Bonum Certa Men Certa

PACE of Prosecution Prioritised Over Quality of Patents and Examination

Patents are not just for lawsuits unless you're an aggressive firm

Inviting patent aggression



Summary: Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) puff pieces neglect to highlight the danger of the concept, which promotes litigation at the expense of thorough examination (including proper opportunity for oppositions)

THERE IS a real danger that one day there will be a UPC-like regime in Europe. It won't happen any time soon and if we combat this threat, it will almost certainly fail to materialise. Firms that profit from litigation (whether successful or not) are egging on the Battistellis of the world, urging them to put the burden on defendants, not plaintiffs (accusers). Very dangerous! Lethal in the case of Goliath v David situations.



The UPC, at its core, is about broadening and speeding up litigation. Very bad idea. Applicants sometimes prefer a slower process which properly assesses all the facts, otherwise it's only the lawyers who profit. Various parties need to get involved in order for patents to be correctly assigned and verified.

"It does not improve quality, it probably reduces quality and just like the notorious PACE program it gives some actors disproportional power over others (typically small and vulnerable businesses are affected badly/worst)."Yesterday we found a new marketing/puff piece from Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick. It's about PPH. It's an old global system, but it focuses on large, wealthy nations or works in their favour (giving advantage to their national patent offices). The firm focuses on the EPO in southeast Asia rather than the USPTO. Battistelli did some publicity stunts in small countries with barely any European Patents, waving PPH documents as some kind of 'trophy' (or a sign of accomplishment). We covered that earlier this year.

Like ITC, which we wrote about yesterday, PPH presents all sorts of issues, including lack of neutrality and lack of appeals/oppositions window. Putting quick prosecution and potentially embargo before quality control of patents is rather dangerous, but the puff piece titled "The Patent Prosecution Highway gets more traffic" says this: "The PPH framework promotes work sharing and accelerated processing where patent examiners can make use of work carried out by other offices. The framework allows leveraging of an eligible application whose claims have been determined to be patentable in the Office of First Filing (OFF) to go through an accelerated examination in the Office of Second Filing (OSF) with a simple procedure upon an applicant’s request. The intention is to secure more uniform patent rights, improve quality and reduce the search and examination burden on the participating offices."

"They are obviously becoming more and more concerned that antitrust (competition abuse) issues are being raised in relation to patents."That's not what happens in practice. It does not improve quality, it probably reduces quality and just like the notorious PACE program it gives some actors disproportional power over others (typically small and vulnerable businesses are affected badly/worst).

The article (or ad) from Mary Munroe contains a lot of statements we could easily challenge if not successfully rebut, but there's even more eyebrow-raising material out there, including this latest IAM piece about SEPs and patent pools in China. They are obviously becoming more and more concerned that antitrust (competition abuse) issues are being raised in relation to patents. When massive corporations amass patents and merely use these as a tool to bar competition, what good are these patents on a societal basis? We'll give an example in our next post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

[Video] The Media Facilitates Microsoft's Abuse, Bribes, and Growing Threats to National Security
The failure of the media to properly and independently explain what's happening will continue to doom the media
[Video] The Next Ten Years of Techrights in a World With Changing Threats and Technological Landscapes (or Trends That Are Buzzwords/Cargo Cults)
The video of today talks about the site's (and capsule's plan) for the future
Wikipedia is Vandalism, Brought to You by Microsoft and Bill Gates
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Lennart Poettering and Fellow Microsofters Turn GNU/Linux Into Windows, Expect Poor Reliability With systemd-bsod
turning Linux into Microsoft Windows
The Effort to Silence (Squash) GNU/Linux Advocates and Press Coverage
If nobody even mentions it anymore, does it still exist?
Links 07/12/2023: Climate Events Occupied by Their Enemy, Workers Going on Strike
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, December 06, 2023
IRC logs for Wednesday, December 06, 2023
A Googlebombing Campaign Targeting "Gemini" Takes on E-mail, Too
Google can do Googlebombing too (the term is even named after it)
[Video] Microsoft Without a So-called 'Common Carrier' (Windows Monoculture)
Windows Has Fallen
[Video] To Combat Efforts to Cancel or Kill the Career (and Reputation) of the People Who Made GNU/Linux We Must Rally the Community
nobody speaks better for projects and for licences than their own founders
Rumour: Major Finance Layoffs at Microsoft Next Week
If the rumour is true, we'll be hearing barely anything from the mainstream media next week
Links 07/12/2023: More EPO Patents Squashed, More Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine "Glitches" Found
Links for the day
Still Not 'Canceled'
Ted Ts'o, Jan Kara, Linus Torvalds last month
Google is Googlebombing the Term "Gemini"
Could Google not pick a name that's already "taken"?
Links 06/12/2023: Bitcoin Rebound, China Downgraded by American Firm, Yahoo! Layoffs Again
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Shooting the Messenger Using Bribes and Secrecy Bonds
We seem to live in a world where accountability for the rich and well-connected barely exists anymore
The Myth of an Aging (or Dying) GNU/Linux Leadership
Self-fulfilling prophecies as a tactic?
Links 06/12/2023: Many More December Layoffs
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 05, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 05, 2023
PipeWire 1.0: Linux audio comes of age
Once upon a time, serious audio users like musicians and audio engineers had real trouble with Linux
This is How 'Linux' Foundation Presents Linux to the World
Right now it even picks Windows over Linux in some cases