Bonum Certa Men Certa

When EPO Press Coverage Boils Down to Lobbying, Press Releases, EPO Lies, and Bribery

Media and academia both [1, 2] bribed to toe the party line

Toeing the Line
Toeing the Line, Byam Shaw



Summary: Any attempts to properly assess and explain what happens in Europe's patent landscape are being drowned out by EPO-bribed and law firms-connected media; to make matters worse, the EPO's bribes have expanded to academia, so even scholarly work in this domain is corrupted by money of special interest groups

NOW THAT CRISPR patents are disallowed by the European Patent Office (EPO) -- as one can infer from a BoA case that the decision extends to other patents -- one can hope that software patents are next to be buried. António Campinos has openly supported these patents and in a Battistelli-like fashion pressured judges in the upcoming case concerning simulations. Just imagine the reaction if the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) pressured the Federal Circuit in some case concerning 35 U.S.C. €§ 101. Absurd, right? But apparently not in Europe...



"Where's the proper journalism about this case? There has been almost none. We just saw many statements from monopolisers and their lawyers, not journalists. The EPO has of course not uttered a single word about this. It has been a whole week. It hopes nobody will notice; that might keep a flow of patent applications..."An advocacy site of monopolisers of life/nature is still pushing that sick old agenda ("Broad Institute presses for CRISPR settlement after EPO revocation" is the latest). Trying to "settle" using fake patents? That does not make any sense.

Where's the proper journalism about this case? There has been almost none. We just saw many statements from monopolisers and their lawyers, not journalists. The EPO has of course not uttered a single word about this. It has been a whole week. It hopes nobody will notice; that might keep a flow of patent applications...

As it turns out, there's also a site called European Pharmaceutical Review (not the same as the above "Review" or WIPR) churning out press releases as though they're articles. Is this journalism or promotional marketing? Has media coverage regarding patents been reduced to "moves" (which company hired which people) and which patent is being advertised? Here's how it reads:

Inflazome have announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) have granted approval to patents for the company’s small molecule compounds that show useful activity in inhibiting NLRP3 inflammasome activation.

The patent application WO 2016/131098 will be accepted by the USPTO as US 10,538,487 on 21 January 2020 and by the EPO as EP 3,259,253 on 15 January 2020.

The pharma business currently has two NLRP3 inflammasome inhibiting compounds in Phase I trials, Inzomelid and Somalix. These treatments can be used in a range of disorders, including Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and motor neurone disease, where inflammation is a key factor and starts or progresses due to the NLRP3 inflammasome.


So pending appeals/opposition (we presume) some company was granted approval to one patent among tens of millions and we're supposed to think this is "the news"?

"To manufacture an illusion of UPC "progress" Gregory Bacon of Bristows makes it seem like "decision in the “ECB bond purchase program” case on 24 March 2020" has something to do with UPC!"It's even more laughable if one turns to Bristows' site, which says: "The German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, BVerfG) has announced here that its Second Senate will hand down its decision in the “ECB bond purchase program” case on 24 March 2020."

Compare this to the misleading headline. Totally surreal! To manufacture an illusion of UPC "progress" Gregory Bacon of Bristows makes it seem like "decision in the “ECB bond purchase program” case on 24 March 2020" has something to do with UPC! Because of a judge's name!

The EPO has meanwhile tweeted: "The first results from our Academic #Research Programme are now available. They offer new insights into the #patent system."

"Anything the EPO touches turns to something awful."This links to the latest spammy 'news' item (warning: epo.org link), wherein the EPO now brags about bribing scholars to manufacture propaganda for patent maximalists. When did the EPO become a propaganda department rather than a patents assessment branch? The EPO is as proud about bribing academia as it is about bribing the media (as it does, a lot).

When the EPO says "Academic Research Programme" it simply means a programme for legitimising bad EPO policies and practices by means of bribery offered to corruptible/desperate scholars. The opening paragraphs are presenting Battistelli's mate (Ménièr) as some sort of genius and bribery of academia as some sort of 'charitable' act. To quote:

The EPO has published six research reports developed with funding from its Academic Research Programme. The research used patent data to investigate topics such as financing for innovation, knowledge transfer, trade, tracking inventions in the marketplace, and the growth of technologies to tackle climate change. Grants totalling €300 000 were awarded for the six projects in 2017, with the researchers presenting their final results at a workshop hosted by the EPO in Munich last month.

EPO Chief Economist [sic] Yann Ménière, who chairs the programme's scientific committee, said: "The impact of the patent system on industry, society and the economy raises important questions for policymakers. Careful, robust, peer-reviewed academic research can often be the best way to get answers. The insights these new results give us into different aspects of the IP ecosystem and the functioning of innovation cycles can be very useful to the EPO, other researchers, and innovators alike."


