Bonum Certa Men Certa

Failure of the EPO Can Derail the Trojan Horse of Software Patents and Patent Trolls

Benoit Battistelli



Summary: Dazzled by his endless pursuit of infinite money and power, Battistelli pushes for expansion of patent scope (geographically too), but he won't have it without a challenge

OUR recent posts about the EPO have had a profound impact and management of the EPO paid attention. We know this for a fact. Long-term readers of this site already know that we have a grudge not just because of abuses at the EPO but also a rogue agenda, which includes expansion of patent scope well beyond what is reasonable. The same goes for geographical expansion, transcending even Europe's borders (see yesterday's announcement titled "Morocco recognises European patents as national patents"). It's like the military industrial complex in the patent sense, seeking to create itself more business; instead of promoting fear of terrorism to make money from, the EPO is promoting fear of lack of "protection" (as in protectionism) and other such stuff. It's quite a coup d'état.



Several years ago we highlighted the possibility that Europe was opening its doors to patent trolls. A new report estimates that the U.S. economy lost $80 billion to patent troll lawsuits, so the last thing we need right now in the same in Europe. to quote the new report from a few days ago: "The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AH&LA), the sole national association representing all segments of the 1.8 million-employee lodging industry, today announced the formation of a coalition, United for Patent Reform. The broad-based coalition is designed to battle “patent trolls,” entities that use predatory legal tactics to sue for patent infringement. AH&LA is joined by a number of groups from the hospitality, retail, technology and construction-based industries, among others.

"This morning, the new coalition sent a letter to Leaders in Congress and Members of the Judiciary Committees in the U.S. House and Senate outlining the principles strong patent reform legislation should include. A copy of that letter is attached to this release."

"What Europe needs is sharing, not protectionism."In order to stop the plague of patent trolls, which usually use software patents, we need to keep the EPO in check. Like the military industrial complex, left unchecked it would expand infinitely and seek ways to justify this expansion, even to the point of costing trillions of dollars (in national debts, risking austerity everywhere). What Europe needs is sharing, not protectionism. The latter only serves few powerful corporations and makes them even stronger. It is a threat to democracy itself. Just watch the distribution of patents at the EPO; it doesn't serve the "little guy" (or gal) but the rich and powerful.

Linux-backing players are increasingly dominant, but they face patent risk and are trying to embrace patents to defend against those who hoard patents (e.g. Nortel's and Novell's) to damage or tax the competition's products, even in Europe where software patents are informally invalid. Nevertheless, EPO management, as corrupt as it has become, tries to legitimise software patents, e.g. with the unitary patent that we wrote about in past years. Here are some older articles of ours:



According to a new Unitary Patent analysis [PDF] from Ingve, an attorney at law from Düsseldorf (Germany), the recent chaos at the EPO may play a considerable role. Ingve is practicing in the area of patent litigation and he regularly writes about the Unitary Patent, so he should know. "I follow closely your blog posts," he wrote, "on the developments at the EPO."

"I thought you might find it interesting," he wrote to us, "keep up your good work!"

Even those who are in the patent business seek to stop the 'patent industrial complex' where they see it as threatening to the legitimacy of the EPO. Battistelli is extremely unpopular in many quarters, even among his staff, stakeholders, and fellow Frenchmen.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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
Links 02/06/2025: Political Leftovers, DRM, and Patents
Links for the day
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
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part II: Lying to the IRS is a Big Issue
The OSI of today pretends to be something that it is not
Bloodlust and Love of Blades (Fascination With Murder) Nothing New Among Microsofters
Violence is not a joke and no group is magically entitled to make such "jokes"
Links 01/06/2025: Bird Flu, Food Price Inflation, and Growing US-China Hostilities
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: "Vibe Coding" Turns Out to be a Fraud and Amazon Merits Boycott, Argue Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: "Stardust" and Ideal PC Setup
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025