Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Fiction That Spain (or Italy) Can Salvage the UPC

Spanish bullfight



Summary: The proponents/lobbyists of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), firms that make money from patent litigation (we collectively call these "Team UPC"), are nowadays backpedaling, having come to grips with the death of the UPC, realising it's time to save face by pretending everything they said in the past wasn't a lie

THE NEW year is well underway, but the European Patent Office (EPO) has said nothing about the UPC. Team UPC has not apologised for misleading the public with fabricated rumours, either. Days ago we noticed that Bristows corrected at least 3 errors in its latest blog post, dated late December. These people know they're lying, but they try to save face and retain some level of credibility. Bristows uses an arcane CMS that reveals when they make edits, so we compared/assessed the latest edits using Google Cache. It's quite revealing.



"Bristows uses an arcane CMS that reveals when they make edits, so we compared/assessed the latest edits using Google Cache. It's quite revealing."Anyway, no ratification in 2018. Not even close. What will be the next talking point then?

DLA Piper's Gualtiero Luca Dragotti has just mentioned the UPC in relation to Italy; these people hope that Milan can just magically replace London and suddenly make UPC possible. But the UPC is dead. Team UPC needs to move on. "Unitary Patent" and anything predating it (other names for the same thing) was all along a zombie and nowadays it is a failure, as even its paid media cheerleaders finally admit. They had spent years lying about Spain, spreading what many nowadays call "fake news". These cheerleaders (IAM) try to save face by belatedly admitting that UPC is dead.

"Guess who else is trying to save face: Kluwer.""UPC Tracker", a Twitter account dedicated (for years) to Unified Patent Court propaganda, is also late to admit (or quote): "Saying that the UK can still be a member of the UPC Agreement because it was an EU member at the beginning of the negotiations – even though it is not an EU member anymore – is, in my humble opinion, complete nonsense. Law doesn€´t work like that."

Guess who else is trying to save face: Kluwer. "Deal or no deal," they've repeated the headline in Twitter, the "UK cannot stay in the Unitary Patent system post-Brexit," based on "Kluwer Patent blogger," quoting some UPC proponent from Spain; he's now promoting two lies or fictions: 1) that 'unitary' patents are inevitable and 2) that there's will in Spain to make it happen. From this article/interview (more like a pro-UPC puff piece in dialogue form):

I€´m not sure what Spain would do in such a scenario. The translation issue has not been solved yet and it does not look like there will be an acceptable solution for Spain any time soon. Furthermore, litigation is also an issue and might even clash with the Spanish Constitution and what it says about jurisdiction concerning intellectual property rights. The Spanish Constitution could of course be changed, but as said before, given the current political situation in my country, I don€´t see the Parliament opening the Pandora€´s box of our Constitution because of a patent matter. However, this whole issue is of course a political battle and, as such, it may have very easy solutions that we may not be thinking of right now, such as increasing agriculture aids; new fisheries agreements or Gibraltar. Who knows.’


Fictional nonsense, to put it relatively politely. So their latest strategy might be to pretend that Spain will "save the (their) day..."

"This relates to the issues associated with legal proceedings in a foreign language -- one of several Constitution-violating issues raised EU-wide."The sole comment so far (made it past the blog's censorship of UPC critics) is from Jan Van Hoey, who rebuts one aspect among many when he says: "Automated translation is discriminatory anyway. There are 2 kinds of people: those who can rely on legally binding laws, and the ones who have to rely on non-legally binding automated translations."

This relates to the issues associated with legal proceedings in a foreign language -- one of several Constitution-violating issues raised EU-wide. Can the defendant be accused, sued and then 'convicted' in some court he or she cannot even understand? This redefines the whole concept and theory of the Rule of Law.

The UPC was never meant to be. The fact that it managed to get as far as it has should be seen as extraordinary and it serves to highlight how ripe the political system is to overt corruption (by law firms in this case).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
 
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day