PATENT trolls are on the sharp decline in the US, owing to courts more than the US patent office. In Europe, however, the opposite is true and the EPO deserves much of the blame. Its low-quality patents and the push towards the UPC have both attracted trolls. We wrote many articles about that and last night we mentioned PwC’s latest 'study' (PwC is paid by Battistelli's EPO) about trolls. It wants us to think that those 'poor' patent law firms are worthy of sympathy because litigation is down in the US. To quote the patent firms' news site: "In 2016, the number of patent cases filed continued a downward trend from the high point reached in 2013, evidence of a clear shift in direction, while the number of patents granted increased. According to PwC’s recent 2017 Patent Litigation Study, the number of patent cases filed declined to approximately 5,100 cases in 2016, down nine percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, the number of patents granted increased by four percent in 2016 after seeing a rare decline last year."
"The US seems to be moving in the right direction, whereas here in Europe we have fools like Battistelli trying to attract that same mess the US gets rid of."But at the same time the numbers grew sharply in Europe. Hence our concern about the EPO and the UPC, which would increase damages from lawsuits whilst relying on low-quality European Patents (without proper oversight by appeal boards). Disaster in the making!
The US seems to be moving in the right direction, whereas here in Europe we have fools like Battistelli trying to attract that same mess the US gets rid of. He wants large German cities to become the equivalent of the Eastern District of Texas.
"We wrote a lot about Alcatel-Lucent in the past because it's one among several French giants that have fallen and are now 'liquidating' by feeding patent trolls."The French-speaking Benjamin Henrion warned some time ago that Alcatel-Lucent, a French global telecommunications equipment company that's no longer doing very much, is feeding the patent trolls. We wrote a lot about Alcatel-Lucent in the past because it's one among several French giants that have fallen and are now 'liquidating' by feeding patent trolls. Earlier today we gave Technicolor as another French example of that. This is not good. It's dangerous to Europe's edge.
What we have here in Europe right now is such a downright embarrassing patent office where people are pressured to "produce" patents based on quotas rather than quality thresholds. The EPO went as far as allowing patents on genome, spurring all sorts of protests in the streets. Only after intense pressure from the public and from European politicians the EPO finally admitted that it cannot go on anymore and many patents got withdrawn. Earlier this weekend NSAI issued the following statement: “The NSAI congratulates the European Seed Association for leading this battle on behalf of the plant breeders and advocating for a solution to re-establish the balance between patents and plant breeders’ rights,” said Dr Kalyan Goswami, Executive Director, National Seed Association of India. “This decision allows breeders to continue their regular breeding work, based on crossing and selection without worrying about access to genetic diversity and traits produced both biotechnological and conventional breeding process.”
"When will the Organisation also herald withdrawal of all those software patents that should never have been granted and are favoured among patent trolls?"In the title, NSAI is confusing the Office for the Organisation (or Administrative Council); it wasn't Battistelli's office that corrected the error. Battistelli was the problem, not the solution. We recently wrote about other such groups which were welcoming the revocation of these patents.
When will the Organisation also herald withdrawal of all those software patents that should never have been granted and are favoured among patent trolls? ⬆