03.07.22
Gemini version available ♊︎The Patent Distortion: How So-called ‘News’ Sites About Patents Perished, and Refusal to Honestly Cover the News Played a Role in Their Demise
Video download link | md5sum 9427a3eea52a2f3a8b610073d1c39b44
Patent News Sites Rotting Away
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The epic failure of the media, or unwillingness to actually explain to the public what happens in the patent world — more so in Europe [1, 2] as shown above — is a huge problem; I try to exemplify this using the above, not neglecting the role played by Gulag Noise
THIS is the fourth part of a relatively new series, which is typically recorded on Sunday and then processed overnight to be released on Monday (transcoding videos this long can take 10 hours or more).
As usual, this past week we’ve piled up articles for analysis. Today we find good news, bad news, and lots of fake news, notably UPC lies, promotion of European software patents (nowadays they like using the buzzwords “Hey Hi” and “software inventions”, showing a complete misunderstanding of what software development is actually like), and distraction from simple facts.
“And don’t blame social control media for it; that too is crumbling.”Interestingly enough, the sites that typically write about patents have been eerily quiet this past week. It’s not a holiday! Kluwer Patent Blog, for instance, wrote just 3 paragraphs since February 23rd, IP Kat wrote not a single article about patents, and Max Walters (“Senior Reporter”) appears to have completely vanished from Managing IP. Has he too left? They’ve lost a lot of writers in recent years and sites like them are producing articles/output at a capacity just half or third compared to a year ago. We even showed a three-quarter decrease compared to a year ago. It’s getting hard to find any real journalism about patents (we found one or two examples throughout the making of the video). Maybe we oughtn’t be shocked; we pointed out this trend a few years ago. The vacuum gets filled by shameless self-promotional webspam and misinformation from litigation profiteers. All the useful (also the useless) patent-centric blogs are rotting away. Patent Progress has been ‘off the radar’, Patently-O mostly keeps churning out propaganda for its patent maximalists (sponsors) or presents one “tweet” as complete article, and Watchtroll is attracting no comments. It’s trying to hide that (site redesign). And don’t blame social control media for it; that too is crumbling.
“Managing IP is apparently unable to find a single writer capable of covering or willing to cover the EPO scandals.”The video above starts by demonstrating lots of lies about UPC and lobbying disguised as “news”. There’s of course no mention of EPO strikes, industrial actions, and ILOAT rulings. Same as last week.
Managing IP is apparently unable to find a single writer capable of covering or willing to cover the EPO scandals. The writers are instead portraying — repeatedly in fact — the EPO’s management as ‘sticking it’ to Russian authoritarianism without bothering to point out the great irony and hypocrisy [1, 2]. Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos condemning Vladimir Putin’s forces merits a comedy routine/skit. And why? As we explained before, Battistelli and Campinos have waged a war on their own staff, censorship became normal (just to save face or hide actual facts), laws are rotuinely disregarded, and democracy is trampled upon.
“Patent Docs has now been reduced to almost no articles; it has more webspam than actual articles (like placements for “webinars”).”Towards the end of the video I show Patent Docs cheering for Microsoft Vidal to take over the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), just like in WIPO, citing front groups of patent aggressors like IBM. Stay classy, folks! Patent Docs has now been reduced to almost no articles; it has more webspam than actual articles (like placements for “webinars” of Watchtroll).
We don’t despair; if nobody out there is willing to write about EPO affairs, we’ll make up for the information vacuum. █