Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Techrights is Nowadays Focused on the EPO and UPC (Unitary Patent)

"People naively say to me, "If your program is innovative, then won't you get the patent?" This question assumes that one product goes with one patent." —Richard Stallman



Summary: Answering a commonly- and frequently-asked question, going along the lines of, "why is Techrights so eager to help EPO employees?" or "why is it so passionately against the UPC?"

A LOT can be said about the variety of topics we have dealt with over the years. There is an extensive record on the Web about it (nosy people can check our track record). I myself am a reasonably modest software developer, a proponent of Free/libre software, and various aspects that accompany that, e.g. privacy and autonomy. In order to operate freely and creatively (lawyers like to use buzzwords like "innovative") developers require collaboration with peers and outsiders. We mix and match a lot of code and ensure that things rapidly improve, for collective benefit to society. I work a lot for the public sector in the UK, for example the NHS, the Ombudsman, and London's Town Hall (GLA). I'd like to think of myself as one who works for society at large, not pursuing money but instead public services and ethics. I don't think people out there can dispute that, as I never developed proprietary software and virtually everything that I use is Free/libre software. My wife and I contribute the little that we have to charities and we don't make any money from our sites; we actually lose money, but it's an idealogical endeavor. We generally promote greater collaboration among people, especially in the software sense.



"In order to operate freely and creatively (lawyers like to use buzzwords like "innovative") developers require collaboration with peers and outsiders."Right now we feel encouraged by the fact that the US is gradually burying software patents. It's a much-welcomed (by developers) milestone. A decade ago it seemed unthinkable that the USPTO and US courts like the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) and US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) would demolish software patents. But as we shall show later in the weekend, that is just what is happening, still. At the same time, much to our regret, the EPO does the opposite and EPO management is lobbying very hard to expand both patent scope and the sovereignty of EPs (in the enforcement sense) to the whole of the EU. This would, if the UPC ever became a reality, mean that software patents too (these are constantly being granted these days, EPO insiders tell us) become applicable EU-wide.

A decade ago in the UK -- up to around 2008 to be precise -- Nokia or Symbian (before it was Nokia's) fought for software patents in the UK (famous UK-IPO case which we covered many times before). The UPC would essentially mean British software patents from the back doors, putting at risk a lot of British software companies (there are plenty and they are small and typically vulnerable).

"The site is very specifically against software patents, and occasionally it also mentions ethical issues associated with patents on life or patents that limit humanity's ability to save lives."The other day we posted here a press release that we had co-authored with FFII (see FFII's mirror and the original). We wish to warn about what UPC in the UK would entail -- a subject we shall explore in greater depth later this weekend.

I was never trained or educated to understand patents (and software patents) but to code. I was never interested in patents, but I had to study these through extensive reading, over the past decade or more, out of necessity. A lot of software developers openly berate software patents (they just want copyright on their code), but are not so passionate or active about it until some patent troll hits them (sometimes they lose their job as a result).

There have been some malicious rumours about the motivations of Techrights, so let it be clarified that the site is not against patents. It never was. The site is very specifically against software patents, and occasionally it also mentions ethical issues associated with patents on life or patents that limit humanity's ability to save lives.

"What we are hoping to accomplish is patent sanity, justice, and advancement of Europe's interests."The outline for weekend's posts is based on our perceived urgency/priorities. We shall start by dealing with EPO abuses, then publish many articles on UPC 'progress' (lack thereof), then some unpleasant (to Battistelli et al) surprises, which we unfortunately have not had enough time to cover. We have literally dozens if not over a hundred of posts in the making, either as drafts or concepts (which we never got around to turning into drafts).

What we are hoping to accomplish is patent sanity, justice, and advancement of Europe's interests. We are not trying to undermine anything but a self-serving element which is against democracy, against justice, and against patent sanity (typically patent maximalism for personal gain).

We are not the bad guys. We are only the "bad guys" to bad people.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete