Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Celebrates Software Patents Again, Dubbing Them 'Hey Hi' (AI) and '4IR'

Video download link | md5sum 626e5d157b9303c3eacb5b3f87c31f40 EPO Not Worth It Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: The ludicrous state of the EPO is demonstrated by yesterday's puff piece about "four million" (merely requests for monopoly in Europe; most come from outside Europe) and L'Oréal, which claims to have "invented" something that was already done in the 1990s if not the 1980s

THE EPO's tyranny has taken its toll. The quality of patents being granted -- as per "targets" -- is really bad, many of these are invalid software patents, and António Campinos -- clueless in almost every domain -- name-drops buzzwords, just like his predecessor, friend, and appointer Benoît Battistelli. Campinos described himself as a "nomad" this year; in a sense he's correct, having leaped from banking to trademarks and even to patents, despite a total lack of experience. Like Battistelli, he's a jack of no trades and master of nothing. He is a successful imposter.



"Not only does the EPO boast and brag about attracting a pile of rubbish; it also rubberstamps a lot of this rubbish."Europe will pay the cost for this nepotism and kakistocracy. In the video above I explain the latest spin or twist on software patents. I also explain what that means to prices of products, having just noticed this L'Oréal puff piece (warning: epo.org link). Very simple face recognition -- or even crude analysis of tones -- gets spun as "Hey Hi" (AI) and in turn the meaningless junk, "4IR", citing the pseudoscience called "economics". This is what a press release looks like when complete fools with no background in science write it, celebrating numbers rather than actual science or something truly meaningful.

Today, the European Publication Server reached a new milestone as the EPO published EP 4 000 000. The application from L'Oréal, one of the top ten French applicants in the 2021 Patent Index, concerns an image recognition method in which artificial intelligence (AI) is trained to recognise skin tone, helping customers match their skin tone to cosmetic products.

EP 4 000 000 is just one of a growing number of applications involving fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies, a trend observed in several EPO Chief Economist Unit studies. Over the past decade, 4IR innovation such as AI has also spread into domains that are not traditionally regarded as digital, for example, the cosmetics sector.


So now the EPO wants to give software patent to the "cosmetics sector"; aside from the fact that there's ample prior art, this is in effect mathematics or the branch of statistics. But this one gets slanted as "cosmetics", so we're meant to think it's innovative and unprecedented, just like hundreds of thousands of US patents covering something "in a car" or "over the Internet" or "using a phone".

What L'Oréal claims to have 'innovated' has lots of prior art, going back to the time I was a kid. Back then computational resources were more limited and colour depth was lower, often requiring alternative (highly specialised) output devices if not printing (plotting/blending). Not only does the EPO boast and brag about attracting a pile of rubbish; it also rubberstamps a lot of this rubbish.

Recent Techrights' Posts

New Video Report About Microsoft Cancelling Multi-Billion Dollar Projects
direct link to the video
Microsoft is Already Laying Off Lots of Contractors
cost-cutting at Microsoft takes a new "edge"
Coming Soon: Microsoft Fake Results, Mass Layoffs, and Silence About All the People Microsoft Pressured to "Quit" (So That They Don't Get Counted as Layoffs)
there will be more mass layoffs
Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
 
Google Spreading Misinformation and Lies
Google is in the propaganda business
statCounter: GNU/Linux Adoption Surging in Switzerland, Windows at All-time Low
What happened?
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Free Speech and Perfectionism in Design
Links for the day
What Fake News Looks Like (IBM)
IBM told a lie. The media then just blindly repeated this lie.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 28, 2025
China is Already Culling GAFAM (Not Just Microsoft Windows)
OS monoculture or "OS hegemony" may be coming to an end
The "Telephone Operating System in the Vatican" is 95 Years Old, Vatican Moved to GNU/Linux
Maybe Microsoft is down to zero already
If Tesla Shares (and Alleged Value) Fell 55% (From $489 to $222) in a Few Months Maybe It's Not Worth Anything At All (It's Just Gambling)
Tesla swasticars have turned from a "status symbol" into a "public embarrassment" and cause for casual humiliation
Chromebooks' Adoption in Sweden No Longer Depends on Schools
School breaks are when classrooms are shut
No, IBM is Not Investing $150 Billion in the US and It Doesn't Even Have That Kind of Money
Here we go again... media as a vehicle of lobbying and misinformation
Leak: The EPO's General Consultative Committee (GCC) Does Not Consult Staff on Crucial Matters and Bypasses the Administrative Council (AC) to Do Illegal Things
violations against the EPO's very staff
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025