Bonum Certa Men Certa

The 'Results' That Battistelli and His EPO Bunch Brag About Not Believed by Patent Lawyers and Patent Examiners

Lance Armstrong
Improved performance the Lance Armstrong way? EPO?



Summary: The European Patent Office claims growth, quality and so on, but people who are working close to the system or inside the system are not believing it

THE European Patent Office (EPO) forms an alternate version of reality. It lies to the world, it misleads journalists, it talks nonsense (like so-called 'results' [1, 2]) to the Council (which is already growingly suspicious of these 'results'), and it even lies to its own staff.



Meldrew, a patent lawyer who comments a lot in IP Kat, wrote a rebuttal to these 'results' a year ago. To quote portions of his rebuttal:

[...] application numbers reflect not only the innovation within Europe

[...]

As a final point it is worth noting that the term “patent filings” used in previous press releases is now thoroughly discredited as a useful measurement of anything. Combining European applications made and PCT applications made has little relevance to demand for European patents, as is indicated by the ever declining proportion of PCT applications that enter the European regional phase [a further indication that Europe has to come to grips with its place in the world].

[...]

In an effort to improve transparency the EPO will henceforth cease using the misleading “patent filings” metric and instead will quote numbers that mean something.


Speaking to some attorneys (other than Meldrew and Joeri Beetz who is cited above), it seems clear that a lot of them know that the EPO isn't frank about its so-called 'results', to say the least. "I don't believe them either," told us one of them. "Nor do any of the EPO examiners. It's Battistelli bullshit. The figures are basically more or less static."

To quote further:

What's worse than turd-polishing the productivity figures is the EPO's indifference to (or possibly lack of understanding of) the quality of the EPO's output. EPO search and examination reports still look good superficially, but the analysis in them is just getting shallower and shallower. As a patent attorney, you can't simply believe what the examiner writes any more - you have to check everything in detail, and it's surprising how often they are wrong these days. That's when the examiner bothers to give any analysis at all, of course - it's more and more common for them simply to state that something is just standard knowledge for the skilled person, without giving any evidence or reasoning. This is all good for patent attorneys, because it makes more work for us, but the effect for the client is that they either have to pay much higher total costs or accept narrower patent protection. Both of these options represent a large increase in business costs for the client - all for a marginal gain in EPO "productivity".

Another bugbear of mine is the indifference to the practical needs of applicants. Nearly all major patent organisations have now made efforts to embrace the possibilities of modern technology and commerce. They accept online payments, they accept communications by email, they issue automated email alerts if a deadline is imminent. If you call them, they put you through to a human being who can answer your question immediately and intelligently. The EPO has done nothing to address these issues. You still can't pay fees online, the EPO will not provide priority documents electronically, they don't do anything official by email, if you call them, someone will call you back in a day or two. Espacenet has been neglected, with virtually zero improvement for a decade, to the point where Google Advanced Patents is now a superior searching and reference tool. Battistelli has been so focused on internal matters and "productivity", with his bizarre nineteenth century vision of industrial relations, that the EPO is slipping further and further behind the competition. The EPO even closes down entirely between Christmas and New Year, unlike most other patent offices in the civilised world. That's not for the applicants' benefit - that's pure administrative cost saving, and to hell with public service. It's worth noting that the French patent office, INPI, also only started making significant advances in customer-friendly online services once Battistelli had stepped down as director general. The sooner he stops messing about with the EPO's internal organs and starts focusing on the needs of applicants, the better.


