Bonum Certa Men Certa

FFII: Unified Patent Court is 100 Times More Expensive and an SME Killer, Europe is Committing an Economic Suicide

By Benjamin Henrion, original licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

On justice deniedBrussels, 31 october 2021 — FFII says the proposed Unified Patent Court is an SME killer with its super-expensive court fees of 20.000EUR. No small company will be able to defend itself if it is accused of violating a patent, the proposed UPC court fees will deny access to justice for small companies, the cost being 100X more expensive than the current situation in the different countries.



The claim that the Unitary Patent makes the system better for SMEs is a gigantic lie. Europe is committing an economic suicide by making sure the Court is not accessible to small companies.



Last week, business assocations members of BusinessEurope from Spain, Portugal, Hungary and Czech Republic refused to endorse a call to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA). Those business associations mostly share the same position that the UPC court fees of 20.000EUR (validity) and 11.000EUR (infringement) are way too high, and will deny access to justice for SMEs:



“The Confederation of Industry of the Czech Republic thus demands […] to reduce the court fees, especially the fee for patent abolition’s proposal, which is set at 20 000 euros. If a subject wants to abolish an EU patent on the territory of the Czech Republic now, the fee is approximately 200 times lower.”

— SPCR.CZ: The proposed level of fees is too high for the Czech companies, the Confederation states https://www.spcr.cz/en/23-aktualne/statesment/8743-confederation-on-the-unified-patent-court-fees


This is also the analysis of the Portuguese Association of Consultants in Intellectual Property (ACPI):



“UPC rules are unbalanced in favor of patent holders and costs of European patent litigation in the UPC will be very high and unaffordable for companies resident in Portugal, jeopardizing the right to a fair and equitable process.”

— ACPI: Patente Europeia de Efeito Unitário e Tribunal Unificado de Patentes violam princípios básicos da UE e prejudicam empresas Portuguesas http://www.acpi.pt/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/ConclusoesVIForum.pdf


The same position is also shared by the Spanish Confederation of Employers and Industries of Spain (CEOE):



“Litigation under the UPC will be unaffordable for SMEs. Just have a look at the very high court fees that have recently been proposed by the UPC Preparatory Committee. The fee for invalidation, for example, would be 20.000 euros. On top of that, you have the costs of lawyers, translations, etcetera.”

— Kluwer Patent Blog: Despite the defeat at the CJEU, Spain will not join the Unitary Patent system http://patentblog.kluweriplaw.com/2015/06/17/despite-the-defeat-at-the-cjeu-spain-will-not-join-the-unitary-patent-system/



Even worse, in some countries small companies can call for Legal Aid if they don’t have the means to pay the expensive lawyers fees, and the UPC has scrapped that support for SMEs, and restricted to physical persons only (individuals). For example, in Austria, legal aid is available for small companies.



Benjamin Henrion, President of FFII, says: “The Unified Patent Court court fees of 20.000EUR will prevent small companies to defend themselves, especially against patent trolls, which have most of the time very weak patents. The argument that the UPC is ‘cost-cutting’ is a giant lie and does not fly if a simple case is 100X times more expensive than a national case. Court fees in most member states are between 80EUR and 600EUR, except for Germany.”



He finishes: “Like for the European Electricity Crisis, Europe is designing a patent court system which is the most expensive, a disaster for small companies that will be denied access to Justice.”



References






Recent Techrights' Posts

What Microsoft and GitHub Really, Really, REALLY Do Not Want You to See or Know About
They're trying to misuse law in a completely different continent or to allege that reporting important facts is in breach of privacy law
Crossbow tragedy, bigger than Kyle Clifford, social media culture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Transcript of Richard Stallman's Interview With Manuel Cuda News in Italy (Debunking Fake "AI")
A rough draft, but checked by two people
Microsoft Collapses While GNU/Linux Rises in Bulgaria, According to statCounter
Microsoft is losing across all sectors
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): An Introduction
In a nutshell: there's a massive conflict inside the OSI and the OSI stooges (staff serving Big Sponsors like Microsoft) try to hide it
Paraguay: GNU/Linux Surging to New Usage Levels (7%), According to statCounter
Notice that the gains are at Microsoft Windows' expense
Social Control Media as a Rapid Race to the Bottom - Part I - That Sinking Feeling
When you realise you made an error and things you adopted more than 15 years ago became utterly bad
Microsoft's Entryism as Mortal Risk/Danger: The Example of the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Microsoft is a cult
 
