Bonum Certa Men Certa

Team UPC Has Run Out of Allies as Even Patent Lawyers Increasingly Distance Themselves and Only Junior Staff is Still Willing to Lie for the Team

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies."

--Groucho Marx



Summary: After a bunch of prominent UPC proponents have fled (early retirement, resignation, or radio silence) there are few firms/people still willing to lie in public for Team UPC; the responses (in comments) are rather revealing for many consider them to be utterly insane and infinitely dishonest

A couple of 'hoax' blog posts from Team UPC/Bristows called for a violation of international law and the responses were understandably critical. "Disenfranchised" wrote: "The approach is also narrow-minded. The Court is not something just to be divided up for political favours. That happened with Cameron in 2013 but only because there was no other way and look where that got us. The UPC needs amending (should have been amended 4 years ago) to recognise the Central Division as having a single seat (with freedom to delegate workload as required to local divisions) and remove the ridiculous Annex II. It should also reflect the post Covid reality that we hope to see – time for the first true CyberCourt."



"Even patent professionals are somewhat shocked by what Team UPC is hoping to accomplish and the lies it keeps telling.""Astonished" then wrote: "If – with the existing agreements – the UPC is started, it will be fun to see the first case tried in Milan go to the EuCJ because of the wrong venue (this gives a new meaning to “forum non conveniens”). But I don’t see a start of the UPC soon, the BVerfG mor or less invited new constitutional complaints, so I guess it will take some more years to resolve the open questions, assuming this is at all possible. With the mess made out of the UPC agreement, it would be best to completely scrap it and start from scratch – without interested litigators during the drafting."

"MaxDrei" then responded to the above: "The post from “Astonished” puts its finger on the problem: who today shall draft new legislation, if not the powerful lobby interests (here, the international patent litigation industry)? The days are long gone, when draft legislation was written by a public office (such as, in the UK, the “Parliamentary Draftsman”) with provisions carefully crafted to coincide with “the public interest” or the “general welfare” of society. Today, nobody knows any longer what that is (or if they do, the lobbyists immediately render it invisible)."

"So they had a little webchat and they have not actually met for 3.5 years. OK, got it..."See all the comments here; 6 out of 6 are unequivocally negative. Even patent professionals are somewhat shocked by what Team UPC is hoping to accomplish and the lies it keeps telling.

Some hours ago we found in Lexology a promotion of another bundle of lies, this one from Herbert Smith Freehills LLP's Sebastian Moore and Rachel Montagnon. Referring to the 'meeting' they say "albeit virtually" (i.e. just some webchat) and they speak of “good progress” without actually naming any. They allude to "European Industry" (meaning litigation 'industry', i.e. themselves) an then proceed with the same lies as Bristows told. They published this on 9/11, just like Bristows (in its own blog and in Kluwer Patent Blog) and said: "Yesterday (10 September 2020) the UPC Preparatory Committee met (albeit virtually) for the first time since March 2017. On the agenda were the issues triggered by the formal withdrawal of the UK from the UPC system and the events in Germany in relation to challenges to Germany’s participation."

So they had a little webchat and they have not actually met for 3.5 years. OK, got it...

"The note of the meeting on the Committee’s website (here) states that the Committee took note of the “good progress” being made in Germany with regard to the legislation needed for the German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement and the Protocol on Provisional Application."

"This is the sort of moral depravity which causes Team UPC to be alienated and mocked by a growing proportion of the legal profession. Many lawyers want nothing to do with these liars, who are simply becoming a liability and an embarrassment to the entire profession."Wait, does the UPC committee run Germany now? Does it tell the Government of Germany what to do? This committee is just like a lobbying group, partly overlapping the litigation profiteers (see the members). The term "pressure group" would be more suitable than "Committee"....

Here's a lie: "The Committee also took note of the call from European Industry for a swift entry into operation of the Unitary Patent System."

Nonsense. The actual industry very often opposed the UPC. But they're often lied for/about. This is the sort of moral depravity which causes Team UPC to be alienated and mocked by a growing proportion of the legal profession. Many lawyers want nothing to do with these liars, who are simply becoming a liability and an embarrassment to the entire profession.

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete