Bonum Certa Men Certa

News Sites That Talk About Patents Have Become Shameless Self-Promotion 'Plugs' by Law Firms (and Sometimes Outright 'Spam' for Litigation)

Video download link



Summary: The sources of news about patent affairs have dried up; sites that actually used to investigate and report facts have since then shut down or defected to the Public Relations/marketing industry

THE PAST 20 years I've spent a lot of time reading news sites, with growing focus on patents over time, especially 15 years ago. I grew up on the Web, which was there when I was a teenager. In the early days of the Web (before and during the Netscape days) we'd go to sites like Download.com and News.com (some might know the history of these domains and the ill fate of CNET). There used to be a "golden era" of transition from newspapers to "online news", except the classifieds sections weren't quite there, so business models needed to urgently change. In the late 90s and well into the start of the millennium there was still investment (capital) in online news, but with Web monopolies and social control media (over a decade ago) many news sites languished and ebbed away. They never truly came back. IP Kat and Watchtroll were early at the scene, but they too have languished and the founders of both are no longer there. They're like 'satellite' sites with fluff and sometimes clickbait...

Litigation firms now sponsor Patently-O. It even admitted so openly a few weeks ago.

"IP Kat and Watchtroll were early at the scene, but they too have languished and the founders of both are no longer there."It's saddening to me, it really is...

What works in our favour is that we don't have a 'business model' and we don't need one. We're all volunteers fighting the good fight, even in the face of smears and discreditisation campaigns (corporations have attempted to 'cancel' us since the site was months old).

The video above is a rant about the lack of media participation in covering EPO abuses. EPO insiders are smart enough to know why this is happening (in the Benoît Battistelli days there was still some media left and some of that same media defected and became a lapdog/censor of António Campinos).

"Same publisher, different agenda."In part 13 of the current series we'll show the sorts of puff pieces produced by JUVE for 'access' to EPO management. They just never expose EPO abuses anymore. Same publisher, different agenda. The video shows two 'reports' from this morning; one from Konstanze Richter and another from Christina Schulze, who once upon a time wrote and even exposed EPO scandals. Now, as we noted in the latest Daily Links, we cannot say anything without insulting or offending both of them. Because this isn't journalism, it just isn't. We've been filing many more examples in Daily Links (not meriting a whole article about them; there's really not that much to say) and it's concerning to see JUVE becoming just another IAM. Will the fate be the same as IPWatch and IPPro Patents? I've not seen Barney Dixon online since last year* (some British publisher) and it's a shame because he actually did some good work and he gave a voice to EPO staff, just like the original 'Kats' at IP Kat. _____ * To quote this page: "Recent news related to Asset Servicing Times, Captive Insurance Times, Securities Lending Times, IPPro Magazine (Closed December 2019) or IPPro Patents (Closed January 2019)" (all the articles were lost, too).

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