Bonum Certa Men Certa

Incredibly Unscientific: EPO is Making up Excuses for Decline in Patent Applications

China's growth in patents is superficial and misleading; In Europe there is negative growth, but 'infographics' like the one below try to paint the opposite picture

Poland missing
Poland missing from the map as it's part of what the EPO is trying hard to hide



Summary: The European Patent Office continues to insult nations and also insult science, essentially by spreading lies and deleting from the map particular nations in order to legitimise these lies

WE have decided to leave aside USPTO articles until the weekend because the frequency of lies from the EPO is increasing again and if these lies are not confronted with facts there is risk that even some EPO employees will believe them.



We previously explained that application numbers at the EPO are declining in Europe. Prior to that we showed how the EPO had been lying. See for example the following:



2 days ago we wrote about unscientific (if not antiscientific) and rather offensive maps from the EPO, serving as a sort of propaganda or misinfographics for the lazy. They have already mentioned Belgium (highest growth), so now it's Italy's turn (second highest), as the screenshot of this tweet (above) shows. In spite of criticism, knowing that they are being bashed for it, the EPO's PR team has decided to tweet, yet again, this offensive, antiscientific map. Later they wrote: "Patent applications from Poland dropped after increases in 2015" (screenshot above, as they recently removed such tweets and we caught the deletion).

"Has the EPO removed Poland from the map just for king Battistelli and his desperate need for brainwash throughout this week? Is Poland no longer part of Europe?"Notice how, for obvious reasons, they are not even showing the map because Poland was conveniently removed from it! Has the EPO removed Poland from the map just for king Battistelli and his desperate need for brainwash throughout this week? Is Poland no longer part of Europe? Mind the fact that they also make excuses for this decline, as if to say, "yes, it's down, but it's actually up!"

This is the kind of "alternative facts" that we are seeing more and more of, courtesy of an Office that has become a disgrace to science itself.

Where is the EPO seen as a growth opportunity? The land of patent gold rush, where patent quality thresholds/barriers are so low that last year alone there were over a million patent applications (at SIPO). We have been writing a lot about it, irrespective of our EPO coverage. See yesterday's article "Brighter prospects for business method and software related patents in China" (alternative headline: SIPO lowers quality of Chinese patents to zero).

"WIPO does not want to tell the full story, but the devil is in the detail."At the EPO, the only region of growth is China (US demand for EPs is down very sharply). But then again, the same is true for other patent offices across the world. It's not just an EPO phenomenon, it's a Chinese phenomenon. According to Korean media (e.g. the Korea Herald, which is published in English), patent lawsuits are totally out of control in China, exactly as we predicted (it's up 37% in just a short period of time). China is now destroying its own leadership and wrecks its own industry with litigation, making only a bunch of law firms richer. They didn't learn from the mistakes of the US, did they? Another Korean publication stresses the ramifications for Korean companies operating in China. The patent maximalism encouraged by SIPO is destructive and suicidal (in the commercial sense). This is why companies won't want to operate in China, or will be reluctant to expand to China. According to a lot of reports from yesterday [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], patents are down except in China (with few exceptions here and there). WIPO does not want to tell the full story, but the devil is in the detail. WIPO wrote: "International #patent applications grow by 7.3% to a record 233,000 in 2016: http://ow.ly/l87S309VSfu"

Francisco Moreno looked at the underlying figures and wrote (in Spanish, but obvious to non-Spanish speakers):

Solicitudes internacionales de patente (PCT) en 2016: Totales 233.000 +7,3% *de origen chino: 43168 +45% *de origen español: 1503 -1,7%


WIPO does not show this breakdown to a wider audience. No word about the role played by China (+45%) just patenting everything under the Sun. Spain (-1.7%) is absent from the EPO's map, for obvious reasons. Now, watch this new tweet from the EPO. Yesterday is said: "Philips remains no. 1 patent applicant at the EPO in 2016 – 2nd year in a row. http://buzz.mw/b1wxh_f"

"In today's EPO, it's garbage in, garbage out (applications, granted patents)."But Philips is the only European company at the top. 60% of the top 5 are east Asian, and only one is European. So much for "European" Patent Office... "90 per cent of patents in Australia are foreign owned," someone pointed out to me last night, but Europe is not a population as small as Australia's. There are similar numbers in India, where software patents are not permitted.

