Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO-Bribed IAM 'Media' Has Praised Quality, Which Even EPO Staff (Examiners) Does Not Praise

Purple people
Office run by lying, law-breaking 'suits' instead of scientists



Summary: It's easy to see something is terribly wrong when the people who do the actual work do not agree with the media's praise of their work (a praise motivated by a nefarious, alternate agenda)

As we noted earlier this month and last month -- preparation and publication, respectively -- IAM had (once again, as usual) orchestrated the "quality" festival for Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos, seeking to mislead and manipulate EPO governance by a false sense of calm. Are they supposed to feel like their mis-governance accomplished success?



Over the years we published many articles about patent quality. We also saw EPO staff coming under exceptional threats/fire for merely pointed out the fact quality of European Patents (or validity of them) was rapidly decreasing. Instead of giving traffic/attention to the annual IAM lies (Watchtroll has just written about the EPO as well), let's repost below a publication of relevance from earlier this year. We never reproduced it as HTML (and Gemini), but it's never too late:

Time and Timeliness vs. Quality and Production Pressure?



Management is very proud of the quality of EPO products. Indeed, Goal 3 of the Strategic Plan 2020-2023 is to "Deliver high-quality products (and services efficiently)".

But have you ever wondered how the quality of a search and a grant is actually defined? We have, and have previously written in detail on the topic.

The Office has also thought a lot about this issue, dedicating an entire intranet page ("Creating a common definition of quality") to the search for a proper definition.

From that page, it can be derived that on the one hand:

● quality is still to be defined, i.e. one of the EPO's projects is to 'Develop a common definition of quality for EPO search and examination products that is agreed and shared with internal and external users'”,

but on the other hand

“quality is our top priority”.

Thus, as soon as quality is properly defined, it will be our top priority. Let's assume that to be true.

Elsewhere on the intranet ("Early Certainty: EPO’s plan to improve timeliness and address business‘ needs") we can read that "The EPO strives to provide high quality products which withstand potential post-grant proceedings. This establishes legal certainty". So we can derive that quality is based, among other things, on whether the best prior art was found before examination.

Let's now take a step back and look at what happens in reality.

The Office sets production targets that have considerably reduced the time available per application for each examiner. However, the less time you have, the less probable it will be that you can find the best prior art, thoroughly examine the application to check the requirements of the EPC, and draft your findings in a way that the applicant can understand them.

Therefore, this lessens the probability that your granted patent will withstand potential post-grant proceedings. This in turn can only worsen the quality, should it be defined as maximum legal validity. A detailed treatise on quality using this definition authored by the CSC inter alia can be found here1.

There are known counter-arguments to any pleas for increased (or even maintained) time for processing searches and examinations:

"If you can do this dossier in 3 days, you can do it in 3 days minus 1 hour". This implies, if taken to its absurd, iterative conclusion, that every dossier could eventually be completed in zero minutes. Taken to an even more absurd extreme, we would be completing dossiers in negative time.

"The Applicant cannot wait for our products, we have to deliver them ASAP". Should this really be at the expense of quality, as defined by maximum validity at grant? It is well known to applicants that if they want to proceed faster they can request accelerated search / examination. Such requests remain rare.

This situation by itself is bad enough, but it is complicated yet further by all sorts of “nice-to-haves” which have now been given to examiners as "must have" objectives. For example, for unclear reasons dossiers at the beginning of examination (Priority 3 in the dossier management system) also now have to be dealt with ASAP, so that they will be finished by the end of the year. However, such actions often do not lead to a grant, considering the normal patenting practice of applicants. Many further parameters of various sorts are also given to examiners as objectives, with questionable value as hard objectives. An earlier paper on “over-parameterisation” can be found here2.

In conclusion, we still cannot understand how a system with ever-higher production targets, and ever-more “unproductive” but mandatory goals, can be reconciled with the quality target the EPO has set for itself.

Your Staff Representation

_______ 1 “Good enough? A discussion paper about Patent Quality at the EPO”, LSC Munich & Berlin paper (sc18003mp) of 19.04.2018 2 “All the President’s Peas”, CSC paper (sc18008cp) of 17.01.2018


Of course IAM et al won't be writing about such simple facts; they're paid to ignore reality or look the other way while the EPO spews out lots of Invalid Patents (IPs) instead of proper European Patents (EPs). We'll publish more material related to this tomorrow (Sunday).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Our Case is a Very Easy Win, the SLAPPs From Microsofters Were a Grave Error, and Censoring Information Won't Work (It'll Only Ever Backfire)
Censoring is what people do when they lose the argument
 
