05.27.23
Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum 17b91cbac42af9980f77f07a77c03d7d
EPO Under Scrutiny, But Will EU Listen?
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Summary: With the UPC days away (an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court system, tied to the European Union in spite of critical deficiencies) it’s curious to see EPO scandals of corruption spilling over to the European Union already
THE EU is about to get contaminated with the EPO cancer (EPO staff compares the administration to a cancer). Will that doom the union? Well, it certainly won’t help.
“To get promoted in these institutions one must be profoundly corrupt or participate in profound corruption.”In past years we covered EUIPO corruption that had come from (or via) the EPO. Does the EU really want to go on with this? Will EUIPO replace the EPO? The European Commission does not seem to understand what it’s doing; it’s a puppet on strings for corporate lobbyists — even actors working on behalf of foreign countries.
SUEPO has just taken note of the following article, which was put behind a paywall except this part:
We provide a rundown of Managing IP’s news and analysis coverage from the week, and review what’s been happening elsewhere in IP
French govt complained to EPO over EUIPO election conduct
French finance minister Bruno Le Maire wrote to António Campinos, president of the EPO, to complain over the timing of an event that will be held in Lisbon one week before the EUIPO leadership vote, Managing revealed this week.
Le Maire, minister for the economy and finance since 2017, suggested the event could be seen as interfering with the process to select a new EUIPO executive director.
Managing IP can also reveal that the incumbent executive director, Christian Archambeau, hinted at interference “from Munich” in the decision to remove him last November.
We previously saw more coverage related to this; that too was behind a paywall, so only the patent microcosm can see it. Remember that António Campinos is in fact French and he’s only using the Portuguese government to forge his political career of corruption, coercion, and suppression. António Campinos is using EPO budget to bribe governments and officials, mimicking exactly what Benoît Battistelli did before him (same modus operandi). António was born to a well-known father (already dead while António was a teenager) who fought to bury people like his son, António. As for Archambeau, he’s just another EPO opportunist who is still reviled by some EPO longtimers. To get promoted in these institutions one must be profoundly corrupt or participate in profound corruption.
More in the video above… █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:57 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
More translations (with more languages) available in the site of the EPO‘s union, SUEPO
The European Patent Office in Munich. Experts criticise the practice of granting inventor protection.
Photo: dpa/Sven Hoppe
Summary: This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different (“Patente ohne Wert”)
A BIT less than a week before the EPO wanted (or merely hoped) to open an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court, in violation of international conventions, some condemnation came from the German press. This project will destabilise the EU by discrediting the EU, so Germany’s government needs to sober up and listen to the warning signs. EPO corruption is highly contagious and it has been left to flourish for over a decade already. Here’s the latest of the batch from SUEPO:
Criticism of the European Patent Office Patents without value
Munich – To increase its revenues, the European Patent Office grants questionable patents, say critics. Transparency International sees structures that favour corruption.
By Thomas Magenheim-Hörmann
The example described by the Munich patent attorney makes it clear what is at stake. A pharmaceutical company developed a pill against infertility, had it protected at the European Patent Office (EPO) and invested in its marketing. Then a rival entered the market with an alleged plagiarism. The patent holder went to court and lost. The alleged imitator was able to show a US patent that Epa examiners had overlooked. This rendered their property right worthless. “In extreme cases, this can cause millions in damages,” explains the patent attorney, who wishes to remain anonymous. He works for one of the largest patent law firms in Europe. Patenting for several countries alone consumes a six-figure sum, and many times that amount is invested in production in reliance on the patent.
There is a system of lame searches, the expert complains. Examiners are encouraged to grant more and more patents because they maximise the office’s income. Quality research falls by the wayside. Michael Heisel puts the grievances even higher. “We see structural problems at the EPO that facilitate corruption,” says the Bavarian head of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International.
39 countries represented in the Council
An element of this is the Epa Board of Directors, in which 39 European countries are represented and which is supposed to control the management of the office. But this is called into question by a conflict of interests, warns Heisel. On the one hand, the office takes over the patent examination for many countries. On the other hand
the states shares of the Office’s income for granted patents. “The Administrative Council is not independent of the party being controlled, and that can’t be good,” Heisel criticises. Epa service instructions support this view. “Productivity has to improve, very soon, … because productivity is the only thing that guarantees that our payroll will be paid on the 26th. of each month,” writes an Epa director. The clarity of a patent is not a priority, the inventive step is not to be examined in depth, it continues. It is to be examined quickly, decided positively and recognised a lot, it means.
