Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Advocacy and UPC Lies Go Hand in Hand

Hand in Hand



Summary: The push for UPC, which accompanies the lobby for software patents in Europe, is still based on a large pile of lies and false projections of commencement

Has crooked Benoît Battistelli corrupted enough European/French media at the expense of EPO users (stakeholders, applicants) for this media to ignore his serious abuses of the law if not overt corruption? In a new article from AFP (France), mentioning Battistelli and António Campinos (the two Frenchmen who are friends), we are seeing little more than classic talking points and even lies. "Brevet unitaire européen: l'OEB est prêt, assure son président" is the headline and is has been cross-posted by various French-speaking sites, e.g. [1, 2].



"Where are the European authorities/authoritarians? Where are all the French politicians? When will they understand that the EPO under Battistelli has become an enormous liability for their reputation?"The EPO has become a loose monster, totally out of control and without anything that resembles accountability, let alone oversight. The EPO has long misused its budget to corrupt/pay/bribe the media, to corrupt academia, to pay for illegal spying and to hire several law firms to bully yours truly among other critics.

Where are the European authorities/authoritarians? Where are all the French politicians? When will they understand that the EPO under Battistelli has become an enormous liability for their reputation? The UPC is an EU thing, unlike the EPO. It cannot go on like this; it's highly damaging to Europe. A couple of days ago europa.eu published this programme from the Competitiveness Council (due to start tomorrow). See the part which says:

Any other business: (not in public session) - Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court


Is the EU hiding the fact that it promotes a ruinous conspiracy of law firms eager to shatter the European industry for the sake of legal bills? Will they listen to/learn why Spain, one of the largest EU economies, refuses to participate in UPC?

Apparently not...

"Will they listen to/learn why Spain, one of the largest EU economies, refuses to participate in UPC?"Going a little further back in time, we're seeing Team UPC publicly promoting the lie that the UK is ready to participate (it cannot!) and articles that we missed at the time include this one from Roger Green (Watermark Intellectual Property), another one from WilmerHale (also published in the same lawyers' sites at the time), and even this from ElectronicsWeekly (odd place to find such a thing). "Unitary Patents almost a reality," says one headline. That's untrue.

An article by Tim Wilson of Dehns (part of Team UPC) was published a couple of days ago under the title "The Value Of Patenting Software Innovation" (the overlap between UPC boosters and software patents lobbyists has been noted here for over half a decade). To quote Wilson:

Software is a relative new-comer to the patent arena. Over the last few decades, government patent offices have struggled to decide how to deal with software patents. There is a widely-held view that software simply can't be patented, particularly in Europe. Fortunately, this is not at all correct: the right type of software innovation can most certainly be patented in all the world's major patent offices.

Dehns Partner, Tim Wilson, recently hosted a seminar on this topic and provided strategies for maximising the prospects of getting a software patent successfully granted. Below is a summary of key points from the seminar, as well as examples of a few questions that came up.


"Yetserday IP Kat's Tian Lu promoted the lobbying event of patent extremists under the wing of the leading software patents lobbyist, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO)."Also a couple of days ago there was this article by Charles Bond and John Coldham (Gowling WLG) about the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which Team UPC often relates to UPC, pretending that Brexit is somehow -- miraculously enough -- still compatible with UPC (it's not).

Yetserday IP Kat's Tian Lu promoted the lobbying event of patent extremists under the wing of the leading software patents lobbyist, the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO). IPO’s 2018 European Practice Committee Conference, based on this first part of two, is a total farce. It's also farcical based on who's attending. No balance at all. They're lobbying on 35 U.S.C. €§ 101, against PTAB, for software patents etc. Does Lu realise what (or whose) agenda she's promoting?

"It cannot be stressed strongly enough that UPC would be a Trojan horse by which to bypass national laws forbidding software patents; Team UPC knows that and it's one among many reasons it lobbies so hard for the UPC, oftentimes making up false statements in the process.""On May 3rd," she wrote, "the 2018 European Practice Committee Conference organized by IPO’s European Practice Committee took place at InterContinental Amstel Amsterdam, the much-loved landmark on the Amstel River banks with more than 150 years of elegance."

A couple of days ago we also found this new "Newsletter" about Italy. "Software is not patentable in and of itself," it says, but then it names the EPO's tricks for bypassing the rule:

Software is not patentable in and of itself, as under Article 45 of the Industrial Property Code (and the corresponding Article 52 of the European Patent Convention) it belongs to a group of innovations that "are not considered as inventions". As a result, a piece of software's source code and its external appearance on a computer screen, rather than the ideas behind them, can be protected by copyright. However, Article 45 of the Industrial Property Code specifies that this scenario applies only if the software is "considered as such". If the software is used in a new and inventive way to solve a technical problem that goes beyond the mere operation of the computer on which it is installed or in particular, is used to operate a machine or a system external to the computer (eg, a lighting system), it becomes patentable.

Further, when an invention consists of a concrete (and not purely abstract) scheme of links that allows a computer system to operate, this scheme becomes patentable. The European Patent Office guidelines state that:


"if the claim specifies computers, computer networks or other conventional programmable apparatus, a program therefor, or a storage medium carrying the program, for executing at least some steps of a scheme, it may comprise a mix of technical and non-technical features, with the technical features directed to a computer or a comparable programmed device. In these cases, the claim is to be examined as a 'computer-implemented invention."


Such a scheme is patentable under the usual conditions for all inventions – namely, where it is new, inventive, lawful, susceptible to industrial application and described in a way that allows an expert in the field to implement it. Italian case law has long recognised the validity of computer-implemented inventions. The landmark case in this regard is a 2004 decision regarding an online system for the rental of holiday homes by means of special software.


It cannot be stressed strongly enough that UPC would be a Trojan horse by which to bypass national laws forbidding software patents; Team UPC knows that and it's one among many reasons it lobbies so hard for the UPC, oftentimes making up false statements in the process. Why is the media so silent about that? We have a rough idea.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025