Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO Continues to Lie About the UPC and About SMEs, Even Several Times Per Day Now

Russian flats



Summary: The extent of the EPO's distortion of facts and misrepresentation of stakeholders keeps peaking, with lies ranging from patent quality to desirability of the UPC

THE EPO is in disarray. Despite the fact that the UPC (which Battistelli bet on) is going nowhere -- unlike Battistelli who is going away in summer -- the EPO is now sending the judges to exile. Earlier today it wrote: "At the beginning of October 2017 the Boards of Appeal are moving to a new location. All details about it here: http://bit.ly/2uV6VRR" (epo.org link).



The EPO isn't giving up. The UPC is effectively dead (or dying). Even the mainstream media starts to accept it and law firms with stakes in the UPC have begun suggesting that the UPC should get scrapped (for them to start again from scratch). This is in spite of the EPO already polluting European media with money (for puff pieces). Earlier today the EPO wrote: "Looking for an all-encompassing guide for the Unitary Patent? Download the “Unitary Patent Guide” from our website http://bit.ly/2xuHsjV pic.twitter.com/GKCFsDZJiD" (epo.org link).

See how detached (from reality) they are? They already market something that does not exist.

"Brexit has thrown into doubt the future of the Unitary Patent Court," according to this new article, whose title may be a little misleading because just like the Scottish media that's composed by Team UPC (who needs journalists when you can just give the platform to lobbyists, who do it for 'free'?), this one is composed by Gill Grassie? Is she a journalist? No. "Head of Contentious IP at Brodies LLP..."

To quote some bits:

Brexit has thrown the future of the Unitary Patent Court, the first truly pan-EU patent system, into doubt and its immediate fate now lies in the hands of Scottish MSPs, who are debating the matter at Holyrood.

The Unitary Patent Court (UPC) is intended to improve the current European patent system, under which parties have to litigate patent disputes in individual national courts in the relevant member state.

[...]

Regardless of Brexit, it will allow Scotland’s SMEs, and its burgeoning tech and life sciences sectors, to obtain pan-EU coverage of their inventions and at what should be affordable costs.

The alternative is to be left behind and be forced to rely on the old, more cumbersome EU patent system if patent protection over the whole EU and the UK post-Brexit is required.


Notice that same old "SMEs" line and the nonsense about UPC being desirable. It's not. It's desirable to the writer and her employer, that's for sure. And they produce nothing but paperwork.

Regarding that "SMEs" nonsense, which we last mentioned last night (there are rebuttals too), yesterday the EPO kept promoting this lie; they do it several times per day now. "Patents help small businesses thrive," the EPO wrote. "It's not only us who believe that. These 12 SMEs stand as proof: bit.ly/SMEstudies2017 #IPforSMEs pic.twitter.com/UxsIe6HRij" (12 carefully cherry-picked SMEs or patent trolls, chosen for propaganda purposes).

Then again this morning the EPO wrote: "In collaboration with renowned IP experts, @EPOorg has published a set of 12 case studies on SMEs from across Europe. http://ht.ly/GVNN30fsLqe" (completely insulting, unscientific 'studies' and not from "renowned IP experts", whatever IP means, probably patent maximalists).

Quality of patents at the EPO continues to slide. There are now CRISPR patents at the EPO -- a point we recalled in light of this report from yesterday:

On September 18, 2017, District Judge Vernon Broderick (S.D.N.Y.) denied Petitioner George Schlich's ("Schlich") petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. €§ 1782 for discovery from Respondents The Rockefeller University, Luciano Marraffini, Vedder Price P.C., and Thomas Kowalski, for use in opposition proceedings pending before the European Patent Office ("EPO").

Schlich is Intellia's European patent agent and claims that Intellia's co-founder and her colleagues are the rightful inventors of CRISPR/Cas9. The Broad Institute, Inc. ("Broad") is a research institute that works with partner institutions, including The Rockefeller University. Intellia filed four oppositions with the EPO seeking revocations of Broad's PCT patents, arguing that under European law, the patents are not entitled to claim the benefit of the filing date of U.S. provisional applications because they do not name the very same inventors as the provisional applications, and thus, are rendered invalid by intervening prior art. Broad argued that under U.S. law, complete identity of inventors is not required in order to obtain the benefit of the earlier applications.


So the EPO's misguided policy is already having an effect overseas, too. We wrote about 70 million dollars in 'damages' last night and today there's this report suggest that to one giant $2,500,000,000 for a patent is not enough. These are the sorts of companies that drool over the UPC. To quote:

District of Delaware says addition sanction in is not warranted in Idenix v Gilead “given that the result of that misconduct is a cure for a potentially-fatal disease afflicting millions of people around the world, and given that the jury's damages award is already the largest damages verdict ever returned in a patent trial”


These patents, suffice to say, have massive collateral damage. If upheld (like these ridiculous CRISPR patents), many thousands if not millions of poor people can die in decades to come.

Patents are not some entertaining funny game; the implications of patent policy can decide who lives and who dies.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
 
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025
Slopwatch: Slopfarms All Over Google News and Real News Sites Pushed Out of Visibility
Google News is dying (as a tool of value)
Gemini Links 25/08/2025: Numeric-only VM and Alhena 5.3.0
Links for the day
Links 25/08/2025: ‘Panama Playlists’ and Live Nation/Ticketmaster Suit Aims at Class Action
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/08/2025: Empathy Towards Autistic People and Old Gadgets
Links for the day
Links 25/08/2025: Datacentres Versus Water Supplies and "The IPv6 Divide"
Links for the day
Links 25/08/2025: Data Breaches, Politics, and Financial Strain
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Distros Ought to Replace Firefox (and Firefox ESR) With Something Like LibreWolf
Perhaps it's come to replace Firefox
Father of Julian Assange Said the US Government Was Trying to Bankrupt WikiLeaks, Now the Assange Family Promotes Fake Currencies
Using the name for bad purposes?
Bailing Out GAFAM, Giving Taxpayers' Money to Failing Companies, and Trying to Outlaw Lawsuits Against Them
What would the late Lincoln have said?
Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Inc. Lost 2 Million Dollars Last Year and Its Chief Took a Salary Increase of Almost $6,000
Another year or two like this... and the SFC will be bankrupt [...] Hallmark of mismanagement
The "New Techrights" Turns Two Very Soon
Accomplishing something each year is what's important, not merely "finishing" another year
Gulf Nations Leave Microsoft Behind
How much lower will Microsoft stoop in an effort to raise money from oil-rich lenders?
How to Combat IRC Trolls (in Our Experience)
Today I want to share my experience (or knowledge) of how to deal with IRC trolls
The Register MS Needs to Stop Participating in the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype, But It Gets Paid to Participate in This Hype
the publisher (The Register MS) wants to have it both ways
Gemini Links 24/08/2025: Living With Your Parents, Zürich Zoo, and Macondo
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 24, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 24, 2025