This practice is also a thorn in the side of Siemens patent chief Beat Weibel. His company is the largest German patent applicant and the initiator of an industry initiative with the abbreviation IPQC. 20 major international companies such as Siemens, Bayer and Nokia, but also smaller firms, have joined forces because they fear for effective patent protection. “We have nothing if patent examiners can’t find the state of the art and can only do incomplete research due to internal time pressure,” complains Weibel. Siemens has also had similar experiences with Epa patents. Representatives of IPQC and Office 2023 have met twice to discuss and resolve problems. But that already fails in terms of awareness. “The Office’s management has denied that there are any quality deficiencies,” says the Siemens expert regretfully. The
Critics, meanwhile, remain silent. “We ask for your understanding that Epa does not wish to comment on this,” a spokesperson explains succinctly when asked. Data speak a clear language.
For example, Siemens has documented an increase in the time spent on patent applications by one third in the last decade. At the same time, according to internal EPO statistics, the time available to examiners per patent search has almost halved. As a result, those who challenge patents are becoming more successful. From 2015 to 2021, the revocation rate climbed from 41 to 46 per cent, according to Siemens.
For 2022, a study by the Chair of Intellectual Property at the University of Osnabrück has determined a revocation rate of the Epa Board of Appeal of almost 50 percent. A further almost 40 percent of contested patents were marginally to substantially restricted. It is striking that not even one in ten revocations was based on documents that could not be found in the Epa patent database, the study authors write. In nine out of ten contested cases, the
We need reliable patents, and examiners need enough time and experience for this,” emphasises a patent expert from the Roche pharmaceutical company in Switzerland. He too is a member of th IPQC. Epa staff representatives support the accusations from industry and research. To the outside world, the management claims that everything is fine and plays down or completely ignores quality deficiencies, they explain. Only four out of five examiners who leave the office are replaced, despite an increase in work. “The Office must provide more examiners and more examination time,” the Munich patent attorney also demands. A few years ago, several large patent law firms wrote an incendiary letter to the Office criticising the declining patent quality. This has been negated by the office. “Nothing happened,” regrets the expert. Like Tranparency International, he sees the Epa Board of Directors as problematic. “There are States, for them this is a significant source of income,” Weibel also criticises.
Patent trolls have also recognised this and use it for themselves. These are applicants who apply for protective rights for superficial patents, which are also granted if the examination is inadequate, explains Heisel. These patents then block competitors. “China in particular applies for a large number of patents, and if they are not carefully examined, this can deprive German companies of innovation opportunities,” warns Heisel.
Patents: More and more applications from China
The European Patent Office, with its headquarters in Munich, is a supranational organisation and not an EU organisation. The management of the Office, under President Antonio Campinos, is controlled by the EPO Administrative Council. It is made up of representatives of the 39 European states that have acceded to the European Patent Convention. Germany is represented by a State Secretary for Justice. In particular, patent applications from China have been on the rise at the European Patent Office for years . In 2022, the increase on this basis was a good 15 percent to more than 19,000 requests for protection by Chinese inventors. mho
All of a sudden all those EPO photo ops with China don’t quite look the same. And much can be said about the EPO doing so much business with Belarus (outsourcing parts of the EPO to Vladimir Putin's 'oblasts'). █
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 5:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
More translations (with more languages) available in the site of the EPO‘s union, SUEPO
Summary: SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German (here is the first of the batch); the following is the second of the three (“Kritik am Europäischen Patentamt – Patente ohne Wert?”)
THIS is an article from yesterday, composed by Thomas Magenheim, who understands these matters. The following is at least partly machine-generated:
Criticism of the European Patent Office Patents without value?
26.05.2023 – 00:00 hrs
Photo: imago/STL
To increase its revenues, the European Patent Office grants questionable patents, say critics. Transparency International sees structures that favour corruption.
Thomas Magenheim
The example described by the Munich patent attorney makes it clear what is at stake. A pharmaceutical company developed a pill against infertility, had it protected at the European Patent Office (EPO) and invested in its marketing. Then a rival entered the market with an alleged plagiarism. The patent holder went to court and lost. The alleged imitator was able to show a US patent that Epa examiners had overlooked. This rendered their property right worthless. “In extreme cases, this can cause millions in damages,” explains the patent attorney, who wishes to remain anonymous. He works for one of the largest patent law firms in Europe. Patenting for several countries alone consumes a six-figure sum and many times that amount is invested in production in reliance on the patent. There is a system of meagre returns, the expert complains. Examiners are encouraged to grant more and more patents because this maximises the office’s income. Quality research falls by the wayside.
