LESS than a day ago we wrote about the decline in patent quality at the EPO -- something which both insiders (examiners) and outsiders (stakeholders such as law firms) openly speak about, the latter not even anonymously as risk of retribution is vastly lower.
"For those who missed it, the connection of Questel to the EPO may or may not be indicative of institutional corruption -- something which Battistelli went to great lengths to make visible by his very own reckless behaviour that even the EPO's PR team is unable to justify."Some law firms, such as Team UPC firms, don't seem to mind this decline in quality because they're patent maximalists that just profit from litigation. Low-quality patents might certainly mean a lot more lawsuits and they win (profit) no matter the outcome. Leythem A. Wall from Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP has just framed/cast himself as a parrot of EPO management, copy-pasting what the EPO said the other day. To quote: "In one of his last acts as President of the European Patent Office (EPO), Benoît Battistelli has referred a question to the Enlarged Board of Appeal concerning appeal fees and the interpretation of Article 108 EPC. The case is now pending under the reference G1/18."
As we said earlier this week, the Enlarged Board of Appeal still lacks independence; António Campinos has done absolutely nothing to correct this. In fact, he seems like nothing but a quieter version of corrupt Battistelli. As his past begins to resurface we also see yet more similarities.
It is worth noting that Architect Magazine has just promoted a construction site of corrupt Battistelli. It published it earlier this week (yesterday), showing an image with a crane in the background (it make take several years more to finish this whole project). The site does not mention that massive losses were caused by this project; and that's before it's even finished! The contractor might not survive because of this project alone!
Speaking of EPO contractors, recall Questel, which is connected to funny business that even predates Battistelli and involves other Frenchmen [1, 2]. Yesterday we learned that, as per this report:
Intellectual property service provider Questel has acquired scientific big data firm Expernova.
Questel is also the biggest foreign filer in the world through its subsidiary ITIP.
[...]
Questel CEO Charles Besson added: “This software combination will facilitate and speed-up collaboration between IP experts and R&D teams.”