10.05.15
Posted in Australia, Europe, GNU/Linux, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Patents at 3:49 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The United Kingdom — and by extension Europe — now a platform of choice for some major patent trolls
Summary: Worst-case scenarios are becoming a reality as Android backers officially attacked by patent trolls using standard-essential patents in London, England
SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS across Europe hate software patents. Ask them. Seriously, just ask them. Programmers in general (with rare exceptions) don’t want software patents; they already have copyright law (or copyleft for Free software). It helps protect them and assert that their own work cannot be exploited/ripped off. That’s just the nature of software, which is a lot like poetry or musical compositions.
The Danish creator of Ruby on Rails (RoR), David Heinemeier Hansson, wrote the other day: “Software patents are a racket used by trolls/BigCos to shake down/stifle competition. If you file for patents, you’re arming the racketeers.”
“Programmers in general (with rare exceptions) don’t want software patents; they already have copyright law (or copyleft for Free software).”As we have shown here before, no software patents are “good”, hence there is no such thing as “bad patents” or “bad software patents” (a term often used by apologists of them, such as IBM). Patents in the hands of “good” companies are not secure either; they can be sold and fall into hostile hands. See Sun and Oracle for example (Sun patents are now being used against Linux/Android). See Novell’s patents, which fell into Microsoft’s hands through CPTN. There are many more examples like that.
“Software patents are a racket used by trolls/BigCos to shake down/stifle competition. If you file for patents, you’re arming the racketeers.”
–David Heinemeier HanssonRoR’s creator, a hugely popular developer (not just in Europe), said a couple of days ago: “Shame on Ericsson for arming a patent troll with a large stockpile of outdated yet weaponized patents for a cut” (he spoke about Unwired Planet).
For those who are not familiar with Ericsson and Unwired Planet, here is an article from 3 days ago. It makes everything quite easy to follow: “Unwired Planet Inc. has 16 employees and no products. What it does have is a portfolio of more than 2,000 patents, mostly acquired from Ericsson AB, which it says on its website are “considered foundational to mobile communications.” The Nevada-based firm wants more than just recognition.”
So a European company, Ericsson, is now the motor of patent trolls, much like Nokia after Microsoft took over. How did this happen? Well, we covered this over the past few years and we warned that this was going to happen, despite software not (officially) being patentable in Europe.
London is now serving as the venue for patent trolls, attracting the litigation ‘business’ just like Eastern Texas. Huge damages are at stake and the target is Free software, not some proprietary software, hence free distribution itself is being threatened. Believe it or not, this may have the same impact on Free software on phones in Europe as the FCC on Free software on routers/hubs in the US. The Ericsson-backed troll is now attacking Android (Free software and Linux-powered). Making it impossible to dodge the lawsuit, we are dealing with standard-essential patents (SEP) here, meaning that in order to conform with standards one must infringe. The patents boosters say that Huawei, Google and Samsung are the target of the lawsuit. To quote: “Tomorrow Unwired Planet is scheduled to begin a series of face-offs against Huawei, Samsung and Google at the Patents Court in London. At issue are alleged infringements of five standard essential patents (SEPs) owned by the NPE that were transferred to it as the result of a deal done with Ericsson back in 2013.
“London is now serving as the venue for patent trolls, attracting the litigation ‘business’ just like Eastern Texas.”“Over on the ARS Technica website, Joe Mullin talks about coming to a UK court being “a high-cost, high-risk scenario that’s unappealing to trolls”. He’s right. And that’s why trolls – whose business model is based on asserting poor-quality patents to leverage the high cost of US patent litigation to extract relatively low-cost, pre-trial, licensing-based settlements from alleged infringers – would never take a case as far as a courtroom in the UK (or anywhere else for that matter).
“Unwired Planet, though, is not a troll. It is a patent licensing business looking to secure a global agreement from entities it believes are infringing high-quality SEPs. It may not like trials (who does?), but it is not afraid of them because it feels it has a good chance of winning and is willing to pay to find out if it is right, especially as the ultimate prize is potentially a collection of eight or even nine figure global licensing deals. Seen in such a light, its choice of the Patents Court in London makes a fair bit of sense.”
