Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Supported by the EPO's Applicants, So Why Is It Still There?



More translations (with more languages) available in the site of the EPO's union, SUEPO

EPO pathway
The European Patent Office in Munich. Experts criticise the practice of granting inventor protection.
Photo: dpa/Sven Hoppe



Summary: This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different ("Patente ohne Wert")

A BIT less than a week before the EPO wanted (or merely hoped) to open an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court, in violation of international conventions, some condemnation came from the German press. This project will destabilise the EU by discrediting the EU, so Germany's government needs to sober up and listen to the warning signs. EPO corruption is highly contagious and it has been left to flourish for over a decade already. Here's the latest of the batch from SUEPO:

Criticism of the European Patent Office Patents without value



Munich - To increase its revenues, the European Patent Office grants questionable patents, say critics. Transparency International sees structures that favour corruption.

By Thomas Magenheim-Hörmann

The example described by the Munich patent attorney makes it clear what is at stake. A pharmaceutical company developed a pill against infertility, had it protected at the European Patent Office (EPO) and invested in its marketing. Then a rival entered the market with an alleged plagiarism. The patent holder went to court and lost. The alleged imitator was able to show a US patent that Epa examiners had overlooked. This rendered their property right worthless. "In extreme cases, this can cause millions in damages," explains the patent attorney, who wishes to remain anonymous. He works for one of the largest patent law firms in Europe. Patenting for several countries alone consumes a six-figure sum, and many times that amount is invested in production in reliance on the patent.

There is a system of lame searches, the expert complains. Examiners are encouraged to grant more and more patents because they maximise the office's income. Quality research falls by the wayside. Michael Heisel puts the grievances even higher. "We see structural problems at the EPO that facilitate corruption," says the Bavarian head of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International.

39 countries represented in the Council

An element of this is the Epa Board of Directors, in which 39 European countries are represented and which is supposed to control the management of the office. But this is called into question by a conflict of interests, warns Heisel. On the one hand, the office takes over the patent examination for many countries. On the other hand

the states shares of the Office's income for granted patents. "The Administrative Council is not independent of the party being controlled, and that can't be good," Heisel criticises. Epa service instructions support this view. "Productivity has to improve, very soon, ... because productivity is the only thing that guarantees that our payroll will be paid on the 26th. of each month," writes an Epa director. The clarity of a patent is not a priority, the inventive step is not to be examined in depth, it continues. It is to be examined quickly, decided positively and recognised a lot, it means.

This practice is also a thorn in the side of Siemens patent chief Beat Weibel. His company is the largest German patent applicant and the initiator of an industry initiative with the abbreviation IPQC. 20 major international companies such as Siemens, Bayer and Nokia, but also smaller firms, have joined forces because they fear for effective patent protection. "We have nothing if patent examiners can't find the state of the art and can only do incomplete research due to internal time pressure," complains Weibel. Siemens has also had similar experiences with Epa patents. Representatives of IPQC and Office 2023 have met twice to discuss and resolve problems. But that already fails in terms of awareness. "The Office's management has denied that there are any quality deficiencies," says the Siemens expert regretfully. The Critics, meanwhile, remain silent. "We ask for your understanding that Epa does not wish to comment on this," a spokesperson explains succinctly when asked. Data speak a clear language.

For example, Siemens has documented an increase in the time spent on patent applications by one third in the last decade. At the same time, according to internal EPO statistics, the time available to examiners per patent search has almost halved. As a result, those who challenge patents are becoming more successful. From 2015 to 2021, the revocation rate climbed from 41 to 46 per cent, according to Siemens.

For 2022, a study by the Chair of Intellectual Property at the University of Osnabrück has determined a revocation rate of the Epa Board of Appeal of almost 50 percent. A further almost 40 percent of contested patents were marginally to substantially restricted. It is striking that not even one in ten revocations was based on documents that could not be found in the Epa patent database, the study authors write. In nine out of ten contested cases, the We need reliable patents, and examiners need enough time and experience for this," emphasises a patent expert from the Roche pharmaceutical company in Switzerland. He too is a member of th IPQC. Epa staff representatives support the accusations from industry and research. To the outside world, the management claims that everything is fine and plays down or completely ignores quality deficiencies, they explain. Only four out of five examiners who leave the office are replaced, despite an increase in work. "The Office must provide more examiners and more examination time," the Munich patent attorney also demands. A few years ago, several large patent law firms wrote an incendiary letter to the Office criticising the declining patent quality. This has been negated by the office. "Nothing happened," regrets the expert. Like Tranparency International, he sees the Epa Board of Directors as problematic. "There are States, for them this is a significant source of income," Weibel also criticises.

Patent trolls have also recognised this and use it for themselves. These are applicants who apply for protective rights for superficial patents, which are also granted if the examination is inadequate, explains Heisel. These patents then block competitors. "China in particular applies for a large number of patents, and if they are not carefully examined, this can deprive German companies of innovation opportunities," warns Heisel.

Patents: More and more applications from China

The European Patent Office, with its headquarters in Munich, is a supranational organisation and not an EU organisation. The management of the Office, under President Antonio Campinos, is controlled by the EPO Administrative Council. It is made up of representatives of the 39 European states that have acceded to the European Patent Convention. Germany is represented by a State Secretary for Justice. In particular, patent applications from China have been on the rise at the European Patent Office for years . In 2022, the increase on this basis was a good 15 percent to more than 19,000 requests for protection by Chinese inventors. mho


All of a sudden all those EPO photo ops with China don't quite look the same. And much can be said about the EPO doing so much business with Belarus (outsourcing parts of the EPO to Vladimir Putin's 'oblasts').

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Means of Production and Rusting Out
Links for the day
Links 04/09/2025: Science, Hardware, and Eyes on China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News