[Video] Invalid European Patents and Invalid (Kangaroo) Courts: It All Comes Together, Enriching the Already-Rich Monopolists by Systemically Flawed Design, and Moreover in Defiance of Constitutions
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Beyond the EPO Leaks
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TODAY'S EPO video is the first in a long time (maybe as long as one month) and instead of dealing with the recent leaks (better covered in text) it focuses on software patents and what it means to have a powerful patent office that intentionally ignores its underlying rules.
The video is relatively long and it is unscripted, as usual. It notes that not only software developers (all of them) are affected by this but software users too. It utilises MP3 as an example of the ecological harms of software parents, not to mention patents on naturally-recurring biological things that can self-replicate.
Today's EPO is not run by (or for) science. It's serving the litigation lobby and falling into a trap of setting up obstacles on behalf of "Big Business" (from other continents) and "Big Litigation" (those who profit from feuds over patents, not from actual innovation). This perpetuates and accentuates a colossal damage to Europe and its industry, not to mention opportunities for new companies. Who is served by this? What is the goal? More and more patent monopolies. Humans aren't eating patents or digesting monopolies. If anything, those monopolies increase the price of food and undermine agriculture in the public interest. Patents lead to artificial scarcities and price-fixing. As the saying does: "When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten, and the last stream poisoned, you will realize that you cannot eat money".
If the EPO makes more money by granting more European monopolies (mostly to non-Europeans), does it mean politicians should celebrate it? The EPO was meant to be cash-neutral or self-funding, not a money-making garbage-spewing machine. But put in the wrong hands, under the control of self-serving front groups that profit from conflict, this is where we are now. █