Bonum Certa Men Certa

The European Patent Office is Googlebombing and Bamboozling the Public About Quality of European Patents

EPO's patent quality hogwash



Summary: The disastrous policies of Battistelli are rapidly becoming common knowledge across Europe and the entire world, so the EPO pretends that it's taking feedback into account and maintaining patent quality (a lie, as usual)

IF ONE searches for or looks up (e.g. on the Web) information about patent quality at the EPO, the search results are not exactly flattering. They are worrisome to potential applicants and mortifying to businesses that spent millions of Euros pursuing European Patents (EPs). The EPO's management is aware of it and right now, in a rather shallow effort to conceal the facts -- that Battistelli has essentially demolished quality control and reduced patent quality (EPs) -- it is using Orwellian language (warning: epo.org link), with old favourites such as "Early Certainty", i.e. telling people something about the outcome before actually properly examining the facts. Battistelli ruined the EPO and no doubt there are attempts to shift blame/pass liability to the staff below him, including examiners whom he constantly abuses, dismisses (based on his personal taste), and bullies against the law -- possibly an arrestable offense if he wasn't hiding under the table surrounded by bodyguards who are a total, utter waste of money.



Here is one part of the 'prose' (hogwash) which the EPO filed under "news" today:

The participants appreciated the highly visible results from Early Certainty from Search and welcomed the opportunity to hear more from the Office about how it will implement Early Certainty from Examination and Opposition. EPO representatives stressed the Office's determination to continuously improve quality levels.


Examiners across the board mock this policy, as they know it cannot accomplish what their job was intended to accomplish. It's all about speed, obviously compromising quality and thus doing a disservice to applicants.

"The danger to the EPO's future is very real and even existential."epi, which bemoaned the EPO's behaviour before its letter simply vanished, is today being cited by the EPO. This page about speeding up examination is cited and the EPO says "These are the flexible options offered by the EPO to help you shorten and/or speed up the grant process" (other than nepotism).

Put in simpler terms, there are ways to undermine the patent examination/application assessment process. How does that help the applicant? To be granted a patent in error (only to be thrown away by a court later) or to be denied a patent in error? You cannot use two women to deliver a baby in 4.5 months. You also cannot just deliver a baby after a few months and hope that an incubator will make up for the absence of a uterus, to use an awkward analogy. Battistelli's unreasonable expectations are revealing; he never studied issues pertaining to patents and he's not even qualified to do so. He has absolutely no background in science. He's just a right-wing politician like Donald Trump and he relies on "alternative facts" like "Early Certainty" in order to shape policy in a disastrous way.

"By that point, however, Battistelli will already have left the EPO -- left it all ruined but cynically recalling the "production" figures which he essentially faked by cheating."Stempeutics, by the way, based on today's announcement [1, 2], still believes EPs are worth enough to merit press releases. That's misguided, more so now than ever before.

The danger to the EPO's future is very real and even existential. The EPO under Battistelli won't attract many more applications; it's overpriced and the Office is incompetent (the management). The EPO is still living/surviving on the backlog; it's dealing with old applications, which are expected to run out some time next year, whereupon a lot of the examiners simply become redundant. By that point, however, Battistelli will already have left the EPO -- left it all ruined but cynically recalling the "production" figures which he essentially faked by cheating.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
 
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025