01.10.18
Posted in Europe, Patents at 7:56 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Programme: Local [PDF] | Original [PDF]
Briefing: Local [PDF] | Original [PDF]
Report: Local [PDF] | Original [PDF]
Summary: A look at newly-released documents from the Committee on Legal Affairs shows a rather disturbing cooperation if not collusion with a highly abusive tyrant
A LITTLE birdie whispered in our ears, noting that the documents above have been made public. The EPO‘s relationship with the EC/EP/EU comes across as complicity; it’s not looking good.
Mind the dates; the way we interpret this data, the European Parliament mission to the EPO was only published 2.5 years later (in December 2017). The programme and report are outlined as follows: “The Committee on Legal Affairs sent a delegation of three Members to Munich on 4-5 May 2015. The Members met with the representatives of the European Patent Office in order to discuss the state of play of the patent package, in particular the cost of the unitary patent.”
“It looks like in order for the UPC agenda to be pushed they were willing to accept Battistelli’s many abuses. TTIP is mentioned there too.”UPC. What we see there is Margot Fröhlinger pushing UPC agenda. “During the course of the morning session, the delegation was welcomed by the EPO’s president, Mr. Benoît Battistelli.” In their own words. It looks like in order for the UPC agenda to be pushed they were willing to accept Battistelli’s many abuses. TTIP is mentioned there too.
So, uploaded earlier this month or last month were all these documents that could probably be made public a long time ago. How come? Were they trying to protect some nefarious agenda? Does transparency come with time constraints? Does it take almost 3 years to process just half a dozen pages? We have made local copies just in case the above expire (or get removed, which is inevitable one day).
The “Committee on Legal Affairs” they call themselves. How about looking into legal abuses of Battistelli? Not important enough? How about constitutional issues associated with UPC?
“How about looking into legal abuses of Battistelli? Not important enough? How about constitutional issues associated with UPC?”While the EC/EP/EU (or the Committee on Legal Affairs) looked the other way more EPO staff committed suicide and the institution became synonymous with lawlessness. Where were these ‘public’ servants when that happened?
Battistelli, as noted in this article from today, further shields his nepotist succession plan so that his mates will continue to control the EPO long after he’s gone. As someone put it:
The European Patent Office (EPO) has completed an internal reorganisation, including the merger of two former Directorates General (DG), which it claims will “enhance the efficiency of its patenting process”.
The new DG 1 merges the old DG 1 Operations and DG 2 Operational Support under the umbrella of DG 1 Patent Granting Process
According to the EPO, the merge will integrate support staff with teams of patent examiners to “reduce hand-over points”, where patent applications are passed between operation units.
The office also plans to create new specialised directorates to deal with opposition procedures.
They conveniently neglect to say that these are promotions of Battistelli’s cabal, disguised as ‘reorg’ which professionals warned against. It’ll only accelerate the demise of the EPO.
“Amid very serious brain drain rest assured that the world’s ‘best’ patent office will allow people with only days or weeks of experience to assess files, raising both confidentiality and professionalism questions.”Once upon a time the EPO attracted Europe’s brightest scientists, but hours ago the EPO announced these vacancies (warning: epo.org link). Jobs? Of course not! Just internships, merely one week after all EPO workers lost their permanent work contract (it’s now time-limited and conditional). The EPO wrote: “A unique possibility for professional representatives to spend three weeks as interns in our Directorate-General Patent Granting Process, work on actual case files and run prior-art searches. Apply for the Praktika Intern programme here…”
Amid very serious brain drain rest assured that the world’s ‘best’ patent office will allow people with only days or weeks of experience to assess files, raising both confidentiality and professionalism questions. █
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 7:17 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The number of European Patents (EPs) opposed has skyrocketed and may have outrun the capacity to properly deal with oppositions
Summary: The person who is rapidly ruining the quality that the EPO stood for over the years (nearly half a century) lies to his staff and stakeholders today; He has even, in his own words, “chaired our annual Quality Review” to review his own supposed ‘performance’
THE quality of patents at the Office of Benoît Battistelli is as high as the quality of the lies of Benoît Battistelli.
