10.15.15
Exclusive: Leaked E-mail From Grant Philpott (EPO Principal Telecommunications Director) Shows Collusion Between EPO and Microsoft to Prioritise Most Notorious Patent Bully, Microsoft
Grant to Microsoft first. Aiding racketeering by all means possible?
Photo source: europa.eu
Summary: A closer cooperation with Microsoft, to use Grant Philpott’s own words, with heightened pressure for already-overencumbered patent examiners to work as agents of Microsoft while neglecting other applicants, as seen in a new E-mail from Grant Philpott, a top IT manager and recently a proponent of UPC (as well as software patents) and potentially a huge fan of Microsoft unless just their peon (in exchange for favours, i.e. kickbacks)
TECHRIGHTS has many reasons to consider — as many other people generally regard — Microsoft a criminal enterprise, for bribing officials, blackmailing officials (British politicians too, as exposed earlier this year [1, 2]), extorting companies with instruments of SLAPP and patent rackets, illegally spying on users, engaging in competition crimes against rivals, and so on. Microsoft is not just some ordinary company. As it turns out, the EPO, which is not some ordinary office but a corrupt institution that selfishly operates like a business, is treating Microsoft as more than just an applicant and even more than just a partner (the EPO uses terms like “customers” or “clients”, which in itself is gross and revealing). This helps explain some internal complaints from examiners against Microsoft — something for which we provided evidence before. The emphasis on Microsoft is quite unique and the push for this corrupting programme (thus motivation) came from Microsoft and another foreign company.
“To Microsoft, patents are not about innovation. Patents are being used for (anti)competitive leverage; they’re a weapon.”Examiners who help issue patents to Microsoft should bear in mind that many of these will be used in bulk to secretly compel companies to install Microsoft spyware, at application level (e.g. Android) as well as operating system level (or be sued, with injunctions i.e. speedy embargoes); some will be used to extort revenue like the Mafia does (by threats and extortion), and these will definitely be used to launch attacks on Free/libre Open Source software such as Android (recall the recent cases of Samsung, Kyocera, Dell, and ASUS). Microsoft is no ordinary company and as we have shown here for nearly a decade, it habitually uses entryism and moles in high places to get its way (the patent office might be no exception). Microsoft is tightly connected to the world’s largest troll, under the command of its mole (Elop) it passed Nokia‘s patents to patent trolls who in turn attack Google, and anything which is viewed as a threat to Microsoft is either destroyed or co-opted. To Microsoft, patents are not about innovation. Patents are being used for (anti)competitive leverage; they’re a weapon.
It is with this in minds of the readers that we wish to present Grant Philpott’s E-mail regarding Microsoft. It is revealing, but we’ve highlighted the relevant bits for those who are reluctant (or too lazy) to read the whole thing.
This E-mail from Grant Philpott (principal director for information and communications technology at the European Patent Office) states that late Microsoft files should be treated with the highest priority. It means that they shall be treated before any other late file such as the ones of small applicants that are also European, unlike Microsoft. Remember that Philpott also pushes (even politically lobbies) for the UPC, which helps bring software patents to Europe. Don’t lose sight of the fact that Microsoft boasts about patenting software in Europe, despite it being against the rules. Microsoft uses loopholes and perhaps, based on this special relationship with the EPO, some nepotism too.
The EPO and Microsoft are far closer than outsiders care to realise. There is more than meets the eye — a subject that will definitely occupy some future blog space. Patents are being used by Microsoft for protectionism, namely the protection of its monopoly in Europe. It’s achieved by aggression with patents, not peacefully or consensually (agreements under massive threats don’t constitute consent but a surrender).
Those who have read this blog since the very birth of Android will know, based on literally hundreds of posts, that Microsoft attacks Android like no other company (not even Apple) and blackmails companies all around the world using patents, especially companies that use GNU/Linux in their stack, even if they don’t even sell a device running Linux, just a service (that would be the majority of SaaS companies out there).
Priority to late Microsoft files basically means acceleration of Microsoft’s war on software that respects people’s freedom, privacy, etc. Grant Philpott is very much complicit in this because he rallies the ‘troops’ and puts pressure on them not to properly examine applications (i.e. attempt to identify prior art). It’s the antithesis of any patent office. What is Microsoft paying for here? The examination process? Or is it just lining the pockets of Battistelli and his (mostly French) friends? This situation is reducible to what some people online now call “kickbacks” (as the EPO ‘V.I.P lane’ scandal deepens) — a softer form of bribe (and Microsoft's expertise).
“When you help Microsoft amass (stockpile) patents you indirectly help extortion, not only of Free/Open Source software but also legitimate and honest companies, which are being aggressively pressured behind closed doors.”Circular lies, or a poorly-put/ineloquent series of denials and ‘damage control’, can hopefully be refuted by more such leaks. The EPO’s spokespeople tried to ignore/deny this and then tried to spin it. The more they carry on with this, rather than issue an apology and retract this form of abuse, the deeper in the mud they will fall.
What the EPO has been doing over the past few years amounts to more than abuse. Some call it corruption and based on some pundits online, this has become akin to organised crime as per definition (like FIFA), where a bunch of powerful people protect each other from anything that threatens to expose the crime or the crime ring, and only very few people benefit at the expense of a huge number of members of the public.
We wish to end this with a message to EPO patent examiners. When you help Microsoft amass (stockpile) patents you indirectly help extortion, not only of Free/Open Source software but also legitimate and honest companies, which are being aggressively pressured behind closed doors. Some of these companies are European (TomTom, for instance, is Dutch victim of Microsoft’s war on Linux). Microsoft, which announced billions of dollars in losses (in the last quarter), wants corporate welfare for its survival; patents are Microsoft’s strategy for getting there, especially now that systems such as Android and Chromebooks are taking over. For quite a few years now Microsoft promoted this patent strategy and promoted people who had engineered it (as recently as last month). █
“Microsoft is, I think, fundamentally an evil company.”
–Former Netscape Chairman James H. Clark
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