Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO's Corruption is Like a Cancer That Has Spread to and Infected the EU as Well

Battistelli-Breton photo-op



Summary: With Breton inside the Commission what we're basically seeing is the EPO cabal speaking on behalf of the EU as well, spreading falsehoods and promoting illegal, unconstitutional agenda in defiance of judges and Justices

I have never come across anything quite like this. Right in the middle of Europe -- in the reputable Bavaria no less! -- there's a sort of Mediterranean 'Mafia' running a 'racket' of sorts...

How was this allowed to happen? Why is nobody putting an end to it?

"How was this allowed to happen? Why is nobody putting an end to it?"Well, behind the smokescreen of EPO-funded fluff* there's something rather horrific and sinister going on. I, as a longtime proponent of the EU, am horrified to see the EU becoming an extender of EPO corruption. They don't care about the law and about facts, let alone constitutions. Corruption and illegalities rage on. Having added an update to our previous post about this (with Bristows jumping in, parroting Breton), I now see Myles Jelf (Bristows) jumping in to say:

As well as the issue of the UPC’s central division, other concerns were expressed about the unitary patent and UPC system going ahead without the UK, including:

- the system will be less attractive without coverage of the UK;

- the UPC procedure includes clear features of English legal procedure, yet the only participating country with a similar procedure will be Ireland;

- the expertise of UK judges will not be available, and UK lawyers will not be able to participate;

- English still being the main language; and

- the financial implications for the remaining participating countries.


Why on Earth does the German injustice minister carry on with this Big Lie? It's going to completely discredit the German government while quite likely having zero effect on the death of the UPC. Facts aren't on the UPCA's side. They just aren't.

And now the EU as well. With Benoît Battistelli's buddy speaking for the EU/EC, it's bound to become a total embarrassment. Look no further than all the comments in this ongoing thread. All of them.

"It's going to completely discredit the German government while quite likely having zero effect on the death of the UPC."Jan Van Hoey said: "Time for Boris to pull the plug and send its notification to the secretariat of the Council of the EU. That’s what Mr Tillman was suggesting in its previous interview. It is also strange to consider agreements not into force part of “Union law”..."

Benjamin Henrion has been saying something similar (it's in our IRC logs).

MaxDrei then wrote: "Talk about deja vu. In the UK, in the run up to BREXIT, HMG flying on auto-pilot, deposited its instrument of accession to the UPCA. Now, the EU Commission, another craft flying on auto-pilot, happily announces that it would “welcome” ratification of the UPCA by Germany. Sometimes the ship, sailing on its pre-set course, is so enormous that it takes years to change course. Somebody on the bridge has first to issue an authoritative command. Those underlings who are responsible for Press Releases have no authority to do anything else but state what course the ocean-going liner is proceeding along."

"Concerned observer" is the latest to weigh in:

Well, the only way to describe that response is that is uses carefully selected language to make statements that, whilst not strictly untrue, are highly misleading.

Most misleading of all is the statement that “participation in that system, including the Unified Patent Court Agreement, is only open to EU Member States”. The trouble with this is that termination the UK’s membership of the EU does NOT automatically terminate the UK’s participation in the UPC Agreement. Whilst Mr Tilmann has (rather dubiously, in my opinion) suggested that a notification from the UK would serve to terminate its participation in the UPCA, not even he has suggested any plausible mechanism under the Vienna Convention for AUTOMATIC termination of the UK’s participation at the end of the transitional period.

There has certainly not been any “notification” from the UK to the other Participating Member States of the UPCA. Thus, the problem with the UPCA remains that the UK will be (and, arguably, already is) a “third country” under EU law. In this sense, Mr Breton’s response simply does not address the legal issue underlying Mr Breyer’s question. Whilst extremely disappointing, this is hardly surprising … given the level of “political” support for the UPCA at the EU level.

It remains to be seen whether national courts (such as the BVerfG) will be persuaded by such misleading responses. In my experience, courts tend not to be so easily misled. Also, given that Germany is proposing to ratify the UPCA by relying upon arguments that happen to work very nicely for their legal profession (by effectively dividing between Munich and Paris cases that would have gone to London), it remains to be seen whether the other Participating Member States (such as Italy) can be persuaded that this is acceptable. Whilst various carrots and sticks will no doubt be deployed, I doubt that it will be so easy to persuade all of the PMSs.

Finally, I have my doubts about Jan’s suggestion that the UK should formally withdraw from the UPCA. Recent years have seen many highly dubious (and sometimes contradictory) legal theories wheeled out to keep the UPCA “alive”. In this respect, I have no doubt that Mr Tilmann would find some way of arguing the UK’s formal withdrawal would not prevent the UPCA from coming into force. No doubt he would also concoct some arguments for salvaging the associated Protocols (on Provisional Application and Privileges and Immunities), regardless of the fact that those explicitly call for ratification by the UK…


This is pretty much the consensus if one asks anybody except Team UPC as “more than 71.4 % of judges no longer support the UPC,” based on a recent survey from JUVE.

"With Benoît Battistelli's buddy speaking for the EU/EC, it's bound to become a total embarrassment."A scholar has written to us about this, seeking to participate by expressing concerns about the campaign of Team UPC.

"Hi Roy," said the message, noting "that the matter is urgent as many sources confirm that Germany can ratify UPCA and they will try to push it through rather than risk a renegotiation."

Regarding getting people involved in this: "In the constitutional law quarters, academics are more independent and open minded, especially those specialising in human rights, but they do not understand patent law at all.

"A lot of it can be traced back to the EPO and failure to regulate the EPO (or have effective oversight) basically dooms many institutions around it, including ILO.""There is a recent feedback initiative from the Commission on the future of IP. [...] As things stand at present, the matter is a bit urgent and if Germany does not manage to have its way, the UPC legislative package must re-open [...] The moment is critical. [...] we need to get politicians to re-open the negotiations on the UPC and UPCA. [...] at the same time, we need to get politicians to re-open the negotiations on the UPC and UPCA."

Keep an eye on this space. There might be further formal action quite soon. We cannot specify the details just yet, but Team UPC is vaguely aware. It's truly a shame that all this corruption has touched the German government and the EU; the aftermath or the consequence will simply erode public confidence in these institutions. A lot of it can be traced back to the EPO and failure to regulate the EPO (or have effective oversight) basically dooms many institutions around it, including ILO. ____ * The latest nonsense comes from Watchtroll ("IPWatchdog"), e.g. "'Not a Field of Giants': Trends in 3D Printing Tech Include Key Contributions from US," and Machinery that bases its 'reporting' on "European intellectual property firm, Withers & Rogers." It's an EPO parrot; to quote: "Highlighting the UK’s position as a European hub for innovation in 3D printing, the report revealed the city of Derby at number seven in a ranking of 15 major European innovation centres for AM technologies, with Munich, Barcelona and Zurich taking the top positions." They're reusing these talking points, extracted from the EPO's own 'script'. Real journalism is dead/dying.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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
 
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.”
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