Bonum Certa Men Certa

Keeping the European Patent Office (EPO) Out of Politics Amid the EPO's Campaign to Deceive the Media, Politicians

EPO Campaign to Deceive



Summary: The EPO is still -- as for at least a decade beforehand -- lobbying politicians and trying to manipulate the media (which politicians read) for a manufactured sense of legitimacy

THE President of the EPO has been doing some UPC lobbying recently (including unbelievably shallow puff pieces with so-called 'correspondents' who read from a pro-EPO script). It's just part of a recent trend; we recently showed other examples of EPO lobbying for the Unitary Patent [1, 2], playing into the hands of large multinational organisations, not European citizens.



Looking around for some history on this, this is not exactly a new practice. Segolene Royal, French socialist candidate to the Presidency (2007), mentioned EPO lobbying in her answer to a series of questions:



Son activité dégage également des excédents mais avec l'avantage supplémentaire pour lui qu'aucun État ne vient les ponctionner. Ces excédents lui permettent de financer des professionnels des relations publiques pour influencer les choix du Parlement Européen.



Jonas Maebe, FFII Board Member, wrote in a letter to MEPs during the debate on the software patent directive:

The EPO lobbying politicians to promote software patents is a bit like some Department of Housing promoting the handing out of more building permits. We hope our letter and its annexes can give MEPs more balanced information than the EPO's simplistic oneliners like "Idea + Patent = Innovation". Economic policy making should not be based on unfounded claims by the EPO and emotional pleas by its largest customers, but on sound economic evidence and the desires of the involved sectors as a whole.



In our previous posts we showed some EPO material being disseminated too; was this distributed in the European Parliament? Outside of it too? What's the context for all this lobbying if not software patents (at the time)? One small group of people that we know said it was "concerned that the EPO has become like a big business. Did you know that the EPO keeps an office in Brussels, just so that it can lobby the Commission, and Parliament? Did you know that the EPO places full-page adverts in magazines that MEPs read, promoting software patents?"

The matter of fact is, the EPO wants to expand its scope of influence and power. Broadening patent scope is one way to accomplish this. Becoming a vassal of massive multinationals is another.

According to D Young & Co's new puff piece about the EPO, "an Adobe PDF file [can] to be converted into editable form or typed into a Microsoft Word document" and given to the EPO (remember that Microsoft is a special partner of the EPO, so no ODF file is likely to be accepted).

As we did back in the Novell days, we now have lots of trackers on the EPO, helping us quickly identify cases of EPO lobbying and manipulation of the media. We are going to try to inform journalists whom we believe got bamboozled or exploited by the EPO. There is a massive PR campaign going on right now.

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
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
 
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
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