Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Still a Problem in Europe (in Spite of the European Patent Convention), the UPC Would Make Things Worse

Patents against Flickr



Summary: A reminder of the tough reality of patent scope in Europe, especially now that Battistelli embraces Chinese standards for patent quality (or lack thereof), in the name of perceived or faked "growth"

Team Battistelli has ruined the EPO and unless Battistelli and his cronies are ousted very soon, the damage may be irreversible. Already, as we noted over the weekend, the Office ignores the European Patent Convention (EPC) and disregards patent quality, so every day patents are being granted in error and there is no effective appeals process (understaffed and lacking capacity, afraid of Battistelli's next collective punishment).



Yesterday, Benjamin Henrion and another person [1, 2] spoke about the effect of just one single patent troll on Flickr (part of Yahoo!) in Germany. It's a software patent, so one might gasp and wonder how the heck it has any effect. In reality, Germany is the most software patents-friendly country in Europe, as we noted here in passing about 8 years ago and earlier this year.

"In reality, Germany is the most software patents-friendly country in Europe, as we noted here in passing about 8 years ago and earlier this year.""With Unitary Software Patents and German judges," Henrion added, "Europeans won't be able to upload their pictures to Flickr..." (because the effect of the lawsuits would be widely applicable, more than just EU-wide).

"Facepalm," wrote another person. "A patent troll is preventing German Flickr users to upload pictures from mobile apps. https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN26970.html"

They're a little late in realising this. It's rather old news (this was mentioned here before, two months ago), but it's always good for reminding people that software patents are still a problem in Europe.

This has no remedy in sight and Battistelli already crushes the appeals process, so the same case can happen at the EPO and there is no effective oversight to overrule it.

Very soon "attending oral proceedings before the boards will come with an extra average 3 hours journey," according to this new comment that says:

The site envisaged for the Boards of Appeal - Richard-Reitzner-Allee 8, 85540 Haar - is located at a 35 minutes ride from the airport, in theory. In reality, the trip uses one of the most crowded highway portions in Germany, including the A9 north of Munich and the peripheral highway A99 with its frequent traffic jams. Alternately and more ecologically, there is a connection via the regional trains S8 and S4 with a change at the Leuchtenbergring station. Considering that it lasts 1 hour and 15 minutes one way, with one connection every 20 minutes only, attending oral proceedings before the boards will come with an extra average 3 hours journey in the Munich commuter trains. A couple of rooms for oral proceedings mignt be enough, in the circumstances.


The threat of software patents in Europe is growing, whereas the USPTO goes in the opposite direction after the Supreme Court corrected decades of injustice. It's not as if Battistelli has any notion of justice; his understanding of the term is the same as Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan's.

Recent Techrights' Posts

What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
 
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
Links 04/07/2025: Google Replaces the Web With Slop, "AI Might Kill Us All"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: Mindfulness and F1
Links for the day
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day