Similar to what happens on the Internet and copyright law, where producers' or artists' voices are being hijacked by those who exploit them

Summary: The lobbying effort of the patent 'industry' -- and its largest beneficiaries -- paints its own perks as something that's intended for their small/minuscule competitors (whom they actually attempt to misrepresent and crush)

THREE days ago we mentioned those same old "patent boxes" (so-called 'boxes' that have nothing to do with boxes). It's one of the criticisms of the EPO; the subject was brought up in an article earlier this month.

The subject was explored here in past years. It's very rarely covered (or seldom covered properly by corporate media) because corporations don't want people to know the underlying purpose of patent boxes.

"It's very rarely covered (or covered properly by corporate media) because corporations don't want people to know the underlying purpose of patent boxes."Just before the weekend, the Tory-leaning Telegraph described as an "SMEs" thing what LARGE corporations use for tax evasion. When it comes to the UPC too, corporate media likes to speak about "SMEs", which would be most vulnerable to a 'unitary' regime; the media tries to sell the fairytale of SMEs looking forward to UPC. Nothing could be further from the truth. Watch the title of the video from the Telegraph. It says "Patent Box: can government do more to support SME innovation?"

What a loaded question and malicious spin. Here is what the article said:

The UK Government already has a scheme called Patent Box, introduced in 2013 and revamped in 2016, that aims to create a competitive tax environment to incentivise companies to retain, develop and exploit patents in the UK supporting business investment and economic growth.

While Patent Box goes some way to addressing this issue, it is focused on rewarding companies at the “end of the process”, by way of reducing corporation tax to 10pc on profits from the worldwide sale of patented inventions.

While that is good news for large corporations that have upfront investment budgets and an established forward innovation process, the scheme falls far short for SMEs, which last year made up 99.9pc of the UK’s 5.5 million private sector businesses and provided 60pc of private sector employment.

HOW2, through its advisory service work with SMEs on identifying, developing and protecting their IP and/or claiming under the Patent Box regime, believes that government, to effectively support UK innovation, needs to follow the proactive approach of many European countries and the US.

It's just a tool for tax evasion, nothing to do with SMEs.

"Remember to be sceptical when the word "SME" is brought up by large corporations-owned media."Earlier today Benjamin Henrion found another spin like this from the front group "IP Europe" (one can imagine, based on its name, who it represents). It said "CEOs of tech SMEs asked President Juncker to support #innovation and open standards..."

Henrion responded to them with: "This is asking for supporting patent trolls masqueraded as "inventors". Plus "open standards" are without restrictions of use."

Remember to be sceptical when the word "SME" is brought up by large corporations-owned media. Or front groups of large corporations for that matter (or law firms whose main clients are large corporations). SMEs are rarely consulted about this, except very selectively. They're very often misrepresented, intentionally, for the sake of steering agenda (changing policy in favour of large multinationals). We see a lot of that when it comes to the UPC, which we shall cover in our next post. ⬆