and the EPO in general — is fantastic. They’ve been spreading this lie repeatedly for Benoît Battistelli (and he then cited them), so why not for António Campinos as well? IAM is a facilitator and enabler of endless abuse. “Immoral think tank” is an understatement.
So according to IAM, everything is fantastic!
Never mind what actual EPO examiners tell and warn about, including software patents in Europe which they don’t like granting (but Campinos almost forces them to, using EPC-incompatible guidelines).
“According to sources,” JUVE says, “a European Patent Office examiner cited a prior art document in the granting of the original EP 988 patent.” So why was it granted? Look what a mess it led to (lots of money spent on law firms):
In January 2018, the Federal Patent Court in Munich declared Philips patent EP 15 71 988 null and void. The German Federal Court of Justice upheld the decision on 14 May 2020, in confirming the patent as nullified. The patent concerns activity monitoring in communication systems. The Philips patent is non-essential, otherwise known as an implementation patent.
Wiko, ASUS, Archos and HTC were the nullity plaintiffs in the dispute. This is another victory for them in a Europe-wide dispute with Philips. According to sources, a European Patent Office examiner cited a prior art document in the granting of the original EP 988 patent. However, sources say the same prior art document is behind the Federal Court of Justice’s revocation decision.
All this legal chaos could be prevented; the whole point of patent examination is the prevention of monopolies on things that are either unoriginal or aren’t covered by patent scope. Philips also operates through proxies such as Sisvel and a lot of the time these fake patents can lead to a settlement without the lawsuit that renders underlying patents invalid. So to say something like, “well, you can always take it to court” is a totally moot point. Small businesses cannot even afford the legal challenge. █
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