The EPO is paying for so-called 'studies' whose purpose is believed to pressure the court

Summary: This Thanksgiving Day is spent by Team UPC trying to prop up the UPC even though no progress whatsoever is being made and the EPO's 'study' on the UPC is said to be flawed

TEAM UPC refuses to give up on the zombie known as the UPC. We're already seeing some jokes being thrown around about it. Few in this profession actually believe that the UPC is going anywhere. But Team UPC, having invested a vast amount of time and money in the UPC/A, just cannot let go.

"Few in this profession actually believe that the UPC is going anywhere."Was this post from ealier today published by Bristows? We don't know for sure, but we are guessing so (based on recent anonymous posts which echoed Bristows and linked to Bristows). It was posted anonymously. The post is totally nonsensical. Posted anonymously by someone from Team UPC, it spreads the lie that the "industry" wants the UPC (variant of the "UPC for SMEs" lie). To quote a portion:

Ahead of the meeting of the EU Competitiveness Council, 30 November and 1 December 2017 in Brussels, a group of European companies and associations have sent a letter to EU member states urging them to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement and join the Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA) as soon as possible, if they haven’t done so yet.

According to the letter, the Unitary Patent system will ‘encourage investment, spur growth and create new jobs across Europe. The patent reform will substantially contribute to increased European competitiveness.

This post was not accessible this morning because Kluwer Patent Blog was down (yet again) for a long period of time. When we finally managed to read it we just thought, "wow! So much for peer review or quality control at Kluwer!" It's hogwash from headline, to start, to finish. Anyone reading this would be led to believe that Europe is salivating over the UPC (unless one knows better).

"Posted anonymously by someone from Team UPC, it spreads the lie that the "industry" wants the UPC (variant of the "UPC for SMEs" lie)."A similar lie was then pushed by Bristows itself. Edward Nodder from Team UPC/Bristows (a relatively new name whose employer is a chronic liar) wants us to think that UPC has a chance. It's total spin and distortion of the actual situation. The blog says:

Both Germany and the UK have parliamentary approval to ratify; the UK is expected to do so shortly but Germany’s ratification (and consent to the PPA) is on hold due to the challenge brought in its Constitutional Court. Other than Germany, action is needed by two more member states before the provisional application phase can start.

They say "on hold" and they also wrongly assume that the UK would soon follow. Both are false assumptions. Even IAM, which was used as a UPC propaganda tool by the EPO, admits that the UPC is in fatal trouble. Earlier on it wrote: "Where things are with the UPC. Basically, German ratification is on hold thanks to the Constitutional Court case; so the whole project is subject to unknown, perhaps permanent, delay."

Here's that framing again, "on hold," followed by "permanent, delay."

"People are amused by the spin from the likes of IAM and Bristows, whose comments on the UPC are motivated purely by financial agenda."One EPO insider said about it, "how cute," to which I responded: "My dog is not dead, he is just "permanently asleep"" (implying that the UPC -- like the EPO -- is in disarray).

There's more in that thread. People are amused by the spin from the likes of IAM and Bristows, whose comments on the UPC are motivated purely by financial agenda.

David Pearce, a former Kat (of IP Kat) and UPC sceptic, took note of the EPO's new 'study' (corrupting academia for UPC promotion). He -- like many others -- also thinks that EPO's claims are bunk/empty, to put it politely. "I am a bit sceptical about @EPOorg 's claims for 14.6 bn Euro increase in trade if the #UP and #UPC come into force," he wrote. "Seems to rely on dodgy assumption about stronger patent protection leading to greater trade and inward investment. Here's the full report..."

"The thing is, OSS is not compatible with software patents. At all."IAM is meanwhile pushing software patents agenda using "CII" as the euphemism of choice for software patents. This weasel term is not new. The EPO has, for a long time (over a decade), used this misleading term to dodge the rules and break the law. We already wrote many articles about how the UPC would usher software patents into Europe. It's a Trojan horse for plenty of bad things. IAM quotes that what "would be positive, especially for SMEs, is the interplay between open source software (OSS) and patents..."

The thing is, OSS is not compatible with software patents. At all. Surely IAM already knows that. As this one report put it earlier today, Munich's migration to GNU/Linux was "temporarily put on hold while a study investigates whether it could be derailed by software patents." That was just before Europe decided to ban such patents. ⬆