Bonum Certa Men Certa

Team UPC Wants More (Patent) Taxes on Society While Defending/Shielding the Super-rich From Taxes That Might Otherwise Benefit Society

Guarding the super-rich by pushing new laws that favour their interests

Torre de Belem



Summary: By actively helping affluent individuals and multinational firms raid the world with patents and helping these individuals and multinational firms get tax exemptions/reliefs the law firms that are shameless about UPC promotion reveal themselves for what they truly are; they're parasites that take from the poor to give to the rich

THE media has been quiet about the EPO lately (more so than about the USPTO), which left a certain vacuum for law firms that push their marketing as 'news'. Over the past week this has mostly meant shameless self-promotion in relation to the UPC.

Not everybody played along. "Only 6 months until Brexit on 29 Mar 2019," one of them wrote. "And the European Unified Patent Court? No German ratification of UPC agreement, no decision of constitutional court yet, no oral hearing scheduled. Time to say goodbye?"

Yes, but Team UPC won't give up and admit that just yet. Boult Wade Tennant LLP's Neil Thomson, in addition to Gordon Harris and Kate Swaine (Gowling WLG) and Osborne Clarke's Arty Rajendra, Robert Guthrie, Clare Robinson and Mark Foreman are the latest to write about 'unitary' patents and the UK. Well, their UPC dream is dead. Deep inside they know it, but they keep throwing their 'analyses' at Mondaq and Lexology [1, 2, 3]. So did Stephen Bennett and Sahira Khwaja (Hogan Lovells) in JD Supra, as did Anita Polott and Robert Smyth (Morgan Lewis) [1, 2]. For those who aren't familiar with Mondaq, Lexology and JD Supra, those are basically platforms of lawyers, not journalism. That may seem like honest advice, but it's just a farm in which to advertise (oneself).

UPC has all along been full of mischief and cheating. Lies, manipulation and dirty tricks behind closed doors. This isn't going to help the reputation of the profession.

Patrick Wingrove, writing from London about the so-called 'UK Patent Box', is basically framing as beneficial a tax evasion mechanism; it's about using patents and dirty tricks by which to 'hide' some 'assets' and it's mostly exploited by large corporations with help of law firms. As Wingrove put it: "Newly-released statistics from the UK’s HMRC indicate a 25% year-on-year increase in Patent Box claims. Large companies are getting better at using the system, but overheads may still be keeping smaller firms from using it..."

So HMRC and some patent law firms facilitate more tax evasion by the rich, making them even richer. The same goes for the UPC in the sense that UPC is designed to help large companies crush SMEs using patents. They ought to call it what it really is, but those sites are megaphones of the litigation 'industry'. Here's how another site covered it days ago:

Over 1000 companies claimed almost €£1 billion in relief using the UK’s Patent Box initiative.

According to statistics released by from HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) data, 1,025 companies claimed €£942.5 million in relief using the Patent Box in 2016-17.

HMRC revealed in its annual statistics release that the number of companies claiming relief increased from 2013-14 to 2015-16, although the number of companies claiming relief in 2016-17 decreased compared to previous years.

Over a quarter of claiming companies were classified as ‘large’ and accounted for 96.3 percent of relief in 2016-17, up 0.8 percent on the previous year.


That's just 'legalised' tax evasion by the rich, actively and gleefully facilitated by patent lawyers. Are they proud of themselves? Making the poor pay even more tax to make up for these blatant omissions?

Meanwhile, over in the US, there's this update about a super-rich individual opposing taxes on one's patent extortion and the role of SCOTUS in it:

I posted an article earlier on Gil Hyatt’s ongoing disputes with the USPTO. He also has ongoing disputes with the California Tax Board that reach back to his early licensing revenue from his 1990 microprocessor patent. The case is back before the Supreme Court for the third time. See Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt (Hyatt I), 538 U.S. 488 (2003); Franchise Tax Board v. Hyatt (Hyatt II), 136 S.Ct. 1277 (2016).

The basic issue is that a Nevada jury found that California had used improper aggression in pursuing Hyatt for taxes that were not really owed.


So we get it. Rich people don't want to pay tax. They want to tax the whole of society using patents while contributing just about nothing in terms of taxes. This is the sort of nefarious agenda actively promoted by patent law firms (perhaps with few exceptions). And later they tell us all sorts of fairy tales about their aim of protecting innovation and so on...

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
 
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: gwit and Restart
Links for the day
Links 13/02/2025: Algorithm Bots and 'Teleport' Breakthrough
Links for the day
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
Still Waiting for the EU to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Court Linked to EPO Corruption and Lobbyism by the Patent Litigation Industry
Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
Richard Stallman (RMS) covered "cancel culture"
Links 13/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google (Disguised as "Buyouts"), Telecoms Price Hikes as Collusion/Price-Fixing
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman Questions and Answers Session in Google's YouTube or Invidious
From last night
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: Broken Watches and Naming Types
Links for the day
Corrupt Bill Gates Worming His Way Into Richard Stallman Videos in Google's YouTube
Reputation laundering riding other people's names?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Links 12/02/2025: Crytek Layoffs, Security Holes, and Giving Ukraine to Russia
Links for the day
Relaying GAFAM Talking Points and Lies Using GAFAM LLMs, or Slop Pasted in by Brittany Day
linuxsecurity.com is relaying slop, i.e. misinformation
Photos From This Evening's Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman in Torino, Maybe a Video Soon
The talk that Dr. Richard Stallman gave today (a few hours ago) was recorded and streamed
IlSoftware.it Covers Richard Stallman's Visit to Give Talks in Italy
The publication is in Italian, the talk was in English
Macho Patent Office
At the EPO there's always room for women in top roles
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: "Bream Gives Me Hiccups", Making Chinese Tea, and More
Links for the day
This is Why Codeberg Issues an Apology Today
This response was clear and relatively swift
The Register Studies (to Affirm) Reports of IBM Layoffs "at the Finance and Operations business unit"
something about that specific unit
Links 12/02/2025: SSL FUD, DEI Phase-out, Felonies Committed by MElon (Data Breaches)
Links for the day
Italian Media Covers Richard Stallman's English Talk Ahead of Tonight's Public Appearance
article in La Stampa
Destruction and Distortion of Information, Including Facts About Linux (Bonus: This is Destroying the Planet)
All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
Google Seems to Have Just Killed All Instances of Invidious
YouTube is rapidly becoming just "another Neflix"
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
Microsoft axing more services/features may mean that now they scrape the bottom of the barrel and Skype will simply die, discontinuing service (like ICQ) in a matter of years
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: Depression, Gabbro, WikiTok, and More
Links for the day
Links 12/02/2025: Health, Security, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol is Increasingly Important to the Net
Gemini Protocol will turn 6 this summer
Former EPO Manager Warns That the Illegal 'Court' for "Unitary Patents" Enables “Law Shopping”
Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 11, 2025