Bonum Certa Men Certa

'SIPO Europe': The EPO's Race to the Bottom of Patent Skills and Patent Quality

Driving away the senior staff and bringing in temporary staff to just rubberstamp applications? Good for lawyers, no doubt...

SIPO and Battistelli Reference: Loose Patent Scope Becoming a Publicity Nightmare for the EPO and Battistelli Does a China Outreach (Worst/Most Notorious on Patent Quality)



Summary: The EPO is quickly turning from the world's leading patent office (on quality criteria) into one of the worst (as European patent lawyers too gradually dare admit)

WHEN this Web site was founded (2006) the EPO had already accepted that software was not patentable (before loopholes "as such"). The EPO was the least of our concerns! We were actually proud to say that software patents were no longer (much of) a problem in Europe.



Battistelli ruined the EPO in so many ways, including patent scope. He treats patent-granting (or examination) processes like a production line, where the goal is to produce as much as possible as quickly as possible (patents were never like this!) and this is what he calls "success".

What can a President do when staff realises that examination is no longer being done improperly because of unrealistic "production" expectations? A reasonable President would listen to the staff and correct/rectify the error. But Battistelli is no President but a King and a ruthless tyrant. He'll never ever admit an error. He's crazy!

"Thinking of applying to Praktika Intern? Applications close on 31 January 2017," the EPO wrote today, promoting that same trend of picking interns rather than experienced full-time employees (who are walking away or find themselves illegally dismissed based on trumped-up/made-up charges, or simply fail to reach impossible-to-fulfill quotas).

Make no mistake about it. The EPO grants A LOT of patents IN ERROR. Insiders told us so. They know so. They're embarrassed to say so, but they feel compelled by ethics.

Last week the EPO pulled off a publicity stunt ahead of the meeting which was supposed to bring up the subject of patent quality. It's about patents on plants. Here is a new article about it (shallow because it's composed by the patent microcosm):

The European Commission Disagrees with the European Patent Office on the Patentability of Plants and Plant Parts Produced by Essentially Biological Processes

Following last year's decisions by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office ("EPO") on referrals G 2/12 and G2/13 ("Tomatoes II" and "Broccoli II"), the European Commission ("Commission") issued an interpretative Notice on certain articles of the Directive 98/44/EC—known as the Biotechnology Directive—stating their view that when adopting Directive 98/44/EC, the EU legislator's intention was to exclude from patentability products (plants/animals and plant/animal parts) that are obtained by means of essentially biological processes.

[...]

The European Commission Disagrees with the European Patent Office on the Patentability of Plants and Plant Parts Produced by Essentially Biological Processes

Following last year's decisions by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office ("EPO") on referrals G 2/12 and G2/13 ("Tomatoes II" and "Broccoli II"), the European Commission ("Commission") issued an interpretative Notice on certain articles of the Directive 98/44/EC—known as the Biotechnology Directive—stating their view that when adopting Directive 98/44/EC, the EU legislator's intention was to exclude from patentability products (plants/animals and plant/animal parts) that are obtained by means of essentially biological processes.


Andrew Sharples, head of practice group EIP Life (patent microcosm), wrote for IP Kat about this a short whole ago and said:

The EPO announced on 12 December that it has stayed all examination and opposition proceedings relating to plants and animals obtained by an essentially biological process. This is because of a notice of the European Commission questioning the availability of patents in these fields.

Following the Broccoli and Tomato cases (G2/12 Tomatoes II and G3/12 Broccoli II, discussed on the IPKat here), the Enlarged Board of the EPO ruled that even where an essentially biological process for the production of a plant or animal is not patentable, the resultant animal or plant may itself be patentable. This was on the basis that, effectively, the exclusion under Art. 54(3) EPC was an exclusion of a process, and there was no basis for giving this Article a broader interpretation.

This decision did not go unnoticed by the powers of the EU, and in December 2015, the European Parliament adopted a resolution asking the European Commission to look into the patentability of products of essentially biological processes. This resulted, on 3 November, in the Commission adopting a Notice on certain articles of the Biotech Directive (2016/C 411/03), in which the Commission took a different view from that of the Enlarged Board.



