Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Bureaucratic Nonsense That Came Out of Benoît Battistelli and Jesper Kongstad at EPOPIC

Saying what the audience wants to hear, but not what's objectively true

Benoît Battistelli at EPOPIC
Benoît Battistelli at EPOPIC, photo via Otto Scharff



Summary: Analysis and breakdown of some of the statements made by the EPO's President and his friend from the Administrative Council

THE first day of the 25th EPOPIC (the EPO's own vanity platform) is definitely over and the keynote talks of Battistelli and Kongstad have been documented, to some degree, online (we don't know yet if videos too will surface or have already surfaced). To Kongstad's great convenience, it took place in Copenhagen, Denmark. According to the EPO's official Twitter account, "~400 participants from over 45 countries" attended this event.



Battistelli is quoted by his most obedient workers (PR/communication) as saying: "Quality is the backbone of the patent system" (how ironic).

"Given the increasing abundance of patents on life and software patents in Europe, how can these two people boast quality?"Quoting Battistelli, based on this: "We may be the best patent office when it comes to quality, but we are also the most expensive" (it was the best patent office before Battistelli came in perhaps, if not Brimelow too).

Jesper Kongstad too is quoted or paraphrased as saying: "Quality is at the centre of our minds when it comes to examination and searching activities" (every patent office would say this).

Given the increasing abundance of patents on life and software patents in Europe, how can these two people boast quality? It's under their management that the quality is being so rapidly compromised.

Battistelli is quoted (or paraphrased) by his PR/communication people as saying that EPO has "been able to significantly increase our efficiency & quality. This year we expect ~12% increase in our production" (production of what? This isn't production, it's the granting of monopolies).

"Battistelli wishes to just increase the number of patents, irrespective/regardless of quality."Using production line terminology, Battistelli shows just how misguided his strategy really is. Battistelli wishes to just increase the number of patents, irrespective/regardless of quality. Unless society somehow (overnight of over the course of a year) became 12% more innovative, the only way to interpret these numbers, efficiency aside, is that it became easier to pass quality tests (diminished quality control can be the result of overworked and rushed staff). In other words, the threshold for acceptance was lowered at the EPO. In the USPTO it's estimated that 92% of applications are "successful" and the overall number of patents is huge. It's not even manageable. Is this what Battistelli gradually mimics? Is this a yardstick for "success"?

The current management is lowering the quality and cheapening the value of patents (not cost) while fast-tracking massive amounts of patents for large, aggressive corporations like Microsoft. With increased pressure on staff, don't expect examiners to properly examine prior art. It's becoming a rubber-stamping operation, influenced by or run at the behest of large corporations.

Battistelli is paraphrased as saying: "The Unitary Patent is a huge improvement of the European patent system and facilitates access mainly for the SMEs" (again ironic if not outright foolish a statement, putting aside his unacceptable intervention in politics).

Based on leaked documents, SMEs are discriminated against. Kongstad, who is close to Battistelli (this has been the cause for protests by much of the staff), has done nothing to end this. He won't even assist outside/independent investigations. According to this, Jesper Kongstad said that "big players on the market have understood that we need to suport [sic] SMEs to benefit from the IP assets."

"It's not not all that lucrative for patent examiners (not in the long terms) and definitely not for European citizens, even small European businesses."Well, obviously then they're doing something wrong when they create a fast track/lane for larger (and better off) corporations, even non-European ones. This hurts SMEs the most.

"Our patent information system is focused on: quality, completeness, usability, timeliness and correctness," the EPO paraphrases Battistelli.

Well, that's just not correct; not anymore, for sure.

Make no mistake. Battistelli still has fans like IP Australia (patent lawyers), to whom patent maximalism must seem like a business opportunity (more applications for more clients means more income for them). It's not not all that lucrative for patent examiners (not in the long terms) and definitely not for European citizens, even small European businesses.

Finally, a lesson for EPO Webmasters: if you are going to display embedded content from Twitter, make sure it's guaranteed to be under your control, not Twitter's control. The screenshot below is from the EPO's own Web site. It's just a shame that these links would be blocked if clicked from within the EPO...

EPOPIC site

Recent Techrights' Posts

Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025