11.29.16
The UPC Scam Part I: EPO-Bribed Media Outlets Lie to Brits (and to Europeans) About the UPC
Summary: An introductory article in a multi-part series about UPC at times of Brexit and Lucy Neville-Rolfe’s bizarre sellout to Battistelli
TODAY’S (or tonight’s) coverage will focus entirely on the UPC, or the EPO’s (along with the patent microcosm) attempt to impose an unconstitutional overhaul across the whole of Europe, for the sake of patent maximalists who plot to tax — in the patents sense — everyone, everywhere, all the time.
Simon Phipps, former President of the OSI, called it an “odd Brexit move” while citing Glyn Moody’s new article which is titled “Theresa May signs up to unitary patent, accepts supremacy of top EU court”. To quote some portions from it:
The UK has announced that it will ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement, a key step needed to bring the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) into being.
[...]
But if the UK wishes to remain in the UPC system, an exception will have to be made for patents, with judges sitting in Luxembourg still interpreting the law that applies in the UK. Some Brexiters may therefore see the government’s announcement as a sign that Brexit no longer means Brexit.
Moody, the author, is actually highly critical of the UPC. He has warned about it for years. There are many fine things for the UK to take from Europe (Moody and I are passionate “Remainers”), but the UPC isn’t one of them. It’s a thorn, a poison. It deserves scorn and rejection. Earlier today we found plenty of other articles about it, many of which composed by patent law firms, especially in Britain, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14]. Bristows, the manipulative liars from British Team UPC, are cited as saying that the “UPC Start October 2017 is realistic says Alan Johnson, Partner at @BristowsUPC” (too optimistic as the UPC may never become a reality at all in spite of yesterday’s news). Here is Bristows pushing a new article about it, obviously hoping that intention means “will”. Andrew Orlowski, a pundit from The Register, highlighted the EPO’s abuses in relation to this and took note of the promotional lies from the EPO’s paid mouthpiece, FT (Financial Times):
Astonishment has greeted the UK’s promise to join Europe’s Unified Patent Court, despite Brexit. It’s a stunning victory for the UK’s powerful legal lobby. The FT euphemistically notes that “the legal system” will be around “£200m a year” richer. Meaning: you know who will be £200m richer.
The announcement was made by the UK’s intellectual property minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe (DBE CMG, PPE Oxford), the Minister of State for Energy and IP. Naturally, it was welcomed by the under-siege European Patent Office (EPO).
Somewhat disingenuously, the IPO states that “the UPC is not an EU institution”. But this isn’t the whole truth.
As Pinsent Masons’ Helen Cline pointed out here in April, “Participation in the new system is only open to EU member states. At an early stage of the negotiations, and following a decision of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), the UPC Agreement was amended to exclude the participation of non-EU member states.”
A lot of the above quotes just one side of this debate (they never have public debates with antagonists in them). Also, the fact that Battistelli paid large British publications like the Financial Times does not help his credibility. “Reading the comments on IPKat,” wrote an EPO insider, “doesn’t nearly reflect the same picture as media like Financial Times wants us to believe…”
“But if the UK wishes to remain in the UPC system, an exception will have to be made for patents, with judges sitting in Luxembourg still interpreting the law that applies in the UK.”
–Dr, Glyn MoodyWell, the Financial Times is still in mouthpiece mode. It got paid to do this. To make matters worse, the Financial Times is just one among many papers to be paid by the EPO to lie to Europeans.
Sadly, quite a few people ended up linking to EPO-funded propaganda, e.g. this one. I told this person that the Financial Times is bribed for such bias. The person called it “UK’s (somewhat unexpected) decision to ratify UPC,” saying that it was “welcomed by patent specialists seeking pre-Brexit certainty.”
What about all those people who are not patent specialists, i.e. more than 99.9% of the population?
CIPA, part of the UPC lobbying groups (whose members want to suck money out of ordinary Europeans), said “The Government has confirmed it is proceeding with preparations to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement.”
