Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Maximalists, Orbiting the European Patent Office, Work to 'Globalise' a System of Monopolies on Everything

Monopolies



Summary: Monopolies on just about everything are being granted in defiance of the EPC and there are those looking to make this violation 'unitary', even worldwide if not just EU-wide

DAYS ago the European Patent Office (EPO) had a meeting with the litigation 'industry' instead of scientists. This is rather 'normal' these days; António Campinos -- like Battistelli -- always meets non-scientists like himself. He also puts them in management around him (it's a lot worse than in the USPTO ). He refuses to face actual scientists except when they're on stage to receive an award, whereupon it's an opportunity to make the EPO seem less defunct... or a patent office for science (in the service of "Invention"). The EPO wrote about its latest meetings (warning: epo.org link) just two days ago. To quote: "The EPO also held bilateral meetings with the Swedish, Finnish and Danish national intellectual property offices to discuss how the EPO can further support them in strengthening the local innovation system. They discussed co-operation activities set out in the EPO's Strategic Plan related to IT tools, knowledge sharing, quality and aligning practices. In addition, activities aimed at raising IP awareness among SMEs and researchers, as well as deploying measures that help bring inventions to market were addressed."

"They don't listen to actual scientists and no wonder they promote software patents in Europe even though programmers oppose these."These NPOs (national patent offices) are mostly lawyers unless they speak to examiners, which of course they don't. They don't listen to actual scientists and no wonder they promote software patents in Europe even though programmers oppose these. Mirage News then published "Heads of IPO, EPO and USPTO discuss global patents system" (taking patent maximalism global). We wrote a lot about this roughly a decade ago, based on Wikileaks' Cablegate. Here's what these people have in mind:

The UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) Chief Executive Tim Moss hosted intellectual property (IP) leaders at a patent showcase event in London on 13 September.

Tim met with Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Andrei Iancu and European Patent Office (EPO) President, António Campinos.

Topics discussed included their visions for the future of the global patent system, the transformation taking place within IP offices and the cooperation between them. They also shared thoughts on how these developments will benefit users of the global patent system.

The heads of offices met a selection of the UK’s top IP professionals and groups representing the biggest users of the UK patent system.


Notice the role of Tim Moss and António Campinos, who manages the former colleague of Moss. They speak (in this article) of a "global patent system." Pretty astounding considering the utter mess the EPO has become! European media may choose not to cover it anymore and IP Kat too was threatened into silence (it used to cover EPO scandals before censoring all comments about Campinos), but the cracks are on the surface and some of the latest comments at IP Kat bring up concerns, e.g.

To avoid that everyone is forced to apply the simple take home message from this case, we can ask the EPO to automatically include a sentence like "we intend to pay the fee code XXX mentioned above" in the generated 1038E sheet, when a specific fee code XXX is chosen. The EPO was capable introducing to automatically pre-tick the box "examination is hereby requested"....


That's a pretty minor 'scandal' compared to many of the rest. Here's a new comment by "Not everything feasible is to be done"; it's about the EPO granting patents on life itself in defiance of instructions from the EU and irrespective of impact on public health:

That the CRISPR Scientist defends its position and wants to promote the technique is understandable. But not everything which is technically feasible should be done.

Look at the burden the present generation imposes on future ones when it comes to dealing with waste from atomic power plants. Energy generation in atomic plants might be CO2 neutral as such, but what about the waste? It is there for many many more generations!

As long as it is not demonstrated up to the hilt that using this gene editing tool is safe, any gene modification is to be equated with that obtained for GMO and has to be characterised as such.

From what one reads, even here by the CRIPR scientist himself, this is far of being the case, and the EU is right in not have wool pulled over its eyes.

That nature allows to obtain gene modifications by selection and or breeding is one thing. Simply wanting to accelerate the process by some magical tool is not correct as long as it is not possible to foresee the long term consequences of it.


When the likes of Bayer (Monsanto's new handler, notorious for its role in genocide) have so many lobbyists in Europe it's no surprise that their cancer-causing products are not just legal but also enshrined as monopolies through patents -- those same patents that are then used to sue farmers who dare not use RoundUp (and merely get 'contaminated').

"When the likes of Bayer (Monsanto's new handler, notorious for its role in genocide) have so many lobbyists in Europe it's no surprise that their cancer-causing products are not just legal but also enshrined as monopolies through patents..."There's too much ugly stuff on the surface and beneath it. As one person put it this morning, pointing to our recent article about EPO-Serco: "Internet Censorship. News. Irony. British prisons management company SERCO have been hired by the EU to censor unwanted political opinions and deplatform unwanted media sources. SERCO are also the arbiters and custodians of EU patents. Nothing to see here."

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
 
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day