Bonum Certa Men Certa

Patent Quality at the EPO Depends on the Future of the Boards of Appeal (Which Battistelli is Killing Not So Softly)

One of the few singles I happen to have the CD of...

Killing Me Softly



Summary: The decline in patent quality at the EPO is bad news not just for applicants but for all Europeans, and there's no sign of it improving any time soon (under Battistelli to whom quality is an impediment)

THE EPO was a world-leading patent office for decades; it did not have many patents and this was actually a good thing because it meant that each single EP was of very high quality and there was certainty about it inside and outside the court (less risk, less litigation). Unlike the USPTO, the EPO did strive to maintain quality, which resulted in high fees. The EPO basically did what every patent office should do, but a lot of that changed when it got greedy and in defiance of Parliamentary instructions started granting software patents (covertly, using excuses and loopholes it had created) and patents on life, e.g. seeds, plants, animals. Patent maximalism further accelerated under Battistelli, a person so anti-scientific (crudely speaking, a chickenhawk politician) that he would never manage to come up with a valid patent of his own.



Nowadays, the EPO ignores the European Commission on everything including patent scope, so the rules don't seem to matter to it. The notion of "rules" hardly even exists at the EPO; what exists can be described as Presidential decrees. Here is a new "international report" from Bart W Swinkels of NLO (European Union). It says the following:

European Commission notice against patentability of plants does not affect European plant patents



On November 3 2016 the European Commission issued a notice regarding the patentability of plants and animals obtained by means of essentially biological processes.

In the view of the commission, the EU legislature’s intention when adopting EU Directive 98/44/EC “was to exclude from patentability products (plants/animals and plant/animal parts) that are obtained by means of essentially biological processes”.

However, the commission’s notice is not legally binding; it is up to the courts and boards – not the commission – to interpret the law.


In other words, as usual, the EPO does whatever the Hell it wants, no matter if it makes it look arrogant, foolish, even corrupt. See this tweet posted today by the EPO. Very vague (but familiar to us) language is being used to masquerade/blur the inclusion of software patents in an upcoming event (yet again! Warning: epo.org link). Based on what EPO examiners say, they no longer have much time to properly search prior art and they actually grant patents on software. They are under too much pressure under their management to "produce" (where production usually gets measured in teams of "products", not actual work). Watch what the EPO wrote today. It's totally out of touch!

"In other words, as usual, the EPO does whatever the Hell it wants, no matter if it makes it look arrogant, foolish, even corrupt."One of our remaining hopes is that the appeal boards will shake things up a bit. The supposedly independent judges need to remind the Office that it cannot just pursue greater quantity of patents by disregarding quality, thereby essentially spitting in the well (or muddying the water) of EPs' value.

According to this new announcement, quality control is not entirely dead at the EPO. To quote a press releases about it, "BMO Capital analyst, Matthew Luchini, reiterated his Outperform rating on shares of Alder Biopharm (NASDAQ: ALDR) despite shares being under pressure following the European Patent Office's (EPO) oral decision, which revoked Teva's patent claims related to CGRP antagonist antibodies for the treatment of migraine but maintained and narrowed method of use claims."

Here is another new bit of coverage that says "Aegis Capital affirms Alder Biopharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ALDR) at Buy with a price target of $41 after the EPO maintained claims related to CGRP use in Migraines.

"The supposedly independent judges need to remind the Office that it cannot just pursue greater quantity of patents by disregarding quality, thereby essentially spitting in the well (or muddying the water) of EPs' value.""Analyst Difei Yang sees the recent pullback in ALDR shares as a buying opportunity. The analyst commented, "The EPO’s ruling is certainly a setback in the intellectual property legal proceedings of Alder and Eli Lilly, however it is also, in our view, a buying opportunity as the valuation impact to Alder is minimal; an approximate $2 per share decrease from our estimated price target. This reasoning stems from our opinion that there will be limited, if any, carry over to the US, where the large bulk of the future value of ALD-403 is based.""

Here, in this particular example, we're dealing with patents on drugs, not software, but the principles of patent scope still apply. Consider this new "international report" published yesterday by IAM. It says "Yeda Research and Development Company owned a patent directed to a monoclonal antibody that selectively binds and purifies the human cytotoxin, tumor necrosis factor (TNF)."

"To Battistelli, patent quality control is just some nuisance that stands in the way of his terrible goal of "production" (as measured by the 'SIPO yardstick')."As we noted here before, restrictive patent scope is needed in the area of cancer as well, otherwise patients will be killed for the sake of corporate profits. Societal cost analysis suggests that patents should be few but solid. We are not at all against patents (never were!); we're in favour of high quality patents whose grant can be justified by taking into account externalities like human life.

Battistelli, as this new tweet serves to remind us, is ensuring there's not much left to preserve patent quality at the EPO (appeals are becoming too expensive, the boards understaffed, no independence). To Battistelli, patent quality control is just some nuisance that stands in the way of his terrible goal of "production" (as measured by the 'SIPO yardstick').

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Noteworthy Claim That IBM is Firing a Lot of Lawyers This Week (RAs in the Legal Department)
A lot of what they do is patent 'trolling' or lawyering up against their own staff (e.g. HR disputes)
Links 10/10/2025: US Judge Bars Attacks by ICE On Journalists and Protesters; “We Took The Freedom of Speech Away” Says the President
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Serial Sloppers, Google News Gifting Slopfarms, and Fake News/Plagiarism About "Linux"
Google itself is a slop pusher these days
Qualcomm, the New Owner of Arduino, Blasted for Its Software Patents Tax on 'Smartphones'
A lot of Qualcomm's patents are on software. We wrote about this in prior years.
XBox Layoffs Rumours, Downtime, and Criticism From XBox Co-Founder
"everyone is ditching the xbox."
Links 10/10/2025: Honoring The Legacy Of Robert Murray-Smith, Many Articles on the Hey Hi (AI) Bubble
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: October Gothic and Reading Middle Earth Role Playing; C and Ada
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually