Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Long EPO Queue for European SMEs That Cannot Hop Like Multinational Corporations

No patent neutrality at the 'European' Patent Office (EPO), which is actually international(ist) and formally detached from the European Union

Queue



Summary: “My perception,” says an inventor who dealt with the EPO for years (and spent as much as a house's worth doing so), “is that they [EPO] only like dealing with corporations and their lawyers”

THIS year's coverage of the EPO will naturally (as promised) show how the EPO discriminates against Europeans. This would only get worse if the UPC ever became a reality -- an ambition that Team Battistelli hopes will exacerbate things further (better for multinationals at the expense of everybody else). The point we hope to express and to get across to everyone is that patent applicants too, especially 'small' ones and definitely European ones, are not treated fairly. In turn, this also threatens the careers of European patent lawyers, so they too should be up in arms.

One patent applicant, a person who saw firsthand how the EPO mistreats European SMEs, has sent us the following observations which readers may find interesting. As this person put it last night, "I am not a patent attorney, just an inventor simply battling an impregnable system."

Here is the list of what this person called "Generic Problems":

1. Repeated Process

Why do we have a two-stage process? One first has to get a country patent and then one has to repeat the process at the European level. Some countries' patent offices may not meet an acceptable grade, but surely patent offices could be accredited and then the granting by one country office is accepted over the entire EU. People should be free to apply at whichever country's patent office that they wanted. An accreditation process for patent offices would be much cheaper than every inventor having to undertake the process twice. In any event, patent challenges would soon show which patent offices were effective. Engendering competition between patent offices maybe no bad thing.

2. Delay

Looking at recent experiences, response times from the EPO have varied from 77 to 193 days! Response times obviously will vary by complexity, but surely we should be able to expect a response within 2 or 4 weeks. There seems to be no mechanism that one can call on to get a response when matters drag. There needs to be some legal penalty. I equate my patent value loss at between 30% to 100%. This is a loss of economic value from the patent and does not include the many costs incurred in trying to secure a patent. For many, delay will mean the death of their patent hopes. I can’t help but wonder how many patents have been wrongly rejected. Personally I have received many improper rejections. There should be a monitoring process to ward against this type of problem and feedback from all rejected applications. So a record to processing time on each application, average times on applications, basis and number of rejections etc.

3. Complexity

There needs to be structure and patents law is complicated. However, the process needs to be intelligible to the average inventor and explanations should be in plain language. Codes should be used to elucidate and not bamboozle. With two master (both with distinctions) I think it should be reasonably easy for me to understand both process and documents; this hasn’t been my experience. Whilst the process needs to be rigorous it also needs to be somewhat supportive or good inventions will get lost. There should be some obligation and some incentive to help. Currently the system is designed by lawyers, operated by lawyers and financed by poor inventors paying their legal fees. What incentive is there on the patent office to simplify matters? I initially had lawyers acting for me, until funds (circa €£60k) ran out. Dealing with matters personally I found the EPO unhelpful and on complaint they suggested I employ a lawyer. My lawyers also found the EPO’s examiner difficult. My perception is that they only like dealing with corporations and their lawyers. Certainly my experience as regards oral hearings (just cancel your flight when time constraints applied) showed no understanding of cost pressures on a single individual. Likewise calling a second oral hearing seemed wholly unnecessary and clearly the EPO seemed to expect me to cancel my honeymoon to attend.

4. Accountability and Recourse

There does not seem to be any system of accountability arising from delay or error. In fact the examiner is more like a demigod who cannot be challenged or held to account. By way of example they can infer something from a document which could be helpful or could be damaging. Such inferences that a document implies something or what might be general understood by someone steeped in the art of the invention needs to be capable of independent challenge without having to resort, in the first instance at least, to the courts (a second independent opinion). My experience is that a troublesome examiner can simply sit on his hands whilst the value of your invention evaporates or your costs spiral.

