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

BetaNews Has More or Less Died After Experiments With LLM Slop, Is Linuxsecurity Next?
It doesn't seem like BetaNews knows what it's doing, let alone what it talks about
Links 13/06/2025: Journalists Targeted by Cracking, China-Japan and Israel-Iran Tensions Grow
Links for the day
 
Links 14/06/2025: Wars and L.A. Distortion Effect
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/06/2025: Historic Ada Design and GeminiSpace.Club to Expire
Links for the day
Links 14/06/2025: India Plane Crash and Middle-Eastern War
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 13, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: (Not)virtues and Project Yeet Broadband
Links for the day
Links 13/06/2025: US Reduces Nonessential Staff at Baghdad Embassy Ahead of Strikes in Iran, Invasion of California Debated
Links for the day
X11 is Free Software
Whether you agree (e.g. on politics) with the person/s forking it doesn't matter
The More Time Passes, the Better Our Advice on Social Control Media Seems
At the end of the day, any platform you do not control yourself is working for someone else
Twitter (X) is Dying, Now It's Just Like a Mafia-Type Operation of the Man Who Does Nazi Salutes in Public
a form of extortion
UK High Court Blasts Brett Wilson LLP for Misusing "GDPR" After Failed Efforts to Censor Critics Using 'Libel' Claims
No wonder this firm is rapidly shrinking
Recent Blunders in Microsoft GitHub (e.g. Slop-Generated Bug Reports or GPL Violations 'as a Service') Taking Their Toll?
Put bluntly, if you still use Microsoft GitHub, then you're slave to Microsoft
American Imperialism and Microsoft Plagiarism
Techrights will therefore do what Microsoft does not want it to do: it'll write even more about Microsoft
When They Have Nothing Left to Help Advance Abusive Litigation for Microsoft People... Other Than Throwing ~500 Pages of Someone Else's Work Into a PDF
Microsoft is having a very tough year
The Price of Exposing Corruption in Poland (and Elsewhere)
It's easier to participate in corruption than to merely do the right thing and oppose it
Slopwatch and Yet More Holes in 'Secure Boot' (as Usual!), Promoted Inside Linux by the Man We Are Suing
Today's Slopwatch will be short
Gemini Links 13/06/2025: People You've Left Behind, Life Update and OS Changes
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 12, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 12, 2025
Links 12/06/2025: Portland Homeless Deaths Quadruple, COVID Cases Surge in Asia
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IX: Minimum Wages For You (Experienced Scientist), Alicante/EU Paydays For Me (Unproductive, Corrupt Official)
Does UPRP maladministration extend to the false belief that qualified and experienced scientists can play the role of circus clowns?
"The Liberating Power of Simply Telling People the Truth."
'polite' bullying
Who Imitates Who? Plagiarist as Client (From Microsoft), 'Plagiarism' at the Law Firm?
let's revisit the subject
EPO's Gareth Lord Asked About "Quality and Productivity" or, Put Another Way, Why the EPO Keeps Granting So Many Invalid/Illegal Patents
letter to Lord
EPO's Central Staff Committee (CSC) Scrutinises the Man Who Illegally Grants (and Forces Others to Illegally Participate in Granting) Software Patents in Europe
EPO compels examiners to break the law in the name of obeying illegal "rules" or "orders"
The Latest Rumour Says The Next (as Correctly Predicted Before) Wave of Layoffs at Microsoft is 3 Weeks Away, "Larger Than the First Wave"
Step 2
TV Licensing Used to SPAM Your Postbox, Now It Does the Same to E-mail
First they ask for your E-mail address; then they start nagging you via E-mail
The Toxic Playbook
Either you support Prince Mohammed bin Salman or you're a nazi
It's Possible That BetaNews Got Cracked, But Nobody Talks About It, The Site Contains an Outdated Old Image, No Activity
It's possible that they will never explain what happened to the site and users' accounts
Links 12/06/2025: Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson Dies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/06/2025: Video Game Diegesis and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Why the Militants Have Lost Every Battle Since 2022 (When Attacking My Wife and I in Various Ways, Even Attacking Our Employers)
This takes patience, sure, but at the end most evildoers face the consequences for their actions
Our Priority is Still Tackling Software Patents and Corruption in Patent Offices
Meanwhile we got compliments on our recent articles, which means that they are effective
Politics Will Impact Software Choices
Will those systems respect users' freedom?
EPO: Neglecting Children to Promote American Monopolies by Shielding Them From European Competition
Yesterday the Central Staff Committee at the EPO spoke about another "reform" at the Office
Slopwatch: Another Day, Another Slopfest, LLM Slop Scrapers Slow Down Our Site
We too have some slop issues; this past day this site and the sister site had to answer about 2.5 million requests (not counting Gemini Protocol) and it's slowing things down for everybody
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, June 11, 2025