Bonum Certa Men Certa

Breaking the European Patent System With the UPC Hammer, Courtesy of the EPO and Lawyers-Centric 'News' Sites

Breaking what's clearly not broken to build something new which doesn't work for anything or anyone but billionaires

EPO Frame Breaking
When all else fails Battistelli characteristically uses a hammer



Summary: The latest overt pushes for the Unitary Patent, courtesy of biased (self-serving) media and the EPO's Michael Fröhlich, who joins Margot Fröhlinger with her Unified Patent Court (UPC) advocacy that conveniently waves off Brexit

THIS new article from Managing IP (MIP), a proponent of the UPC, is very optimistic about the UPC. It's hardly surprising given the site's track record. Even though recruitment of UPC judges has been called off the site speaks of the UPC as though it's some unstoppable gravy train which is also desirable. It's neither; the public does not want it (at least the few who understand what it does) and it seems to have been derailed -- quite fatally in fact -- following Britain's vote for Brexit.



"How can a continent with so many languages get along with the UPC? And now that the only large English-speaking member state may be out, why even have hearings and patents in English?""UK Prime Minister Theresa May rules out influence of the CJEU and authority of EU law in a post-Brexit Britain," MIP wrote, but "Labour party MPs demand answers from government regarding UK participation in the UPC and EPO" (we rebutted this spin before). MIP says "five more EU member states including Italy and Slovenia [are] expected to ratify the UPC Agreement early next year," but without Britain and especially with lingering uncertainty about its status in the EU the UPC won't get anywhere any time soon. Its death might not be "official" for several years to come, but it's not too hard to see where this is going.

How can a continent with so many languages get along with the UPC? And now that the only large English-speaking member state may be out, why even have hearings and patents in English? How would Spain feel about it? Battistelli may think (as he's a clueless nontechnical thug) that patent examination and accurate translations can be attained using algorithms, but he's wrong beyond words. Fools who think that automated translations are an excuse that can make patents go global (applicable everywhere) would have us believe that even patents in Mandarin (new MIP article about notoriously crappy patents from SIPO) would be legible in Latin/Greek-derived languages. At this stage we're actually entering the twilight zone, wherein totally idiotic people like Battistelli make big decisions that can undermine the whole of Europe. According to another new article from MIP and from IP watch [1, 2], there is a new AIPLA President and he is one who used to be involved in software patents and ITC cases (embargo at the behest of large corporations). WIPR, in the mean time, writes about AIPLA 2016 and quotes the EPO's Michael Fröhlich (another Battistelli and UPC "yes man", not to be confused with Margot Fröhlinger [1, 2, 3, 4]) who will say just about anything -- even lie -- in an effort to make the UPC seem inevitable. From the report:

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) and unitary patent will become a reality, with or without the UK, according to a senior official at the European Patent Office (EPO).

Michael Fröhlich, director of international legal affairs at the EPO, was speaking in a personal capacity at the American Intellectual Property Law Association’s (AIPLA) 2016 Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.

He said: “The issue of the Brexit vote is the last hurdle in what has been a hurdle chase since the beginning. There have been hurdles that have been higher than what Brexit has posed … and this last one will be taken successfully.”

Slovenia is about to become the 12th country to ratify the UPC Agreement in the coming days, with Italy expected to become the 13th, according to Fröhlich, speaking on Friday, October 28.

He added that Germany plans to finish the parliamentary ratification process by the end of year.


They have been saying this for a long time, yet it never actually happened. Last year Battistelli said that UPC would happen this year and it's already near December/Christmas. Progress made? Nothing. Even worse -- the UPC has gone backwards/in reverse, owing primarily to the UK. Always remember that the EPO's management is now living in (and accepting) Battistelli's fantasy land. The man is deluded, maybe clinically damaged. He will say anything to get his way, even breaking his very own rules, then look for scapegoats (especially when he does not get his way). Recall what he's rumoured to have attempted to do even to Roland Grossenbacher (behind his back). Nobody is safe from the paranoia and vengeance of Battistelli, not even old allies/friends like Grossenbacher. Battistelli turned the EPO's management into a dangerous cult.

"Always remember that the EPO's management is now living in (and accepting) Battistelli's fantasy land."Be wary and sceptical of all the UPC propaganda that's still abound. Here we have WIPR asking its choir (mostly patent law firms) about things that the choir would profit from. Nothing is said about the number of respondents and their nature, but this was used to generate misleading headlines about UPC, as usual ("Readers confident in UPC despite Brexit vote").

WIPR did the same thing regarding software patents in the US about a week ago. As we said at the time, that's like conducting a poll in Fox News about Donald Trump's chance of becoming President. They're asking an already self-selecting and biased population to reinforce an echo chamber's mentality/mindset (self-deluding/self-misleading, disconnected from reality).

Recent Techrights' Posts

People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
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
 
Gemini Links 08/05/2025: Practical Gemini Use Case, Shutdown of the Blanket Fort Webring
Links for the day
Links 08/05/2025: "Slop Presidency", US Government Defunds Public Broadcasting
Links for the day
Lasse Fister, Organiser of Libre Graphics Meeting, Points Out the Code of Conduct is Likely Violated by the Same People Who Promote Codes of Conduct (and Then Bully Him Into Cancelling a Keynote)
I am starting to see Lasse Fister as another victim
LLM Slop Attacks Not Only Sites of Free Software Projects But Also Bug Reporting Systems (Time-wasting, in Effect "DDoS")
Microsoft, the leading purveyor and promoter of slop, is a cancer
The Richard Stallman (RMS) "European Tour" Carries on In Spite of the Nuremberg Incident
Some people spoke about how they saw yesterday's talk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 07, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 07, 2025
The CoC Means the Founder of GNU/Linux Cannot Talk and a 72-Year-Old Man With Cancer is Somehow a "Safety" Risk?
Those who don't like RMS are not forced to attend his talks
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: A Shopping Spree and Digital Gardening
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: Pegasus Guilty and a Path Towards EU Without Russian Energy
Links for the day
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
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
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
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?"
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
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
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