This Liar in Chief continued lying today; he spoke about patent quality yet again. He has lost any sense of shame and he now lies so blatantly that we can imagine the faces of EPO workers who read this ‘blog’ post of his (warning: epo.org link). It was promoted in the Organisation’s Twitter account some hours ago. “In a new blog post President Battistelli reviews 2017 and discusses the year ahead with a strong focus on quality,” it says. They too are lying. Yes, the Organisation. Does Herrnst care at all? Probably not because a few months ago he help defend the same lies about patent quality (in a private event that was publicly reported on). We suppose that a rebuttal to these lies is in order because staff must have noticed these lies. Someone ought to respond to the lies.
“He chairs a meeting in which to discuss himself.”Battistelli is (of course) lying. He chairs a meeting in which to discuss himself. How ludicrous is that? Napoleonic. “At the beginning of December,” he wrote, “I chaired our annual Quality Review, comprised of senior EPO management who are integral to maintaining and developing the Office’s quality.”
So Battistelli controls everything, even things that are tasked with assessing his performance. Amazing, isn’t it? Not at the EPO anyway; this has become the norm and something to be perpetually expected.
Is anyone out there surprised about it? Battistelli is moving his lips again, having returned from his (longer than other staff’s) break. His lips utter words, which leave an odorous puddle of lies afoot.
“Battistelli is moving his lips again, having returned from his (longer than other staff’s) break.”Let’s look at the latest evidence of a decline in patent quality (as the EPO itself is unable to safely investigate the matter; staff representatives who merely brought up the subject were severely reprimanded by two Vice-Presidents). Introspection verboten!
The EPO‘s Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) with Canada, which we mentioned on Tuesday morning, is now officially “news” (several days after it actually started). It comes from two publications that typically parrot EPO press releases [1, 2]. The first says this:
The European Patent Office (EPO) and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) have extended a patent prosecution highway (PPH) pilot agreement.
The extension of the pilot, which allows applicants who have been successful in obtaining a patent at one office to request accelerated examination at the other, was announced on Friday, January 5.
For those who are not familiar with the concept, PPH will almost always guarantee lowered quality of assessment (and less time for oppositions etc.) in the name of speed, usually in order to better facilitate a patent aggressor rather than a defendant.
When you use the word “products” maybe you intentionally fail to understand what patents really are; so says the second ‘article’ (more like a press release):
Comparatively, the CIPO received 406 requests: 325 based on PCT work products and 81 based on regional work products.
Yes, “products”; Battistelli probably thinks that he is literally running a factory (something which he never did before by the way).
This is an utter embarrassment. PACE, Early Certainty, PPH and so on have basically demolished patent quality. The appeal boards have been systematically diminished (pure sabotage!) and see this new press release titled “European Patent Office Cancels Oral Opposition Proceedings Concerning Cantargia’s Patent for Solid Tumours” as it’s almost self-explanatory. It does not look like the EPO even has the capacity for quality assessment of patents anymore…
In the ongoing opposition proceedings at the European Patent Office (“EPO”) concerning Cantargia AB’s (“Cantargia”) patent for antibody treatment against IL1RAP in solid tumours the EPO has informed the company that the oral proceedings that were due to take place on 22 January 2018 have been cancelled.
Oppositions? What oppositions? The EPO cannot even keep up. Understaffed. Brain-drained. Total chaos.
“The EPO now grants far too many patents in error.”Great job, Battistelli!
The EPO now grants far too many patents in error. And its error-correcting mechanisms have been brought to their knees. Hours ago someone posted this detailed analysis which show how the number of oppositions has soared (indicative of plenty of ‘dissent’ or ‘protest’ against grants). To quote the relevant part (there is a graph there too):
Given the EPO opposition term of nine months from grant and given that by far the greater proportion of oppositions are filed towards the very end of the opposition term, increased grants could be expected to be followed nine months – three quarters of a year – later by an increase in the number of patents opposed.
Though the record of the number of patents opposed in the third quarter of 2017 is not yet finalized, it seems clear that this expected “more patents opposed” effect has occurred.
At the latest from the first quarter of 2017 there has been a marked increase in the number of patents opposed.
We are truly concerned that Battistelli basically ‘broke’ the EPO; everything that had evolved at the Organisation (and Office) to assure checks and balances, self-assessment etc. is now gone. When we publish old documents from staff representatives we gradually go back in time and show how Battistelli did it, scuttling everything that constitutes separation of powers. It’s disturbing. And it’s a good thing that some people meticulously documented these things over the year.
