05.26.15

Gemini version available ♊︎

Patent Scope at the EPO is Totally Out of Control, UPC Will Make Things Worse

Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:53 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

“Staff at the European Patent Office went on strike accusing the organization of corruption: specifically, stretching the standards for patents in order to make more money.

“One of the ways that the EPO has done this is by issuing software patents in defiance of the treaty that set it up.”

Richard Stallman

Summary: A look at the practical issues with the EPO, where patent scope and litigation scope have been vastly extended so as to benefit multinational corporations and possibly patent trolls

TECHRIGHTS has spent almost a decade criticising the EPO for practices that in no way benefit Europeans. Submissions to officials, ombudsman etc. have been prepared as well, usually to no avail because people in power are nearly unstoppable. Sooner or later they get what they want, unless there is some kind of a huge scandal or a revolution.

Dr. Glyn Moody, who focuses on multinationals’ trade agreements these days, spotted this alert about Monsanto expecting to receive 30 European patents on food plants, whereupon he wrote that the EPO had already gone the wrong way again (expansion for the sake of expansion, despite being a public institution, funded by taxpayers). Clearly that’s the case, as just about anyone can see, but here we see not only software patents but also genetics being patented for the sake of monopoly (from abroad) on food, hence taxation of foods consisting of certain basic ingredients. “Last month,” Moody noted, “we wrote about the strange case of unpatentable plants becoming patentable in Europe thanks to a decision from the European Patent Office’s Enlarged Board of Appeal.”

“That cleared the way for companies to obtain such patents, and according to this post on the “no patents on seeds” site — I think you can probably work out where its biases lie — that’s about to happen,” Glyn Moody wrote.

“This can be some products from entering Europe as a whole (continental embargo).”Things are about to get significantly worse when the EPO gains even more power, let alone gets the power to enforce patents through a Europe-wide court which limits the impact of nations’ sovereign law and appeals systems, never mind the interests of individual citizens in each nation (the nations are economically different, so their interests with regards to patents vary a great deal).

Based on some recent bunch of posts from IP Kat, with opposition to the UPC growing weak (e.g. Italy's opposition falling) there are changes underway in the appeals system and the EPO goes ahead pushing for the UPC [1, 2, 3]. It is already presumed inevitable, the only unknowns now are some pertinent details, such as: “will it be more expensive than current litigation before national courts or does it represent value for money?”

“Passage of power to fewer hands (those handling the patent system) is going to facilitate a transfer of power to fewer globalists who are using such systems for protectionism.”The issue with the Unitary Patent is often misunderstood. This isn’t a stance against union or harmony. This isn’t a stance against the European Union. Currently, different member states have their own laws for specific reasons, some being historical or pertaining to the local industry and its interests, based on import/export. The UK, for example, has got UK-IPO. The Unitary Patent Court would take a lot of this away. It would enable litigation to be done Europe-wide, assisting the likes of Samsung and LG from Korea, Apple and Microsoft from the US, Siemens from Germany and Philips from Holland. This can be some products from entering Europe as a whole (continental embargo). Cui bono? Small companies are not going to be able to afford or bear the rising costs of patents and the totality of patents — areas of work where implementation is verboten or subjected to taxation — will only grow. This means that just like globalisation, which cheapens the vast majority for the benefit of the rich minority worldwide, a centralised system would invite abusers, who shall extort more companies in more nations, using just one patent and one single ruling. The myths about innovations and globalisation intersect (or collide); when people wrongly assume the patent system to be about resources rather than monopoly (or restriction on action, resources, etc.) it is too easy to be fooled by rhetoric. Passage of power to fewer hands (those handling the patent system) is going to facilitate a transfer of power to fewer globalists who are using such systems for protectionism. Monsanto is just one of many.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 01/06/2023: Spleen 2.0.0 Released and Team UPC Celebrates Its Own Corruption

    Links for the day



  2. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 31, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 31, 2023



  3. Tux Machines Closing the Door on Twitter Because Twitter is Dead (for a Lot of People)

    Tux Machines recently joined millions of others who had already quit Twitter, including passive posting (fully or partly automated)



