Summary: Concern about loss of information regarding the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the latest misinformation as seen today in EPOPIC

EARLIER today we wrote about Kluwer Patent Blog being down, out of date etc. and could only guess what had happened.

"It started yesterday in the late afternoon," a reader told us, so "the delay may indicate that this is something more serious."

"I'll be making cache copies in case they never recover," I wrote back. "If they do recover, fine."

It has been over a day now. We last checked 2 hours ago.

"The EPO too has played a role in UPC deception today.""On 2 November," told us another reader, "the Kluwer Patent Blog published an article entitled "German complaint threatens future Unitary Patent system".

"The article can be accessed via Google's webcache."

A PDF copy salvaged from the Google webcache is saved here just in case. This PDF is of one article among many which seemed to have been lost. If the site got cracked, then this problem may recur. There are no easy fixes. There could also be data leaks associated with such an incident. When we last checked the site it said

Website Under Maintenance

Our Website is currently undergoing scheduled maintenance. Please check back soon.

It's worth reminding ourselves that Kluwer Patent Blog also played a big role in UPC advocacy and routinely published for Bristows, whose blog is largely neglected and read by few people. Today they wrote about a small economy (barely any European Patents) and nothing final, just a minor step which helps distract from Germany and the UK.

The EPO too has played a role in UPC deception today. Here are tweets it posted some hours ago, creating a dependence on something which may never materialise.

• "Now at #EPOPIC: The things patent searchers need to be aware of when it comes to the #unitarypatent #EPOPIC pic.twitter.com/FFtBHyrD4t" [link]



• "Did you know these basic facts about the #UnitaryPatent? #EPOPIC pic.twitter.com/sZlTHbtEwY" [link]



• "This scheme clarifies the #unitarypatent process compared to the traditional European #patent procedure. #EPOPIC pic.twitter.com/NCGFWyFtUY" [link]



• "Two days left to register for the EPO Day conference. Let's discuss the latest developments on the #unitarypatent:" [link]



• "A Register for the Unitary Patent to be included within the European Patent Register. #EPOPIC #unitarypatent" [link]



• "Searching for #unitarypatents & UP Proprietor / UP Representative to be added to the advanced search interface of the European Patent Register" [link]



• "The European Patent Register will have a new structure (UP chapter displayed) but the same look & feel" [link]



• "A “C0” marker will show whether a #unitarypatent has been registered." [link]

There is additionally this tweet about Questel, whose presence presents an issue for reasons we mentioned this morning.

Regarding the Google contract, readers and/or insiders may wish to see these tweets about "Ian Wetherbee of @Google [who] looks at the role of machine translation in the patent system, from searching patents to understanding their contents #EPOPIC pic.twitter.com/ZgSTo49iG7"

"Anyone who has ever seen automated translations of technical patents would likely laugh out loud. It just doesn't work."They provide a poorer service by replacing people with machines and pretend that computer translations can usher in the UPC for over a dozen countries that aren't "official" or haven't "official" languages.

The EPO says that "Ian Wetherbee explains how Neural Machine Translation was greatly enhanced by @Google's Attention Mechanism #EPOPIC [...] Fascinating insights from Ian Wetherbee at @Google into the process of Neural Machine Translation that’s now behind #PatentTranslate for all supported languages to/from EN #EPOPIC"

Anyone who has ever seen automated translations of technical patents would likely laugh out loud. It just doesn't work. Trying to build a whole legal system on top of word salads would make Europe seem laughable to local (EU) businesses. Countries abroad would likely just rely on French or English. Who is this system really for? Not Europe! ⬆