“When we publish old documents from staff representatives we gradually go back in time and show how Battistelli did it, scuttling everything that constitutes separation of powers.”The other day Alexander Esslinger wrote about the Organisation’s Enlarged Board of Appeal and German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ): (see corresponding tweet)
The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) reasoned that such undisclosed disclaimers in most cases constitute added matter, i.e. “the requirements of Article 123(2) EPC leave virtually no chance of an undisclosed disclaimer being allowable” since “introducing any disclaimer per definitionem excludes subject-matter from a claim and, hence, changes the technical content of the claim” (G1-16, point 42). The EBO allowed undisclosed disclaimers under the above-mentioned clearly defined conditions despite the fact that they violate Art. 123(2) EPC, because under these circumstances a violation of Art. 123(2) EPC would not give the patentee or applicant an unwarranted advantage damaging to the legal security of third parties; this being the rationale behind Art. 123(2) EPC (G1-16, point 36).
The German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ), however, applies in the recently published ex-parte decision “Phosphatidylcholin” a different reasoning. In the case the FCJ had to decide upon an appeal on points of law (“Rechtsbeschwerde”) of the applicant of a patent application, which has been rejected both by the GPTO and the Federal Patent Court based on the ground that of an undisclosed disclaimer consisted of an inadmissible extension beyond the content of the original application.
We previously posted evidence that GPTO (in relation to SLAPP, trolls, and quality of patents) had become better than EPO. Where is the EPO going if the Boards of Appeal are being crushed (and shrunk) further and further? Who is going to independently assess patent quality?
German media will look the other way, perhaps because the EPO is a sacred cow (cash cow). █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:11 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Recent: Battistelli’s ‘Mole’ Lucy Neville-Rolfe is Still Trying to Push Unitary Patent (UPC) Through in the United Kingdom
Summary: Proponents of the UPC, notably patent law firms that are based in London, do not want us to know that Jo Johnson is leaving, thereby assuring that any remaining prospects of UPC ratification are in formal disarray
Jo Johnson knew all along that the UPC was an impossibility, but Team UPC kept lobbying and misleading him. Battistelli even went to London to do photo ops with him (posted in the EPO‘s site at one time).
“In principle, his words/promises too have become more or less invalid, just like Lucy’s (in 2016).”People have already noticed (this week) that Johnson’s shuffle will impact what he said or promised. In principle, his words/promises too have become more or less invalid, just like Lucy’s (in 2016). Are they going to shuffle every single year?
Jo Johnson is out the door. He’s moving. This means that UPC is very dead now. Not just in the UK but everywhere. No matter the lobbying. Even if Germany someone miraculously ratified (some time in the distant future), London’s absence would make it untenable.
One new comment said: “Jo Johnson moved sideways to transport. Haven’t seen if he keeps his IP brief but presumably not. So time to educate another junior minister?”
“Jo Johnson is out the door. He’s moving. This means that UPC is very dead now.”The response to that is that he’s being “replaced by Sam Gyimah, who campaigned for remain, according to the Guardian.”
Lucy and Jo have lasted such a short time on the job. Will Gyimah even last more than 6 months?
The UPC is dead irrespective of “leave” or “remain” for various reasons we’ve covered here before. In fact, UPC is not even on the radar in the UK. The EPO has, so far this week, posted lots of #IPforSMEs nonsense like this, perhaps hoping to perpetuate illusions like “UPC for SMEs” rather than just “IP for SMEs” (both are falsehoods). Earlier today the EPO wrote: “Annual gains of EUR 14.6 billion in trade and EUR 1.8 billion in FDI could be generated by improved harmonisation of Europe’s patent system.”
“The UPC is dead irrespective of “leave” or “remain” for various reasons we’ve covered here before.”This links to that old and disgraced ‘report’. “No need to keep pushing this report you paid to produce for UPC lobbying,” I told them. Some people alleged that the purpose of this paid-for ‘report’ is to help lobby the German court.
Meanwhile, Watchtroll is promoting the UPC in a so-called ‘webiner’, so we instantaneously know it’s good for patent trolls, not for science or for industry (Watchtroll is worse than IAM in that regard). Yesterday it even promoted Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs), just like Team UPC habitually does.
As we shall show in the next couple of posts, the UPC lobby of Battistelli also works behind the scenes; with little effort we can expose/unearth that too. █
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