Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Budget Obscures and Distorts Facts About the Unitary Patent (UPC) in a Classic Antidemocratic Exercise by an Unaccountable Institution

The EPO keeps meddling in policy and corrupting the media, but it knows that it's immune/exempted from the law

When Lobbyists Literally Write The Bill Reference: When Lobbyists Literally Write The Bill



Summary: Interference in politics and misinformation designed to mislead the public have both become a hallmark of the EPO under Battistelli, not just opportunistic legal firms which stand to benefit from the UPC (at everyone's expense)

ADDITIONAL people are signing the petition against the UPC, but the vast majority of the public here in the UK still does not know what it is or what it is for (or who the UPC is really for). The EPO has gone as far as paying crates of money to publications in order to generate fake news [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] about the UPC, or to distort public perceptions. That's just one among many abusive aspects of the EPO under Battistelli's embarrassing 'leadership' (more like a reign of terror, in which even bloggers are being threatened).



"The EPO has gone as far as paying crates of money to publications in order to generate fake news about the UPC, or to distort public perceptions."Dimitris Xenos wrote the other day [1, 2] that the "#unitarypatent is available to EUmember states only:‘this [ #UPC] Agreement should be open to accession by any Member State’ at 6 #Brexit [...] the term ‘member state(s)’ appears 127 times in the #UPC http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:42013A0620(01)&from=EN … #unitarypatent #Brexit"

It doesn't take a genius to see that the UPC is inherently incompatible with Brexit, yet there has been a lot of lobbying and deception about it, courtesy of Team Battistelli and Team UPC (a marriage of convenience). Publications are moreover being paid to lie about it, at the expense of EPO budget. Last night we wrote about yet another event which will soon become a platform for the EPO's UPC propaganda. In some cases, such events are sponsored by the EPO's PR firm and supported by the EPO. It should be scandalous and covered in the media accordingly (as a scandal), but it certainly seems like the corporate media has become a willing if not also witting cooperator. Some of this supposedly 'elite' media is paid by the EPO, so why bite the hand that feeds?

According to this new post from IP Kat, there is an upcoming discussion about the issues associated with the UPC amid Brexit. To quote this short post:

This event is organised by the United Kingdom Association for European Law, and features three speakers who will be familiar to IPKat readers:

Dr Christopher Stothers, partner at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP Dr Luke McDonagh, Lecturer in The City Law School at City, University of London Prof Duncan Matthews, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London


This is being discussed elsewhere too, according to this new tweet as far as India. It says that "Dr Jonathan Atkinson & Martyn Fish presenting on #Brexit and the #UPC at @CPhI_PharmaIPR 2017 in Mumbai #IP #Pharma" (there is also a photo in there).

Pharmaceutical giants must be drooling over the UPC, which would enable them to bankrupt/embargo/control their competition. Understandably, their lawyers too are cautiously excited and they try to hide their motivation. Consider this new interview with patent law firms that want litigation Armageddon (more profit to them):

“The Unified Patent Court (UPC) without Britain is a far less potent idea,” says Nick McDonald, partner of Potter Clarkson.

In this video interview with LSIPR, McDonald explains that there are many good reasons why the UK should be part of the UPC and discusses the implications of Brexit.


What about those who don't work for law firms? What about the more than 99% of the population, which would be subjected to the UPC if it ever became a reality?

Well, published earlier this week and found via David Pearce‏ (Tufty the Cat) was this article titled "Patent law: Theresa May's new Brexit battlefield" -- an article that cites Douglas Carswell and pro-Brexit media:

The only people who really care about patent law are patent holders, patent lawyers and patent academics. And yet Theresa May's rash promise to remove the UK from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is about to turn this esoteric area into a major Brexit battleground. No matter how you approach it, there is no way to square what the government is doing on patents with its red line on the ECJ.

The fundamentalist fringe of the hard Brexit movement has started to notice too. A couple of weeks ago, Douglas Carswell put down an early day motion demanding a change on patent policy.

The Daily Express covered it with its usual restraint. "EXPOSED," it said. "Secret plan to tie Britain to EU". Ukip warned of a "stealth attempt" by ministers to carry out some sort of Brexit conspiracy.


Team UPC firms, e.g. Bristows in the UK, are still trying to effectively take over the law which governs them (like oil companies trying to write, by proxy, environmental regulations or telecommunication giants trying to remove limits on their operations). Watch this latest update from Bristows, an enemy of British democracy, working behind the curtains. "Unitary Software Patents like a letter through the post in Germany," as Benjamin Henrion put it.

"Several days remain for concerned European citizens who can hopefully spare one minute to sign this petition."If the UPC ever became a reality, a lot of small firms would receive a lot of letters through the post, not just from patent trolls that demand a lot of money but also from large competitors in other countries, threatening to take down small rivals all across Europe (one ruling, in one single city in Europe, affecting all "member states" in one fell swoop).

Several days remain for concerned European citizens who can hopefully spare one minute to sign this petition.

Recent Techrights' Posts

All-Time Lows for Windows in Spain and Portugal
data which became publicly available less than 24 hours ago in statCounter
 
SLAPP Censorship - Part 65 Out of 200: Graveley and Garrett Claims Are Word-by-Word Similar (They Also Collaborated All Along)
We'll keep it short today
IBM Has a Long and Rich History of Showing Chatbots Bear No Business Prospects (From Jeopardy to Watson Healthcare and McDonalds)
Watson Healthcare is already in the dustpan, so they are rebranding it again
Europe Decoupling is Bad News for GAFAM, Especially Bad to Microsoft
Countries want independence
India Needs to Recognise That the World Wide Web is Monoculture in India
In the US, a judge with Indian roots dealt with a case related to this; why won't India?
All-Time Lows for Windows Down Under
seeing the demise of Windows in Australia (historically a slow or low adopter of GNU/Linux) is good news
Linux Kernel Tainted by Software Patents That Make Linux Worse and the 'Linux' Foundation is Compiling Bribes to Enable This (Promotion of Monopolies and Tolerance of Software Patenting)
Why you need to reboot when a serious bug is found in Linux? "Licencing"...
IBM's Kyndryl Accounting Fraud Explained and More Recently the Insiders Talk About Mass Layoffs
Judging by how the media totally ignored 800+ layoffs at IBM's Confluent and 400+ layoffs at Red Hat a few weeks ago don't expect to hear anything about Kyndryl layoffs
Links 03/05/2026: Water Shortages Crises and Slop Fakes "Are Coming for Your Bank Account" (Slop-Enabled Fraud)
Links for the day
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part XI - EPO 'Products' to Cement Asian and American Monopolies
Only a fool would believe Lame Duck Campinos
Microsoft Windows Falls Below 9% in South Africa
As one can expect, GNU/Linux is measured as going up in France
Gemini Links 03/05/2026: The Black Side of the Web, LiveJournal, Chimarrão
Links for the day
A Month Since Mass Layoffs at Red Hat (400+ Engineers Laid Off), The Media Didn't Cover It
We are very concerned about the state of the media
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 02, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, May 02, 2026
Gemini Links 02/05/2026: Strange Psychosis and TUIs
Links for the day
Links 02/05/2026: Microsoft Has Begun Rebranding Vista 11 as 'XBox' (Because the Console is Dying), Slop Rejected by Oscars
Links for the day
IBM's CEO 10 Years Ago in IBM-Sponsored Forbes: "For those willing to embrace [blockchains], the future will indeed be bright."
How well did this prediction materialise?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 64 Out of 200: Not Amused by Repeated Threats (to "Shut Down" My "Existence" While Mentioning My Wife Too)
it's about censorship
RightsCon Cancellation as a Data Point in a World Gone Astray
RightsCon should not even be controversial
The NHS is Under Attack by Anthropic and Microsoft (or Their Lemmings That Infect the NHS)
They are kidding themselves if they seriously believe Web-facing source code repositories are the real threat to patients
cPanel is Not Linux, cPanel is Proprietary Software
It's fair to say I've used cPanel for 23 years
Links 02/05/2026: Gen Z is Turning Against Slop and OpenAI/Microsoft Rift Explained
Links for the day
Storage and Memory Prices Are Rising Not Because of High Demand (Production Can Match Demand), It's Partly Because of Price-Fixing (Same as Food Price Increases)
Sophisticated robberies are still robberies
Thousands of Layoffs at IBM, So IBM Pays Mainstream Media to Claim That IBM is Hiring (Paid Lies)
This is a story about the media failing us, not just IBM failing as a company
A Look at DataStax Bluewashing (IBM and Layoffs)
IBM is a place that many people leave or get pushed out of
Gemini Links 02/05/2026: Leaving Session, Alhena 5.5.7, and Slop Failing Customers
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 01, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, May 01, 2026
Links 01/05/2026: Microsoft 'Headcount' Decreasing, Apple Quietly Killing Vision Pro
Links for the day
Oracle's Debt Grew by Over 50 Billion Dollars in 6 Months
Larry Ellison spent a lot of money buying a lot of the corporate media
In Praise of Debian
30 hours ago we began an upgrade
What Linus (Torvalds, the Linux Dude) Meant by "Show Me the Code"
"Show Me the Code" is a common cultural reference
Yes, GNU/Linux Can Run on Playstation 5, But Don't Buy It, Learn From Sony's Past of Rootkit and PS3 Betrayal
Millions of Playstation 3 owners will never forget what Sony did to them
XBox Will Not Last Much Longer, XBox Chief Admits Problems
Microsoft's latest "results"
Dealing With Demagogue in Free Software
Don't spread their ideology and never participate in any of their projects
What May 1 Means to Us (and to Many Others)
To me, May 1 means something
Microsoft Lunduke is 'Pulling a Garrett' by Turning Technical and Legal Debate Over Rust Into a 'Trans Debate'
Don't fall for the demagogue
Links 01/05/2026: Regulatory Trouble for Apple, Now Even Mozilla Pushes Back Against Google
Links for the day
Microsoft "Buyout" Offer is Less Than One Year's Salary
So our assumption about this was correct
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part X - European Patent Office Managers Have Crossed Red Lines, According to Themselves
The girlfriend of the President of the European Patent Office (EPO) is trying to muzzle EPO critics
Techrights is Still Growing, Attacking Techrights Does Not Weaken the Community
Bullying us for 2+ years does not result in fear, it results in us feeling more emboldened and motivated
SLAPP Censorship - Part 63 Out of 200: Graveley as a Stripped-Down Version of Garrett in the Particulars of Claim (5RB Barrister Could Do This in One Minute)
Lazily and sloppily, it looks like the barrister took Garrett's claims and tweaked them a little (shortened) for Graveley
Lots of People Leave IBM, Today IBM Has About 1,000 Workers Fewer Than Yesterday
Confluent "last day" for 800+ people
Been a Very Busy Week
Next week, as we have no upgrades to prepare for, we should be able to publish at the usual pace of 20+ pages per day
In New Letter Sent to Chair and Heads of Delegation of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation the Staff Union Explains How to End European Patent Office Strikes
If Campinos continues to behave as he does right now, the Council can show him the door
Links 01/05/2026: Poems and Continuous Privacy Policy
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 30, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, April 30, 2026
Microsoft Debt Rose Almost $50 Billion Since We Moved to Debian
GAFAM has a new name for debt