Bonum Certa Men Certa

Growing Acceptance That There's No Future to the UPC System and the Unitary Patent

Even those who are paid by the EPO to promote the UPC are giving up

IAM events



Summary: There are growing pains and more signs that even key elements of Team UPC move on, accepting the demise of the UPC

THE European Patent Office (EPO) of António Campinos is the same institution run by his appointer (who gave him this job and swapped chairs at CEIPI). They both promote software patents, which they hope the UPC would accept (as existing courts do not). These Frenchmen have a track record of law-breaking; they both lower patent quality (granting illegal/invalid patents) and they never value their staff or actual skills (they have none themselves; they have connections).

"These Frenchmen have a track record of law-breaking; they both lower patent quality (granting illegal/invalid patents) and they never value their staff or actual skills (they have none themselves; they have connections)."Just like 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101 discussions in the US (very hot topic a couple of years back), discussions regarding EPO abuses have sort of faded away. It's like nobody is left to cover this subject but us. It's not like SUEPO says much (sometimes it shares some links), but we're aware that it does a great deal. There's definitely a desire to correct things at the EPO. The goal is to fix the EPO, not to make it go away.

Regarding the UPC, it definitely needs to vanish. For good. The very premise of it was all along flawed, not only the proposed legal implementation (as per UPCA).

While it's possible that UPC will resurface under yet another name (with entirely different nature, excepting some clauses, excluding the UK and perhaps much more), this can take several more years to happen. And even then, ratification would still depend on constitutionality, not lobbying, bribery and various other dirty tricks.

Spotted in Lexology yesterday was this piece entitled "IP after Brexit: consequences and checklists" by Robert Guthrie, Richard May and Michelle Radom (Osborne Clarke). In their own words: "The UK will no longer be part of the new Unitary Patent and its involvement in the proposed new Unified Patents Court (a quasi-EU institution) is now open to doubt."

The loudest pro-UPC voices of Bristows recently left the firm.

This is the kind of admission or acceptance we don't often see (not from law firms anyway); the UK is 'out' and hence there's no relevance to the UPCA. Without the UK, UPCA is simply invalid. Milan cannot be renamed "London"; Italians would not permit such a rename, either. We've meanwhile noticed that Managing IP writers begrudgingly come to the realisation that UPC is no longer possible.

Highlighted by its parent company this week (promotion in Lexology), IAM has just mentioned the UPC ("the future of the UPC system and the unitary patent" is a loaded statement, but IAM is still a paid megaphone of corrupt EPO management).

Authored by Editor-in-chief Joff Wild, feeding off the EPO's PR firm, it reveals itself as nothing but a campinos puff piece or promotion of a new IAM issue:

EPO president António Campinos has said that the office’s user community can expect to see “significant advances” as his Strategic Plan 2023 rolls-out over the coming years. Speaking exclusively to IAM in his first detailed interview since succeeding Benoît Battistelli in July 2018, the Portuguese national explained how what he termed a “digital transformation” will lead to the patent-granting process becoming more efficient. “Practically, that should result in more online user services that keep users better informed on the progress of patent applications and more timely communications,” he stated.

[...]

Since becoming president, Campinos has rarely spoken to the press about his plans and priorities, or his more general views on the IP system. But over the course of a month in a series of email exchanges with IAM, he opened up on a number of topics, including: the office’s commitment to patent quality; the role that AI will play in the patent system of tomorrow and the patentability of AI-created inventions; the future of the UPC system and the unitary patent; his relationship with the examiner corps; competition between the IP5; and the EPO as a lever of European soft power; as well as much more besides.


From what we can gather, IAM may be in a slow-motion state of collapse. Quite a few writers have left, there's a very stubborn paywall, hardly any interactions in social control media and their sponsors, notably the patent trolls, aren't doing too well.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
 
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025
Judges Would Never Rule for Men Who Strangle Women or Against Women Who Merely Wrote Articles About Abuse They Had Received From Men
We don't intend to do "trial by media", so we won't be disclosing claims and defences until it's over
Windows is an Unnatural Disaster, It is Also Avoidable
there's a wide window of opportunity opening
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Less YouTube and More Station
Links for the day
In Some Countries, Such as Thailand, Firefox is Already Measured at Less Than 2% (One Day Firefox Will Get Blocked, Not Only Lack Support)
Web consolidation around Chrom-isms will doom the Web as we know it
Killing the News With Spam and Slop Benefits Those Whose Desire is an Uninformed Population
adoption of Free software depends indirectly on political activities/activism
Links 29/03/2025: Trademarks Battles, Fires Destroy More Than 3,000 South Korean Homes
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: An Introduction
Perhaps tomorrow or perhaps next week we'll share more information about what happened and what was reported to the California Privacy Protection Agency
Links 29/03/2025: More Crackdowns on Science, "Hey Hi" Slopping is Flopping
Links for the day
IBM's BS (Bait, Switch) Regarding Ways to Stay Onboard
PIPs, RTOs, and forced relocations are just an illusion of choice (or ability to recover)
Costa Rica Almost Bankrupt Because of Microsoft
the incidents in Costa Rica are Windows incidents
Gemini Links 29/03/2025: Art of Looking, Wireguard, EMacs
Links for the day
Links 29/03/2025: Attacks on Social Security and War Updates
Links for the day
Banned evidence: Ars Technica forums censored email predicting DebConf23 death, Abraham Raji & Debian cover-up
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 28, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, March 28, 2025