Perhaps the current fee structure should be replaced by a percentage on profits arising from patent protection. There needs to be either a legal requirement or some encouragement to move expeditiously and grant where possible whilst simultaneously having penalties for failure. In my case I would like recourse due to delay, issues being dealt with repeatedly, false statement as regard prior art or one’s own invention.

5. Communication

Hard as it may be to believe, but the EPO officially doesn’t communicate by email. You can do electronic communication by fax, otherwise it is post. I fail to see the logic especially when most lawyers communicate by email these days. In reality some in the organisation will communicate by email, but this seems to depend on their mood. Whilst things need to be documented, understanding and agreement would be facilitated enormously by using the phone or teleconferencing. This would save time and money and lead to a happier working relationship between inventor and EPO. Oral hearings should be recorded and sidebars (excluding the applicant from the room should be discouraged). The recording I made of my oral hearing has been invaluable as the minutes are completely inadequate. In the current hiatus they also prove the examiners' deception and other false statements. Frankly not taping proceedings I think leaves anyone as a possible hostage to fortune, the EPO included. The oral hearing process should also allow for a period of reflection after the event in common with many other legal/contractual situations.

6. Language

My examiner is [redacted] and whilst his language is reasonable, it is not at the level I believe is needed. So by way of example I had communications saying things should be in written, which after several months was corrected to they need to be by fax or mail (not email). Legal matters are complicated enough without having to add further complexity. Speaking legal is bad enough, patent legal even worse but then patent legal with sentences structured by a [redacted] in his OK but not fluent English is not helpful. For my oral hearing, held in English, not one of the three man panel had English as their first language. Surely the examiner’s mother tongue should be the language of the application or applicant and at a hearing at least one panel member the same tongue as the applicant.

7. Complaints Process

Complaining is difficult. It is not only extremely time consuming but it makes for a very difficult dynamic. Firstly it impacts on the relationship you have with your examiner. It is easily within the capabilities of an aggrieved examiner to delay of through up obstacles and/or objections. Secondly a complaint about an examiner may reflect badly on his manager. Thirdly any complaint also impacts internal relationships between colleagues and hierarchy. At the very least there should be a separate department that looks at complaints and ideally an independent process. The response to my second complaint has been so blanket and summary to the extent it contradicts the findings of the first complaint. If the EPO were customer-focused, they would have a customer complaints department which tried to ascertain and ameliorate any problems. They would be in touch with customers seeking to keep them happy. Confusingly complaints are split between process and examination division. Not only are the responses and interactions impersonal (i.e. you are not consulted and no sense that they either understand or appreciate your grief) you get the classic response so associated with large bureaucracies.

The complaints process should be open, publicly recorded and open to evaluation. This way underlying problems can be exposed and then addressed. At the same time there needs to be an acceptance that failure can and does happen everywhere.

Then there are "Global Issues", which are as follows:
  1. As a knowledge economy innovation and by corollary patent protection is extremely important. This, however, clearly is being contrasted with first mover advantage. For many the patenting process is so slow, uncertain and expensive that it is not bothered with. Personally I wish I had never started on the process. To be effective the process as detailed needs to be timely. The time taken to secure a patent perhaps should be added to the period of patent protection, i.e. you get X years from grant.


  2. Recently the law changed for ‘artistic’ patents to I believe 50 years and rights even extend beyond death. I fail to see why artistic inventions should receive a longer period or put another way why technical inventions should have any lesser protection. It would benefit the UK if patent life was similarly increased in line with artistic rights. In respect of pharmaceuticals this and point 1 would enable drug costs to fall as development costs could be amortised over a longer period.


It is worth noting that SUEPO has expressed concerns about some of the above. Also, the UPC would serve to exacerbate things, e.g. by weakening the independent boards that typically deal with appeals (this relates to point (7) above).

