Bonum Certa Men Certa

Europe Deserves Better Than Today's EPO

Forbidden is better



Summary: Overly restrictive society with countless monopolies (even on seeds!) will neither serve people nor will it breed general acceptance

THE European Patent Office (EPO) which I once respected -- the office that didn't pursue software patents "as such" (unlike the USPTO) -- is gone. It has been long gone, predating even Benoît Battistelli although President Brimelow wasn't anywhere as grotesque as him and I sometimes found her amicable, unlike António Campinos (he's not amicable, he's 100% faking it!).



As a proponent of the EU I've long viewed the EPO as something that might be OK, especially if it shapes its policy based on Europe's needs (like developers' and customers' needs) rather than Team UPC's (litigation parasites). Battistelli and Campinos keep making it very clear whose side they're on and it's not Europe's. Look no further than all the UPC propaganda they've been flinging out there for a decade, basically lying to the European public.

The truth of the matter is, even UPC proponents have virtually given up by now. So many nails on their coffins are adding up.

Osborne Clarke's Xavier Pican, Gaspard Debiesse, Will James and Johannes Graf Ballestrem -- in Lexology and the firm's own site -- show the growing trend, wherein law firms are either absolutely silent about UPC (when did Bristows last mention it?) or acknowledging that this "paper giant" (their term) is likely dead, but they continue to downplay this death:

Will we ever see the Unified Patent Court operate? Many have doubts, as its path – already long and difficult – runs into new obstacles and the venture looks more and more like a "paper giant".


IAM produced countless "fake news" items about the UPC, hoping to give it momentum based on deliberate falsehoods and distortions.

Let's hope -- although chances seem slim -- that something can suddenly change in a major way. Maybe the Council of Europe can do something, recognising the EPO crisis and impending layoffs as a sign of things gone awry. The courts and national governments in German and Dutch territories certainly don't plan to do anything; the EPO is their cash cow.

Resistance to the patent system as a whole will continue to grow (disdain for the very concept) if things carry on like this. COVID-19 is already changing many people's attitude towards monopoly on medicines/vaccines and seeing the dysfunctional state of the EPO can contribute to that. For the patent system to survive it will simply have to earn consent/respect from the general public.

The other day Bardehle Pagenberg's Axel B. Berger and Kerstin Galler boosted their article about "patentability of plants and animals in Europe" and another one by Jennifer Bailey (HGF Ltd) highlighted the absurdity of a patent office ever so eager to grant patent monopolies on life and on nature ("Battle Over Beer Patents Brewing At The European Patent Office"). To quote what she said some days ago:

Oppositions launched by 16 organisations against patents for mutant barley owned by Carlsberg & Heineken highlight the tensions that exist over the grant of monopolies for plant products. We consider which party will most likely be raising a glass to victory in light of recent legal changes, and the lessons applicable to patentees across the spectrum of plant innovation.

A recipe for dispute

The patents in question, EP2384110 (EP'110) and EP2373154 (EP'154), relate to a beverage prepared from a barley plant carrying a particular mutation, and the mutated plants themselves. EP'110 covers barley plants comprising mutations that cause loss of functional lipoxygenase (LOX)-1 and LOX-2 enzymes, while the mutation described in EP'154 causes functional loss of methionine S-methyltransferase (MMT). These mutations are said to improve the taste of the resulting beer.

The patents were opposed by a group of organisations represented by Dr Cristoph Then of the campaign 'NO PATENTS ON SEEDS!'. The opponents object that the patents cover conventionally bred barley, which they argue is excluded from patent protection by Article 53(b) of the European Patent Convention.

[...]

In the case of EP'110, the EPO's Opposition Division noted that plants carrying a mutation introduced by technical means, such as incubation of seeds with a mutagen, are not excluded from patent protection. Nevertheless, the claims were considered to encompass both plants created by technical means and plants obtained by an essentially biological process, the latter falling foul of Rule 28(2). As such, the patent was found invalid.

The patentees overcame this problem by clarifying that the barley plant had not been exclusively obtained by an essentially biological method. However, the Opposition Division then deemed the claimed plant to be insufficiently disclosed. Although the patent described one method of making a mutant plant (the seeds of which were deposited in a publicly accessible culture collection), this method relied on random mutagenesis and subsequent screening of 35000 mutants, placing an undue burden on someone trying to reproduce the invention. Accordingly, it was held that the patent does not enable the skilled person to obtain any mutant barley plant lacking functional LOX enzymes, but only the specific mutant deposited. This appears consistent with established case law on sufficiency, as re-affirmed by the UK's Supreme Court in Regeneron v Kymab.


Can the EPO not understand that these patents cause grassroots organisations to rebel against the system as a whole? If the EPO cares about Europe's future and the very decree upon which it exists, then it'll stop doing all these inane/insane things. What's so hard to understand here? As we put it 2 years ago, "The Enemies of the Patent System Are Patent Maximalists, Not Those Pursuing Saner Patent Policy".

Recent Techrights' Posts

Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
 
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
"More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
This won't end well
Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
A crashing franchise
Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
Links for the day
As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
there's nothing unreasonable about it
A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
Links for the day
US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
some weeks ago
All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
Each year it gets worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
Links for the day
Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
Links for the day
Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
We appreciate the honesty
Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
Digital Sanitation Good Practices
leave behind Microsoftism
10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
English translation
Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
expect the FSF to add more people
Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
Links for the day
Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025