05.06.17
Gemini version available ♊︎European Marketing Office: Battistelli-Commissioned ‘Studies’, Puff Pieces, and Revisionism about PACE
Making a run for the money before the Office implodes
Summary: The European Patent Office (EPO) has become ever more feeble under Battistelli, but manipulation of statistics and so-called ‘facts’ (or “alternative facts”) help Battistelli get away with it, with even his supervisor now on his way out
THERE IS no loss of momentum when it comes to EPO scandals, however fewer people speak about these, for various reasons we’ve recently outlined.
A couple of days ago, promoted by the PR people was Benoît Battistelli’s latest ‘blog’ post (warning: epo.org link) which says a whole lot of the usual nonsense and cites a “recent survey that was carried out on behalf of the EPO,” i.e. paid Battistelli propaganda (there has been a lot of Battistelli-commissioned nonsense lately).
“It threatens the whole of Europe for the benefit of the patent ‘industry’ (law firms) and some of their biggest clients that aren’t even based in Europe.”Battistelli is a terrible patent maximalist who neither grasps science nor grasps patents. He thinks of these in terms like sports or perhaps a production line, almost as though the more, the merrier, irrespective of the collateral impact, e.g. on society, the environment and so on. How foolish, short-sighted, naïve, and dangerous, even fatal (e.g. to many people’s lives).
A French site called “Leaders League” was mentioned by Managing IP the other day because it’s running this puff piece about the UPC — a worthless ambition of the above-mentioned patent maximalist. It threatens the whole of Europe for the benefit of the patent ‘industry’ (law firms) and some of their biggest clients that aren’t even based in Europe. The headline of this puff piece is pure nonsense. It’s bunk, it’s a lie. The UPC is in general based/built on a pile of lies and as Benjamin Henrion pointed out, “UPC [is] not made by Parliaments,” citing the article as saying that “[t]here are 400 rules and to merge and incorporate the best of the various legal orders…”
“It’s like those oil companies that write the laws and environmental regulations.”Guess who wrote those rules…
It’s like those oil companies that write the laws and environmental regulations. It’s despicable. It’s just vile and unacceptable in a modern, civilised society. But this is the kind of thing that the EPO fosters. The UPC fosters patent maximalism and extremism; it threatens to bring to the whole of the EU patents that the national patent offices forbade (for good reasons, based on experience and sound economic theories).
“Putting the Pedal to the Metal at the EPO” is the headline of this new article about the European Patent Office — an article published by a patent maximalism journal (we wrote about its biases and agenda in the past). The EPO is driving into a wall (pedal pressed on the examination pipeline) while application numbers fall. The EPO under Battistelli has basically gone nuts. The stakeholders are irritated by this. Nobody is happy about this, except perhaps few massive and typically foreign companies that enjoy nepotism. The article speaks of PACE as though it is desirable. To quote: “Perhaps the best known acceleration program at the European Patent Office (EPO) is the PACE program. Unlike Track 1 examination in the US, PACE is free of charge and requires only a simple form to be electronically filed. All European patent applications are eligible to participate in the PACE program, and there is no need to give a reason for requesting acceleration or to provide any additional documents. PACE is not available however during opposition or appeal proceedings, which can only be expedited in exceptional circumstances.”
“At the end of the day, the EPO clearly isn’t functioning.”The article does not mention that up until the point we leaked documents about PACE it was available only to a few large companies. We believe that the EPO later decided to change the rules and alter the narrative — in effect changing the history in retrospect (revisionism is the technical term for this nefarious tactic).
At the end of the day, the EPO clearly isn’t functioning. It’s running out of work and staff is expecting layoffs (those who aren’t pressured/forced to resign already).
It must be very dreadful being an EPO employee these days; no amount of monetary compensation makes up for loss of dignity — something which academic types tend to crave/appreciate more than capital wealth. █
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