Recent Techrights' Posts

They Want Activists to Just Barely Walk and Eat, Not Do Activism Anymore
It's sort of like the ending of '1984'
Non-Free JavaScript Programs in Banks Aren't Even the Biggest Problem
Technology was supposed to make life easier; in practice, however, for most of us the opposite effect can be observed
Microsoft, Already Borrowing 3 Billion Dollars a Month, is Trying to Cause Many People to Resign
MSN (i.e. Microsoft) and others openly admit it
IBM is Obliterating Fedora
"Fedora releases were shipping with an increasing number of bugs on launch day even while I was using it for a several year stretch."
Red Hat Layoffs Expected in 5 Days (Monday)
"They will announce and proceed with the cuts on 08/11."
 
Links 07/08/2025: Apple Makes False Promises, More Trouble for Microsoft
Links for the day
OSS Didn't Always Mean Open Source Software
"oligarchs all the way down"
The Register MS Does More Microsoft Sez or GitHub Sez (Says) Pieces
60 minutes ago
Quit Perpetuating the Narrative of Gemini Protocol 'Dying' (It's False)
The "whisper campaign" against Gemini Protocol
Criticising Social Control Media in Social Control Media
Many people are quitting Social Control Media (fewer of them announce this in public)
Slopfarms Are Typically Fake News
Slopfarms typically relay falsehoods
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: Replacing a Pocket Watch and Buying in Bulk
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 06, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 06, 2025
August Hits Microsoft Hard: Dead Divisions, Dead Products, Layoffs Again (on Week 1)
Microsoft's debt is soaring
Slopwatch: Slow Day for LLM Slop, Serial Sloppers Still at It in Their Slopfarms
The Web would be better off if those sites went offline
Links 06/08/2025: Substack in Trouble, Slop Sceptic Shira Perlmutter Seeks Emergency Injunction Pending Appeal
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: Pinephone, Reverse-Engineering, and More
Links for the day
Links 06/08/2025: Faked Values of Slop Companies and Government Bailouts
Links for the day
FOSSY 2025 Conference Safety
The GAFAM-funded FOSSY 2025 is over
Microsoft's Favourite Pay-to-Say 'Analyst' Firm Has Just Collapsed
'Analysts' that helped propel Microsoft to fictional values akin to Ponzi schemes
Ask Google (Jeeves)
What does Google "know", not know, or would rather forget (or embellish)?
They Want You To Talk About Trump or 'The Other Bill' in Relation to Trafficking of Underage Girls for Sexual Exploitation
Just something we wanted to say...
How to Quadruple Your "Goodwill" Value and Grow Your (Wall) Street "Value" From $152B to $4000B Without Producing a Single Successful Product/Service
The longer it goes on for, the bigger the implosion will be
Staying Productive
Two very reputable institutions recently told us they now reckon Microsoft is somehow funding those SLAPPs against us
A Blow for Patent Ambitions of Bill Epsteingate
It's about money
66 Countries Where More People Use iPhones (or iPads) Than Microsoft Windows, According to statCounter Data
a list of countries where iOS now exceeds Windows
Apple's iOS Bigger Than Microsoft Windows in Many Countries
This ought to alarm Microsoft
The Mainstream Media Talks About Spotify Share Price and Price Hikes, Not Its Debt Increasing by About 33% in Just 12 Months
Spotify isn't a company in good shape
New "US Editor for The Register" is 80% Microsoft and Windows
they typically just treat Microsoft like the "Holy Grail" of "IT"
Microsoft is Apparently Sending Gag Orders or NDAs to Staff That Got Laid Off (“We were told not to post on LinkedIn. Not to say anything.”)
The main lies we keep seeing
Richard M. Stallman Has Published AI Memos Since 1980 (45 Years Ago)
Back when the term AI actually meant something
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: BitTorrent and Feedly Bots
Links for the day
Windows All-Time Lows, Android All-Time Highs in Kuwait
New lows for Windows can be found in many countries this month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 05, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 05, 2025
Openwashing Slop... Using Slop!
So get ready for "open" "hey hi" with its proprietary models to engage in openwashing, helped by serial sloppers who use the LLMs to produce fake 'articles'.
