Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO's Web Site is a Parade of Endless Lies and Celebration of Gross Violations of the Law

Video download link | md5sum a59a1b4da84187b858bd24d0145f459b



Summary: The EPO's noise site (formerly it had a "news" section, but it has not been honest for about a decade) is a torrent of lies, cover-up, and promotion of crimes; maybe the lies are obvious for everybody to see (at least EPO insiders), but nevertheless a rebuttal seems necessary

THE EPO is a den of lies. It was supposed to be about science, but nowadays it is about law-breaking, propaganda, and abuses/violations of basic rights. António Campinos is in no way better than Benoît Battistelli; he keeps interjecting his name like he's an expert in every domain and he's shamelessly promoting corruption, misusing the EPO's Web site to lend legitimacy to that corruption.



The video at the top discusses what we published last night and this morning [1, 2]. The EPO's site, perhaps inevitably, did a puff piece about "gold standard", citing Intellectual Asset Management (IAM). Here's a screenshot (in case it changes or anything in a decade to come):

EPO remains the 'gold standard' for patent quality

This is just a long screed or a bundle of lies, for reasons explained in the video above.

To quote the text (warning: epo.org link), with in-line rebuttals (very short):

"Once again, users have voted the EPO number one among the world's five largest patent offices for the quality of its patents and services in the latest benchmarking survey by Intellectual Asset Management (IAM). The EPO has topped the survey in both categories ever since it began in 2010."

"Did IAM disclose payments from the EPO's PR firm? Is this survey scientific?"Who are those users? All of them? How were they selected? Did IAM disclose payments from the EPO's PR firm? Is this survey scientific?

"More than a quarter of respondents (26%) now rate our patents as "excellent", up from 23% last year and placing the EPO well ahead of the other IP5 offices. There is also a strong consensus among respondents that we are maintaining our high level of quality. Overall, more than 87% of respondents describe our service as "good", "very good" or "excellent", once again putting us well ahead of the other IP5 offices."

Still no mention of who's actually paying IAM and who those respondents were.

"Moreover, "quality remains king for the EPO" (source: IAM). The EPO is the only office for which patent quality ranks as the top motivation for filing. In all other jurisdictions, it is the commercial importance of the local market. One respondent is quoted as saying: "The EPO has the edge due to better search, high quality examination and rules which enforce clarity.""

So now they single out one respondent (anecdote). Is this scientific?

"This year's survey was conducted in September and October among several hundred IP professionals. Participants were asked about the EPO, Japan Patent Office (JPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA)."

They say the same thing every year because the EPO pays them. They don't actually check patent quality!

But to make matters worse, the above is lost in a sea of yet more propaganda. From the past week alone:

EPO noise site: ILLEGAL, Fake concern, Lies, Fake concern, ILLEGAL

Let's go through these very quickly, one by one...

"EPO marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities" (warning: epo.org link) is the second such propaganda in about a month.

Disabilities for EPO workers?

This is akin to the pinkwashing, which is too easy to dispute. Disabilities... while sending the judges to Haar (illegally), where disabled people were killed.

To quote the EPO: "Today the Office is marking International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) with a special internal discussion session. This session brings together EPO experts from various technology fields as well as from Health & Safety, Human Resources and Building Administration units. It aims to showcase how collaboration between colleagues across the organisation can help ensure that everyone fulfils their true potential based on their talents alone, without having to worry about any kind of so-called disability."

The irony won't be lost on EPO staff. They know just what level of audacity and hypocrisy writing these words required.

It seems evident that, tying together both disability and 'ViCo' agenda, EPO management has a new sockpuppet in "Managing IP" and its name is Rory O’Neill; this fluff is one example ("VICO marks ‘levelling up’ for D&I at EPO, lawyers say") and he has also just helped patent extremists -- being employed by their paid-for propaganda mill -- lobby Germany to allow patents for bots. What next? Patents for one's pets? We'll come back to Rory O’Neill later; he seems to have replaced Charlotte, their UPC booster who left some months ago after she had posted a lot of fake news for Team UPC.

The lies are endless and they piggyback disabled people (picture the cruelty).

Similarly, the EPO pretended to care about health (warning: epo.org link) when as a matter of fact it had no choice on the matter because of government/national policies.