Michael Heisel hangs the grievances even higher. “We see structural problems at the Epa that facilitate corruption,” says the Bavarian head of the anti-corruption organisation Transparency International. An element of this, he says, is the Epa Board of Directors, in which 39 European countries are represented and which is supposed to control the management of the office. But this is called into question by a conflict of interests, warns Heisel. On the one hand, the office takes over the patent examination for many countries. On the other hand, the states receive a share of the Office’s income for granted patents. “The supervisory authorityThe administrative board is not independent of the person being controlled, and that can’t work,” Heisel criticises. Epa service instructions support this view. “Productivity has to improve, very soon, . …because productivity is the only thing that guarantees that our payroll will be paid on 26. of each month,” writes an Epa director. The clarity of a patent is not a priority, the inventive step is not to be examined in depth, it continues. It is to be examined quickly, decided positively and recognised a lot, it means.
Siemens is also among the critics
This practice is also a thorn in the side of Siemens patent chief Beat Weibel. His company is the largest German patent applicant and initiator of an industry initiative with the abbreviation IPQC. 20 major international corporations such as Siemens, Bayer or Nokia, but also smaller companies, have united because they fear for effective patent protection. “We have nothing in our hands if patent examiners can’t find the state of the art and can only do incomplete research due to internal time pressure,” complains Weibel. Siemens, too, has had similar experiences with Epa patents. Representatives of IPQC and Office 2023 have met twice to discuss and resolve problems. But that already fails in terms of awareness. “The Management of the office has denied quality deficiencies,” regrets the Siemensian. The Critics, meanwhile, remain silent. “We ask for your understanding that Epa does not wish to comment on this,” a spokesperson explains succinctly when asked.
The data speak a clear language. For example, Siemens has documented an increase in the time spent on patent applications by one third in the past decade. At the same time, according to internal Epa statistics, the time available to examiners per patent search has almost halved, i.e. the opposite development has taken place. As a result, those who challenge patents are becoming more successful. From 2015 to 2021, the revocation rate climbed from 41 to 46 per cent, according to Siemens. For 2022, a study by the Chair of Intellectual Property at the University of Osnabrück has determined a revocation rate of almost 50 per cent at the Epa Board of Appeal. Another almost 40 per cent of contested patents were marginally to substantially restricted. It is striking that not even one in ten revocations is based on documents that could not be found in the Epa patent database, the study authors write. This means that in nine out of ten contested cases, the patent should not have been granted in the first place if a precise search had been carried out.
Internal complaints have gone unheard
“We need reliable patents, and for that examiners need enough time and experience,” emphasises a patent expert from the pharmaceutical company Roche in Switzerland. He too is a member of the IPQC. Epa – Staff representatives support the accusations from industry and research. To the outside world, the office management claims that everything is fine and plays down quality deficiencies or ignores them altogether, they explain. Only four out of five exiting auditors are replaced, despite an increase in work. Internal complaints that this is at the expense of the quality of research have gone unheard.
“The Office must provide more examiners and more examination time,” the Munich patent attorney also demands. A few years ago, several large patent law firms sent a fire letter to the Office. which criticised the declining quality of patents. This has been negated on the part of the office. “Nothing happened,” regrets the expert. Like Transparency International, he sees the Epa Board of Directors as problematic.
Aiming for patent fees
“There are states for which this is a significant source of income,” says Weibel, criticising the control body’s actions and its focus on patent fees. Patent trolls have also recognised this and are taking advantage of it. These are applicants who apply for superficial patents, which are granted if the examination is poor, explains Heisel. These patents then block competitors. “China in particular applies for a large number of patents, and if they are not carefully examined, German companies can lose innovation opportunities.
[sic] take,” warns Heisel. This is another reason why the IPQC remains persistent. “We will not give up,” promises Weibel in the fight for patent quality.
European Patent Office
Organisation
The European Patent Office (EPO), with its headquarters in Munich, is a supranational organisation, not an EU organisation, which is only subject to very limited state jurisdiction in the German country where it has its headquarters. The management of the Office, under President Antonio Campinos, is controlled by the Epa Administrative Council. It is made up of representatives of the 39 European states that are members of the European Union.
Patent Convention have acceded to. These representatives are usually the heads of the national patent offices. For Germany, there is a Secretary of State for Justice.