The proponents of software patents, people such as IAM's biased (for their own financial gain) writers, helped patent trolls come to Europe. IAM said that “Unwired Planet patent suit in London against Huawei, Google & Samsung again shows Europe is now NPE venue of choice”. Patent Buddy, a more moderate voice, noted the importance of this: “Unwired Planet Will Fight SEP Suit Against Huawei, Google and Samsung in London, Not a US Court” (where this typically takes place).
It’s easy to see what patent lawyers find desirable here. They can make money from the legal aftermath and the proceedings themselves, irrespective of the outcome (who wins). Now that there are some software patents in Europe, authorised by the corrupt EPO, large companies are using loopholes and cheats to get more of them and then sue. As Patently German clarified the other day, “the German court essentially follows the EPO, the language even being a bit more generous” (but it’s the EPO that led to it, even back in Brimelow’s days).
“It’s easy to see what patent lawyers find desirable here. They can make money from the legal aftermath and the proceedings themselves, irrespective of the outcome (who wins).”Germany’s exceptional lenience on software patents granting was mentioned here this morning and it is likely to be a topic we will revisit in the near future. Jonas Bosson (FFII Sweden) wrote that “#TPPA is “all fields of technology” a trick force patents on abstract matters, such as math and data processing? http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership_Agreement …”
These terrible ‘treaties’ play a growing role in corporate takeover of Europe and based on this latest update, “The UK has joined the Unified Patent Court (UPC) protocol agreement, representing a ‘milestone’ for the country.”
Yes, a ‘milestone’ for corporations taking over the country and most of the continent it’s technically a part of.
The FFII’s President expressed his concerns earlier today by stating: “FSF, despite its 30 years, still spending too few of its resources on fighting software patents and the unitary patent court #FSF30″
Australia Dubs It “Innovation Patent System”
This whole software patents and ‘treaties’ chaos (laws rewritten in bulk) is becoming a growing problem not just in Europe but also in Australia, where activists like Sturmfels (mentioned before in [1, 2, 3]) oppose a push for software patents. The patent maximalists ridicule the likes of him with insulting weasel phrases and belittling words. To quote a new blog post titled “‘Free Software’ Advocates Aside, Submissions to IP Australia Overwhelmingly Support Innovation Patent System”:
Needless to say, such comments lack anything resembling either evidence or detailed reasoning. They also fail to address the fact that abolition of innovation patents would affect all industries, and not just the ‘software industry’ (whatever that may be), including those represented by other submissions in support of innovation patents. In any event, these near-identical submissions are so clearly the result of an orchestrated campaign that they can hardly be regarded as constituting independent contributions to the consultation process. Furthermore, they are at odds with the submission made by BSA | The Software Alliance as noted above.
Other parties making submissions in favour of abolition of the innovation system include Melbourne-based free-software advocate Ben Sturmfels, on behalf of a group of nine like-minded individuals, and Open Source Industry Australia Ltd, which argues that ‘abolition of the innovation patent system will be an important first step towards delivering a more efficient, effective and equitable patent regime for Australia’.
Even Microsoft front groups like the Business Software Alliance (BSA) play a role in the lobbying. To quote:
“BSA | The Software Alliance, which represents the global commercial software industry (counting among its members Adobe, Altium, ANSYS, Apple, ARM, Autodesk, AVEVA, Bentley Systems, CA Technologies, Cisco, CNC/Mastercam, DataStax, Dell, Intel, Intuit, Minitab, Oracle, PTC, salesforce.com, Siemens PLM Software, Symantec, Tekla, The MathWorks, and Trend Micro), and which argues that the innovation patent system should be retained, and improved in line with a number of the recommendations in ACIP’s original report”
The above are all proprietary software giants, hardly small businesses. It’s clear whose interests are served by monopolies on algorithms.
IAM Not Speaking for India
IAM is meanwhile returning to the situation in India, claiming that India’s small businesses want software patents (citing this article which doesn’t really focus on patents) and saying in Twitter: “Limited scope of patent protection, rather than cost, is what is driving high-tech Indian SMEs out of the country” (total nonsense).