"They don't actually check patent quality!"But then it gets even worse, as they're shamelessly promoting an illegal agenda (warning: epo.org link) connected to attacks on the judges and courts.

And speaking of attacks on the very law and moreover an attack on many constitutions, the EPO topped it all up with UPC fluff (warning: epo.org link), reminding us that Team Campinos is either a Team UPC megaphone or an extension of Team UPC, crushing the Rule of Law for the sake of patent trolls, litigation firms, and monopolies outside Europe. "Austrian Parliament successfully completed the ratification of the PPA," says the summary, but Austria is not the UK and they're ignoring the Vienna Convention. The patent litigation firms meanwhile flood the Web (the spamfarm) with headlines like "The Unitary Patent Approaches The Finish Line" and statements like: "The UPC is being widely welcomed by users, but shortly before its launch, it is foreseeable that users will likely proceed with caution at first."

They pretend that it's already launching. Amazing! Promoted for a fee, along with the misleading headline above [1, 2]. They've long pushed such misleading headlines; it's deliberate deception. They pay for some sites (patent-centric spamfarms) to give it broader audience, clogging up the signal with misinformation of theirs. How many times before have they said similar things, even 4 years ago? Ignoring facts and fundamental issue, floating fake rumours etc.

This other new article (boosted here) overlooks the UK's exit from the EU and says: "The 25 participating Member States are called upon, firstly, to promptly ratify the Agreement on the Unitary Patent System, if they have not already done so, and secondly, to facilitate the rapid establishment of the planned Patent Arbitration and Mediation Centre."

But Unitary Patent (illegal patent system) cannot ever start without UK ratification. Only France has ratified it (among required ratifications). Those are the simple, fundamental facts. Rory O’Neill didn't bother mentioning it; When “Managing IP” says “sources” it means sponsors and Team UPC is one of those sponsors.

"The irony won't be lost on EPO staff. They know just what level of audacity and hypocrisy writing these words required."But let's get back to the EPO's statement. To quote: "On 2 December 2021, the Austrian Parliament successfully completed the ratification of the Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on provisional application (PPA). This is another very important step towards the start of the new system. As soon as Austria has deposited the ratification instrument, the period of provisional application will begin in order to complete all technical and infrastructural preparations so the new court can start and allow the entry into operation of the Unitary Patent system."

Of course they don't want to mention the UK and other fundamental issues, instead referring to the "legal guru" Campinos.

To quote: "...EPO President Antonio Campinos said, welcoming the decision of the Austrian Parliament."

Well, Tony Campinos is acting more like a Mafia Don than the chief of a patent office. He knows he's pushing an illegal agenda, but he does not care. Patent litigation firms are on his side for purely financial (self-serving) reasons and the parrots at JUVE are lending support to him. Konstanze Richter has issued this puff piece about the "UPC users" (no such thing!), speaking about it like it's a real thing which exists already.

"The tragedy is, the EPO needs to recruit actual scientists; only a mad scientist would actively pursue an EPO career at this stage."Amy Sandys, a longtime megaphone for Team UPC and the above lies from EPO management, keeps writing junk like JUVE is now owned and run by EPO management (those who hijacked the Office). Watch this page; Sandys is just copy-pasting all the lies from EPO management, no fact-checking required. This isn't journalism but lobbying; to make matters worse, they lobby for an unlawful agenda.

Still unconvinced? 2 days ago Amy Sandys gave an excellent new example of JUVE posting pure spam, or pretence that a firm hiring one person is some major news (it's not even a high-level worker); one day apart there was this fluff from a colleague, who used to do journalism about EPO abuses but is nowadays wording her articles like nothing but advertisements for litigation firms (which is what the site is all about these days). No sane person would call this journalism.

The tragedy is, the EPO needs to recruit actual scientists; only a mad scientist would actively pursue an EPO career at this stage.

The EPO can barely even run its Web site properly. How many technical people have left? As we showed before, oftentimes (for period of hours if not days) the "news" section is practically broken and 5 days ago they published "Strong Together visual", which led to this:

Strong Together visual

Stronger together? Not even strong enough to run a site properly. Maybe the remaining staff does not know how to use the CMS. And as a side note, in the EPO's press/communications department there have been many departures. The exodus isn't invisible to us.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day