Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Trolls' Paradise: The EPO is a Rubber-Stamping Machine, So Why Not Automatically Generate Patent Applications?

The more patents, the merrier, right? A Busy Beaver of a patent office...

Tianjin/EPO's so-called 'production'
Tianjin. So-called 'production' that ends up in flames due to poor regulation and misgovernment (stockpiling).



Summary: Running a patent office where quality does not really matter is "great" business; one can set up a script to generate billions of patents a day and grant them on the same day as well; but the EPO's sick obsession with so-called 'production' seems to have attracted automated application and the EPO isn't sure how to cope with the associated publicity

THERE'S a real problem in our hands when Europe's largest patent office, the EPO, sidles with outlaws. Battistelli was a classic outlaw and António Campinos keeps defending him (see Haar). Moreover, he promotes illegal patents and meets patent trolls, whose business model is akin to extortion. Just before the weekend the EPO posted this tweet about Licensing Executives Society International (LESI). The managers of the EPO are working closely together with a front group of patent trolls. It's a collaboration. They have joint events.



"The managers of the EPO are working closely together with a front group of patent trolls. It's a collaboration."Around the same time/day the EPO was promoting software patents agenda under the guise of "blockchain" (events with patent trolls on the panel) by retweeing this nonsense about the EPO: "Combining forces with Dr. Nigel Clarke, Head of Patent Information Research for @EPOorg , the @Derwent team hosted a webinar focused on blockchain fundamentals—information every IP professional should know. Download the key webinar takeaways..."

Well, it's widely known that webinars are just ads. We've also just seen this new tidbit about an "Advisor on Blockchain Patent Prosecution". A blockchain patent is a fake patent because those are software patents that are not valid anymore. He can help patent trolls though. They rely on not even going to court, instead settling behind closed doors. These are the actors standing to benefit the most from the EPO's insane policy and gross deviations from the law.

"They rely on not even going to court, instead settling behind closed doors."Days ago we saw WIPO and EUIPO mentioned in relation to "hey hi" and patents. Patent maximalists engaged both:

Managing IP speaks to the directors of WIPO and the EUIPO to gauge their views on AI, asking how the technology can help the offices be more efficient and whether job losses are inevitable


This whole "hey hi" nonsense soon thereafter spread further from an EPO-bribed publication, the Financial Times. "Patent agencies challenged to accept AI inventor," the headline said, followed by another piece that implicated the UKIPO. This particular "hey hi" nonsense (in this case gaming the application process rather than patents on algorithms) cited Francis Gurry:

According to a statement from the University of Surrey, the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) “have already indicated these applications appear new, inventive and industrially applicable, which are the primary requirements for an invention to receive a patent”.

UKIPO held an event that specifically focused on the issue of AI and inventions created by AI in June. There, speakers clashed over whether AIs should be granted applications for works they have generated.

UK Supreme Court justice Lord David Kitchin said AI holds “profound” potentials and shouldn’t be feared, whereas Francis Gurry, the director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), said he sees “no value whatsoever in attributing inventorship rights to a machine”.


Just before the weekend the BBC quoted the EPO's spokespeople/PR people (5 whole paragraphs about this, but the BBC spikes negative stories about EPO abuses). Leo Kelion (technology desk editor) wrote:

A spokeswoman for the European Patent Office indicated that it would be a complex matter.

"It is a global consensus that an inventor can only be a person who makes a contribution to the invention's conception in the form of devising an idea or a plan in the mind," she explained.

"The current state of technological development suggests that, for the foreseeable future, AI is... a tool used by a human inventor.

"Any change... [would] have implications reaching far beyond patent law, ie to authors' rights under copyright laws, civil liability and data protection.

"The EPO is, of course, aware of discussions in interested circles and the wider public about whether AI could qualify as inventor."


It does not name the spokeswoman, but it might be Mittermaier. Tech Wire Asia, citing BBC, then wrote:

BBC News also spoke to a spokesperson for the European Patent Office (EPO) about the matter who confirmed that while the body is aware of the issue, the filing will be complicated given current regulations.

“The current state of technological development suggests that, for the foreseeable future, AI is… a tool used by a human inventor.”


The patent system may soon deal with computer-generated stuff, assessed by computer stuff that's supposed to replace actual examiners but has been proven to be worse than useless. What's the point of such a system?

World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR) covered this as well:

A team of researchers has now asked the European Patent Office (EPO), US Patent and Trademark Office, and the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to grant protection to patent applications listing Dabus as the sole inventor of the new technologies.

Ryan Abbott, professor of law and health sciences at the University of Surrey, led the team behind the patent applications.

Speaking to WIPR, Abbott said the move was “unprecedented” and that patent offices had “no rules for handling something like this”.

[...]

In a statement sent to WIPR, the EPO said that it could not comment on pending patent applications.

Commenting more generally on the issue of AI inventorship, however, the EPO said it was the “global consensus that an inventor can only be a person who makes a contribution to the invention’s conception in the form of devising an idea or a plan in the mind”.

The purpose of the patent system, the EPO said, was to incentivise innovation and afford rights to protect an inventor’s work.

“These rights are tailored for natural persons, i.e. humans,” the EPO said.


