Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO in State of Turmoil, Patents Kill

“Staff at the European Patent Office went on strike accusing the organization of corruption: specifically, stretching the standards for patents in order to make more money.

“One of the ways that the EPO has done this is by issuing software patents in defiance of the treaty that set it up.”

--Richard Stallman



Candle



Summary: The EPO faces trouble as greed takes over it; ethics of particular patents questioned thanks to the openness of the Internet

THE EPO's problems are a subject that we covered in recent days [1, 2] and the FFII has just issued a press release about:

Software patents plot buried under amicus avalanche



The EPO's latest attempt to validate their widely criticized practice of software patenting has been met with a much stronger response than expected. This broad public interest comes in reaction to the referral on the patentability of software to the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The referral procedure allows interested third parties to file statements - Amicus Curiae Briefs - to present their views to the members of the board. The Enlarged Board of Appeals asked for such statements to be submitted by end of April and a total of 89 such statements have been published by the Register so far.


In another new report that Groklaw calls "a disturbing article" some more details finally emerge and there is no need for a subscription to read.

European Patent Office (EPO) President Alison Brimelow informed her staff that she will “not be seeking extension” when her current three-year contract is up at the end of June 2010, EPO Director for Media Relations Rainer Osterwalder told Intellectual Property Watch. Choosing a new president is the member-driven job of the administrative council of the EPO, but it is unclear when they will start such a process.


Following last week's remarks from Intel's Grove, warnings about a patent bubble are taken seriously and EDN has just published an article which is somwhat critical of the existing system in the US. Intel's counsel is quoted:

At that point Simon dropped a bomb. "This is something we should definitely fix," the Intel counsel said. "Right now there's $35 billion out there trying to buy patents and form them into pools. And I can tell you that there is much more money coming in soon."

Even more dire, Simon said that recently one of the experts on his team had been approached with a job offer from an investment bank. The bank is putting together a team to pool patents and create financial derivatives based on the pools.

This would, in effect, create a mechanism by which speculators could bet on the future cash flow from patents. Because more aggressive litigation would be expected to increase the flow, it is likely that a patent derivatives market would significantly further increase the assertion of patents by NPEs, and hence further increase the risk of innovation for real technology companies.


It is probably more or less clear that greed alone is a threat to this system, which only over-inflates itself. There is now a new Web site called HarmfulPatents.org. It mostly targets patents which kill people and it opens up with the following text:

More than 20 years after medical expert systems were first developed, the USPTO issued two patents simply on the concept of using a computer to help physicians choose medical treatments. A company that purchased these patents claims that "the diagnosis and treatment of most chronic diseases will fall under the claims of these patents." Already it has filed patent infringement suits against seven companies in three years and it threatened to sue a university for hosting a freely available HIV database. Perhaps most startling of all, that same university -- where much of the seminal research on expert systems took place -- entered into a licensing agreement intended to limit the use of the HIV database, which had been created by one of its own faculty.


There is a new report which claims patents are killing in India too.

Do Patents Kill? A Strange Twist in the Ramkumar vs Samsung Saga



[...]

A number of papers report that a death in Chennai could be connected with the ongoing Ramkumar vs Samsung (and others) patent litigation, a litigation that we have been tracking on this blog.


Should people start rethinking this system of endless greed?

"The European Patent Office is a Corrupt, Malicious Organisation Which Should Not Exist"

