Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Latest Expensive PR Blitz of the EPO, Led by Jana Mittermaier and Rainer Osterwalder Under the 'European Inventor Award' Banner

EPO preoccupied with lobbying officials rather than patent examination

Portugal and Battistelli



Summary: The PR agencies of the Corsican in Chief, who appears to be buying political support rather than earning any, are very busy this week, as yet another reputation laundering campaign kicks off

REMEMBER "European Inventor Award"? That incredibly expensive (wasteful) EPO PR and lobbying charade which is artificial (manufactured) hype?



"Battistelli thinks he is "improving lives" (the headline/title); Except thousands of his workers' lives (plus their families'), including those who committed suicide due to him."Well, it's back again and yesterday the EPO wrote (warning: epo.org link) in the monarch's narrative, as usual: ""This year's finalists demonstrate that Europe continues to be a world leader in innovation. The outstanding inventors nominated for the European Inventor Award allow us to honour the men and women whose ingenious work contributes to the competitiveness of the European economy and improves our daily lives," said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. "The European patent system remains a pillar for securing Europe's position as a global marketplace for innovation."

"The European patent system remains a pillar" of a broken chair maybe. Battistelli broke it.

"Under Battistelli, as a matter of fact, the Office actually rewarded those whose fake 'innovations' were killing many people."It didn't take long for the EPO's PR department to then tweet a link to Battistelli's 'blog' (warning: epo.org link). Battistelli thinks he is "improving lives" (the headline/title); Except thousands of his workers' lives (plus their families'), including those who committed suicide due to him. How about the lives of all those inventors and businesses that got sued (or will get sued) with bogus EPs granted under Battistelli's regime due to pressure? Patents don't improve lives on their own. They can sometimes support an important discovery, but the patents in their own right don't "improve lives".

"These innovations," he wrote, "have improved and even saved the lives of millions"; well, how many ill people were denied access to live-saving medicine due to patents that killed off generics? Battistelli is quite a newbie when it comes to this topic (only in his mid-fifties he belatedly got introduced to it), so one can almost excuse him for such ignorance.

Under Battistelli, as a matter of fact, the Office actually rewarded those whose fake 'innovations' were killing many people. That's hardly a good thing. He helped legitimise a fraud.

"Jana Mittermaier and Rainer Osterwalder are behind at least some them (they are explicitly listed) and occasionally other firms..."Later in the day the EPO retweeted some nonsense from Siemens (Philips probably did the same thing). "Siemens Healthineers Jan van den Boogaart & Prof Dr Oliver Hayden are finalists for 2017 European Inventor Award," they said. But wait, it didn't quite happen like this. There is a big, expensive PR campaign going on. It started with this tweet and then another which said: "Behind every invention is a scientist who made it happen."

Soon thereafter we found a lot of puff pieces about it, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. On the surface it may look like superficial, poor journalism, but actually it's almost ghost-written or coordinated in advance. See for example this one. Some of the above are 'planted' pieces and/or paid EPO press releases intended to promote Battistelli's lobbying event. They are being published right now in tandem. Jana Mittermaier and Rainer Osterwalder are behind at least some them (they are explicitly listed) and occasionally other firms, with names like these showing up (more PR help from the outside?):

Jonathan Weinberg Shepard Fox Communications Tel. +44 2033 184491 Mobile: +44 7947 141014 jonathan.weinberg@shepard-fox.com


The matter of fact is, a lot of stakeholders' money is being totally wasted on utter nonsense. Mittermaier and Osterwalder, together with FTI Consulting we suppose, are trying to paste/plant their rubbish in news sites, quite frankly as usual.

Lo and behold. This is what the EPO has become.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Hiring for Tech Roles Based on Perceived Loyalty is No Better Than Hiring to Meet Diversity Quotas
What we're seeing right now is a national security disaster and it is almost purely about technology
S.E.O. SPAM by Serial Sloppers With L.L.M. Garbage is Hurting Linux
We continue to run Slopwatch
IBM Says That Half of Its "Assets" is Basically Pure Fiction ("Goodwill")
It times get tough, IBM can sell "Goodwill" at the local pawn shop and pay back the lenders, right?
 
Richard Stallman Has Another Talk in India Tomorrow, at Least Fourth India Talks in Recent Days
In the past month he has given at least half a dozen talks
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 01, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 01, 2025
Links 01/02/2025: Chinese and American Censorship, Cloud-[sic]Native Targeted by Software Patents
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Belated Happy New Year 2025 and Gabbro 0.1.2
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Administrative Chaos and Aviation Disasters Persist
Links for the day
Arrested: Albanian Outreachy whistleblowers, Sonny Piers GNOME & Debian connections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 1/2/2025: LLM Hype Revisited, Linuxwashing by Oumi
Links for the day
Growing Evidence That the Patent Industry Has Become a Major Scam
Seeing that the patent "industry" has turned to serious crimes (sometimes to cover up corruption) and seeing that the net negative is clearer for all to see, people who argue for abolition of all patents will have a field day
Planet Ubuntu Overrun by LLM Slop? Faizul "Piju" 9M2PJU Seems to be Publishing Fake Articles About "Linux"...
Maybe it is "assisted" by LLM slop, but slop is slop and it introduces many problems
Gemini Links 01/02/2025: LLMs, Analog Computer, and BorgBackup
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 31, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, January 31, 2025
Links 31/01/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft, Sweden Again Fails to Protect Critics of Violence
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux" and More (Latest Roundup Featuring BetaNews, Janus Atienza, and Brittany Day From Guardian Digital, Inc)
LLM slop season
Microsoft Staff Explains How Microsoft Swindled Employees and Avoided Paying Out Severance Pay (Microsoft Hasn't Much Money Left in the Bank)
This is a classic way to avoid paying workers
"Not one of us" by Dr. Andy Farnell
Elon Musk has brought embarrassment to nerds and technologists
Gemini Links 31/01/2025: "Bulletin Buble" and "Why Blog?"
Links for the day
Static Site Generators (SSGs) Pay Off: Vastly Faster Sites, Much Smaller Hosting Bills
success story for SSGs
Of Note: Linux Foundation Has Already Let Linux.com Rot for About 4 Months (No Activity)
there's no campaign aside from marketing spam there
Techrights Should be Even Faster Now
We're now better off
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 30, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, January 30, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Gave 3 Talks in India in Less Than a Week
In India this month we've not seen a single negative comment about RMS
Indian Data Biases statCounter For or Against "Linux"
In statCounter, the GNU/Linux increases and decreases are deeply tied to what it does with data collected in India
The Corporate Media Pretends That Facebook ("Meta") Has Performed Well, But Its Debt Doubles Every 2 Years Despite Mass Layoffs
That same media also helps parrot misleading financial claims
Microsoft's Debt Surged by More Than 6,000,000,000 Dollars in Just 3 Months
numbers released hours ago
The Sheer Irony of Microsoft Proxy Accusing Others of 'Stealing'
Wherever DeepSick's data came from, Microsoft (or its proxy) is in no position to issue criticism.
The Difference a Decade (and GAFAM Money) Makes
Credibility cannot be purchased
[Meme] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Critics Because Its Message is Effective
Applying to others the same standards one is willing to violate?