Links 04/06/2025: Linux Foundation PR Spam and Lee Jae-myung Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Future Leaders of the World and Platforming Jordan Peterson
Links for the day
Links 04/06/2025: WSL Backfiring on Microsoft and "Disney, Microsoft Announce Massive Layoffs"
Links for the day
Say the Truth, the Rest Will Follow
There's no guarantee that writing the truth will result in an audience (or readership), but over time - in the long run - people generally gravitate towards what they know or feel to be crude truth, not just what's comforting (albeit false or self-deluding, usually groupthink dictated from above)
How to Expose High-Level Corruption Without Getting in (Too Much) Trouble
Democracy depends on free press and freedom of the press depends on being able to safely publish (and keep available) material that bad people don't want to be known to anybody
In-Depth EPO Coverage at Techrights Turns Eleven
11 years is a very long time
Windows Measured Below 10% in Afghanistan, GNU/Linux Gaining a Lot
about 80% are Android (Linux) users, compared to only about 10% for Windows
Poland's Political Predicament and Social Control Media
Democracy and fake "tech" don't mix well; the latter tends to interfere with the former and that's why we get more "Putins" out there
EPO: Taking Away From the Staff to Give More to the Rich
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote to EPO staff earlier this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 03, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 03, 2025
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
we can commence a series soon
Gemini Links 04/06/2025: Inescapable Questions and Quitting All "Oligarch Tech"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linux FUD From Slopfarms, Blaming Linux for Microsoft Issues; Even WebProNews Has Become a Slopfarm (Googlebombing "Linux" With Slop Images and Fake/Plagiarised Text)
The Web is really getting bad; it's also overwhelmed by fake material or plagiarised material, wherein the plagiarism gets disguised/hidden by LLM sausage factories
Links 03/06/2025: Tiananmen Square Massacre Censorship and Growing Military Activities Around Taiwan
Links for the day
Linux is Already Dominant (Android), Let's Make GNU/Linux Dominant in Desktops/Laptops as Well
"Dr. Stallman recently warned everybody about Microsoft."
The Loyalty to Microsoft and the Salaries From Microsoft (Funding SLAPPs Against Techrights and Tux Machines)
Garrett always knows better. He knows everything best.
Windows Falls in Italy as GNU/Linux Jumps to 5%
Italy knows a thing or two about digital autonomy
Nigeria is All Android and Google
Windows down to almost nothing in Africa's largest population
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft (Second Wave) Not Limited to Redmond
"More layoffs at Microsoft as axe falls in Washington and California"
Gemini Links 03/06/2025: Forth System and "Common Lisp is a Dumpster"
Links for the day
The Leaks Were Right: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft in May, Then Another Wave in June
Just as we've been saying for over a month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 02, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 02, 2025
Last Article From Australia's Sam Varghese Was a Year Ago and It Covered the Release of Julian Assange, Who Will Apparently Come Back as 'Politician'
It'll soon be exactly 12 months
Hungary Seems Hungry for Linux
Windows down by a lot
Like in Europe, Bad News for Microsoft in US and Canada
If it loses those "regions", then what's left?
About 8 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft in 2025 (in Less Than 5 Months), Now Vista 11 "Market Share" Decreases
Really bad news for shareholders of Microsoft
statCounter Sees Bing "Share" Falling Over 0.5% in One Month, Now Lower Than Before the ChatGPT/Bing Chat Hype
Bing has been part of the mass layoffs for quite some time
After Microsoft's Bankruptcy in Russia Android (Linux) Will Dominate Asia Completely
Windows probably peaked in "XP" or "2000"
Microsoft's Demise is a Global Phenomenon
mass layoffs justified using mindless buzzwords
All-Time Highs for GNU/Linux in EU and the UK, All-Time Lows for Microsoft
Combining ChromeOS and GNU/Linux, it adds up to and almost reaches 6%
India: Windows Falls to 50% in Desktops/Laptops and 8% Overall
laptops/desktops fell to 16% of the whole
statCounter: GNU/Linux Up to 4.7% "Market Share" This Month
30,000 Microsoft jobs may be eliminated by year's end
Microsoft is in Trouble and Microsofters Know It
"I've been happy on Win 3.11 for years."
[Video] New Introduction to Richard Stallman's Contributions Including GNU Emacs, GNU/Linux, and Software Freedom
from the channel previously bullied for supporting RMS
Links 02/06/2025: South Korea to Vote, Russia Blitzed From Within
Links for the day
Links 02/06/2025: Political Leftovers, DRM, and Patents
Links for the day
Links 02/06/2025: Microsoft Spins Layoffs as "Slop", Frontier Settles Lawsuit
Links for the day
When You Publicly Boast About Wanting to Violently Attack People (Even Colleagues) Finding a Job Will Prove Difficult
there's a lesson to be learned here
The Web We Lost, the Information Lost Due to Microsoft's Attacks on Companies Like Yahoo! (Before the LLM Slop Frenzy)
When it comes to news sites, what can we say?
Covering Corruption in Poland, Including a War on Science (Due to Bad Politicians)
What we're about to show is that skilled and experienced scientists in Poland are besieged by bureaucrats
Gemini Links 02/06/2025: "Star Wars Day" and "Security Day"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 01, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 01, 2025