Bonum Certa Men Certa

Art 7(2) UPCA Doomed Unitary Patent (UPC) for Good

If they envision a pan-European system without the UK (less beneficial to their agenda), they'll need to start all over again

Space-time



Summary: The UK completely rejects the EU's Court of Justice (CJEU) and if one judges the UPC Agreement (UPCA) it seems rather clear that there's simply no way forward for the UPCA, which was only ratified by one essential country (France)

THE EPO's insiders might think that UPC is so dead that it's not even worth commenting on anymore. We beg to differ because setting the record straight is important also for the future's sake. Facts matters, constitutions matter, and laws cannot be arbitrarily changed if they violate constitutions.

This morning we spotted the 17th comment here, citing FRKelly's Donal M. Kelly (UPC boosters for many years). The commenter calls that "[a]n interesting view coming from Ireland!" (The prior comments are mostly reply to a sort of Internet troll, who has long posted pro-Battistelli junk and Team UPC lies).



"One thing is sure Art 7(2) UPCA remains a stumbling block," this comment continues (there's a similar comment here at the very bottom). "One more nail in the coffin of the new attempt for Germany to attempt an new ratification. The common declaration under Art 33(1) VLCT wished by the Ministry of Justice seems less and less probable."

"Yes, London is a strict requirement, so one cannot just swap it with another place and leap ahead."Kelly, being a UPC booster (the firm's track record was noted here before), writes this: "Just this week, the UK has withdrawn its ratification of the UPC Agreement on the basis that participating in a court that applies EU law and is bound by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) is inconsistent with the aim of becoming an independent self-governing nation.

"So… onwards without the UK!

"Actually, that’s not so straightforward!

"A.7(2) of the UPC Agreement places the seat of the central division of the UPC in Paris, with sections in London and Munich."

Yes, London is a strict requirement, so one cannot just swap it with another place and leap ahead. It doesn't work that way. The European Patent Office (EPO) knows it, hence Benoît Battistelli warned about the impact of 'Brexit' ahead of the 2016 referendum. António Campinos, being a ghost of Battistelli, is just leaning on the German injustice minister. That says a lot about him and his view on justice/judges/Justices (like the FCC's).

As even the UPC booster admits, UPCA is now 'invalid'. Any progress strictly requires "amendment to the Agreement" and then another round of ratifications (at a time when many constitutional complaints are raised around Europe and governments walk away from the plan). In Kelly's own words:

Although the central division could theoretically maintain a section in London as the section will only be geographically located in the UK, but will jurisdictionally still fall under the UPC – the question is whether, politically, the central division could maintain a section in the UK. Likely, there will be a strategic manoeuvre to try to wrestle the section to another Contracting Member State, which will in any case require an amendment to the Agreement.


The people who crafted UPCA already said, even out in the open, that the setback from the FCC meant half a decade of lost 'progress'; one of them even wrote an article to state this candidly and he's being too optimistic. Considering the fact that UPC has been floating around for about 15 years already (without breakthrough) one can expect a whole decade of expensive struggle from Team UPC (so expensive in fact that they might not want to bother).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Hiring for Tech Roles Based on Perceived Loyalty is No Better Than Hiring to Meet Diversity Quotas
What we're seeing right now is a national security disaster and it is almost purely about technology
S.E.O. SPAM by Serial Sloppers With L.L.M. Garbage is Hurting Linux
We continue to run Slopwatch
IBM Says That Half of Its "Assets" is Basically Pure Fiction ("Goodwill")
It times get tough, IBM can sell "Goodwill" at the local pawn shop and pay back the lenders, right?
 
Slopwatch: BetaNews and linuxsecurity.com Have Just Published More Fake 'Articles' About "Linux"
There's probably more "Linux" slop out there, but we do our best to identify it on a daily basis
Richard Stallman Has Another Talk in India Tomorrow, at Least Fourth India Talks in Recent Days
In the past month he has given at least half a dozen talks
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 01, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 01, 2025
Links 01/02/2025: Chinese and American Censorship, Cloud-[sic]Native Targeted by Software Patents
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Belated Happy New Year 2025 and Gabbro 0.1.2
Links for the day
Links 01/02/2025: Administrative Chaos and Aviation Disasters Persist
Links for the day
Arrested: Albanian Outreachy whistleblowers, Sonny Piers GNOME & Debian connections
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 1/2/2025: LLM Hype Revisited, Linuxwashing by Oumi
Links for the day
Growing Evidence That the Patent Industry Has Become a Major Scam
Seeing that the patent "industry" has turned to serious crimes (sometimes to cover up corruption) and seeing that the net negative is clearer for all to see, people who argue for abolition of all patents will have a field day
Planet Ubuntu Overrun by LLM Slop? Faizul "Piju" 9M2PJU Seems to be Publishing Fake Articles About "Linux"...
Maybe it is "assisted" by LLM slop, but slop is slop and it introduces many problems
Gemini Links 01/02/2025: LLMs, Analog Computer, and BorgBackup
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 31, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, January 31, 2025
Links 31/01/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Microsoft, Sweden Again Fails to Protect Critics of Violence
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux" and More (Latest Roundup Featuring BetaNews, Janus Atienza, and Brittany Day From Guardian Digital, Inc)
LLM slop season
Microsoft Staff Explains How Microsoft Swindled Employees and Avoided Paying Out Severance Pay (Microsoft Hasn't Much Money Left in the Bank)
This is a classic way to avoid paying workers
"Not one of us" by Dr. Andy Farnell
Elon Musk has brought embarrassment to nerds and technologists
Gemini Links 31/01/2025: "Bulletin Buble" and "Why Blog?"
Links for the day
Static Site Generators (SSGs) Pay Off: Vastly Faster Sites, Much Smaller Hosting Bills
success story for SSGs
Of Note: Linux Foundation Has Already Let Linux.com Rot for About 4 Months (No Activity)
there's no campaign aside from marketing spam there
Techrights Should be Even Faster Now
We're now better off
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 30, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, January 30, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Gave 3 Talks in India in Less Than a Week
In India this month we've not seen a single negative comment about RMS
Indian Data Biases statCounter For or Against "Linux"
In statCounter, the GNU/Linux increases and decreases are deeply tied to what it does with data collected in India
The Corporate Media Pretends That Facebook ("Meta") Has Performed Well, But Its Debt Doubles Every 2 Years Despite Mass Layoffs
That same media also helps parrot misleading financial claims
Microsoft's Debt Surged by More Than 6,000,000,000 Dollars in Just 3 Months
numbers released hours ago
The Sheer Irony of Microsoft Proxy Accusing Others of 'Stealing'
Wherever DeepSick's data came from, Microsoft (or its proxy) is in no position to issue criticism.
The Difference a Decade (and GAFAM Money) Makes
Credibility cannot be purchased
[Meme] The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Critics Because Its Message is Effective
Applying to others the same standards one is willing to violate?