Patents
In particular, patent applications from China have been on the rise at the European Patent Office for years. In 2022, the increase on this basis was a good 15 percent to more than 19,000 requests for protection by Chinese inventors. By comparison, applications from the USA grew by only three percent to a good 48,000 requests, while those from Germany fell by almost five percent to 24,684 inventions. However, these figures say nothing about their quality.
EPO managers redefined quality as speed of granting. That’s not quality at all. Remember that the EPO hired people from Transparency International (noted above). That helped silence them about EPO corruption for a while. █
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Posted in Europe, Law, Patents at 5:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
More translations (with more languages) available in the site of the EPO‘s union, SUEPO
Siemens is one of the largest applicants at the European Patent Office.
Source: Matthias Balk/dpa
Summary: SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German; this is the first of the three (“Industrie kritisiert Europäisches Patentamt”)
THE following was translated by staff of the EPO. The staff wants to general public to know this:
Industry criticises European Patent Office
An initiative of several large companies is concerned about the quality of patent examinations at the European Patent Office. There, speed comes before accuracy, they say. The office sees things differently.
The European Patent Office (EPO) has come in for criticism from industry. An initiative of now 21 companies is concerned about the quality of patent examination. “We have the impression that the EPO is primarily concerned with processing as many patents as possible,” says Beat Weibel, head of patents at Siemens, who initiated the Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC), in an interview with the Deutsche Presse-Agentur. Examiners, he says, are exposed to ever-increasing production pressure and are therefore no longer in a position to examine thoroughly enough. “While in our case we see that the amount of work required for a patent application on average is always bigger, things have to move faster and faster at the EPO,” explains Weibel. “That worries us because the quality of the examination suffers as a result. He does not receive exact figures from the EPO on the time budget of the examiners, he says. “But if you look at the number of examiners and the number of examinations patents, the result is roughly a halving over the past ten years.”
Jörg Thomaier, head of patents at Bayer, which is also a member of the IPQC, shares Weibel’s
concerns.
“The EPO used to be known for taking a long time to test. In recent years, we have the impression that more attention is paid to speed and that examinations are no longer as thorough,” he says. “Things are faster now, but the revocation rate in the patent appeal process has gone up.”
Such a revocation is extremely unfavourable for the patent applicants. “Patents are extremely important for a company like Bayer,” Thomaier emphasises. “It’s not so much the quantity that matters, but that I can enforce them – if necessary – and that they don’t fall over at the first gust of wind of a review.” The Swiss company Roche, which has also joined the IPQC, says: “As an industry, we depend on reliable patents. That is the basis for investing in our research.”
Siemens is one of the largest applicants at the European Patent Office. Last year, the Munich-based company was number six among applicants at the EPO, and number two among European companies – behind Ericsson. The Swedes are also members of the IPQC.
“We would like the auditors to have more time to do their job, because the Patents are becoming more and more complex,” says Gabriele Mohsler, Vice President Patent Development there. “In individual cases, we have also seen that the searches were not sufficiently thorough.”
Overall, however, her assessment is not quite as critical: “Basically, I think the quality at the EPO is good. But we don’t want it to drop and in some areas it could be higher,” says Mohsler.
Thomaier from Bayer also says: “In a global comparison, the quality of the EPO is not bad. But it is a long way from what it once was: the clear gold standard. And that’s where we as an industry want to get back to.” A key solution in his eyes: more staff.
“More applications also require more examiners,” he emphasises. “At the moment, we have the
impression that the capacity is not sufficient.
The EPO, on the other hand, emphasises on request that the quality of patent searches “always has top priority”. Many countries regard its work “as a global benchmark for patent quality”. This is also reflected in surveys by “leading intellectual property journals”, in which the EPO “consistently ranks first among patent professionals”. Some of the figures used by the IPQC, however, are inaccurate.
In addition, the Patent Office points out that it has its own working group on quality in its Standing Consultative Committee with 74 members from 40 countries. Last October, it also published a new Quality Charter, “in which our commitment to high quality and excellence at every stage of the patent granting process is set out”.
There are two more English translations that we wish to reproduce for plain text and Gem(ini)Text. Then comes a new video. █
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05.24.23
Posted in Courtroom, Europe, Law, Patents at 6:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The EPO has been hijacked by industry and its lobbyists; now the same is happening to EU patent courts, even though it is illegal and unconstitutional
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:36 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Video download link | md5sum cb57cf21cb9256b320113cff414cd278
EPO and UPC Chaos (note: for unknown technical reasons the last ~5 minutes of the video are muted)
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0
Summary: The Unified Patent Court (UPC) isn’t legal, the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is being altered on the fly (by a person patently ineligible to do so), and so it generally looks like even patent courts across Europe might soon become as corrupt as the European Patent Office, which has no basis in the Rule of the Law and is basically just a front for large corporations (most of them aren’t even European)
THE MEDIA does not talk about it or very seldom touches the topic (maybe for fear of ‘discrediting’ the EU, i.e. “helping Putin”). But one need not be a “EU hater” or EUrosceptic to point out that the European Commission knowingly does — at least in the patent domain — what’s illegal, unconstitutional, and in direct violation of international conventions.
