Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Strikes Further Diminish Chances of UPC Ever Materialising (in Any Shape or Form)

Another EPO strike
Credit: MSServices Global



Summary: The EPO crumbles under the weight of its own corruption while an increasingly-insane Team UPC pretends all remains normal and a patent trolls-friendly system is ready to take off

IT IS becoming a busy week (and maybe weekend) down in Munich. SUEPO has had the final straw. We expect more to be said, maybe in light of the Kötter Group as well. Is the EPO about to become infested with thugs and goons from a firm founded inside the Third Reich? And apparently participated in the occupation and exploitation of the Netherlands?



"What we're seeing here is a gradual shift; the public does not view the EPO as an ally or a regional protector; rather, it's an exploitative foe that extracts money from the European public and gifts rogue entities, both contractors of the EPO (connected to EPO chiefs) and patent trolls."Earlier today we took note of the upcoming strike (assuming staff votes for it and it's approved), adding the above banner. As it turns out, it was made by a Dutch firm. "Sorry to bother you with this," one reader told us, "but it seems that you used the wrong source for the published picture ("Credit: Anonymous Twitter account“); however credits go to "MSServices Global" (a Dutch registered business). I've heard from a reliable source (from within the Union) that this company supports the union. Many thanks in advance for correcting it." (We've just corrected it)

What we're seeing here is a gradual shift; the public does not view the EPO as an ally or a regional protector; rather, it's an exploitative foe that extracts money from the European public and gifts rogue entities, both contractors of the EPO (connected to EPO chiefs) and patent trolls. The public is only going to suffer and Europe's reputation too is being harmed.

Earlier today we saw this press release in PRNewswire about "Formal Requirements of the European Patent System"; which system? The one foreseen and set up by the EPC or the sordid mess we have today, operating outside the rule of law and even defying the EPC itself?

"The EPO basically violates the law; the EPC, the courts, the European Parliament..."On May 16th this long blog post was published in Spanish (Spain opposes the UPC and is no friend of the EPO in general). Benjamin Henrion had a go at translations with [1, 2]: "Where the European Parliament did have a starring role was in the rejection of the Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in 2005. [...] However, the EPO has continued to do what it has wished in this area [...] EPO has continued to do what it has wished in this area, so the rejection of the European Parliament did not result in the elimination of "software patents" and certainly leads to the EU's inhibition in patents, leaving initiative to the EPO..."

The EPO basically violates the law; the EPC, the courts, the European Parliament...

"Putting aside illegal software patents, how about patents on life and nature?"No sane judge would ever entrust or assign anything legally-sensitive to the EPO, which also violates the privacy of stakeholders (underreported issue that corporate media did not bother covering, as usual).

Putting aside illegal software patents, how about patents on life and nature? CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP's Robert Stephen has just published this article about Broad Institute’s CRISPR patent loss. Will the EPO's examiners manage to defy management and patent maximalists who infest the management level? Then deny patents on life itself? (Patents in violation of EPC)

To quote Robert Stephen:

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard owns several key patents related to the CRISPR technology. One such patent is EP2771468 (“EP ‘468”), which relates to a fundamental aspect of the CRISPR technology in eukaryotic cells. EP’468 was granted in February 2015 and opposed by nine opponents. Following an oral hearing in January 2018 the Opposition Division of the EPO revoked the patent due to lack of novelty over two pieces of intervening art, i.e. documents published after the earliest priority date. These two documents became part of the state of the art after it was decided that the application was not entitled to its earliest two priority dates.

The Broad Institute has appealed the Opposition Division’s decision. Their grounds of appeal rely on attacking the EPO’s current approach to determination of priority entitlement.

The EPO applies an “all applicants” test for priority. The right to claim priority belongs simultaneously and jointly to applicants when there is more than one. The right to claim priority to the two earliest applications belonged simultaneously and jointly to Mr Zhang, Mr Cong, Ms Habib, and Mr Marraffini, yet neither Mr Marraffini nor his successor in title (Rockefeller University) were named as applicants on the PCT, and neither had assigned his right to claim priority to any of the named applicants. The PCT could not, therefore, validly claim priority to the two earliest applications, and thus EP ‘468 was deemed to have a priority date of 30 January 2013.


At the moment, with referrals and appeals impending, all sorts of European Patents are just 'hanging in the air' (great uncertainty over their fate). The FCC in Germany is certainly aware that EPO judges lack independence (the judges themselves say so), so we very much doubt the UPC can get off the ground. To make matters worse, there's an imminent meltdown at the Office because staff will revolt.

"They're dressing up corpses or embalming dead bodies."What do the bullies/litigators think of the UPC? Well, they live in another universe. Team UPC's Vanessa Rieu (who describes herself as "experienced litigator specialised in all areas of intellectual property" [sic]) makes it pretty obvious that Bristows were the ones writing this latest UPC propaganda in Kluwer Patent Blog (albeit anonymously). Just compare the texts. One says: "The latest development shows preparations are going on despite the uncertainty about the future of the UP system due to the German constitutional complaint which was filed against the UPCA in 2017."

That's similar to their obsession over/with robes. They're dressing up corpses or embalming dead bodies. In their official blog they said: "The building that will, at least initially, host the UPC is located on the Quai de la Mégisserie, overlooking the Ile de la Cité, and it is reported that a few years after the Court opens (and there are more cases) the Court may move to the Palais de Justice on the Ile de la Cité."

