Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Makes European SMEs More Vulnerable to Litigation From the Former Soviet Union

Scud man Battistelli

Battistelli with Scud



Summary: Battistelli sure knows what European SMEs need, apparently, e.g. more litigation from the former Soviet Union, including Russia

THE EPO lies to the public every day. Yesterday it repeated its own lies about SMEs, in a tweet that links to a so-called 'study' which misrepresents SMEs.



"IP landscaping can be used to provide input into an SME’s R&D strategy," it said. "This case study shows how," it added, linking to its own propaganda together with that hashtag, #IPforSMEs (which the patent maximalists lobby uses, along with "SMEmanifesto").

"The EPO actively discriminates against SMEs. Lying about them or misrepresenting their stance is a step further -- a step that the EPO was recently shameless enough to take."Anyone who works for the EPO probably knows about PACE (we were first to publish these leaked documents). The EPO actively discriminates against SMEs. Lying about them or misrepresenting their stance is a step further -- a step that the EPO was recently shameless enough to take. Previously, it was mostly Team UPC's domain. It's part of the UPC lobbying effort. It's akin to "think about the children" (small businesses).

"Next round of patent information from the BRICS countries will focus on the Russian Federation," the EPO wrote yesterday (Wednesday), just as it wrote about the EPO making itself more about litigation and less about patents, with hurried examination to help litigants, this time at the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO):

Inventors and businesses applying for patent protection at the EPO and the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) are now able to benefit from fast-track patent examination at both offices, following the entry into force of the joint Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot programme. The PPH also permits each participating patent office to share and re-use existing work results.

[...]

The EPO already has operational PPH pilot programmes with the IP5 offices (a grouping of the world's five largest IP offices, made up of the EPO and the patent offices of China, Japan, Korea, and the US), as well as with the national patent offices of Australia, Canada, Colombia, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia and Singapore.


PPH (similar to PACE) is, suffice to say, very dangerous because it lowers patent quality (work under greater pressure) and enables companies (even trolls) from other countries to target European firms. SMEs would suffer the most because legal fees (usually court fees) by far exceed the amount demanded for settlement.

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM is "Taking the PIP" (Piss), People 'Retire' 'Voluntarily' to "Focus on Family"
IBM has a billion bucks for 'the butcher', but not a million dollars for critical projects and initiatives in Free software
It Should be Uncontroversial to Say That Social Control Media is a Weapon
Democracy is not compatible with the likes of Kapo-Berg and MElon controlling public discourse of billions
 
FSF Has Grown (More Staff) After a Year of Financial Growth
On October 4 the FSF turns 41
GNU/Linux Has Become More Mainstream in the United Kingdom
It's a long weekend here and we guess some people dabble in GNU/Linux migrations, at least at home
SLAPP Censorship - Part 166 Out of 200: Garrett Wasn't Found Innocent Per Se, the Court Wanted More Evidence of Who Was Behind Particular Accounts Using Tor
It's complicated
Criminals Don't Obey Laws, California Does Not Enhance Online Safety
It has been a while since we last mentioned so-called 'age-verification' laws
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 29, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, August 29, 2026
Links 29/08/2026: Stop the Hate, Goldfish Myths, and xmpp.nz
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2026: Wave of Social Control Media Bans, Suno Data Breach Class Actions
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2026: Microsoft GitHub Outage (Again), "Displaying Ads Directly on Your Monitor", and "Election Deniers Could Soon Control Elections"
Links for the day
Misuse of Bots (Now Sold as "Agents", "Hey Hi", "Automation", and "Efficiency")
They even try to rebrand robotics as "hey hi" and try to sell slop as "work"
Debian: Plagiarism OK, Just be "Responsible" About It
The result isn't the worst, but it's not good either
Don't Let Them Kill Activism
Are the oligarchs shutting the lid on activism and whistleblowers?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 165 Out of 200: Two Years Since My Wife and I Sued
In early September 2024 we hit back
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 28, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, August 28, 2026
Gemini Links 29/08/2026: Death Notice, Systems Biology, and Gopher
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2026: Chatbot Pushers Admit They're Used Heavily for Social Engineering Scams, Strong Backlash Against "Smart Glasses" (CCTV on Legs)
Links for the day
Michael Catanzaro's Latest Blog Post Affirms Rumours of Red Hat Changes and RAs/PIPs at IBM
reading between the lines, IBM is "spitting out" Red Hat staff
If Linux Was Written in Rust, 80% or More of Linux Developers Would Not Understand It (Same If It's Composed by LLM Slop)
The licence (GPL) is not enough when there are ways to bypass it
Gemini Links 28/08/2026: Absurd Tomodachi Summer, Screen Piggery, and Jugulans 1.0.3 Released
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2026: "UK Power Grid Has a Phantom Data Center Problem" and "Growth at All Costs is Cancer"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 164 Out of 200: Patent Troll SLAPPs, Defamation Trolls, and Stranglers From America
You start to wonder if the core issue is insecurity
Rumours of More PIPs and Layoffs at Confluent Just Months After IBM Bought It
It is meanwhile apparent IBM will have mass layoffs next week (September)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 27, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, August 27, 2026
After Many Waves of PIPs (Silent Layoffs) IBM Makes Non-Silent Layoffs, Effective Next Week (September)
What we heard is turning out to be true