“Microsoft reportedly lobbies regarding the UPC in Europe, despite being a foreign company with no personal affection for Europe.”The patent lawyers (like the people who operate IAM) want patent trolls and large corporations that hire them to just carry on with patent chaos because patent lawyers profit from it. This is true not only in Europe but also in the US. Watch how IBM is lobbying for software patents in just about every country, India included. The same goes for Microsoft and other patent aggressors. Microsoft reportedly lobbies regarding the UPC in Europe, despite being a foreign company with no personal affection for Europe. Microsoft is not a person. It is also treated like a V.I.P. by the increasingly corruptible (up for sale to corporations) EPO. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Revolt is much needed and justified right now
Summary: Battistelli’s bullying of people whom he is not even allowed to bully turns out to have gone on for a lot longer than promised, and there is no sign of light at the end of this tunnel
Battistelli is clearly out of control. What we wrote last week about the EBoA (enlarged board of appeals) was likely correct, based on what we are now learning in private (more on that another day). To make matters worse, the illegal suspension of a judge turns out to be an almost eternal limbo. It’s like garden leave, only much worse and nearly perpetual. As IP Kat put it this morning: “Following interventions from the Enlarged Board, external national judges and many other quarters, the Administrative Council took the matter in hand, formally suspended the Board Member until 31 March 2015, and promised a speedy and thorough investigation of the matter. ‘Speedy’ means different things in Eponia than where Merpel lives, but six months after that March date it appears that there has been progress of a sort.
“Among the items listed on the Agenda for the forthcoming AC meeting is this disciplinary case. The AC will review the allegations, then review the defence and response submitted by the person involved, and will then apparently review the decision of the Enlarged Board in this matter before coming to a decision.
“Battistelli just wants total control and he cannot stand the idea that Dutch courts deem his actions illegal or that judges whom he is not authorised to punish (because they’re structurally independent) say the truth about him and his corrupt reign.”“This could mean what is says, i.e. that the AC will come to a disciplinary decision this month. However, watch this space, as Merpel has reason to suspect that the story will not come to a neat close, or at least not this month.”
Well, the AC’s Jesper Kongstad is in pretty much in the pocket of Benoît Battistelli, who suspended this judge, and he is also connected to Zeljko Topić, whom the judge is alleged to have spoken about before he got illegally suspended. What kind of ‘justice’ can one expect to come out? As Merpal noted later in her analysis: “The EPO management has been seeking to reform the Boards of Appeal, and apparently a necessary part of this project is to get them out of Munich. The fact that the more senior members have family ties there, children in school and college, and may ultimately be forced to resign if there is a long-distance move, is neither here nor there (or is that the whole point?). Regardless, it was long understood that Mr Battistelli favoured sending the Boards to Berlin, but the little birdies hiding from Merpel in the trees along Erhardtstrasse are chirping that the new plan is to send the Boards to Vienna. Nice city to be sure, but it’s a long commute after dropping the kids to school in Munich each morning. Merpel will keep you posted.”
Battistelli just wants total control and he cannot stand the idea that Dutch courts deem his actions illegal or that judges whom he is not authorised to punish (because they’re structurally independent) say the truth about him and his corrupt reign.
Watch what commenters are going to say in the coming days at IP Kat. This might help provide new (but potentially unverifiable) information from within the EPO, currently one of Europe’s most corrupt institutions. Demonstrations and strikes are a non-issue, except when the staff union gets gagged by menacing threats from Battistelli. █
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Posted in Microsoft, Vista 10, Windows at 1:57 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
A Windows train wreck of unprecedented proportions, despite zero-cost and sometimes forced ‘upgrades’
Summary: In a desperate effort to spread Vista 10, sometimes even against people’s will, Microsoft really upsets loyal customers, who are eventually eager to explore alternatives
THE WORD we often hear on the street* (or online) is that many people whom Microsoft counts as Vista 10 users actually abandoned it and either went back to previous versions of Vista or to another operating system, such as Chrome OS, Mac OS X, or GNU/Linux. Considering how aggressively Microsoft tries to spread Vista 10 — sometimes forcing it on people — Vista 10 is a failure like nothing before it. People inside Microsoft know this, but they won’t publicly admit it.
Microsoft’s problems go well beyond just Vista 10. Microsoft’s extensive products shutdown will result in Windows machines becoming bricks, or unsupported by Microsoft itself. Vista 7, which some people passionately hold on to, has its days numbered. Microsoft is trying to phase out Vista 7 by tacitly forced ‘upgrades’, i.e. transition to worse malware and even spyware (“10″). Genuine users with real names and registered accounts at Microsoft are moaning about Vista 10 bricking their PCs, defying their will, wasting their time, their bandwidth etc. Here are some examples from a thread at Microsoft’s forums:
This new, “great” operating system has ruined my computer. After a short period of time, my computer stops working. Nothing. Not a thing works. I am forced to do hard restarts several times a day. This is terrible. Windows 10 has ruined my computer. I am devastated.