“In the era of Benoît Battistelli we still had some functioning media in Europe. The systematic obliteration of the press means that ordinary Europeans barely understand what goes on. That ought to change.”The above video discusses a FFII press release that succinctly dissects the latest jaw-dropping move from Klaus Grabinski, an associate of António Campinos and a close ally of the German government (milking the EPO cow).
In the era of Benoît Battistelli we still had some functioning media in Europe. The systematic obliteration of the press means that ordinary Europeans barely understand what goes on. That ought to change. █
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05.23.23
Posted in Europe, Law, Patents at 6:27 am by Guest Editorial Team
By Benjamin HENRION
Brussels, 22 May 2023 — The German President of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), Klaus Grabinski, has decided alone to rewrite the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) at this own will, and move London to Paris and Munich due to Brexit. FFII condemn this abuse of power and violation of the Rule of Law. This a decision typical of a dictatorship, not of an institution governed by the separation of powers. Judge Grabinski will also have the last word over software patents in Europe, without any possible appeal to the European Court of Justice (CJEU).
The President of the UPC decided the following:
In its meeting of 8 May 2023, the Presidium of the Unified Patent Court decided that, as from 1 June 2023, actions pending before the central division related to patents in IPC section (A) shall be assigned to the seat in Paris while actions related to patents in IPC section (C) shall be assigned to the section in Munich. […] the Presidium has exercised its managerial power under Article 15(3) of the Statute of the Unified Patent Court in the aforementioned sense.
— Unified-Patent-Court.org: Decision on the provisional distribution of actions related to patents in IPC sections (A) and (C) pending before the central division | Unified Patent Court (unified-patent-court.org) https://www.unified-patent-court.org/en/news/decision-provisional-distribution-actions-related-patents-ipc-sections-and-c-pending-central
Article 15(3) of the Statutes of the Unified Patent Court does not mention any power to decide on such a political topic to relocate the Court from one place to another, except a broad “management” responsibility:
- The Presidium shall be responsible for the management of the Court and shall in particular:
(a) draw up proposals for the amendment of the Rules of Procedure in accordance with Article 41 of the
Agreement and proposals regarding the Financial Regulations of the Court;
(b) prepare the annual budget, the annual accounts and the annual report of the Court and submit them to
the Budget Committee;
(c) establish the guidelines for the training programme for judges and supervise the implementation thereof;
(d) take decisions on the appointment and removal of the Registrar and the Deputy-Registrar;
(e) lay down the rules governing the Registry including the sub-registries;
(f) give an opinion in accordance with Article 83(5) of the Agreement.
Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (2013/C 175/01) https://www.unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/upc_documents/agreement-on-a-unified-patent-court.pdf
The decision of the UPC’s President is not an item in the list between points (a)-(f), but under the broad “management of the Court” broad spectrum. This is an abuse of the Rule of Law, as judges are not supposed to rewrite the Content of Treaties. This power is the one reserved to law makers, not to judges.
The whole game is to change the Treaty without having to call for a diplomatic conference. People in Germany have invented this idea that the UPCA can be changed without a diplomatic conference, using the art87(2) UPCA, which will be active on the 1st of June 2023 at 00h01. The Administrative Committee will then rubberstamp the relocation of London competencies to Paris and Munich without having to pass by National Parliaments. Countries are playing with fire as tribunals (here the appeal court) need to be established by LAW according to the ECHR art6.1.
The Rule of Law is dead (art2TFEU), but that we know it since the legal service of the Council decided to declare the UPCA into force despite the signature of the UK being still missing.
This decision of the President is also not challengeable in front of another tribunal, as international organizations are shielded from challenges, enjoy immunity and impunity. This is what had been created: an EPO-like monster, a new country where all abuses are now possible, including recruiting judges from Nokia or Airbus, which are like Judge Grabinski ardent supporters of software patents.
References
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05.22.23
Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:04 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Treat your staff like trash, and sooner or later your organisation will get trashed
Summary: The EPO‘s António Campinos has a vision and it’s not particularly inspiring
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