We heard similar stories from an inventor in the UK. Satisfaction with the EPO's services seems to be low, but the EPO cites its friends at IAM to claim otherwise. We have some articles about that on their way (shelved for now).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft a Top Sponsor at Red Hat Summit (IBM Selling Proprietary Spyware and Back Doors in a "Red" Trench Coat)
They both work for Microsoft
New 'Interview' With - or Talk Coverage of - Richard Stallman in the European Union
automated English translation
Gemini Links 20/05/2025: LLM Scraper Bots in Gopher and "Starmer and the Somewheres"
Links for the day
 
Microsofters Targeting the Wife of the Critic of Microsoft
false claims and loaded statement
Links 20/05/2025: "Bankrupt 23andMe Just Sold Off All Your DNA Data" and "Free Speech Warriors" MIA
Links for the day
Openwashing of Windows, Back Doors, Persistent Surveillance, Keyloggers, Screen Loggers, DRM and So On
WSL is not "Linux", it's Windows
IBM Mass Redundancies Likely This Coming Thursday
We're not in a position to judge if that's true or false
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 19, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 19, 2025
Skype Fell Off a Cliff (Microsoft Killed It), All Microsoft Has Left Now is Slop and Spaghetti Code
"This isn’t about AI. This is a puppet show to drive stock prices up and down."
The Official SUSE Blog Uses LLM Slop to Compose Fake Articles Promoting Microsoft and Azure
even a little slop spoils the broth
Slopfarms (Machine-Generated Fake News Sites Authored by Bots With Slop Images) Spread GNU FUD
This isn't about Linux (GNU doesn't run just on Linux)
United States Federal Government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP): GNU/Linux Users Represent Close to 6% of Visitors This Year
How far has GNU/Linux gotten? Very far!
The "LLM Ouroboros of Shit" is Complemented by Even Worse Phenomena Caused by Microsoft's Contribution of SPAM and Pollution
Microsoft became a world leader in promotion of LLM slop
The LLM Ouroboros Phenomenon
Fact #1: over time slop gets worse (training set is like some blurry JPEG). Fact #2: People's "smell" for slop improves over time, as they 'train' on slop and can detect it based on prior encounters. Put 1 and 2 together.
Links 19/05/2025: Charges of Blackmailing Over Son Heung-min, Chad Opposition Leader Detained
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/05/2025: Ableism, Silicon Monkeys, and More
Links for the day
How We Defeated DDoS Attacks
One of the best things one can do is migrate to an SSG
Microsofters Issuing Threats to Microsoft Critics Who Blog About Microsoft
So far we see that their "legal strategy" revolves around trying to discredit people like Theodore Ts'o
Links 19/05/2025: Political Catchup and CISA Advisories
Links for the day
TheLayoff.com Has Begun Deleting Trolls/AstroTurfers Infesting the IBM Section to Discourage On-Topic Discussion About Culls and Maladministration (Bad Strategy)
Moderators have realised there's a problem
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 18, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Five Years on Gemini and Atom Feeds over Gopher
Links for the day
Links 18/05/2025: F.D.A. More Sceptical of COVID-19 Vaccines, UK Charges 3 Iranian Nationals In Alleged Attack Plot Against Journalists
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: "Finally Upgraded" and "Rebooting"
Links for the day
There Are Days or Occasions Where gemini:// Requests Almost Exceed http(s):// and Gemini Protocol Isn't Even 6 Yet
Gemini Protocol turns 6 one month from now
Abundance of Good Code, "Just Like Air."
Richard Stallman's seminal manifesto and foundational (practical) work on GNU gave us a very solid system that facilitates productive work without concerns over spyware
Messages in TheLayoff.com Drowned Out by LLM Slop (Comments Focused on Replying to Bot-Generated Provocation)
apparently shaking hands with nazis isn't as bad as calling your git repository's main branch "master"
The Importance of Full Disclosure and Transparency Online
there will be full transparency, as always
Slopwatch: Slopfarms and Serial Sloppers Still at It
Apparently Google is too understaffed to figure that out
Links 18/05/2025: Decreased Prospects of Science Careers, Disappearance of Journalists
Links for the day
Microsofters Have a Long History Trying to Take Down Techrights by Sending Threats to Webhosts
picking on women
Links 18/05/2025: Science, Censorship and European Commission Taking on Monopoly Abuse by Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Šibenik and SFJAZZ Historical Archive
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 17, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 17, 2025