Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO's Patent Invalidity and Low Patent Quality Issues Get the Attention of Christian Wichard (Deputy Director General at Germany's Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection)

J. Christian Wichard, Deputy Director General at Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection

Summary: Thomas Magenheim, who has been writing about the EPO for about a decade already (also earlier this summer), publishes a new article which reveals that the Ministry of Justice in Germany gets involved as António Campinos refuses to talk about quality/validity issues as discussed by IPQC; loads of fake (invalid, bunk) European Patents are being granted

THE culture of overt corruption and terror at the EPO began with Benoît Battistelli, a white-collar criminal and despot who basically "arranged" the job of his successor, a man who refers to himself as "the f***ing president". These people are definitely not qualified to run the Office, yet they steal and then occupy top positions, even in the EU (EUIPO has just been seized by another member of their clique after intense interference).



Today's EPO grants European software patents using buzzwords and worse means. The only thing it judges is money, even if unlawfully obtained. It is a notorious process of financialisation. It leads to ruin.

There's a new article this month and the staff union uploaded an automated translation. We reproduce it below as HTML/plain text/GemText, noting deficiencies like examiners becoming "auditors".

EPO RND article: „Die Kasse muss stimmen“: Warum das Europäische Patentamt in der Kritik steht



Here is a translation:

Two examiners unpack

RND: "The cash register must be right": Why the European Patent Office under criticism



The European Patent Office has been criticised for quality problems. Now two examiners have come clean and confirmed deficiencies. The Office is stonewalling - and the Ministry of Justice is calling for dialogue.

Thomas Magenheim

Munich. The man presents his official identity card for the European Patent Office (EPO), which identifies him as a patent examiner. Like a colleague, he wants to remain anonymous because, according to internal regulations, examiners are not allowed to make public statements if that could damage the reputation of the office. What the duo has to say is quite capable of doing that. "The seeds are sown," says one of them. He is referring to the consequences of a new appraisal and promotion system introduced in 2015 that encourages examiners to work through as many cases as possible. Cases are patent applications. Those who process many applications get many assessment points. The more of these points an examiner manages, the faster he rises and receives more salary. "Our quality problem is structural", emphasises one of the two auditor.

His colleague confirms this, and with it criticism of the IPQC. This is an initiative of major industrial applicants at the patent office, with Siemens leading the way on the German side. Bayer, Nokia and Roche are also involved. IPQC complains that the office is having patent applications examined ever more quickly and thus more negligently. The result i s that patents contested in court are less and less likely to b e upheld, which can cost alleged patent holders a lot of money. The office itself has not yet publicly commented on the criticism.

It has always denied quality problems to IPQC until recently, say industry representatives.

In contrast, the IPQC's criticism has been registered without surprise among its own auditors. "This was to be expected," says one of the two auditors. It was only a matter of time before quality problems began to show through, since the audit time has been getting tighter and tighter for years. "The money has to be right," adds the other examiner. However, the office collects fees mainly when patents are recognised. Revenues per grant therefore have priority.

Auditors had already feared the resulting quality problem eight years ago and addressed it internally. "The management doesn't see it that way and sees us more as a nest-destroyer," says an auditor who has been working for a good 20 years and has a lot of experience.

The office is also stonewalling the IPQC. Since February, it has refused to provide data requested by the initiative on patent granting practices. It has also refused invitations to a round table or a public discussion at the Osnabrück Patent Days this May, where all the problems could have been discussed. All this can be seen in a letter from the IPQC to Epa head Antonio Campinos from the end of June. It also shows that the leadership no longer wants to talk to IPQC, as confirmed by those involved.

The office and its critics

The European Patent Office, with its headquarters in Munich, is not an EU authority, but a supranational organisation to which 39 European states have joined. Each of them is represented in the Administrative Council with one vote, regardless of the patent volume of their countries. San Marino has one vote, as does Germany. Patent fees also benefit these 39 states proportionately. For many smaller ones, they represent an important budget item. They are interested in many patent grants. The IPQC industry initiative provides facts for criticism. From 2018 to 2022, the number of patent applications increased by a tenth, but the number of examiners fell by 8 per cent. The rate of accepted patent applications grew from 61 to 71 per cent from 2015 to 2021, while the processing time per patent application was halved. By comparison, major applicant Siemens needed a good third more time to formulate a patent application. Well over half of the contested patents were recently withdrawn in whole or in part.