On "Tragedy of the Commons in the Production of Digital Artifacts"
There's a better way to do things. None of that should involve GAFAM.
Gemini Links 05/08/2025: Opel Zoo near Frankfurt and Alhena 5.2.5
Links for the day
The Inflammatory Influence of Social Control Media Giants
CPC's ByteDance says it's cool
Microsoft v Planet Earth
Is Microsoft profitable?
IRC Turns 37
Internet Relay Chat (short: IRC), which started in 1988, turns 37 this month
Shortly After a Microsofter Took Over The Register as Editor in Chief Microsoft Tim (Tim Anderson) is Back and It's Still Microsoft Propaganda, Sometimes Funded by Microsoft
Notice his focus
Stricter Enforcement of Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act is Sorely Needed
Who's keeping track anyway?
Calling Plagiarism "Intelligence" is Pure Genius, Brilliance!
One thing to "like" (or dislike) about LLMs is how they're falsely marketed using various buzzwords
Geminispace Promises Simplicity But Also Provides a "bunch of forums that get flood-filled by agitation against the very essence of Gemini itself"
claims of stagnation in Geminispace started because of a person who spent a long time agitating against GNU/Linux as well
Zimbabweans Aren't Into Windows or Microsoft
This cannot be good news for GAFAM
Microsoft's Washington Layoffs Aren't Everything, They're Definitely Not Happening in Just One State in the US
Washington is just more strict with WARN notices
Gemini Links 05/08/2025: Lagrange v1.18.6, No Stagnation in Geminispace, and Fake Coding (Slop)
Links for the day
The Register's Editor in Chief (Who Left for Google) Told Me "AI" Was a Bubble, But Now The Register Gets Paid to Participate in Inflating This Bubble
A lot of the online media is a scam
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Some Cola Formulas Aren't Secret, But the Barrier is the Branding
That's the power of the channel/distribution, marketing, and brand recognition (accomplished through endless marketing)
Introducing Mission:Libre and FreeXR (and BreakXR)
efforts that accompany the foundations put there by the Free Software Foundation in 1985
Slopwatch: WebProNews, LinuxSecurity, and Some Success Stories
Google News still has a slopfarm issue
Links 05/08/2025: Hey Hi (AI) Passing Fads and GAFAM "Embracing the Military"
Links for the day
Links 05/08/2025: Samsung and Microsoft Layoffs
Links for the day
Rumours of Mass Layoffs at Red Hat Next Week (August 11th, 2025)
The eleventh means next Monday
IBM is Shutting Down (Piecewise)
IBM is basically being liquidated
The Debian Language Police Department (PD)
"there has never been complaints about anyone that was offended by this -off package"
Tesla's Debt More Than Doubled in 2 Years and the Company Will Operate in the Red (at a Loss) Quite Soon
If your first-quarter net income is $409 million and you borrow billions from banks, plus interest to pay on those loans, then you're not far from returning to losses
When The Register MS Says "Linux Backdoor" It Actually Talks About Malware
The leading story in The Register US/MS this morning is Microsoft
Microsoft Windows Fell to 19% "Market Share" in Montenegro
Microsoft must be well aware of this trend
Why We Also Include Gopher Links in Our Gemini (Protocol) Links
There are still many people who use Gopher to relay their messages (like blog posts). They're mostly technical people.
Shouting is an Indication of a Lack of Convincing Argument
Beware what they are attempting to distract from
Mongolia: Microsoft Windows at All-Time Low
in 2009 when Windows was at 99.45% in Mongolia the company was "worth" less than 200 billion dollars
About a Quarter of Today's "linux" News in Google News Came From One Domain and It's a Slopfarm
Not kidding!
Gemini Links 05/08/2025: Zombie Threat and Switching to NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 04, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 04, 2025
ChatGPT in Trouble
Watch out for the newer buzzwords
The Register MS Links to the Wrong statCounter Page
They link to older data
Dr. Andy Farnell Explains How Google Turned From "Librarian" Into "Oracle", Telling Us What to Think Instead of Where to Look
Google was always a lousy librarian
Microsoft Layoffs Continue in August 2025
If Microsoft is doing so well, how come about 10 rounds of layoffs in about 7 months in 2025?