Whose interests are served? In today's EPO, it's garbage in, garbage out (applications, granted patents). The GIGO Office is what Battistelli is after.

"It doesn't matter to them what it means to innovation, as long as there is a lot of litigation and money keeps flowing into the pockets of middlemen (including robber barons like Team Battistelli)."Last year, shortly after the so-called 'results', we spent some time explaining that patents from China aren't quite what they seem. Many are just in Mandarin. It's faked growth and the quality of this 'growth' is low.

Pro-litigation (or pro-trolls) sites like IAM are obviously infatuated with east Asia these days, as we noted here before. They see this is a growth (profit) opportunity, at least for those who make money -- at professionals' expense -- by suing and settling. Baker McKenzie, a legal firm, has just written about Thailand and IAM relayed this placement/ad for a firm from Taiwan. It doesn't matter to them what it means to innovation, as long as there is a lot of litigation and money keeps flowing into the pockets of middlemen (including robber barons like Team Battistelli).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Writing and Coding Isn't Always Enough
Last year we had to assume a role we didn't have before: litigants
Autumn Has Come
Autumn should be exciting in all sorts of ways; it'll also mark our anniversary
 
Slopfarms Already Peaked, They Will Die When Slop Companies Run Out of Money to Borrow
slopfarms will lack an actual "engine"
“Sideloading” Never Killed Anybody
There are many online discussions this week about the misnomer "sideloading"
Slopwatch: Google News as FUD Vector Against Linux and Plagiarism Enhancer, Serial Slopper (SS) Uses LLMs to Googlebomb "Linux"
Slop destroys the Web not just by screwing with search engines and helping plagiarists. It's also responsible for de facto DDoS attacks...
Links 01/09/2025: "Attacks on Science" and China's "Soft Power" Grows
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Fresh Backlash Against Slop and "Norway’s Electricity Crisis is About to Hit Britain"
Links for the day
Links 01/09/2025: Catching Up (Mostly via Deutsche Welle), "Windows TCO" Effect in UK
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/09/2025: Linguistic Barriers and "Web 1.0 Hosting"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 31, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 31, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part IV - External Interference
They all seem to be playing a role in crushing Software Freedom and self-determination for users
Links 31/08/2025: Baggage Claim Scams, an Insurrectionist’s War on Culture, and a Sudden Robotics Hype
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/08/2025: Reviewing Netsurf and Slightly Less Historic Ada Design
Links for the day
IBM Has Taken Control of GNOME
Don't expect a successor to be found any time soon
Links 31/08/2025: Google Gmail Data Breach and LF Puff Pieces for Pay
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 30, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 30, 2025
This is What Google News Has Become
Moments ago
The Slopfarm WebProNews Has Turned Google News Into a Laughing Stock Full of Plagiarism by Slop
If Google News dies of neglect, that's one thing. It's starting to seem like active neglect by Google is a form of participation.
Do What is Moral, as What's Legal Isn't Always Moral
Do what's objectively moral, no matter the costs and the risks
Slopwatch: Google News Assisting Plagiarism and Anti-Linux FUD, Serial Slopper Rips Off Linux-Centric Journalists
This makes the Web a much worse place and lessens the incentive to do journalism
Links 30/08/2025: NVIDIA Fakes Results to Hide a Bubble Already in Implosion Phase, Data Breaches Galore, Important Win for Workers' Union in Canada
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
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
In Kazakhstan, Yandex Estimated to be 20 Times Bigger Than Microsoft
Bing is measured as down this month
Shutterstock Not Enough? The Register MS Uses Slop Images in Articles (Seemingly More and More Over Time)
Cost-saving trajectory amid office shutdown?
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Games, PostmarketOS, and Slop
Links for the day
Links 30/08/2025: Imgur Uproar and Many Ukraine Updates (Mediazona Reports Over 200,000 Russians Died for Putin)
Links for the day
How Not to Build Software
code forges that need a Web browser perhaps fill some 'niche' demand
GAFAM and "MATA"
The use of dark humour there hopefully helps illuminate what a lot of "modern" technology became like and how it interacts with human civilisation (to what ends and whose gain)
Birds Are Not "Pests and Vermin", Privacy is Not a Crime, and GNU/Linux is Not 'Hacking Platform'
I could not help but think of Free software analogies
The Sites Should Be Very Fast Again
That issue is now resolved
Flying in 2025
worse than ever before
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025