Just Because Common Currencies (Including the US Dollar) Are Considered Uncertain Doesn't Mean People Should Adopt Volatile Multi-Level (Pyramid) Schemes
the scammers are trying to "go mainstream"
Use RSS Readers Instead of Social Control Media
RSS readers were designed to save time. Social Control Media was designed to waste time.
The 'Windows Era' Already Came to an End
Microsoft said to shareholders everything would be alright because of "clown computing" and then "hey hi"
The Fall of the Open Source Initiative (OSI): Microsoft Committing the Largest GPL Violation in Human History, Then OSI Covering That Up on Microsoft's Payroll
LLMs don't make GPL violations any more noble or acceptable; it's not hard to see what OSI was paid by Microsoft for
Social Control Media as a Rapid Race to the Bottom - Part II - Think Before You Talk
The 'socmed' nonsense does not exist in our home
Links 04/03/2025: Hardware, Health, Data Breaches, Politics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 04, 2025
Luxembourg: GNU/Linux at 8% Based on Estimates
steady increases this year
Gemini Links 04/03/2025: Bicycle, Photos, and Motorola 6809 Assemblers
Links for the day
Microsoft OSI Apparently Still Reading Techrights Closely, Trying to Make Face-Saving PR Moves
They have long had this reactionary rhythm, wherein it feels like we can 'control' what they publish and when by merely highlighting facts about them
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Other 'Linux' Sites With LLM Slop
SEO spam with machine-generated fodder, plus a person to whom English isn't a first language
Links 04/03/2025: Microsoft/Korea Game Industry Association Workforce Cuts, Outlook and 365 Outage Affects Very Many
Links for the day
Chad: All-Time Lows for Windows, According to statCounter
According to statCounter, many in Chad moved to Android
Links 04/03/2025: Universities Are Under Attack, Windows Attracts Ransom Against Ministry of Health
Links for the day
Links 04/03/2025: Microsoft Issues Policy Instructions to the Cheeto Mussolini Administration, Cloudflare Engages in Mass Censorship Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/03/2025: Athens, Fedora 41, and Yelling at Clouds
Links for the day
FSF Amicus Brief: Aspose.PDF for .NET 24.2.0, OOXML (.docx), and Microsoft Word (Proprietary)
Could the FSF not find any law firm that, in addition to talking about or for Free software, does not use .NET, OOXML, and almost everything Microsoft?
New Interview With Richard Stallman in Italy (Manuel Cuda News)
Due to Google's growing aggression against Free software and proper APIs, this cannot be downloaded and converted to a free format
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Belatedly Comments on Case That Tests Copyleft in the United States
"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced today it has submitted an amicus brief in the case entitled Neo4j"
If They Try to Censor You on Some Topic, Then You Should Cover This Topic Even More
OSI is only a small part of it
The UEFI hype and Microsoft's lies
By Sami Tikkanen
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 03, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 03, 2025
Thorsten Glaser & Open Source Initiative (OSI) resignations due to AI whitewashing
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 03/03/2025: Copyrights, GrapheneOS, and SpaceBeans
Links for the day
Links 03/03/2025: Europe Rallies Behind Ukraine, Measles Flourishes in US Again
Links for the day
In Central African Republic Windows Has Pretty Much Fallen to Zero
We need to focus on Software Freedom
Microsoft Windows Down to 8.5% in South Africa
South Africa and Egypt are strategic in Africa
After Fund-raising Campaign the Free Software Foundation Still Raises About $13,000 Per Week (Without Campaigning for New Donors/Members)
Richard Stallman in the Board is not a liability
Links 03/03/2025: 'Monetisation' Myth' and Microsoft's LLMs Helping Criminals
Links for the day
The New Series About the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and the Microsoft Entryism in OSI is Closely Related to the SLAPP Against Techrights
Also based on the leading publication that they want removed
New Series: A Deep Dive Into the Severe Corruption of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), Nowadays a Front Group and Lobbyist of Microsoft
There's a lot to show
Links 03/03/2025: Mass Layoffs in IBM China, Intel Still in Trouble
Links for the day
3 Out of 4 in Cuba Use Linux to Access the Web
Maybe change does come about...
Doing Free Software for a Living in an Era or a Time of Abundance of Code (and Fast Internet to Pass It Around Freely) or Writing When the Web is Attacked by LLM Slop
Tailoring code to needs is the key
Links 02/03/2025: Day Off, POWER9, Console Challenge
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 02, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 02, 2025