“CIPA President Tony Rollins,” CIPA said, “explains why ratification of the #UPC is good news for business in the @FinancialTimes”
“What about all those people who are not patent specialists, i.e. more than 99.9% of the population?”This would be “good news for patent trolls,” Henrion told CIPA and Financial Times, perhaps not taking account their incestuous relationship with the UPC into account.
How many media/press outlets will Battistelli and the EPO bribe before the EPO’s abuses are properly exposed and Battistelli’s regime is stopped? The state of journalism in Europe was already bad (journalists are suffering financially), so payments for bias will only make things worse. This corrupts journalism.
Another Battistelli-paid ‘news’ paper, one which we wrote about many times before (after censorship and stenography for the EPO), is quick to ‘report’ EPO talking points (i.e. lies) about the UPC. Without an accurate translation it’s hard to tackle it point by point.
Having ‘bought’ officials, ‘brought’ the media, bullied real journalists and bullied EPO insiders (war on dissent), Battistelli now rejoices as all those publisher whom he threw millions of Euros at write whatever he wants them to.
“Politicians (who care about Europe) should read the comments on this blog and try to understand the urgency to act against Battistelli!” an EPO insider emphasises, alluding to IP Kat. Over at IP Kat, be sure to stay away from the Bristows talking points about the UPC.
Suffice to say, even the EPO itself wrote about it (warning: epo.org link) and promoted it via Twitter. Battistelli wants to make the EPO even more dangerous/lethal (with low-quality patents that are applicable in more countries, without even a trial in those countries being needed). What he now claims (all lies) is that he’s solving a problem, but no such problem exists. In fact, Benjamin Henrion wrote to them in Twitter [1, 2] “more trolls, and software patents via the back door… and you are not bound by this court. EPO does whatever it wants.”
“The Government has confirmed it is proceeding with preparations to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement.”
–CIPAThe EPO, as its own workers know, breaks the law all the time and Battistelli acts like a king who can lie all the time and get away with it. The UPC can destroy Europe if Battistelli and his goons get away with breaking the law again. But all he cares about is some bogus “production”!
“EPO and national courts seem to reach broadly the same results on swp[software patents],” someone anonymous noted, “but by different routes.” Also, the person added, “the obvious guess is that the upc will have it’s own route to the same result.”
One way or another we’ll end up with all the worst aspects of patent systems and as Henrion put it, “in computer science, it is called an SPOF (Single Point of Failure).” It is a loss of sovereignty, too.
As many experts admitted, UPC would actually haul software patents along with it, yet some people are in denial about it, especially those pushing hard for the UPC.
“In any case,” one of them said, “#UPC not about patentability. No reason it would have impact one way of other on software patents.”
That’s nonsense. Scope of patents is directly impacted by the interests of those pursing the patents and UPC would attract a lot of patent trolls that crave software patents (easy to massively extort with).
Henrion mentioned even EPO insiders who push the scope envelope, saying “that’s not what Philpott from the EPO said. and many more other experts.”
“Politicians (who care about Europe) should read the comments on this blog and try to understand the urgency to act against Battistelli!”
–Anonymous EPO insiderAlready, as Henrion notes, the EPO issues a sort threat and ultimatum via Managing IP with its propaganda opportunities. It quotes Battistelli’s chief UPC liar, Margot Fröhlinger. To quote: “Seems UK had to decide re #UPC before end of year. Margot Fröhlinger said when .@ManagingIP Patent Forum http://www.managingip.com/Article/3585190/European-Patent-Reform-Forums-in-Munich-and-Paristhe-highlights.html … (&/trial)”
“I was waiting for the ultimatum,” Henrion wrote. At the EPO, pressure (if not intimidation and thuggery once escalated) is nowadays the norm. The EPO is so corrupt that it also bribed European and international media, turning it into a lobbyist of the EPO rather then media.
The EPO is still a monster in the middle of Bavaria and since it’s effectively above the law it can corrupt officials and corrupt the media everywhere under EU statehood. This is a huge threat to a lot of what we take for granted. █
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