Bonum Certa Men Certa

How Team UPC is Reacting to the Demise of EPO- and EU-Connected Court That Would Have Put Patent Maximalists in Charge

France at the centre, as usual

The three Frenchmen



Summary: The three Frenchmen above are unlikely to ever see a Unitary Patent or Unified Patent Court; this is only bad news for patent trolls and law firms that represent them, hoping to make a killing across Europe with frivolous litigation and threats of litigation

THE previous post focused on the decline of patent quality at the USPTO -- a problem which has spread to Europe. For the time being, however, courts can compensate for that. Patent maximalists are hoping for bogus courts with lack of oversight and a bias in favour of EPO management, software patents etc. (bypassing national courts)

Such courts would fall under a "Unified Patent Court" or UPC as they call it. If only if ever became a reality. After a series of rebrands and a lot of mischief it has ground to a halt and there's no escaping the reality that UPC is running out of time. Even patent maximalists and firms that pushed hard for UPC (we call them "Team UPC") are losing hope. Towards the end of this week we saw one law firm saying: "The implications for the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court depend on whether the Unified Patent Court Agreement comes into force - it will do so if it is ratified by Germany. If it does and there is no deal relating to the UK's involvement in it, then UK businesses will be able to apply for Unitary Patents and enforce them in the Unified Patent Court. However, UK businesses will only have the option of obtaining a UK patent (whether by applying to the UK Patent Office or through the EPC system) and enforcing their UK patent rights in the UK courts."

These are pretty loaded statements that rely on the false assumption of a 'continental' UPC ever coming into fruition. It cannot, not outside the UK. Published this morning from Mark Bell of Dehns (part of Team UPC) was an article which says this:

Although the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court have yet to come into force, its subsequent fate may well be affected by the UK leaving the EU.

Were the Unified Patent Court to never come into force, there will be no change for businesses in the UK or the EU at the point that the UK leaves the EU, even though the UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement.

Were the Unified Patent Court to come into force (once Germany has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement), the UK will seek to remain within the Unified Patent Court and the unitary patent system. However, depending on whether this takes place before the UK leaves the EU (the latest thinking on this is that this seems unlikely) or after leaving the EU, may affect the UK's ability to participate in these systems.

Were the UK to be part of the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court systems (e.g. before the UK leaves the EU), one scenario is that the UK would need to withdraw from them (e.g. when the UK leaves the EU). Businesses (both in the UK and overseas) would therefore no longer be able to use the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court to protect their inventions within the UK. Instead, as they are able to now, they are able to seek patent protection in the UK via the UK Intellectual Property Office or the European Patent Office (a non-EU institution).


How can Dehns honestly say this after the release of this paper from the Max Planck Institute? People asked this in the comments (so-called 'interview' with other Dehns staff) only to hear some excuse about the 'interview predating this paper. The reality is, they intentionally ignore anything which doesn't suit their financial agenda, i.e. more of the usual. Bristows went further and smeared the paper, calling it "controversial" even though no controversy exists.

As we said some days ago, "lost in the noise created by Team UPC this week is the simple fact that the British government now admits it’s willing to abandon all Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement (UPCA) plans" and this latest interpretation is more correct than most things lawyers have said about UPC (compare to the infamous two lies). To quote:

The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement, but it still needs to be ratified by Germany and it is unclear if this will occur before 29 March 2019. If the UPC does not come into force, there will be no changes for UK and EU businesses at the point that the UK exits the EU.

If the UPC does come into force, the notice confirms that the Government will “explore whether it would be possible to remain within” the UPC and UP systems even in a hard Brexit scenario.


By contrast, see what a totally and completely stuffed/stacked panel at the AIPPI event (as one might expect) said (or is reported to have said):

Carr was one of six panellists (all speaking in a personal capacity) who took part in the “Briefing: hot topics in IP” session during the 2018 AIPPI World Congress in Cancún, Mexico, which finished yesterday, September 26.

While refusing to express any views about the wisdom of Brexit itself, Carr noted that one of the most difficult topics to deal with post-Brexit will be IP exhaustion.

[...]

Finally, on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement and the unitary patent, Carr said: “In my opinion, if we reach a deal then I think the UK will participate … and we have a valuable contribution to make. If there’s no deal, I think it’s unlikely that we will participate ... I don’t think it would be in the interests of other European countries to allow us to do so.”

Also in the session, Judge Klaus Grabinski of the German Federal Court of Justice discussed the UPC Agreement in more depth.

“When you look into the UPC’s life, you may get a feeling that we are now in a situation which is rather unclear. Europe has been struggling to get a common court in the patent field for more than 60 years,” he said, before adding that Brexit and a constitutional complaint in Germany are the two main roadblocks to the UPC.


The above isn't to be mistaken for the constitutional court, or FCC. A different court, the German Federal Court of Justice, is named above. IP Kat wrote about it a couple of days ago in relation to this case now referred to CJEU. What the above suggests is that even judges can recognise the seriousness of the barriers, and the constitutional complaint isn't the sole barrier.

It should be noted that the above event promoted patent trolls' agenda, as one might expect from AIPPI World Congress. Bristows did coverage of it in two parts [1, 2] for IP Kat and irony wasn't overlooked by Benjamin Henrion, who wrote: "Consumers not invited to the FRAND conference: "Tadanobu Andou concluded by reminding the meeting that patent licence fees are in the end paid by end users. In setting licensing fees have to consider how much end users are ready to pay.""

Well, Bristows are "liars and patent zealots," I told him, as they "push SEP/FRAND agenda" for their clients that are patent trolls. This is why they're also pursuing UPC like they'd go bankrupt if it fell through.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
 
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025