"Bristows continues to discredit itself each time it tries to reattach these clipped wings to their 'fallen angel'."Haha, they said something similar about venues in the UK up until Brexit. "The Paris offices of the future Unified Patent Court have been disclosed," writes the anonymous person in Kluwer. Guess who...

Bristows continues to discredit itself each time it tries to reattach these clipped wings to their 'fallen angel'. They must be in a lot of pain. Battistelli is meanwhile 'hiding' in CEIPI, presumably praying for a UPC (which he's hoping to head while António Campinos brings him back to the Office as a judge!).

Bristows EPO



Recent Techrights' Posts

Maintenance Reminder
We'll carry on publishing
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part VIII - Mobbing and Silencing of Dissenting Staff
that's the very cornerstone of functional democracies with real opposition parties
Reader Shares Recent Memes on Slop and 'Coding' by LLMs
"just some funny memes I thought were relevant to current coverage."
Invitation to General Assembly After 1,200 EPO Workers Participated in the Demonstration 3 Days Ago
"the strike of 19 March was also very well followed."
SLAPP Censorship - Part 17 Out of 200: A Long Track Record of Online Abuse, Then Choosing a Low-Cost Law Firm to Muzzle People Who Have Illuminated This Abuse for Over a Decade
Censorship by targeting ISPs and webhosts isn't unprecedented
 
SLAPP Censorship - Part 18 Out of 200: Third Parties Funding Attacks on the Messengers, Lawsuits Against GAFAM-Critical Voices That Uphold Real National Security
Women are like kryptonite to them
Never Trust People Who Write Their Own Wikipedia Pages (Vanity Pages About Themselves) or Ask Friends to Do So. Also: Jono Bacon is Married to Microsoft.
We'd hardly be the first to point out Wikipedia isn't what it seems
No Tolerance for Attacks on Family Members
Being a Free software activist ought not lead to "collateral damage" like attacks on family members, including doxing
Sirius Open Source is Just a Zombie Firm With Shell Entities
Many companies fake their health and their size
Communities Can Only Survive When Trust Prevails
PCLinuxOS is still a vibrant and authentic community
Techrights Was Always a Community Site
The harder we're attacked, the more people participate in the site
Behind the PR Smokescreen and Microsoft-Sponsored Chaff, Microsoft Layoffs in "AI" Alleged This Month
In an age when ~1,000 simultaneous layoffs aren't enough to receive any media coverage, what can we expect remaining publishers to tell us about Microsoft layoffs in 2026?
Bluewashing at Confluent: Some Workers to Leave Within 3 Months (IBM Mass Layoffs)
Is the "era of AI" an era when none of the media will mention over 800 layoffs? [...] There's a lesson here about the state of the contemporary media, not just IBM and bluewashing
Microsoft OpenAI, Drowning in Debt and Forced to Make Significant Cuts (as Reports Reveal This Month), Does Hiring Disguised as "Takeovers" to Fake Value or Alleged Potential
Remember what happened to Skype last year
Slop Does Not Replace Art, It Contaminates Everything With Reckless Nonsense
many Computer Scientists do not want programs to get contaminated by slop
Coders Don't Just Reject 'Vibe Coding' Because They're "Luddites", They Just Know the True Cost of Slop
if some programmer says slop sucks, don't rush to assume selfishness or defence of one's occupation
When Nobody Else Covers the News
There's an obvious "media blackout" regarding the mass layoffs
Links 21/03/2026: David Botstein Dies, Slop as Censorship Apparatus
Links for the day
Links 21/03/2026: Metastablecoin Fragmentation and Crescent Moon
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/03/2026: Historic Ada Docs; The Lurking LLM on the SmolNet
Links for the day
HSBC the Latest Failed Bank Using Slop as Excuse for Its Financial Failure
"HSBC is planning on cutting as many as 20,000 jobs in the near future as the company allies with AI revolution."
A/Prof Susan G Kleinmann, Enkelena Haxhija & Debian-private risk to MIT
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 20, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 20, 2026
Plagiarism in "Linux" Clothing (LLM Slop in linuxiac.com, LinuxTeck.com, and linuxsecurity.com)
The net effect of those slopfarms is very negative
Links 20/03/2026: Facebook Weaponised Politically, Openwashing by LF and NVIDIA, Encyclopedia Britannica Sues Microsoft Proxy for Plagiarism
Links for the day
The EPO's Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) Explains to the Administrative Council (AC) How Bad Things Have Become at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, Biggest Patent Office, and Corruption/Cocaine Hub (Jobs Sold to Friends)
We'll say a bit more tomorrow
IBM's Red Hat Diversity: Only 3 Women (Out of 11 Leaders)
For comparison's sake, the FSF is about 50% female
Symptom of Publishers Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop. Symptom of Software Companies Dying: They Move to Adopt Slop ('Vibe').
It'll always fail. It's hype. It's a bubble.
Under IBM, Red Hat Replaces Code With LLM Slop, Fedora is Slopware
Not even hiding it, those things are in plain sight
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
"Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies
Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
Windows fell by a lot
"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
For those who have not followed our story
Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
They know what's coming, they just don't know when
Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
Links for the day
"AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
gets paid to do this
People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
Links for the day