Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Concept of Confidentiality May be Self-Defeating in the Context of Patents

If confidentiality or secrecy is the very thing patents were conceived to tackle/discourage...

Patents encourage publication but please keep it all a secret



Summary: If transparency through publication is the supposed motivation of patents, then why is the concept of confidentiality so strictly enforced (even when the EPO itself actively violates the confidentiality of applicants and other stakeholders)?

WHEN someone produces a physical invention it is possible to disassemble it and possibly reverse-engineer it thereafter. It doesn't matter if there is or isn't a patent, so in a sense that invention is disclosed as soon as it hits the market/s. The specifications underlying this invention just aren't formally disclosed. In the case of drugs (or chemicals) the production process may not be obvious to the recipient of a drug. However, the ingredients can be determined and sometimes the structural composition as well. In both cases we can see that patents as means of publicising an invention (unlike secrecy or even trade secrets) may be moot; and sure, sometimes patents allude to things that do not exist in the market (yet, if ever) and having some formal description may be valuable for reproduction (in the future or at present by peers/competitors). When it comes to software patents, it all boils down to code. If it is Free software, anyone can study and also copy that code. No point to patents on those...



The American courts, having already grappled with 35 U.S.C. €§ 101, more or less concluded that patents pertaining to nature and code aren't valid. Alice and Mayo may have put millions of US patents in their graves (or already-expired patents even deeper in the ground). For over 5 years SCOTUS has refused to revisit or reconsider the matter; as for the Federal Circuit (one level below SCOTUS), it rarely deviates from this well-cemented norm...

There are many misconceptions abound regarding patents and it's up to us, non-lawyers, to address and correct those falsehoods.

"The concept of confidentiality in this case is akin to "trade secrets" -- a sort of thoughtcrime, with laws enforceable by employers who seek to make the mere 'possession' of some knowledge a 'crime' (somewhat like NDAs)."Recently, the appeal boards in Munich (oh, sorry! Haar, but let's pretend it's part of Munich) dealt with the aspect of secrecy surrounding patent-pending research. This week UDL published an article about it. Sorry to disappoint you, UDL (promotional piece in Lexology, akin to a paid press release), but the European Patent Office (EPO) does not protect confidentiality and barely grasps that very concept. Under the watch of António Campinos it has happened repeatedly after being 'normalised' in the Battistelli era.

Here are some portions from the article:

The confidentiality of patient data is an essential consideration in any clinical trial — but stakeholders must also consider the confidentiality of the invention being trialled. If just one member of the public can access information about the invention before a European patent application is filed — whether this is through writing, oral disclosure or use — the invention may lack novelty.

This is so important due to the sheer number of stakeholders involved in a clinical trial, which can include sponsors, Contract Research Organisations (CROs), investigators and site personnel, healthcare personnel, regulatory agencies and participants.

[...]

While the Boards of Appeal of the EPO found in T598/12 that a trial participant isn’t a member of the public in the strict sense, a particularly contentious area of law is whether unused and unreturned trial drugs form a public disclosure.

A general principle of the European Patent Convention, following the Enlarged Board of Appeal’s Decision in G1/92, is that the chemical composition of a product is state of the art when the product as such is available to the public and can be analysed and reproduced by the skilled person, irrespective of whether or not particular reasons can be identified for analysing the product.

[...]

The Opposition Division followed T7/07 in agreeing that information given to patients cannot be regarded as prima facie confidential. Indeed, it might be considered unethical to bind trial patients by general explicit or implicit confidentiality obligations, as they should be able to discuss medication with their spouses and doctors. However, it was found that trial participants were under a legal obligation to use the tablets according to a stipulated schedule and return any non-administered drugs. In contrast to T7/07, loss of control over the return of the dispensed drugs hadn’t been established, as patients were legally prevented from disposing of the drugs and also from passing on information contained in them to third persons not bound by confidentiality. Any ‘breach’ therefore didn’t allow a conclusion to be made that the tablets were available to a member of the public.


The concept of confidentiality in this case is akin to "trade secrets" -- a sort of thoughtcrime, with laws enforceable by employers who seek to make the mere 'possession' of some knowledge a 'crime' (somewhat like NDAs). Do we really wish to steer patent law in such a direction? Isn't that rather antithetical?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October