Well, the Enlarged Board of the EPO may not last much longer. Battistelli is in the process of squashing it because, based on a growing mountain of evidence, it doesn't blindly accept Battistelli's views and to make matter worse it's actually granted -- GASP -- independence from the Office. That is absolutely not acceptable in Battistelli's view, which is why he insisted that the chinchillas of the Council should send those people to exile (as they finally did a few days ago).

Battistelli has totally dismantled the EPO even on technical grounds. Battistelli is far from a technical person, so he can probably lie to himself about it with ease.

Recent Techrights' Posts

It's Cheaper to Pay Bribes (and Produce Press Releases) Than to Pay Fines (After Lots of Negative Publicity)
Does the UK still have real sovereignty or do corporations from overseas purchase decisions and outcomes?
November 2023 Over With GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs According to statCounter
ChromeOS+GNU/Linux combined are about 7% of the "market"
 
Just Like Its Budget Allocation, the Linux Foundation Devotes About 3% Of Its Latest Newsletter to Linux, Devotes More to Linux's Rivals
It's just exploiting the brand
Links 01/12/2023: Google Invokes Antitrust Against Microsoft
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
UK Government Allowing Microsoft to Take Over Activision Blizzard Will Destroy Jobs
Over 30,000 fired this year? More?
New Report Provides Numerical Evidence That Google Hired Too Many People From Microsoft (and Became Malicious, Evil, Sociopathic)
"Some 12,018 former Microsoft employees currently work for the search and data giant"
Google: Keep Out, Don't Save Your Files, and Also Let Us Spy on Everything You Do
Do you still trust "clown" storage?
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, November 30, 2023
IRC logs for Thursday, November 30, 2023
Links 01/12/2023: Many Suppressions in Hong Kong and Attempts to Legitimise Illegal and Unconstitutional Fake Patent 'Court' in EU (UPC)
Links for the day
Gemini Not Deflated Yet (Soon Turning 5!)
Gemini numbers still moving up, the protocol will turn five next summer
Links 30/11/2023: Belated End of Henry Kissinger and 'Popular Science' Shuts Online Magazine
Links for the day
Site Priorities and Upcoming Improvements
pages are served very fast
[Meme] One Person, Singular Pronoun
Abusing people into abusing the English language is very poor diplomacy
Ending Software Patents in Recent Years (Software Freedom Fighters MIA)
not a resolved issue
New Article From Richard Stallman Explains Why He Says He and She for Unknown Person (Not 'They')
"Nowadays I use gender-neutral singular pronouns for a person whose gender I don't know"
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, November 29, 2023
IRC logs for Wednesday, November 29, 2023
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 30/11/2023: Rushing Patent Cases With Shorter Trial Scheme (STS), Sanctions Not Working
Links for the day
Links 30/11/2023: Google Purging Many Accounts and Content (to Save Money), Finland Fully Seals Border With Russia
Links for the day
Lookout, It's Outlook
Outlook is all about the sharing!
Updated A Month Ago: Richard Stallman on Software Patents as Obstacles to Software Development
very recent update
The 'Smart' Attack on Power Grid Neutrality (or the Wet Dream of Tiered Pricing for Power, Essentially Punishing Poorer Households for Exercising Freedom Like Richer Households)
The dishonest marketing people tell us the age of disservice and discrimination is all about "smart" and "Hey Hi" (AI) as in algorithms akin to traffic-shaping in the context of network neutrality
Links 29/11/2023: VMware Layoffs and Too Many Microsofters Going Inside Google
Links for the day
Is BlueMail a Client of ZDNet Now?
Let's examine what BlueMail does to promote itself
Just What LINUX.COM Needed After Over a Month of Inactivity: SPAM SPAM SPAM (Linux Brand as a Spamfarm)
It's not even about Linux
Microsoft “Discriminated Based on Sexuality”
Relevant, as they love lecturing us on "diversity" and "inclusion"...
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, November 28, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, November 28, 2023