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THE EPO is a den of lies. It was supposed to be about science, but nowadays it is about law-breaking, propaganda, and abuses/violations of basic rights. António Campinos is in no way better than Benoît Battistelli; he keeps interjecting his name like he's an expert in every domain and he's shamelessly promoting corruption, misusing the EPO's Web site to lend legitimacy to that corruption.
epo.org link), with in-line rebuttals (very short):
"Did IAM disclose payments from the EPO's PR firm? Is this survey scientific?"Who are those users? All of them? How were they selected? Did IAM disclose payments from the EPO's PR firm? Is this survey scientific?
"More than a quarter of respondents (26%) now rate our patents as "excellent", up from 23% last year and placing the EPO well ahead of the other IP5 offices. There is also a strong consensus among respondents that we are maintaining our high level of quality. Overall, more than 87% of respondents describe our service as "good", "very good" or "excellent", once again putting us well ahead of the other IP5 offices."
Still no mention of who's actually paying IAM and who those respondents were.
"Moreover, "quality remains king for the EPO" (source: IAM). The EPO is the only office for which patent quality ranks as the top motivation for filing. In all other jurisdictions, it is the commercial importance of the local market. One respondent is quoted as saying: "The EPO has the edge due to better search, high quality examination and rules which enforce clarity.""
So now they single out one respondent (anecdote). Is this scientific?
"This year's survey was conducted in September and October among several hundred IP professionals. Participants were asked about the EPO, Japan Patent Office (JPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA)."
They say the same thing every year because the EPO pays them. They don't actually check patent quality!
But to make matters worse, the above is lost in a sea of yet more propaganda. From the past week alone:
Let's go through these very quickly, one by one...
"EPO marks International Day of Persons with Disabilities" (warning: epo.org link) is the second such propaganda in about a month.
Disabilities for EPO workers?
This is akin to the pinkwashing, which is too easy to dispute. Disabilities... while sending the judges to Haar (illegally), where disabled people were killed.
To quote the EPO: "Today the Office is marking International Day of Persons with Disabilities (IDPD) with a special internal discussion session. This session brings together EPO experts from various technology fields as well as from Health & Safety, Human Resources and Building Administration units. It aims to showcase how collaboration between colleagues across the organisation can help ensure that everyone fulfils their true potential based on their talents alone, without having to worry about any kind of so-called disability."
The irony won't be lost on EPO staff. They know just what level of audacity and hypocrisy writing these words required.
It seems evident that, tying together both disability and 'ViCo' agenda, EPO management has a new sockpuppet in "Managing IP" and its name is Rory O’Neill; this fluff is one example ("VICO marks ‘levelling up’ for D&I at EPO, lawyers say") and he has also just helped patent extremists -- being employed by their paid-for propaganda mill -- lobby Germany to allow patents for bots. What next? Patents for one's pets? We'll come back to Rory O’Neill later; he seems to have replaced Charlotte, their UPC booster who left some months ago after she had posted a lot of fake news for Team UPC.
The lies are endless and they piggyback disabled people (picture the cruelty).
Similarly, the EPO pretended to care about health (warning: epo.org link) when as a matter of fact it had no choice on the matter because of government/national policies.
"They don't actually check patent quality!"But then it gets even worse, as they're shamelessly promoting an illegal agenda (warning: epo.org link) connected to attacks on the judges and courts.
And speaking of attacks on the very law and moreover an attack on many constitutions, the EPO topped it all up with UPC fluff (warning: epo.org link), reminding us that Team Campinos is either a Team UPC megaphone or an extension of Team UPC, crushing the Rule of Law for the sake of patent trolls, litigation firms, and monopolies outside Europe. "Austrian Parliament successfully completed the ratification of the PPA," says the summary, but Austria is not the UK and they're ignoring the Vienna Convention. The patent litigation firms meanwhile flood the Web (the spamfarm) with headlines like "The Unitary Patent Approaches The Finish Line" and statements like: "The UPC is being widely welcomed by users, but shortly before its launch, it is foreseeable that users will likely proceed with caution at first."
They pretend that it's already launching. Amazing! Promoted for a fee, along with the misleading headline above [1, 2]. They've long pushed such misleading headlines; it's deliberate deception. They pay for some sites (patent-centric spamfarms) to give it broader audience, clogging up the signal with misinformation of theirs. How many times before have they said similar things, even 4 years ago? Ignoring facts and fundamental issue, floating fake rumours etc.
This other new article (boosted here) overlooks the UK's exit from the EU and says: "The 25 participating Member States are called upon, firstly, to promptly ratify the Agreement on the Unitary Patent System, if they have not already done so, and secondly, to facilitate the rapid establishment of the planned Patent Arbitration and Mediation Centre."
But Unitary Patent (illegal patent system) cannot ever start without UK ratification. Only France has ratified it (among required ratifications). Those are the simple, fundamental facts. Rory O’Neill didn't bother mentioning it; When “Managing IP” says “sources” it means sponsors and Team UPC is one of those sponsors.
"The irony won't be lost on EPO staff. They know just what level of audacity and hypocrisy writing these words required."But let's get back to the EPO's statement. To quote: "On 2 December 2021, the Austrian Parliament successfully completed the ratification of the Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on provisional application (PPA). This is another very important step towards the start of the new system. As soon as Austria has deposited the ratification instrument, the period of provisional application will begin in order to complete all technical and infrastructural preparations so the new court can start and allow the entry into operation of the Unitary Patent system."
Of course they don't want to mention the UK and other fundamental issues, instead referring to the "legal guru" Campinos.
To quote: "...EPO President Antonio Campinos said, welcoming the decision of the Austrian Parliament."
Well, Tony Campinos is acting more like a Mafia Don than the chief of a patent office. He knows he's pushing an illegal agenda, but he does not care. Patent litigation firms are on his side for purely financial (self-serving) reasons and the parrots at JUVE are lending support to him. Konstanze Richter has issued this puff piece about the "UPC users" (no such thing!), speaking about it like it's a real thing which exists already.
"The tragedy is, the EPO needs to recruit actual scientists; only a mad scientist would actively pursue an EPO career at this stage."Amy Sandys, a longtime megaphone for Team UPC and the above lies from EPO management, keeps writing junk like JUVE is now owned and run by EPO management (those who hijacked the Office). Watch this page; Sandys is just copy-pasting all the lies from EPO management, no fact-checking required. This isn't journalism but lobbying; to make matters worse, they lobby for an unlawful agenda.
Still unconvinced? 2 days ago Amy Sandys gave an excellent new example of JUVE posting pure spam, or pretence that a firm hiring one person is some major news (it's not even a high-level worker); one day apart there was this fluff from a colleague, who used to do journalism about EPO abuses but is nowadays wording her articles like nothing but advertisements for litigation firms (which is what the site is all about these days). No sane person would call this journalism.
The tragedy is, the EPO needs to recruit actual scientists; only a mad scientist would actively pursue an EPO career at this stage.
The EPO can barely even run its Web site properly. How many technical people have left? As we showed before, oftentimes (for period of hours if not days) the "news" section is practically broken and 5 days ago they published "Strong Together visual", which led to this:
Stronger together? Not even strong enough to run a site properly. Maybe the remaining staff does not know how to use the CMS. And as a side note, in the EPO's press/communications department there have been many departures. The exodus isn't invisible to us. ⬆