--Richard Stallman

Recent Techrights' Posts

Macho Patent Office
At the EPO there's always room for women in top roles
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: "Bream Gives Me Hiccups", Making Chinese Tea, and More
Links for the day
This is Why Codeberg Issues an Apology Today
This response was clear and relatively swift
Destruction and Distortion of Information, Including Facts About Linux (Bonus: This is Destroying the Planet)
All that LLMs have going for them is hype, and moreover media that intentionally misrepresents them and their supposed capabilities
Google Seems to Have Just Killed All Instances of Invidious
YouTube is rapidly becoming just "another Neflix"
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Links 12/02/2025: Crytek Layoffs, Security Holes, and Giving Ukraine to Russia
Links for the day
Relaying GAFAM Talking Points and Lies Using GAFAM LLMs, or Slop Pasted in by Brittany Day
linuxsecurity.com is relaying slop, i.e. misinformation
Photos From This Evening's Talk by Dr. Richard Stallman in Torino, Maybe a Video Soon
The talk that Dr. Richard Stallman gave today (a few hours ago) was recorded and streamed
IlSoftware.it Covers Richard Stallman's Visit to Give Talks in Italy
The publication is in Italian, the talk was in English
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
The Register Studies (to Affirm) Reports of IBM Layoffs "at the Finance and Operations business unit"
something about that specific unit
Links 12/02/2025: SSL FUD, DEI Phase-out, Felonies Committed by MElon (Data Breaches)
Links for the day
Italian Media Covers Richard Stallman's English Talk Ahead of Tonight's Public Appearance
article in La Stampa
Microsoft Skype in a Freefall: About 20% Decrease in Site Traffic in 3 Months (Amid Microsoft Phasing Out Credits)
Microsoft axing more services/features may mean that now they scrape the bottom of the barrel and Skype will simply die, discontinuing service (like ICQ) in a matter of years
Gemini Links 12/02/2025: Depression, Gabbro, WikiTok, and More
Links for the day
Links 12/02/2025: Health, Security, and Monopolies
Links for the day
Gemini Protocol is Increasingly Important to the Net
Gemini Protocol will turn 6 this summer
Former EPO Manager Warns That the Illegal 'Court' for "Unitary Patents" Enables “Law Shopping”
Daniel X. Thomas opposed the very existence of the UPC, which any honest person could recognise was both illegal and unconstitutional
Like GAFAM, the EPO is Passing the Financial Pains to Staff
the EPO is operating illegally at this point
Morale at Microsoft Ruined by the Company Labelling Thousands of Workers 'Low Performers', Sacking Them on the Spot and Denying Them Basic Benefits
people laid off as "low performers" go to social control media to bemoan the label
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 11, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Links 11/02/2025: Current state of the Internet and Smallnet Information Services (SIS)
Links for the day
Conservative Estimate: Over 10,000 IBM Workers to Be Laid Off in the Next Two Waves
The morale is low and layoffs are expected soon, with mass layoffs likely happening next month and then again later
Links 11/02/2025: Trade Wars and "Crisis for American Universities"
Links for the day
Parasitic LLM Slop Sites Destroy the Ability to Find "Linux" News in Google News
Remember that Google News laid off lots of its workers
Richard Stallman's English Talk in Italy Less Than 24 Hours Away (Torino) and Then Another Talk in Italy Scheduled (University of Bozen-Bolzano)
He's active and he travels a lot in spite of his medical condition
IBM Layoff Rumours, Large-Scale Implementations Weeks Ahead (in March 2025)
There are some people corroborating
Links 11/02/2025: Nutritional Poverty, Closure of USAID, More Fictional 'Valuations' Around Buzzwords
Links for the day
Perl Programming Leftovers
recently in perl.org
Microsoft in Africa: From 98% to Less Than 10% in Just 16 Years
Microsoft being on less than 1 in 10 Web-connected devices in Africa is a very big deal
Almost as If MElon Reads Techrights
The joke we started appears to be spreading
Microsoft Blasted for Adding Insult to Injury: Workers Laid Off Without Prior Notice, Without Severance Payment and Basic Coverage (Like Health), Then Stigmatised as Bad Performers So They Cannot Find a Job Elsewhere
Such stereotypes end entire careers
Gemini Links 11/02/2025: NeoVim and Deploying Other People's Code
Links for the day
BetaNews is Still Publishing LLM Slop/SPAM About "Linux"
Assuming it is indeed LLM slop, it seems clear BetaNews has no intention of improving or is simply unable/unwilling to improve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, February 10, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, February 10, 2025