Bonum Certa Men Certa

Companies That Collapse Because the European Patent Office (EPO) Gave Them Fake Patents in a Hurry



When you're being granted a monopoly that later turns out to have been invalid all along

Hurry



Summary: False hopes and false promises won't do any favours to European Patents, whose legal certainty suffers because Campinos and Battistelli measure nothing but 'production' (quantity) rather than quality of patents

THE European Patent Office (EPO) cannot carry on pretending that it values patent quality. On Friday night we wrote about decline in patent quality and around the same time came out this report entitled "Here's Why Pacific Biosciences Is Tumbling Today" from Microsoft's network (Motley Fool). In short, it happened because the EPO had granted a fake patent; we saw similar stories before (see last year's A Danish Company Has Just Collapsed Due to Patent Quality Issues at the EPO). As long as the EPO keeps granting software patents and patents on life/nature oppositions will come and courts will shoot down European Patents, discrediting the very concept of such patents.



The latest:

Shares of Pacific Biosciences (NASDAQ:PACB) fell over 14% today as investors grappled with more bad news for long-read DNA sequencing power. The latest twist comes courtesy of the European Patent Office (EPO), which revoked a second patent for the company pertaining to its ability to read long, uninterrupted strands of DNA with its machines. More specifically, the EPO found that the patent in question made too broad a claim to "single molecule sequencing," which is central to the company's entire technology platform.

A shrinking patent portfolio isn't ideal, but it's compounded by recent news from the United Kingdom's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The trade body has referred the company's pending acquisition by Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) for an in-depth investigation after the parties failed to address the CMA's concerns raised from an initial inquiry that began in April, as first reported by The Motley Fool. Turns out both the patent dispute and the antitrust investigation have a similar root cause: Oxford Nanopore, a start-up based in the United Kingdom.


We're going to see more and more stories like that. If not for the oppositions and appeal boards, it will be actual courts (outside EPOnia and Haar, which is technically outside of EPOnia in overt violation of the EPC) deeming such patents invalid. Over the past few months, more so than the past few years, we've seen examples of this every week. We shall cover such examples (that become known to us) and repeatedly stress the need for quality.

"It's like there's a very deliberate 'blackout' and key platforms that used to criticise the EPO are nowadays very much complicit."Last month we covered the EPO’s “Collaborative Quality Improvements” (CQI), formerly known as “Team Collaboration Project” (it's the opposite of the name). Notice how no European media, not even so-called 'IP' blogs, touched the subject. It's like there's a very deliberate 'blackout' and key platforms that used to criticise the EPO are nowadays very much complicit.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The UEFI 9/11 - Part III - Chaos is Scheduled to Happen Second Thursday of September (No Matter What the Microsofters Tell You)
The clock is ticking
Downplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
 
Activists, Including Technical Activists, Need Not Pursue Affirmation
Techrights doesn't play or participate in a "popularity contest"
Government Sites Should Run Free Software
Not proprietary bloatware with buzzwords
LLM Slopfarms Take No Breaks
When people run sites by bots they don't need to worry about "breaks"
GNOME Having a Meltdown Again
Thanks and farewell to Steven Deobald
Gemini Links 30/08/2025: Low Tech and Hunchbin 1.0.6
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, August 29, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, August 29, 2025
Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
It's also burning the planet
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
Slopfarms are a real pain
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms