02.19.19
Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:54 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
…Before, on his final weeks on the job, passing millions of euros to his other employer
Summary: A quarter of a billion euros later the EPO finally admits in private that this was a massive failure
READERS can find above “EPO’s IT – Yet another crack in Battistelli’s “excellence” bubble”.” Sources tell us this appeared in SUEPO’s site (non-public), having been published a fortnight ago, on 05/02/2019. As we showed yesterday, there’s less than a fortnight left before key components of this system get abandoned. What a waste of money.
As SUEPO put it: “Will Mr Campinos hold the managers, appointed by Mr Battistelli, accountable for these disasters?”
Of course not. From the above:
The eDossier programme has not been fully realised and is largely delayed. This seems to be amongst others due to the fact that the two releases, stock management/annotation and search workflow, are developed in parallel, but are based on different architecture and technology stack. The parallel development of the two releases turns out to be highly inefficient and not long-term sustainable. The audit recommends an immediate stop of all effort on one release and the work on the other release should be temporarily suspended.
As in all previous staff surveys, and the only positive statement in the audit, a strong individual commitment and team spirit among the IT staff is shown. Nevertheless, overall staff engagement is rather low. In particular, the pride, satisfaction and sense of purpose are relatively weak in comparison to benchmarks. Furthermore, the management style is perceived as too top-down and non-collaborative while appreciation of individual opinions is considered to be relatively low.
Conclusions:
- The audit clearly reveals that Mr Battistelli either lied to all the EPO stakeholders or was completely misinformed by his management about the state of affairs of the EPO’s IT.
- Fact is that 223 million Euros are spent on an IT project and there seems to be no tangible results coming from it. Mr Campinos and Ms Simon await an enormous task to repair the EPO’s IT organisation, infrastructure and IT staff motivation.
- The production rise of the last years can only be the result of the extreme hard work of the EPO staff and certainly not by the badly designed, wrongly developed or incomplete applications.
- Losing 223 million Euros is clearly not in line with the sustainability mantra of the EPO administration. Sustainability is an “approach aiming to create long-term stakeholder value through the implementation of a business strategy that focuses on the ethical, social, environmental, cultural, and economic dimensions of doing business. The strategies created are intended to foster longevity, transparency and proper employee development within business organizations”. It definitely does not mean for EPO employees to produce more and work harder in order to cover losses made by EPO managers.
Are the next cracks in Battistelli’s “excellence” bubble going to be: the patent quality, the reformed EPO legal system, the reformed social democracy and/or the ill conceived HR policies ?
How will Mr Campinos deal with the fact that the EPO is not the “excellent” model organisation his predecessor always claimed it to be?
Will Mr Campinos hold the managers, appointed by Mr Battistelli, accountable for these disasters?
SUEPO
We now live in a Europe with lots of dubious European Patents. In Lexology, for instance, Weickmann & Weickmann’s Stephan Jellbauer has just written about those fruity EPO patents that are laughable satires. See how Battistelli attempted to justify these. FRKelly has meanwhile written in the same site on “Patent enforcement through the courts in the European Union”; it should increasingly be accepted and broadly realised that many courts do not (not often anyway) tolerate patents granted by EPO. In order to fake numbers Battistelli allowed a lot of bogus patents to be granted; it may take decades before these go away (expiry). Who pays? The public. █
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Posted in America, Courtroom, Europe, Law, Patents at 5:09 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Low patent quality has done incredible harm/damage to confidence in the system
Summary: Worthless patents — not opposition to such patents — are the greatest threat to the legitimacy of the patent system, yet bureaucrats fail to heed the warning in the name of short-term profits
HERE AT TECHRIGHTS we’ve been following the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for more than a decade and a half (I wrote about it long before the site even existed). When I was about 20 I was upset to see Graffiti input on Palm being destroyed by patents. I wrote about it in my personal blog. Such ridiculous US patents could possibly be used by a relic like Xerox to embargo — e.g. via ITC — devices I so often used (I still own and use a Palm PDA). The workaround was known as Graffiti 2, which is vastly inferior. The PDA I use was manufactured in 2003 — the same year Graffiti 2 was introduced, so I’m lucky to have dodged this sabotage by patents. For those who wonder what got me upset at such patents (software patents), that was it. Richard Stallman often attributes the creation of GNU and then the FSF to Xerox printers that upset him. So I share more than my initials with him and we’ve been good friends. We share our views on patents and the European patent system.
Things have changed a lot since, especially in 2014 when SCOTUS ruled on Alice, giving rise to 35 U.S.C. § 101 as we now know it.
“We are saddened to see Europe falling into the same trap that the US had fallen into a few decades ago when the Federal Circuit gave a green light to software patents.”Seeing what happens in the US this year, we’re not even tempted to resume coverage of it. Virtually all cases are concluded the way we’d like them to. Janal Kalis (“Patent Buddy”) is still obsessing over mere patent applications, as PTAB and district courts have nothing for these patent maximalists to celebrate. This week he wrote: “The PTAB Reversed an Examiner’s 101 Rejection of Claims for a Method of Detecting Similar Objects” (the exception).
Usually it’s the other way around. We also note that patent extremists blame “big tech” for the demise of software patents, never mind if “small tech” (firms) too pushed towards that. “They ‘happen’ to be those who also produce a lot of software,” I replied to him, “unlike patent trolls and law firms, so…”
“It is impossible to argue (any longer) that the EPO has no patent quality issues; even the EPO’s management now admits it.”Readers can probably agree that what happened in the US after Alice, more so in recent years as caselaw shaped up, was overwhelmingly positive. Developers were able to focus on actual work rather than hire lawyers.
We are saddened to see Europe falling into the same trap that the US had fallen into a few decades ago when the Federal Circuit gave a green light to software patents. The European Patent Office (EPO) under the leadership of António Campinos is a very vocal booster of software patents in Europe. The managers at the Office, preoccupied and obsessed with so-called ‘production’, are still trying very hard to break the rules (e.g. misinterpret the EPC) and grant bogus patents — European Patents courts would reject such as "blockchain" patents.
The EPO has already admitted these are software patents as so does Bastian Best on Twitter, soon to be retweeted by EPO (official). The EPO reposted this yesterday: “For the blockchain enthusiasts in my network: Koen Lievens does a great job in this video explaining how #blockchain inventions can be #patent’ed at the @EPOorg. Hint: It’s the exact same standard as for any other type of CII.”
What are these people thinking? Bearing in mind the EPO's own admission of quality problems (albeit internally only, for now), shouldn’t they quit this madness? Sooner or later all these patents will fall in an avalanche like Alice in the US.
Meanwhile, judging by yesterday’s long post from IP Kat, the non-impartial and not-so-independent (i.e. partially dependent) EPO appeal boards are hard to rely on as long as Battistelli and Campinos, two crooked patent maximalists, control them. Watch this latest situation:
A recent decision by the EPO Technical Boards of Appeal (TBA) departed from previous boards on how the novelty of the increased purity of a known compound is to be assessed. In T 1085/13, the TBA diverged from previous decisions that established special criteria for determining the novelty of a claim directed to a known compound of increased purity. The decision also ignores the criteria set out in the EPO Guidelines for Examination. These state that to be novel a selection invention must be “purposive”. The decision therefore confirms that the EPO is prepared to depart from its previous positions on the criteria for assessing the novelty of selection inventions. It seems that, for the purpose of assessing novelty, the TBA are now in favour of applying the same novelty criteria to these inventions as to any other type of invention, and nothing further.
[...]
As far as this Kat is aware, T 1085/13 is the first decision by the TBA to depart from the “special criteria” for purity inventions provided in T 0990/96 (although she is happy to be corrected on this if readers are aware of any earlier decisions).
T 1085/13 also appears to have ignored the criteria for selection inventions established by earlier TBA (and outlined in the EPO guidelines for examination) that a claimed selection must constitute a “purposive selection”. This is in line with other recent decisions of the TBA. It therefore appears that the third criteria for the novelty of selection inventions is being phased out, although this is still not reflected in the most recent EPO Guidelines for Examination. If this really is to be the new position of the EPO, is it not time for these changes to be reflected in the guidelines? This Kat also awaits with interest to see whether this latest decision on purity inventions will be followed by subsequent boards and the Examiners.
Guidelines should be based on law, not so-called ‘production’ aspirations. This is akin to what Iancu does at the USPTO, in effect mimicking Battistelli. Judges are being pressured and condemned.
As further evidence of the decline of quality of patents (EPO and USPTO in this case), watch these two new reports (from yesterday) [1, 2] as they cover something we wrote about some days ago (based on the original press release). The gist of it is, the EPO admits it granted false patents… yet again (not just the USPTO, where such invalidation is a lot more common with Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs)).
To quote the first report:
The European Patent Office (EPO) and the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have both invalidated patents owned by Immunex Corporation.
The patents cover antibodies that target human interleukin-4 receptors.
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals had opposed the patents, arguing that European patent 2,990,420 and US patent 8,679,487 were invalid due to the insufficiency of disclosure.
The EPO invalidated Immunex’s European patent a day after the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board invalidated all 17 claims of the US patent due to obviousness.
Joseph LaRosa, executive vice president of Regeneron, commented: “We applaud decisions by the US and European patent offices this week, which invalidate Immunex’s functional patent claims to antibodies that target human IL-4 receptors.”
The second such report says:
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: REGN) has announced two important legal developments invalidating Immunex patents with functional claims to antibodies that target human interleukin-4 receptors (IL-4R).
On Friday, the Opposition Division of the European Patent Office (EPO) revoked wholly-owned by Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) subsidiary Immunex’ European Patent No 2,990,420 in its entirety because the claims were invalid for insufficiency of disclosure. This follows a decision by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) of the US Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) to invalidate all 17 claims of Immunex’ US Patent No 8,679,487 as obvious. These decisions are subject to appeal by Immunex.
Regeneron’s shares closed up 2.17% at $423.79 on Friday, while Amgen dipped 1.51% to $185.50 in after-hours trading.
“We applaud decisions by the US and European patent offices this week, which invalidate Immunex’ functional patent claims to antibodies that target human IL-4 receptors,” said Joseph LaRosa, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, at Regeneron. “It is our position that Immunex’ functional claims unfairly attempt to claim ownership far beyond the molecules developed, and stifle innovation within the broader scientific community,” he added.
It is impossible to argue (any longer) that the EPO has no patent quality issues; even the EPO’s management now admits it. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: We've just commented on it; here is the raw letter in full, explaining that eDossier and related frameworks will be abandoned entirely and indefinitely within less than a fortnight
The EPO management team has taken the decision to stop the eDossier project in its entirety.
After three years of intense efforts to design and deliver eDossier, the implemented solution is unfortunately neither performant nor scalable enough to create a paperless, electronic workflow. In addition, after two rounds of corrective testing, the latest release has not reached the required quality levels. This was independently confirmed by the recent IT Audit performed by Boston Consulting Group. The Audit also highlighted that the planned benefits have not materialised and expressed concerns over the expected benefits and feasibility of the programme, as currently defined.
In light of these findings, the management team has followed the recommendation of the IT Audit and stopped the eDossier project, including the Cellule de Suivi. The three directorates currently using it for Stock Management will now accept and allocate files in the same way as all other directorates.
Stopping a project of this magnitude is never easy and the decision has not been taken lightly. The Office invested greatly in this project with the aim of delivering significant benefits to the organisation, through the introduction of an electronic dossier and workflow. We also appreciate that this has been one of a number of efforts over time to introduce a more electronic workflow. However, it is a reality of innovative organisations that not all projects work out exactly as we had hoped, no matter how great the effort from those involved.
We will now draw lessons from eDossier to better prepare us for other projects in the future. With a more agile BIT structure that is being proposed, and the overall maturation of technologies, we are also better equipped to achieve our aims in the future. As part of the Office’s Strategic Plan, the Office will now make proposals for a new back-office to support the patent grant process using an improved platform, which will deliver both performance and scalability.
We fully realise that many of you have invested great energy in this project to make it a success. We would therefore like to express our sincere gratitude to all of you, whether examiner, para-technical, formalities officer, team manager or director, who has used eDossier Stock Management, as well as all the IM, PD13 and PD14 staff who worked on the project and supported the cellule during the past two years.
eDossier Stock Management will stop on Friday 1 March 2019 at 16:00. All those using eDossier will receive information later today on how the transition will be managed and what you can expect and when.
Stephen Rowan
Vice-President DG1
Nellie Simon
Vice-President DG4
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 3:24 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Early Certainty From Google (April 1, 2018)
Summary: The EPO has found out that “System Battistelli” [1, 2] has been catastrophic for the quality of patents; it stops short of openly admitting it as such and in fact it keeps the message strictly confidential (explained to insiders, who will inevitably notice a system being abandoned)
IT ought to have become clear by now that the European Patent Office (EPO) is unable/unwilling to reform. António Campinos is not changing anything except the level of advocacy for software patents in Europe (i.e. lowering patent quality even further).
Earlier this month we wrote about teffgate and now it’s mentioned in IP Kat as well, courtesy of yesterday’s post from Jonathan Pratt. He mostly cites other sources, but he binds together several items we covered earlier this month (about departure from the EPC, decline of patent quality/legitimacy, and courts throwing out European Patents).
Kluwer’s patent blog has also posted a number of articles this week. This started with an analysis of how to deal with unusual prior art when applying the EPO’s Problem and Solution Approach, in particular when there are doubts about whether the closest prior art is enabling. The second post related to the changes in the latest version of Visser’s Annotated European Patent Convention. Next up, a court in the Netherlands ruled that two Dutch patents for processing teff (a kind of grain) are invalid. This was declared as “great news” for Ethiopia which has been using teff for thousands of years. This was followed up with a comparison of the test for sufficiency in Australia and the UK following recent cases relating to Lyrica. Finally, there was an analysis of the recent decision of the District Court of The Hague that the Dutch part of Eli Lilly and Company’s patent EP 1 313 508 is valid.
As recently as last week we wrote about the “AI” buzzword/hype taking over Europe in an effort to promote bad things like surveillance; it’s often a Trojan horse/back door for software patents as well and hours ago Intellectual Property Watch published “EU Members Adopt Plan To Make Europe A Leader In Artificial Intelligence”. It turns out that it isn’t necessarily about patents, but it likely cites things like that recent UN/WIPO report. “The European Council of member states has adopted an all-encompassing plan to make Europe a global leader in artificial intelligence and integrate AI into all aspects of regional life. The plan, which comes as Europe has been identified as lagging in AI research and investment behind the United States,” says the opening (not behind their paywall).
Speaking of “AI”, belatedly the EPO admits it’s failing to replace examiners with so-called ‘AI’ (which means just “Algorithms” or “Computers” these days). As Märpel has just explained:
Märpel heard that the office computer tools are not working as well as they should. This was confirmed at the beginning of this month by an audit that was concluded by Boston Consulting Group and published by President Campinos. Märpel is frankly surprised that the audit did not leak into the general public as it paints a dismal picture of system Battistelli. Our readers will certainly remember that under President Battistelli millions were paid for software development and that a surprisingly high proportion of the IT firms chosen were French.
The pinacle of the IT tools was supposed to be the “Electronic dossier system” or eDossier. The office had great hopes in the eDossier, as it would have rendered formality officers redundant: the computer would have managed the procedural aspects automatically. The catastrophic state of formalities results from a continuous policy of understaffing in the past years: why replace staff if the computer will render them all redundant anyway?
But the e-dossier does not work. The audit suggested to close the project and the decision was published last week.
The original message came from a new appointee and former colleague of Campinos.
It seems clear that for a number of years the EPO foolishly attempted to replace examiners with low-quality automation which SUEPO repeatedly warned about/against (as did we). In fact, almost every day this month the EPO published “searchmatters” tweets like this one from half a day ago: “Check out this collection of lectures and workshops to see why #SearchMatters…”
Well, if only the EPO truly believed that “SearchMatters”; it seems to be trying to cut costs and cut the legitimacy of European Patents. If these were the goals, it succeeded at both. However, that puts at peril the future of this entire institution. This is why there was such strong resistance from examiners. In the next post we shall give new examples of bogus (as confirmed by assessors) European Patents. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:42 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Yesterday: António Campinos Still Needs to Hold Team Battistelli Accountable for Illegally Bringing Weapons to the EPO
Summary: Solidarity and support for Laurent Prunier are needed because the new French president lacks empathy even for fellow Frenchmen whose sole ‘crime’ is that they represented EPO staff
NOT ONLY SUEPO (the union) but also the Central Staff Committee (CSC, representatives) is being gagged by the European Patent Office (EPO). Bergot, whom many insiders perceive to be the 'real' boss, sends them threatening letters. It’s not surprising that they hardly say anything anymore. It is an atmosphere of sheer fear.
António Campinos has not repaired anything that Battistelli did; he has in fact escalated advocacy of software patents in Europe and he is stonewalling on the subject of staff representatives being subjected to union-busting by Battistelli. None of that has changed, based on this SUEPO support letter for Laurent Prunier, which one recipient decided to pass to us:
Dear SUEPO Members,
Mr Campinos has announced, in his Communiqué of 30.10.2018, that he would work towards amicable settlements. The CSC, SUEPO and the Union Syndicale Fédérale (USF) have written to the President calling for an “amnesty” for all staff representatives targeted by Mr Battistelli & co, and in particular for those who remain dismissed.
So far the Office has not reconsidered Laurent’s unlawful dismissal and the Tribunal is unlikely to grant him relief before the end of 2019. Laurent is sick, remains unable to work, and thus without independent income. He still needs our support to stay afloat until a proper solution is found.
You can support Laurent with one-off donations, or with regular (monthly) donations. All donations are welcome and very much appreciated, regardless of the amount.
Here are Laurent’s bank coordinates:
[redacted]
We thank you for considering supporting a colleague who worked tirelessly to defend (y)our collective rights and got sacked for that.
Your SUEPO Committee The Hague
The deteriorating health of this staff representative, whom sources of ours describe as a nice person, makes it a matter of urgency. But of course Campinos lacks compassion and common sense; he’s all PR skills, but deep inside it’s another Battistelli/Bergot. People are rightly running out of patience with him. █
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