As they're funded by the EPO, of course there's expectation that they will "toe the line" and exploit the veneer of "academia" or "research". A number of years ago we took note, on several occasions, of the corrosive effect it has on academia. It erodes trust and breaches a number of rules. Anything the EPO touches turns to something awful.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Riot for peace & Love: Catholic Influencers and Digital Missionaries welcome Jubilee of Youth
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Google 'Search' is Fast Becoming No Better Than Social Control Media Infested With Bots
Google emerged almost 30 years ago as a company looking to organise the Web and direct people towards informative pages. That Google is dead.
 
How to Report Apple Layoffs Without Saying the "L" Word
don't look for the "L" word
Wall Street Does Not Care About Microsoft's Impending (August) Layoffs, It Believes Lies From Microsoft, Whose Debt Grows Rapidly
If Microsoft is doing so well and swimming in money, why so many cuts (about 29,000 layoffs so far this year)?
Wayland Considered Harmful (to GNU/Linux Adoption)
it's not limited to games
My Experience With Judges Has been Positive, But We Must Still Pursue SLAPP Reform in the United Kingdom
We believe it'll be a "feather in the cap" if we can help change laws in the UK to better protect investigative reporters
Slopwatch Makes the Web Better
Remember what happened to BetaNews?
Slopwatch: Google News is Pumping in Lots of Web Traffic Into Fake Sites That Say "Linux"
somewhere between 30% and 40% of today's "news" about "Linux", as seen by Google News, is LLM slop
Links 30/07/2025: Climate Calamities Highlighted, Kyrgyzstan Crackdown on Expression/Freedoms
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Watson’s List of Limits, Lysenko 2000
Links for the day
Some People See What Others See... But Only 40 Years Later
When people deviate from "the norm" they typically get ridiculed and dismissed as "crazy"
Links 30/07/2025: Tea Class Action and Google Killing the Web With Slop
Links for the day
Last Month Our IRC Community Turned 17
Funnily enough we never missed a single day when it comes to logging
"The Unix Kernel"
Linux was inspired by MINIX
The Register Relays Microsoft Marketing, Dubs That Marketing "Research"
Hours ago they did a "Microsoft sez" piece
Dealing With Sociopaths, Liars, and Cranks
A dysfunctional society such as this would never develop
Not Owning Mobile Phones
It's not about resistance; it's common sense
PCLinuxOS Had Functional Backups Before the House Fire, the Site Will be Restored in New Webhost
This is the direction we want for GNU/Linux, not some IBM sales strategy
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Two Sides of Me and "Hooked on Cosmic Voyage"
Links for the day
Microsoft Will Continue Resorting to Crimes in Order to Keep GNU/Linux Usage Down
It is a real problem and we'll revisit it later this week
GAFAM 'Revolving Doors' at The Register and a "Bribe Price List"
"an analyst at Microsoft"
Microsoft Rapidly Shrinking (No, It's Not About Efficiency, It's About Unbearable Debt)
We'll soon see how much debt grew in the past quarter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Corruption is the Standard Operating Procedure at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The EPO is a dictatorship that stains Europe
Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) at the European Patent Office (EPO) Requests an Urgent Meeting to Avoid Abolishing the Office
This is dictatorship led by the most corrupt
Slopwatch: Fake 'Linux' 'Articles' and Spamfarms/Slopfarms
at least 5 fake articles in one day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Wayland Unfit for Use and LLM Slop Faking One's Language Skills With Robot Communications
Links for the day
Before the OSI Was Bribed and Hijacked by Microsoft via GitHub and Compromised Management...
The OSI isn't even remotely "woke"
Nailing the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype Bubble
So-called "hey hi" as they define it now is all about large companies or regimes remotely controlling the processes running on your machine and even your very own behaviour on your machine, which is in effect no longer your machine but some remotely controlled apparatus
The OSI Has Been Silent for Over 3 Weeks, It Has a Severe Trust Issue After Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary GitHub
OSI took a lot of money from Microsoft to become a Microsoft lobbyist
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users" Now as a T-shirt
That's shown along the sidebar
Bribery is OK If You Work for Microsoft (No Punishment Expected)
It's very troubling and a symptom of a broken society/system when particular laws or rules are applied and enforced against some people but not against others
Links 29/07/2025: Bad Climate and "Fair Software Licensing" Blasts Microsoft
Links for the day
Links 29/07/2025: Data Brokers Gone Wrong/Rogue and "Copyright Thicket"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025