Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patents That Were Gleefully Granted by the EPO Continue to Perish in Courts

Putting in doubt the collective legitimacy of such patents.

EPO delivery



Summary: The decreasing quality of granted European Patents already becomes a growing problem if not a crisis of uncertainty

THE European Patent Office (EPO) very well knows that it is granting a lot of fake patents or IPs (Invalid Patents) rather than European Patents. Like the USPTO, especially in recent decades (35 U.S.C. €§ 101 has slowed things down a bit), the EPO does not seem to mind patent quality, only raw numbers. António Campinos even promotes illicit software patents in his blog.



"In the European courts, citing the EPC as usual, more European Patents turn out to be invalid."Years ago we heard stories about European patent examiners who had granted Apple patents against their will (management's pressure), knowing that Apple is a "big client", so even though evidence suggests applications ought to be rejected patents get granted anyway. Yesterday a Web site dedicated to Apple patents said this:

Earlier today Patently Apple discovered a patent application from Apple in the European Patent Office database. Digging deeper into the documentation I discovered that Apple had acquired the entire worldwide right, title and interest in the listed patents from Tueo Health Inc. as noted in-part from the document presented below.


Some corporate media then followed, e.g. this one from CBS (ZDNet, a tabloid covering technology):

Apple has acquired a new patent which describes technology able to monitor your health conditions while you are asleep outside of a standard mobile device or smart watch.

As spotted by Patently Apple, a patent registered by the European Patent Office (EPO) reveals the acquisition of a design from Tueo Health Inc.


Part of it is software, but notice how they say "mobile" and "smart". Innovation, right? What other buzzwords can be added? "Insight for searchers and patent information professionals focuses on AI," the EPO wrote yesterday. Whenever the EPO says "AI" it typically means invalid/bogus software patents that must not be granted (they would be in violation of the EPC). Sometimes "AI" refers to search (of patent databases), but only sometimes...

"One thing isn't in doubt though; the lawyers are loving it because they profit from the war."Another term the EPO likes to name-drop (in the context of search or patenting) is "blockchain" and for this too -- like "AI" -- the EPO set up a whole event featuring patent trolls. Speaking of trolls, Watchtroll continues to pretend -- as recently as yesterday in fact -- that software patents are magically OK if one rides hype waves like "blockchain". And also on the subject of trolls, the patent trolls' boosters from Bristows (Annsley Merelle Ward) are again pushing the agenda of a Microsoft-armed patent troll (in IP Kat yesterday), MOSAID/Conversant. She gave away her bias in a recent blog post. They -- like the EPO -- want the trolls of the world to come to Europe; it's not their problem when innocent parties get dragged into court. The more litigation, the better, irrespective of the underlying merits (or lack thereof).

In the European courts, citing the EPC as usual, more European Patents turn out to be invalid. Vidal-Quadras & Ramon's Oriol Ramon has just given this example:

By virtue of a Judgement dated 29 March 2019, the Court of Appeal of Barcelona upheld the Judgement of 20 February 2017 ruled by the Commercial Court No. 1 of Barcelona that revoked the Spanish part of European patent EP 1 379 220 (EP’220).

The plaintiff filed proceedings for revocation of EP’220 due to lack of novelty and inventive step.

In the reply to the revocation suit, the patentee did not defend the patent as granted by the EPO but filed a counterclaim based on Article 138.3 EPC limiting the patent and requesting the revocation action to be dismissed and the patent to be maintained as amended.

The plaintiff then petitioned the counterclaim to be dismissed because the patent in its limited version did not meet the requirements for added subject-matter (Article 123.2 EPC) and inventive step (Article 56 EPC), as, according to the prior art, it was still obvious to a person skilled in the art.

[....]

Neither the Order dated 15 October 2018 nor the Judgement mentioned hereby assessed a further issue: Whether a voluntary request for limitation of a European patent can be filed in the national patent offices or whether it must be filed in the EPO in order to preserve, when possible and as a general principle, the unitary text of the European patent (Article 118 EPC). In fact, the Act revising the EPC introduced a central procedure for administrative limitation by the EPO (Article 105 bis EPC): “At the request of the proprietor, the European patent may be revoked or be limited by an amendment of the claims. The request shall be filed with the European Patent Office in accordance with the Implementing Regulations”.

The judgement is not yet final as an appeal in cassation and an extraordinary appeal for procedural infringement have been lodged by the patentee with the Supreme Court.


How much money has already been wasted and will be wasted in the future because of these dubious patents? One thing isn't in doubt though; the lawyers are loving it because they profit from the war.

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