[...]
Me too im trying to do a recovery now for 3 hours. This is a crock!!
[...]
My Acer 8930G suffered the same problem. I rolled it back to windows 7 and like magic it now performed as smooth as it ever did.
But it has left a legacy.
Microsoft keeps sending updates for a “new Windows 10 installation”, which I do not want; in fact I never need to know anything about Windows 10 EVER.
My machine has now been corrupted again with these upgrades, even though I am still running Windows 7, and it looks like I shall have to restore Windows 7 again.
Can someone tell me how I can prevent Windows Update from sending me unwanted Windows 10 updates because all it does is kill my machine.
Also will Microsoft please take note that updating to Windows 10 is not mandatory, and they should be aware that there are millions of private, enterprise and government users who will not want to touch Windows 10.
Will Microsoft please also consider that universal Windows 7/10 updates are not acceptable because they destabilise Windows 7 machines.
I’m sure Microsoft will get it right eventually, but they must listen to what people are reporting and saying about them, their software and the effect on third party hardware and associated drivers. It makes life so much easier for us all.
There are many more threads like it, but this one comes from Microsoft. The operating system was released very prematurely with many severe bugs and it was designed not to serve users but to serve Microsoft and to give it unjust power over users. Remember the marketing slogan Vista 7 “was my idea”? Well, Vista 10 was likely the idea of Microsoft and the NSA, even judging by the EULA alone. It disregards the needs of actual users.
Our message to the above people: Give a chance to GNU/Linux. It does not cost anything to try and it won’t spy on you. It won’t possibly render the PC dysfunctional. Try a Live CD first and see if you like it. █
____
* I sometimes speak to Microsoft staff on the street, where eavesdropping is hard or impossible.
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:44 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The international community, including the British and European communities but excepting international corporations, their patent lawyers and politicians whom they shrewdly lobby, is intentionally being kept in the dark
Manchester Community College at night
Summary: European patent laws are being covertly overridden so as to allow broader scope of litigation, higher financial damages, speedy injunctions, and even software patents; the European public is intentionally kept in the dark about it, hence kept unable to express scepticism or issue truly effective objections
WE recognise the fact that many of our readers these days work for the EPO. It is a European institution where secrecy prevails as it helps impede outside scrutiny (which is sorely needed). Other European institutions favour secrecy for the same reason (e.g. so-called ‘trade’ agreements). We started writing about the EPO because of lobbying for and emergence of software patents in Europe, well before the UPC (with prior names in the McCreevy and Barnier days) that ushers them in. As a software specialist myself, this affects me personally; as an activist, I know this affects many others, and not just in Europe. It is a huge injustice and it can potentially become a lot worse. Action right now is imperative because lobbyists are pushing very hard for the UPC and they try to shape it; this includes monopolists like Microsoft (based on last week’s Bloomberg report) — those that aren’t even European, let alone people (corporations are not people).
Several weeks ago we wrote that "EPO Managers, Patent Lawyers, Commissioners and Other Non-Technical Personnel Tackle Democracy, Alter Laws in Bulk and in Secret". Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna (shown to the left) has since then sent us two links, noting that he wrote about this subject in his reasonably recent papers. “I just read your above-mentioned blog post,” he wrote to me. “Specifically with regard to transparency and democracy in the UPC context, do you know my papers “Law-making in camera” (accessible here) and “The sub-sub-suboptimal compromise of the EU Parliament” (accessible here) from 2013? Having a look might be worthwhile.”
I spent this weekend going through his papers and I warmly recommend that every single EPO employee does the same. They’re informative and not too lengthy. The topic is relevant and timely. It’s not an externality; the overall outcome is the direct impact of those who are involved in the patent ‘industry’; it’s all about protectionism for corporations and it is against democratic values. It is antithetical to the core values of Western nations.
