Bonum Certa Men Certa

UPC Nepotism, Political Abuses, and UPC Involvement From the Legal Firm That EPO Hired to Bully Techrights

Fieldfisher and UPC



Summary: The Unitary Patent Court (UPC), a rigged system that is being rammed down Europe's throat by the EPO, its big clients (even foreign), and their patent lawyers laid bear for people to see

There's a lot of very serious abuse (at least institutional) surrounding the UPC, much like in those 'trade' agreements with all the confirmed bribes. The UPC should be at least as scandalous as ACTA or the TPP, but the public is hardly aware of the UPC, there's no public input on it, and the driving forces behind it typically work behind closed doors (or in private events with high fees to attend and no input from critics).



The UPC is driven not by public demand but by the desire of some parties to essentially loot the public. It's like legalised theft, or systematic passage of wealth.The EPO has its own lobbyists Brussels and so do EPO allies like Microsoft, which employs Microsoft-connected lobbying groups in Brussels (for software patents in Europe -- a goal evidently shared by the Battistelli-led EPO). Does anyone know who funds the front/lobbying group “Fair Standards Alliance”? They don’t say, but we can make guesses.

Curiously enough, yesterday we found out that the legal firm that the EPO hired (i.e. paid) to bully me with legal letters is boosting the UPC right now. Well, another coincidence or alignment/intersection of interests? MIP wrote that in its partially-visible article (behind paywall). "Fieldfisher expand ahead of UPC launch," it says, and all I know Fieldfisher for is threatening legal letters that it sent me. Articles which highlighted the connection between Microsoft and the EPO is what they threatened me over, repeatedly.

As it turns out, based on yesterday's tweet from the FFII's President, the "German Ministry of Justice seems to prepare for UPC ratification, software patents like a letter to the post #swpat #nodebate" (indeed, no public debate at all, same as in the UK).

Patent firms love the UPC because more (and broader) lawsuits mean more income for them. As it turns out, based on input that we received yesterday, there is a lot of nepotism and lobbying in the mix. The German Ministry of Justice is implicated, too. To quote this source of ours:

Roy,

as regards your postings on who will benefit most from a unitary patent and Unified Patent Court, you might want to have a closer look to the article here:

http://www.stjerna.de/index_en_htm_files/The_requirements_of_Article%20118_1_TFEU.pdf

Its sections I. and II. describe a remarkable connection between the German Ministry of Justice and one of the leading German pro-UPC proponents, Prof. Tilmann (http://www.hoganlovells.com/winfried-tilmann/), a preeminent German attorney at Hogan Lovells, one of the leading patent litigation firms in Europe. Tilmann admitted that he had been given confidential court documents by the Ministry of Justice to publicly comment on these in favour of the UPC.

The article also cites a letter sent by his firm to a Committee of the House of Commons in 2012, trying to clarify that Mr Tilmann was not acting on behalf of Hogan Lovells, but was merely providing "his own personal views" - after he had apparently pushed his lobbying for the unitary patent and UPC a little too far. The letter was mentioned on the IPKat (http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/05/when-unity-creates-division-kat-patent.html), it can be downloaded here (https://sites.google.com/site/ipkatreaders/unifiedpatentproposal/hoglove.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1). It is still a good laugh.

Regards


It seems possible that the only reason the European public has not yet scandalised the UPC is the secrecy around it, the lack of understanding (the EPO spends money on pro-UPC propaganda events), and lack of public participation.

We urge all readers, both inside and outside Europe (and inside the EPO or outside the EPO) to antagonise this injustice. The EPO spends a lot of money misleading the public so whistleblowers are needed. One reader told us yesterday: "thank you for tenaciously holding the EPO management to account. I don't necessarily see eye to eye with you on software patents, but I definitely agree with you on the state of the EPO."

No two people can agree on everything, but there are overlaps. It is also possible to work for the EPO (e.g. as an examiner) whilst also recognising the problems with the UPC. We strongly encourage readers to send us documents, pointers or any other material we should know about regarding the UPC. EPO management is understandably paranoid about UPC critics (it sees UPC critics even where there are none), as we stressed several times in the past.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October