EVERY now and then we stumble upon misinformation, half-truths, and outright lies about the EPO and UPC. It's counterproductive and harmful to those who do it; lies provoke people and beget responses, which in turn disgrace lie tellers. Look no further than the very major blowback in the comments regarding Team UPC's spin after the ratification efforts have again been tossed out (32 comments at the moment, almost all of which negative, except Team UPC showing up in the comments if or when it feels courageous enough to speak). It seems like Bristows LLP not only writes misleading blog posts (anonymously of course) but also comments on those posts. It's like an army of shills and liars. They turn their entire firm into a laughing stock. Earlier today we saw other sections of Team UPC trotting out those same lies about UPC being merely "delayed" -- an utter lie they certainly tell their clients in order to save face. What will happen when clients realise that money they paid those firms was deposited in a sewer of lies? Money down the drain, almost literally...
The above video also speaks about "ViCo", which is not legal for reasons we explained here several times before. Not only have the Boards of Appeal lost their independence; stakeholders too don't enjoy fair trials and due process. That's of course perfectly fine in the eyes of Rose Hughes (AstraZeneca) whose latest article is a megaphone for those who agree with the employer. Due process? EPC? Not interested...
To quote:
The COVID-19 pandemic will change many aspects of life as we know it. One particularly prominent change has been the accelerated adoption of video-conferencing (VC) as a risk free way of ensuring business continuity. The European Patent Office (EPO) has not been left behind, with the ready adoption of oral proceedings by VC as the new norm. However, the European patent community is divided over whether this is a welcome and inevitable modernisation of EPO proceedings or a dangerous erosion of the right to be heard that should not outlast the pandemic.
Before COVID-19, all EPO Opposition Division and Boards of Appeal oral proceedings required in person attendance at the EPO by all the parties. The global pandemic, and the accompanying plethora of national lockdowns and travel bans across Europe, initially caused all in-person oral proceedings to be postponed. To keep the business of the EPO going, the EPO was forced to transition to oral proceedings by video-conference (VC). It now seems, with the introduction of a new rule of procedure of the Boards of Appeal, that oral proceedings by VC might well become the default from now on.
It is difficult to know what to make of the submissions from CIPA and the IP Owners Association. I know for a fact that members of both have expressed views directly contrary to the submissions made by the organisations (for example, Bardehle Pagenberg is currently listed as a member of the IP Owners Association).
It is also worth noting that the submission of Business Europe was strongly against the making VICOs the default mode, and that the submission of epi advocated (again) making face-to-face the default mode as soon as the pandemic is over.
The most remarkable thing about the consultation exercise, however, is that the EPO has not commented upon the CONTENT of the submissions that it received. Combined with the extremely short period (2 weeks) that stakeholders had to prepare and submit their comments, this is both extremely unusual and highly suspicious. Why bother asking for comments if you are not going to reveal which changes were made in the light of those comments, and why those changes were made?
As per the post ending hint, the debate is inevitably affected by (heavy) business considerations. As long as the ViCo was presented as an emergency - thus, intrinsically pro tempore - solution to hold OP so as not to freeze EPO business, that's fine. But taking advantage of the situation to draconianly eternalize ViCo, all the more (probably? Need to see how the "appropriate" will be construed) as default option, leaves me uncomfortable. Forgetting for a second the diverging interests of UK and German firms, the key point to me is whether EPO stakeholders feel that moving from in person to ViCo OP may lead to an unfair treatment by the EPO or a risk for legal/technical misunderstanding of the party's arguments. If this is the case, yes, the change is negative and should be strongly opposed. But if the argument is simply that the importance of the proceedings in writing would overwhelm the OP, then I see little room to complain. We are brutally invited to play a different game, with different rules. Personally, I would have adopted different solutions for ex parte and inter partes proceedings. Also, the fact that the UK firms are against a mixed solution makes me think that that being physically in front of the Board – assuming the Board is in the EPO premises, of course – is somehow perceived as being advantageous (or maybe only preferable to have your client accept a negative decision)