06.08.21
Gemini version available ♊︎Time for the Boards of Appeal to Host Their Own Files, Knowing That the Patent Office is Censoring Submissions From the Public
Summary: For the appearance and practice of independence the Boards of Appeal must immediately take control of their systems as the EPO is tampering with evidence and removing (censoring) some of it to influence the outcome of the cases
THE video above was made before writing this article. It explains why we’re comparing the situation at the EPO to what happened last year (and in late 2019) in Seattle. That serves as a cautionary tale.
“Just as police departments must comply with a FOIA request in the US (within reasonable limits based around sensibilities and safety), the EPO (Organisation) must inform the judges of stakeholders’ input, thoughts, general information of interest, including any conflict of interest.”Pardon us, dear readers, if the analogies aren’t convenient, but they’re worth entertaining. On the one hand we have a police department (supplying evidence to a court, where the accused decided to plead guilty); on the other hand, on the other side of the Atlantic, we have a European tribunal that’s supposed to judge the largest patent office in Europe.
Just as police departments must comply with a FOIA request in the US (within reasonable limits based around sensibilities and safety), the EPO (Organisation) must inform the judges of stakeholders’ input, thoughts, general information of interest, including any conflict of interest.
But now we know that the EPO has been manipulating what judges can see and what various concerned observers can view/digest.
This is appalling. This is a catastrophic disaster, albeit don’t expect European media to even mention it.
“That was around 2019, well before the media caught up with things and thereafter blasted Gates (it was also in 2019 that his wife sought a divorce, largely due to her husband’s connections with Epstein, whom he had repeatedly met behind her back).”To borrow the Seattle analogy, we requested police files about the arrest at Bill Gates’ home — files that were likely hosted on Microsoft servers and thus potentially subjected to tinkering, manipulation, and censorship by Microsoft (and its co-founder, Gates). The fact that it took them months just to open their own files (they tried and failed many times) does not bode well, does it? In fact, we wrote about this many times before and directly quoted the Police Department (PD) on it. In general terms, you cannot let the subject of investigation be in control of the investigative authority and its files. Think about it for a moment; why should it take several months for a PD to open its own files?
That was around 2019, well before the media caught up with things and thereafter blasted Gates (it was also in 2019 that his wife sought a divorce, largely due to her husband’s connections with Epstein, whom he had repeatedly met behind her back).
As noted in the video, several readers wrote to us regarding the revelations from EPOnia. Some were outright astounded that it hadn’t (yet) become a scandal.
“Do you find normal that the registry of the EBA (“the court”) is hosted (and censored/filtered) by the EPO (“the administration”),” one reader asked us. “A proper independent court should have its own registry of documents, notably to avoid censorship from the administration.”
“It’s not a solved issue and merely the edge of a massive iceberg that’s the loss of judges’ autonomy (lots and lots of patent judges).”Indeed, it’s a very severe abuse of power and yet more evidence of the lack of independence.
The reader continued: “Do you have any proof that the submission has been censored?”
We have it now. “I am thinking about writing a submission,” the reader added, but then asked, “is the period to submit comments still open?”
Expect more to come about this. It’s not a solved issue and merely the edge of a massive iceberg that’s the loss of judges’ autonomy (lots and lots of patent judges). Yesterday, “Congressional Committee Calls On GAO To Investigate Whether Patent Office Director Is Putting Thumb On The Scale Of Patent Reviews” was published by TechDirt. Remember what Andrei Iancu did to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) in sight of inter partes reviews (IPRs) thwarting lots of patents that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) should never have granted in the first place. Many were software patents, invalid under Alice/35 U.S.C. § 101.
In any event, we now have hard evidence of the censorship, which is a form of tampering. “Censorship of third party observations by EPO confirmed,” one source told us, sharing this new pair of pages [PDF]. Here they are as a GIF:
G 1/21 – TPO – 4 June 2021
Notice the date.
“A new third party observation which was submitted on 4 June has appeared [PDF] in the public register for case no. G 1/21,” the source told explained. “This new submission of 4 June draws the attention of the Enlarged Board to a recent judgment of the French Supreme Court. According to the person who made the submission, the French Supreme Court has ruled that hearings held by ViCo without the consent of a party are not compatible with the rights of citizens as guaranteed by the French Constitution.”
It’s also not compatible with a lot of other things. Each such hearing is held in violation if not contempt of the law.
“The fact that this submission is visible in the public register whereas the earlier submission of 1 June is not visible confirms earlier suspicions that the EPO is censoring the submission of 1 June,” our source noted. “The submission of 1 June raises allegations of cronyism against Campinos and casts doubts on his motives for supporting mandatory hearings by ViCo (i.e. without the consent of the parties). EPO management clearly wants to prevent these allegations from becoming public knowledge.”
“If the media doesn’t cover this scandal, maybe that says a lot about the media, not about the severity of the scandal itself.”Some EPO insiders wrote to us expressing complete agreement with the observation made therein. Campinos must be shivering in his boots sneakers. What if the whole subversion of justice was designed out of personal interest? Or convenience (for himself and his cronies)?
“Art10 of the RoP of the EBOA is a joke,” one reader told us this morning, as “they can do whatever they want with the 3rd party submissions, including throwing them in the bin (not publishing them), like they probably did here.”
Our reader then noted: “I would not be surprised if those rules are written by the EBOA itself, we have the same problem with the UPC where the ROP are made by this ad hoc committee they created in the treaty to make those 130 pages without any parliamentary involvement.”
If the media doesn’t cover this scandal, maybe that says a lot about the media, not about the severity of the scandal itself. █
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