THE EPO truly deserves flack for a lot of reasons. One of them is that the EPO made it a lot easier to get granted patents in all sorts of domains (even software), essentially by broadening scope, limiting examination (self-imposed speedup), ultimately inheriting or mimicking the worst aspects of the USPTO. Watch this new tweet from the EPO. They're about to bring out propaganda tomorrow.

"They're about to bring out propaganda tomorrow."To give another example, one which is only a couple of hours old, suddenly the EPO pretends to respect and obey the EPC. In reality, however, it obeys neither the EPC (as such) nor European law. Expect none of this to be mentioned in tomorrow's 'report'.

Another new article, this one from Ante Wessels (FFII), says that "EU commission goes into denial mode regarding effect ISDS on software patents" and states: "Companies could use investor-to-state dispute settlement (ISDS) in trade agreements to challenge refusals to grant software patents, FFII’s Benjamin Henrion argued during the 24 February 2016 TTIP stakeholder’s presentations. Successful challenges could undermine the European Patent Convention’s exclusion of software, the recent US Supreme Court’s limits on patentability, and Congressional patent reform."

"Therein exists a serious issue which we addressed many times before. German courts, in spite of the EPC, often let software patents be, even some of Microsoft's (when used against Linux)."We already mentioned, at least in passing, the dismissive attitude towards these concerns. Also new is Bastian Best, a German patent lawyer, saying this morning that "In Germany, math applied for a technical purpose IS patentable," citing his latest article which says: "While the impact of Alice on US software patents is still heavily discussed, 2016 has so far not produced any revolutionary software-related decisions by the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) or the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH). The German Federal Patent Court (BPatG), however, has been quite busy."

Therein exists a serious issue which we addressed many times before. German courts, in spite of the EPC, often let software patents be, even some of Microsoft's (when used against Linux). As one response put it this morning: "Technical purpose, eh? Sounds familiar. This crap harms our economy and freedom."

Whatever the EPO's PR team says tomorrow, many questions need to be fired back. ⬆