“It is antithetical to the core values of Western nations.”The author, whom we mentioned here earlier this year, describes himself as “Certified Specialist for Intellectual Property Law [from] Düsseldorf” and the abstract of his first paper about it [PDF] states: “As it is well known, the “unitary patent“ package has been adopted and now the ratification of the inter-governmental Agreement on the court system by a certain quorum of the Member States is necessary for the “unitary patent“ system to enter into force. Less well known is the fact that, during the legislative process, circumstances were withheld from the public which the political front apparently regarded as dangerous for the entry into force of the “legislative package”. An exemplary case is Council document 15856/11, an opinion of the Council’s Legal Service on the compatibility of the “unitary patent” court system’s amended structure with opinion 1/09 of the European Court of Justice (CJEU). Until very recently, this document was available to the public only in extensively blackened form. Requests for complete access to the document filed on the basis of EC Regulation No 1049/2001 were repeatedly refused on the ground that this could delay the ratification process in the Member States or even call into question the entry into force of the Agreement. The document, additional parts of which were made accessible to the public shortly before the publication of this article, shows why: In it, the Legal Service notes that the structure of the adopted court system may still violate European law. A report on the strange understanding of transparency and democracy exercised in the legislative proceedings for the “unitary patent” package.”
The second paper [PDF] has the following abstract: “As is well known, in its meeting on 11 December 2012, the European Parliament adopted the so-called “patent package”, consisting of the Regulations on the “unitary patent” and the translation regime while agreeing to the conclusion of an intergovernmental Agreement for the creation of a “Unified Patent Court System”. The “unitary patent” Regulation is based on a compromise proposal of the (former) Cyprus Council Presidency which was discussed by Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in a special meeting on 19 November 2012 from which the public was excluded. An audio recording of the meeting, which recently became available, shows the motives for the acceptance of this “compromise” which one of the rapporteurs called “sub-sub-suboptimal” and “a bad solution” there. The course of this meeting shall afterwards be described and assessed in more detail.”
“The so-called “patent package” is just another name for much of the same Trojan horse, which had various different names over the years (making it harder to find and grasp older criticisms thereof).”The so-called “patent package” is just another name for much of the same Trojan horse, which had various different names over the years (making it harder to find and grasp older criticisms thereof). Like with many secret ‘trade’ (corporate sovereignty) and censorship/surveillance bills, there is a notorious tendency to change the name of what’s being attempted (for passing), primarily in order to dodge negative associations and injurious publicity. These can be overnight stunts. Now it is known as UPC, but tomorrow politicians might decided to rename it again. Any politician knows this trick; another common trick is to wrap some piece of legislation or law with “pedophiles”, “terrorists”, “pirates”, and “drugs”.
Nobody (among the public) voted for the UPC but patent lawyers (as in “law”) ignore the law and rush ahead. To quote a British law blog: “The UK Government has now selected a location just on the edge of the City of London for the EU’s Unified Patents Court. This will house the London section of the Central Division, with specific jurisdiction in the life sciences areas, a major contributor to the UK economy. With this decision the Unified Patents Court looks one significant step closer to being a part of IP strategy for all innovative businesses wishing to do business in Europe.”
To quote another British law blog: “With the new court term looming, last week IPSoc, the society for junior IP practitioners, hosted its final educational event of 2015, “The UPC: A Panel Debate”. For those readers unfamiliar with the society, IPSoc is an intellectual property society run by juniors, for juniors (and for a nominal annual fee). The organization arranges four educational events, four social events and one fancy annual dinner each year for its members (which the AmeriKat was lucky to attend a couple of years ago).”
“Patent lawyers are understandably salivating over UPC (many more lawsuits with higher damages, from which they derive a loot’s share) and with very few exceptions they are constantly fast-tracking it, hoping for acceleration in a “self-fulfilling prophecy” fashion (increasing the complexity or cost of rollback).”Put in simple terms, AmeriKat (Annsley Merelle Ward, who likes to dissociate herself from her views), known to us for several years as IPKat‘s biggest software patents booster, pretends that the UPC is already in effect and is inevitably here. Patent lawyers are understandably salivating over UPC (many more lawsuits with higher damages, from which they derive a loot’s share) and with very few exceptions they are constantly fast-tracking it, hoping for acceleration in a “self-fulfilling prophecy” fashion (increasing the complexity or cost of rollback). They play a major role in giving momentum/inertia to politicians whose interests conflict with those of the public, which is mostly kept uninvolved (because it is uninformed, by design).