No one is served by mass instead of class

In the meantime, the dispute has also reached the Epa Administrative Council as the supervisory body of the office. The German representative on the board is Assistant Secretary Christian Wichard from the Federal Ministry of Justice. "The IPQC is known to the ministry," it writes in response to a question. It is important, he says, to grant a patent that will last as far as possible if it is legally challenged. "No one is served by a merely quantitative approach that prioritises the number of patents granted," the Ministry of Justice emphasises.

The Administrative Council is very aware that the quality of patent granting is of great importance and that quality deficiencies would be very problematic for Europe as a location for innovation, it continues, and urges constructive dialogue with the IPQC. The commitment of the industry initiative is to welcome.

With its attitude of refusal, the office obviously sees things quite differently. From now on, alleged quality problems will only be discussed within Epa and in the Standing Advisory Committee, which is made up of representatives of the notifying industry. The Office refuses to discuss the matter separately with the IPQC, according to people familiar with the matter.

However, the critical major notifiers do not want to let up, and have now also sought contact with the German Epa Board of Directors, Wichard, and thus political support. Judging by the statements of the Federal Ministry of Justice, there is. Germany has always emphasised the importance of patent quality in the Administrative Council and suggested that the Office and IPQC try to find solutions in dialogue, it explains. It is important that the Office and users "remain in serious dialogue and that no hardened fronts emerge". But that is exactly what it looks like at the moment.


The Office has long cared more about how it's perceived rather than the legality what it is doing. Germany, in general, takes the back seat. The German government benefits from the EPO being located mostly in Germany, so it's not likely to uphold the law. In fact, as we showed years ago, the Ministry of Justice in Germany went out of its way to promote the illegal and unconstitutional Unified Patent Court, which really said a lot about its attitude towards "justice".

The German government must understand that this nonchalance means tolerance of crime. It means erosion of trust in the German government and -- by extension -- in the EU. This is good for nobody, not even for Germans. Who benefits from all this? Probably the far right.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Debian GNU/Linux and Free Software Developer Daniel Pocock in Irish Elections This Month (Dublin Bay South)
Polling day in 15 days
Layoffs as Happy Stories in the Corporate Media
It's based on a longstanding pattern
 
