Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO is a Mess Under Battistelli and Stakeholders Including Law Firms Will Suffer, Not Just EP Holders

Low-quality European Patents (EPs) are good for nobody, but they help Battistelli game the numbers while destroying the Office (this includes mass layoffs)

Burning ambulance
Battistelli sets the Office ablaze months before his departure; Not even Battistelli's daughter (an ambulance driver) can put out her dad's fire. Many firings are expected.



Summary: As one last 'gift' from Battistelli, appeals are becoming a lot more expensive -- the very opposite of what he does to applications, in effect ensuring a sharp increase in wrongly-granted patents

THIS is a rather shocking reversal; the USPTO is improving patent quality, whereas the EPO quickly becomes what the USPTO used to be. We can therefore expect more patent trolls to migrate to Europe (some already migrate to China).

Earlier today NLO released this sponsored IAM piece which for the most part parrots EPO lies/spin; yes, it's mostly repeating the EPO's Annual Report and reusing figures from it. We wrote some rebuttals to these:



"From 2016 to 2017 the absolute number of European Patent Office (EPO) oppositions grew," it said at the start. Grew? It skyrocketed? Because many bogus patents are being granted. This is a Battistelli policy. It'll backfire really badly in the long run.

"So the EPO yet again makes it harder (more expensive) to oppose its rushed decisions."Oliver Rosenthal from Haseltine Lake LLP wrote this piece earlier this week. His firm recently highlighted the surging/soaring number of oppositions [1, 2].

Rosenthal too is (re)using EPO charts and propaganda, basically copy-pasting lies from the EPO's press releases. Are they attempting to just suck up to Battistelli like the worst law firms did whenever they wrote about the UPC, occasionally promoting UPCA scams as well? What is this, legal advice or public relations?

"A granted European patent does not lead to a unitary right," it said, "but a bundle of independent national patents which are enforceable and revocable in each contracting state where protection is requested and the patent has been validated."

"Applications become cheaper and stopping erroneous grants is now the 'privilege' of the super-rich."Yes, Team UPC hopes to remove this 'barrier' in order to spur more litigation. Dehns (Team UPC) wrote this article earlier this week, noting that: "The appeal fee will increase from €1880 to €2255, except for SMEs."

So the EPO yet again makes it harder (more expensive) to oppose its rushed decisions. All this while reducing the price of applications in order to artificially inflate numbers (after they decreased). What better proof does one need that Battistelli intentionally sabotages the quality of patents? Applications become cheaper and stopping erroneous grants is now the 'privilege' of the super-rich.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Rumour Was True, Mass Layoffs at IBM Today
How widespread the layoffs are (or how they're disguised, e.g. PIPs) is hard to assess
 
Akira Urushibata on How Grokipedia Fails to Work
The Grokipedia article gives the wrong character for the "Ko" on "Koan"
Links 03/11/2025: Data Breaches, Wars, and Digital Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Poetry, Old Androids and Small Shells
Links for the day
Links 03/11/2025: Internet Anniversary
Links for the day
Two Years of Uptime
Reboots are seldom involuntary
Richard Stallman is Giving Another Talk in Less Than a Fortnight
in two weeks' time (13 days from now)
Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
Many people choose to leave Windows altogether
Microsoft's Search Business Falls to Lowest Point in 2 Years, Based on statCounter
what can Microsoft sell other than shares in Microsoft?
Evidence Regarding Layoffs at Red Hat
Seems like IBM layoffs
Microsoft: Our "Goodwill" Value Grew More Than Tenfold Since 2011
Hallmark of pseudo-economics
GNU/Linux as a Boarding Pass
being mostly analogue is still feasible
Links 03/11/2025: Lack of Trust in LLMs and Windows TCO at Jaguar
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/11/2025: Books in October and Change
Links for the day
Mozilla Firefox Won't Survive and Many Sites Don't Work With It (Compatibility Abandoned)
The Web has become monocultural
Debian is Non-Free
Devuan might be worth looking into
Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli and LinuxSecurity
This is a real problem and most certainly a big problem because when people try to find real information about security and GNU/Linux they instead read "word salads" made by bots
Four Reasons to Party With Us in Four Days, Celebrating the Four Freedoms
Today we expect to be back to a more-or-less regular publication pace
Links 03/11/2025: The "Smartphone Panopticon" and Belarus' Hybrid Attacks on EU Intensify
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 02, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, November 02, 2025
Microsoft's Debt Has Skyrocketed by More Than 15 Billion Dollars in 6 Months or 8.2 Billion Dollars in the Past 3 Months Alone
The corporate media intentionally disregards - or merely turns a blind eye to - such data
Rumour: IBM Layoffs in Canada Starting Tomorrow
"RA (IBM's term for layoffs) Coming to Canada this week (Nov 3rd)"
Debunking False/Misleading Statements Made or Told to the High Court
People who try to cheat the system by gaslighting judges will end up discrediting themselves
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) by LLM Slop
The Web has become such a sordid mess that this FUD made by bots is what Google News deems to be "the news"
This Month's Analytics Show Vista 11 Down, GNU/Linux Up
After pulling the plug on Vista 10 we see losses - not gains - for Vista 11
Almost Fully Caught Up
The EPO series will continue very soon, maybe tomorrow or on Tuesday
Links 02/11/2025: Another Halloween Bust and MAGA Regime Says Public Universities Should No Longer Hire 'Foreign' Employees
Links for the day
The Long-Coveted Milestone of 3,200 Active Gemini Capsules
Despite being away some days last week, about 50,000 Gemini requests were served each day, on average
Five More Days Till Techrights Party
We'll have many more batches of Daily Links as we catch up with a 'backlog' of news
Links 02/11/2025: More Nuclear Escalations and "Anti-Cybercrime Laws Are Being Weaponized to Repress Journalism"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/11/2025: "The Pragmatic Programmer", Perl New Features and Foostats
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 01, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, November 01, 2025