“The proposed Unified Patent Court fee for revocation proceedings is €20,000,” explains one patents-centric blog (of patent lawyers). “The EPO fee for opposition proceedings is €775. David Lewin expands on how and why you should be taking full strategic advantage of the EPO’s opposition procedure…”
To them it’s all about money. UPC means more power for large corporations and more money for lawyers who serve these corporations’ agenda (large clients pay the lion’s share of profit). At whose expense? European SMBs and European citizens at large. “And with it,” concludes the post, “completing the enhanced European patent system – will come the Unified Patent Court (UPC).”
Step by step they extinguish national sovereignty and abandon long-established laws, which were put there for a reason and evolved over time with public input and facts-based analyses (prioritising public interests, not private interests).
“This is the hallmark of an autocracy.”Why is UPC hardly mentioned in general news sites and newspapers? When did citizens ever vote on it, let alone been given the chance to vote on it (e.g. to oppose)? This is the hallmark of an autocracy.
“UPC will see major patent litigation,” explain patent lawyers, “which is resulting in a lot of ‘scaremongering’ going on” (well, obviously).
“EPLAW’s hon president Pierre Veron,” according to this, said that (probably paraphrased): “The first 4 or 5 preliminary injunctions under UPC will be issued quickly for legal certainty” (more injunctions, to whose advantage?).
Merck Sharp & Dohme’s James Horgan is quoted (or paraphrased) as saying that various “telecoms are most nervous about getting injunctions on preliminary actions under UPC [...] Opting out patents under UPC could be a ‘major headache’ [...] it won’t be patentees but law firms who shape the UPC system” (without even consulting the European public, which has nothing to gain from the UPC).
The patent lawyers are aided by their lawyer friends, who wear “politician” hats. “Ironically,” Managing IP (London-based) noted, “Commissioner EB [Elżbieta Bieńkowska] is from Poland – which has decided not to join the #UnitaryPatent (at least for now)!”
“It achieves the very opposite of competitiveness. It helps drive competition out of the market using patents.”Bieńkowska wrote: “Welcome Italy to #UnitaryPatent: a step further towards unitary protection of #innovation in Europe.#Competitiveness”
What is she talking about? It has nothing whatsoever to do with innovation and definitely not with competitiveness (the propaganda word used in europe.eu). It achieves the very opposite of competitiveness. It helps drive competition out of the market using patents. It harms European business. What was Bieńkowska thinking when she wrote this? Corporate tool or just gullible (or “useful idiot” as Stalinist Russia famously put it)? Other politicians, including some British ones like Lady Neville-Rolfe (Tory who fast-tracks/rams down the throats of Brits the UPC before consent is expressed or referendum takes place), are selling away democracy in Europe. It’s a horrible thing to witness, especially because many people don’t even know that this is silently going on. Passivity among the public, caused by lack of communication, drives the UPC. Managing IP joins the misleading “Competitiveness” chorus by writing: “EU Competitiveness Council to sign Protocol on provisional application of #UPC Agreement tomorrow http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2015/10/1-compet-indicative-programme/ … (w/ Family photo!)”
The family of lawyers (politicians, patent lawyers etc.) is working hard to serve itself at the expense of European citizens, who are kept almost totally in the dark. Amid uncertainty and darkness, Germany, where much of the EPO is based, is now authorising software patents. To quote Patently German: “It is thus quite clear that the FCJ would not have accepted the patent application in its original wording, related to a mathematical method for the determination of the state of a (not further defined) object. Only the restriction of the method to the attitude determination of an airplane provides the required concrete technical application. Would the application also be allowed if the claims were directed not to the attitude determination of a real airplane but one simulated on a computer ? My guess is yes, it would, as in accordance with the rationale expressed by headnote c) of the decision a more reliable knowledge about the attitude of an airplane and thereby influence on the functioning of the attitude detection system (thus the relation to the purposeful use of forces of nature) is obtained also by performing the method of the invention on a flight simulator.”
German pundits say “on ruling by top German court” that “math method patent-eligible if related to using forces of nature” (that is essentially applicable to many if not most software patents, including those in my fields).
Welcome to ‘new’ Europe, where people have no say and corporations get anything they ask for. They even bypass European laws, or rewrite them in private to better suit their interests/convenience, driving competition out of the market and artificially driving up prices. █
“They [EPO examiners] claim that the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.” —Expatica, European Patent Office staff on strike
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