06.10.16
EPO ‘Bought’ the Financial Times, Which Now Operates in ‘Mouthpiece Mode’ for Mr. Battistelli
EPO is wasting huge amounts of money (EPO budget) for Battistelli’s private agenda (and large foreign corporations)
Summary: The EPO passes a lot of money to media companies under the cover of an awards ceremony, but the money seems to be going a long way further
THINGS cannot become any more embarrassing than this. It is embarrassing both for the Financial Times and for the EPO. The EPO is now buying (and thus corrupting) the media as part of a highly expensive publicity stunt which it hopes will distract from human rights abuses.
Last year we noted that the EPO’s PR agency pays IAM 'magazine' and/or its parent company for pro-UPC propaganda events in the United States. This IAM ‘magazine’ had already been a UPC propaganda rag that used even shaming tactics against politicians who had antagonised the UPC. It wasn’t so hard to see what was going on and yesterday the EPO used its buddies at IAM (propagandists) as a “source” or reference. This has been happening a lot recently and it seemed to be coordinated based on the citation patterns which we noted.
IAM is a London-based company which is small potatoes compared to the Financial Times (also of London), so we suspect that EPO bought more than just EIA2016 coverage from the Financial Times. Just look at the new article above (screenshot).
Right now they try to make the UPC sound desirable and its potential avoidance like a loss to the UK. The summary says “British exit would delay the birth of a common system and cost UK hosting rights” and the opening paragraph is a long series of promotional lies (as if it was ghostwritten by the EPO’s PR people or PR agency): “A Brexit vote would seriously wound the new “unitary patent” and its associated “unified patent court” (UPC). Having played a big role in developing both institutions, Britain would have to withdraw from the UPC and forgo hosting a division of the court ruling on life sciences and pharmaceuticals disputes. Under current agreements, the unitary system can only come to life if ratified by a minimum of 13 nations including France, Germany and the UK, the EU’s three biggest patentors. “I don’t think Brexit would necessarily torpedo the whole thing,” says Rob Williams, co-head of intellectual property in the London office of Bird & Bird, the international law firm, “but it would certainly delay its introduction while new arrangements are made”.”
This is of course nonsense. Another way to put it is, Brexit would help crush an undesirable patent regime that helps large foreign corporations and patents trolls.
This isn’t the sole example of Financial Times (FT) as EPO mouthpiece after receiving money to become “media partner”. Looking at the past day along, here we see the FT being used for UPC propaganda and pretense of examination quality (in reality it is declining). EPO cites its “media partner”. How convenient. Here we have the EPO piggybacking FT to promote software patents and give the illusion of growth, even if said patents are allegedly registered in no language other than Mandarin.
#FTinvent is currently a hashtag of paid-for EPO coverage, i.e. not journalism, so it is not too hard to track the EPO’s distortion of the media. The EPO, having paid the Financial Times a lot of money (if 1.5 million Euros went to CNN we can only guess how much went to the Financial Times), turns both itself and the Financial Times into a laughing stock. Here is the EPO and its “media partner” (i.e. paid mouthpiece) spreading the “SME” propaganda (reversals of truth in relation to the UPC). The EPO just cannot help perpetuating the “SME” myth, even though SMEs are complaining that their voice has been hijacked.
Paid-for ‘coverage’ from this EPO “media partner” can be found in many other places, e.g. [1, 2] (FT’s official account and “FT Reports”), so we suspect that Battistelli and his goons used this Lisbon stunt as an excuse for passing money to publishers, also for UPC promotion.
Watch one in the choir stating: “UPC needs ratified by 3 countries with most patents. If brexit Italy/NL ratifying would see UPC go ahead I think” (adding the #FTinvent hashtag and later excusing abusive litigation that UPC entails).
When Battistelli speaks of ‘improving’ the EPO what he really means is changing the EPO for the UPC, even eliminating the appeals boards in the process.
The latest UPC nonsense, which is of course being spread by those who stand to benefit from it, now says “LATEST ESTIMATE: UPC TO COMMENCE IN SECOND QUARTER OF 2017″ (each year they say “real soon now” or “the end of the year” or “later this year” and now it’s delayed again). We also saw that when it was labeled “community patent” or “EU patent”. It has gone on for nearly a decade and there was resistance/antagonism, resulting in rebranding (same modus operandi when attempting to pass controversial legislation).
Remember the real purpose of the event in Lisbon, where there’s talk about the notorious cooperation money. Smaller populations like Portugal or Bulgaria are being courted for purely political/strategic reasons and based on this short report [via Bastian Best], Bulgaria is the latest to give up and surrender to the UPC, perhaps having been brainwashed sufficiently by “media partners” like the Financial Times. “According to the website of the Council of the European Union,” says this post, linking to this agreement, “Bulgaria has now deposited its instrument of ratification (on 3 June 2016) to become the tenth country to complete its ratification formalities. Bulgaria joins Finland, Portugal, Luxembourg, Malta, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, France and Austria as one of the ten countries who have completed their ratification processes.”
How many more media organisations does the EPO need to buy in order to mislead the public, including many British businessmen who read the Financial Times? Are there no senses of ethics left at the EPO? And Battistelli dares justify his attacks on workers’ rights as being in the interest of eliminating conflicts of interest (while hiring his buddy’s wife to manage the staff [1, 2, 3, 4] and buying large media outlets)… █
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