Has this person (applicant behind the machine) 'trolled' the EPO to show the EPO how ridiculous patent quality is becoming? Futurism cited the BBC:

A spokeswoman from the European Patent Office told BBC that it’s hesitant to grant patents to AI because doing so would likely set create unforeseen legal precedents — the office doesn’t take upending existing patent law lightly.

The requirement for a human inventor behind every patent is meant to keep patents in the hands of inventors instead of corporations, per the BBC. But this sort of worker protection wasn’t crafted with the future of AI in mind — the human requirement in the U.K., for example, comes from a patent law written in 1977.


The EPO has been happy to promote "hey hi" as means by which to allow illegal patents on software, but when it's not about legal loopholes and when the whole credibility of the system is at the stake the EPO is suddenly speechless and puts up resistance?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
 
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025
Plunder at the Second-Largest Institution in Europe
cuts, neglect, health problems, even early deaths
Links 12/07/2025: Political Developments, Attack on Opposition, Climate Actions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: Melodic Musings and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 12/07/2025: Jail in China for Homoerotica, South Korea Discriminates Against Old Workers
Links for the day
If Only Everything Was Rewritten in Rust, We'd Have No More Security Issues?
Nope.
Links 12/07/2025: Birdwatching and Fake/Misleading Wall Street 'Valuation' Figures
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/07/2025: How to Avoid Writing, Apps for Android
Links for the day
Using SLAPPs to Cover Up Sexual Abuse and Strangulation
The exact same legal team of the Serial Strangler from Microsoft and Garrett already has a history fighting against "metoo"
EPO Staff Committee on Harassment in the Workplace
slides
Adding the Voice of Writers to UK SLAPP Reform
The journey to repair antiquated (monarchy era) laws will likely be long
EPO Takes More Money From Staff for Speculation (Pensions), Actuarial Study Explains the Impact
"The key change in this year’s Actuarial Study, due to cascading the new “risk appetite” from the financial study, is a significant increase of the total pension contribution rate of 5.7 percentage points, up to a total of 37.8%. This is driven by an unprecedented decrease in the discount rate of 105 bps down to 2.2%."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 11, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 11, 2025
Microsoft - Like IBM - Does the "Relocation" Tricks (Start Over Elsewhere, Then Get Sacked by Microsoft)
It is a "low blow" or a "dick move"
After the Free Software Foundation's Campaign to Raise Money Let's See Campaigns to Finish Off Microsoft (Vista 11, GitHub etc.)
Microsoft is in effect collapsing
Your Publications Have No Major Impact Unless or Until You "Get Some Heat"
we're on the right track
Slopwatch: A Cause for Hope, the Hype is Dying
For about a month we showed that becoming a slopfarm - for several weeks - resulted in utter failure and ruin for BetaNews
Links 11/07/2025: Censorship Worsening, 3D Printing Success Stories, UK and France Unite Around Nukes
Links for the day
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Zorin OS and Scriptonite Updates
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Hardware, Russia, and China
Links for the day
Links 11/07/2025: Intel Collapsing and Microsoft Resorts to Bribery to Push Slop Via Obligatory Education
Links for the day
The EFF Sided With the Team That Strangles Women and Tells Women to Kill Themselves
They say that apathy and inaction are a form of a "stance"
"Nat [Friedman] and [the Serial Strangler From Microsoft] Were Always Exceptionally Close," Says Former Housemate and Colleague
Now Alex (hiding behind another name when that suits him) not only attacks women but also people who merely report what he did to women
Exemplary List of Things That Are Not Artificial Intelligence or Even Intelligence
The "age of AI" or "era of AI" or "AI revolution" mostly boils down to rebranding, just like "the cloud"
New Letter From the European Patent Office Explains How the Office Plots to Grant Many Illegal Patents, a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of 'Growth'
Open letter to Mr Rowan (VP1) and Mr Aledo Lopez (COO)
Abuse of Process
5RB is employing people who help violent men
What Microsoft's Nat Friedman and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
"Get in da car; No time to explain, loser"
Microsoft and IBM Don't Have Much of a Future (They Mostly Pretend at This Point)
IBM and Microsoft are in some ways alike but in many ways different
It's Not Just Twitter (or X.com) That's Dying, Microsoft's Equivalent is Dying Also
Unable to find a business model
GitHub Copilot Can Cause the Bankruptcy of GitHub to Come Sooner and GitHub to be Shut Down Just Like Skype
Some publicly available information suggests that even for each paid subscriber for plagiarism (LLM 'coding') GitHub Copilot still loses more money than it makes
Wayland is Bad for the Planet
If you use Wayland, it'll take you longer to accomplish tasks and you will consume more energy (or battery life)
Legitimising Those Who Sabotage You
Microsoft is a very malicious company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 10, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 10, 2025
On Microsoft Layoffs
we might be looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs since 2023
EPO Management Already Breaks Its Own Promise (Lie) on "Bringing Teams Together"
This gut-punching move happened just 2 days ago
Gemini Links 11/07/2025: Occupation of 2025 and "Old Man Yells At Soundcloud"
Links for the day
Our Lawsuits Against the 'Cancel Mob' (Ringleaders) Helped Reduce Anti-Free Software Online Abuse
That's not to say that lawsuits are the best way to handle terrible people. But that can help.