Alexander Wirt (formorer), Wayward people & Debian censorship
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 14/11/2024: Infocalypse and "Multiple Monitorings"
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2024: The Web We Lost Coming Back, X/Twitter Crashing
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2024: Politics, Climate, and Instability
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2024: EmacsConf and Flounder
Links for the day
Links 14/11/2024: Science and the Demise of Microsoft-Connected USPTO Director
Links for the day
For "X" to Die the Media and Politicians Will Need to Quit (Then, Advertisers Will Lose Interest, Even for Political Ads)
Fewer people are still there anyway
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 13, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 13, 2024
Bob Should Tell Alice About What GitHub (Which Linux Foundation Outsources Code to) Does to Entire Nations, Following Donald Trump's Policies
"What's next, preventing access to Linux from non-NATO countries? Putting NSA backdoors in the kernel?"
It Took The Guardian More Than 2 Years of Musk to Realise What Twitter Was and It Took Twitter 4 Years of a President Trump to Realise What Trump Was
Trump was deplatformed only a fortnight before Biden became president anyway
[Meme] Google 80%, Windows 2%
"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f---ing kill Google."
Microsoft's Market Share Falls to 2% in Haiti
Throw in Android (now 80% of "the market") and Windows is down to 2%
Gemini Links 13/11/2024: Magic of Walking and Lest We Forget
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2024: USPTO Director Kathi Vidal ('Former' Microsoft Rep) Resigning, Censorship After Car Ramming Attack in China
Links for the day
Microsoft: Layoffs, Outsourcing, and R.T.O. as Cover for Mass Layoffs Without Severance Pay
Microsoft had mass layoffs pretty much every month this year
[Meme] The Addicted Lolicon Throwing Stones
"They've found my RMS attack site"
Jonathan Carter & Debian betrayed Joel Espy Klecker
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 13/11/2024: Red Tape War and Programming Experiences
Links for the day
Links 13/11/2024: "Make Your Laptop Last FOREVER" With GNU/Linux, 23andMe Mass Layoffs, Intel 'Resignations' Layoffs Loophole
Links for the day
In Switzerland, GNU/Linux Reaches Record Highs, But What About the Corruption?
Pocock is a disappointed citizen of Switzerland
More Than 3 Years After Vista 11's Release More Chinese Computer Users Still Use Vista 7 (Than "11")
it was "officially" released October 5, 2021
At BetaNews, "Most Commented Story" Is Not a Story But LLM Slop! (Readers Talking to Bots)
They make fake stories with provocative headlines and then boast that these get many comments
[Meme] Swiss Lawyers/Attorneys Who Fake Qualifications and Rob People
Switzerland mostly guards its reputation by censorship of media
Just How Slow Has the News Industry Become?
We're drowning in garbage from fake publishers
Things That Still Work OK (But We're Being Shamed for Using)
Using old stuff is nothing to be shamed of (or afraid to do)
Free Software is About Collaboration
WordPress limits it
Even the Managing Editor of BetaNews is Doing Slop and Spam
A Fish Rots From The Head Down
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 12, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 12, 2024
PERA Bill in US Senate Strives to Crush Caselaw, Making Patents on Mathematics and Algorithms 'Great Again'
Follow the money
BetaNews is Beta-Testing the Site as LLM Slop With Microsoft Propaganda Thrown In
Many of the people there are Microsoft boosters and they use slop as "filler" (for marketing)
Evolution of euthanasia & WIPO UDRP similarities exposed by W. Scott Blackmer
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 13/11/2024: Phasing Out 3G, Brian Kernighan Books, Tcl/Tk, Time to Ditch x86
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: A Lot of Censorship and SWNS at 50
Links for the day
BetaNews, Inc. Became a Spam Operation/Web Site, LLM Spew (Slop) for SEO Disguised as "Articles"
Published 5 minutes ago by Brian Fagioli...
Gemini Links 12/11/2024: Invidious Down and YouTube Addiction
Links for the day
Links 12/11/2024: Hey Hi (AI) Failures and COP29 Fakers
Links for the day
Latest Rumours of Red Hat Layoffs
Rumours or gossip is how almost everything starts
WordPress is for the 'Old Web'; the New Web Necessitates Static Pages
There are purely practical reasons to move away from WordPress and the likes of it
Biggest Debt Leap in Years, More Than Half a Trillion Dollars in Just One Month
We remind people (almost every year) that it's also "buynothingday"
Windows Falling to All-Time Lows and Microsoft Has Nothing to Replace It With
It's mostly Android (Linux) replacing Windows
Cybershow Has a New 81-Minute Episode on Digital Sovereignty and International Cyber-Relations
it is a high-quality show
Activism in the Digital Realm Can Never (and Must Never) Rely on GAFAM
This simply means that tech activists must completely abandon any hopes of finding allies in Google or IBM or whatever...
Golden Dawn(ald) and What GAFAM Means to Liberal Techies
In one single screenshot
IBM CEO Says Donald Trump as President-Elect is Good for IBM in New Interview With CNBC
most unprincipled CEO ever?
GNU/Linux Up to 6.1% in Finland (Almost 9% If One Counts ChromeOS Too)
Home of Linux (the kernel)
BetaNews Has Become a SPAM/Slop Factory, Brian Fagioli Publishes Fake 'Articles'
everything is now suspect in BetaNews
It's Morbid to Talk About Living People as If They're Dead
What happens to LLM slop when Brian Fagioli dies?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, November 11, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, November 11, 2024
Free Software and Love of Nature
It's not a coincidence that many Free software activists are also lovers of nature
Silicon Valley and GAFAM Were Never Liberal
spineless CEOs and founders aren't against Trump
Windows and 'The Desktop' Floundering
Microsoft should be extremely worried
WordPress is Bad for the Planet (Even If Many Still Use It)
the costs nobody wishes to talk about