  4. Links 31/05/2023: Inkscape’s 1.3 Plans and New ARM Cortex-A55-Based Linux Chip

    Links for the day



  5. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Personality of Software Engineers

    Links for the day



  6. Links 31/05/2023: Armbian 23.05 Release and Illegal UPC

    Links for the day



  7. IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 30, 2023

    IRC logs for Tuesday, May 30, 2023



  8. Gemini Protocol About to Turn 4 and It's Still Growing

    In the month of May we had zero downtime (no updates to the system or outages in the network), which means Lupa did not detect any errors such as timeouts and we’re on top of the list (the page was fixed a day or so after we wrote about it); Gemini continues to grow (chart by Botond) as we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of the protocol



  9. Links 31/05/2023: Librem Server v2, curl 8.1.2, and Kali Linux 2023.2 Release

    Links for the day



  10. Gemini Links 31/05/2023: Bayes Filter and Programming Wordle

    Links for the day



  11. [Meme] Makes No Sense for EPO (Now Connected to the EU) and Staff Pensions to be Tied to the UK After Brexit

    It seems like EPO staff is starting to have doubts about the safety of EPO pensions after Benoît Battistelli sent money to reckless gambling (EPOTIF) — a plot that’s 100% supported by António Campinos and his enablers in the Council, not to mention the European Union



  12. Working Conditions at EPO Deteriorate and Staff Inquires About Pension Rights

    Work is becoming a lot worse (not even compliant with the law!) and promises are constantly being broken, so staff is starting to chase management for answers and assurances pertaining to finances



  13. Links 30/05/2023: Orc 0.4.34 and Another Rust Crisis

    Links for the day



  14. Links 30/05/2023: Nitrux 2.8.1 and HypoPG 1.4.0

    Links for the day



  15. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Bubble Version 3.0

    Links for the day



  16. Links 30/05/2023: LibreOffice 7.6 in Review and More Digital Restrictions (DRM) From HP

    Links for the day



  17. Gemini Links 30/05/2023: Curl Still Missing the Point?

    Links for the day



  18. IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 29, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, May 29, 2023



  19. MS (Mark Shuttleworth) as a Microsoft Salesperson

    Canonical isn’t working for GNU/Linux or for Ubuntu; it’s working for “business partners” (WSL was all along about promoting Windows)



  20. First Speaker in Event for GNU at 40 Called for Resignation/Removal of GNU's Founder

    It’s good that the FSF prepares an event to celebrate GNU’s 40th anniversary, but readers told us that the speakers list is unsavoury, especially the first one (a key participant in the relentless campaign of defamation against the person who started both GNU and the FSF; the "FSFE" isn't even permitted to use that name)



  21. When Jokes Became 'Rude' (or Disingenuously Misinterpreted by the 'Cancel Mob')

    A new and more detailed explanation of what the wordplay around "pleasure card" actually meant



  22. Site Updates and Plans Ahead

    A quick look at or a roundup of what we've been up to, what we plan to publish in the future, what topics we shall focus on very soon, and progress moving to Alpine Linux



  23. Links 29/05/2023: Snap and PipeWire Plans as Vendor Lock-in

    Links for the day



  24. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: GNU/Linux Pains and More

    Links for the day



  25. Links 29/05/2023: Election in Fedora, Unifont 15.0.04

    Links for the day



  26. Gemini Links 29/05/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.1 and Smolver 1.2.1 Released

    Links for the day



  27. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 28, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, May 28, 2023



  28. Daniel Stenberg Knows Almost Nothing About Gemini and He's Likely Just Protecting His Turf (HTTP/S)

    The man behind Curl, Daniel Stenberg, criticises Gemini; but it's not clear if he even bothered trying it (except very briefly) or just read some inaccurate, one-sided blurbs about it



  29. Links 29/05/2023: Videos Catchup and Gemini FUD

    Links for the day



  30. Links 28/05/2023: Linux 6.4 RC4 and MX Linux 23 Beta

    Links for the day


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts