Bonum Certa Men Certa

Incredibly Unscientific: EPO is Making up Excuses for Decline in Patent Applications

China's growth in patents is superficial and misleading; In Europe there is negative growth, but 'infographics' like the one below try to paint the opposite picture

Poland missing
Poland missing from the map as it's part of what the EPO is trying hard to hide



Summary: The European Patent Office continues to insult nations and also insult science, essentially by spreading lies and deleting from the map particular nations in order to legitimise these lies

WE have decided to leave aside USPTO articles until the weekend because the frequency of lies from the EPO is increasing again and if these lies are not confronted with facts there is risk that even some EPO employees will believe them.



We previously explained that application numbers at the EPO are declining in Europe. Prior to that we showed how the EPO had been lying. See for example the following:



2 days ago we wrote about unscientific (if not antiscientific) and rather offensive maps from the EPO, serving as a sort of propaganda or misinfographics for the lazy. They have already mentioned Belgium (highest growth), so now it's Italy's turn (second highest), as the screenshot of this tweet (above) shows. In spite of criticism, knowing that they are being bashed for it, the EPO's PR team has decided to tweet, yet again, this offensive, antiscientific map. Later they wrote: "Patent applications from Poland dropped after increases in 2015" (screenshot above, as they recently removed such tweets and we caught the deletion).

"Has the EPO removed Poland from the map just for king Battistelli and his desperate need for brainwash throughout this week? Is Poland no longer part of Europe?"Notice how, for obvious reasons, they are not even showing the map because Poland was conveniently removed from it! Has the EPO removed Poland from the map just for king Battistelli and his desperate need for brainwash throughout this week? Is Poland no longer part of Europe? Mind the fact that they also make excuses for this decline, as if to say, "yes, it's down, but it's actually up!"

This is the kind of "alternative facts" that we are seeing more and more of, courtesy of an Office that has become a disgrace to science itself.

Where is the EPO seen as a growth opportunity? The land of patent gold rush, where patent quality thresholds/barriers are so low that last year alone there were over a million patent applications (at SIPO). We have been writing a lot about it, irrespective of our EPO coverage. See yesterday's article "Brighter prospects for business method and software related patents in China" (alternative headline: SIPO lowers quality of Chinese patents to zero).

"WIPO does not want to tell the full story, but the devil is in the detail."At the EPO, the only region of growth is China (US demand for EPs is down very sharply). But then again, the same is true for other patent offices across the world. It's not just an EPO phenomenon, it's a Chinese phenomenon. According to Korean media (e.g. the Korea Herald, which is published in English), patent lawsuits are totally out of control in China, exactly as we predicted (it's up 37% in just a short period of time). China is now destroying its own leadership and wrecks its own industry with litigation, making only a bunch of law firms richer. They didn't learn from the mistakes of the US, did they? Another Korean publication stresses the ramifications for Korean companies operating in China. The patent maximalism encouraged by SIPO is destructive and suicidal (in the commercial sense). This is why companies won't want to operate in China, or will be reluctant to expand to China. According to a lot of reports from yesterday [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], patents are down except in China (with few exceptions here and there). WIPO does not want to tell the full story, but the devil is in the detail. WIPO wrote: "International #patent applications grow by 7.3% to a record 233,000 in 2016: http://ow.ly/l87S309VSfu"

Francisco Moreno looked at the underlying figures and wrote (in Spanish, but obvious to non-Spanish speakers):

Solicitudes internacionales de patente (PCT) en 2016: Totales 233.000 +7,3% *de origen chino: 43168 +45% *de origen español: 1503 -1,7%


WIPO does not show this breakdown to a wider audience. No word about the role played by China (+45%) just patenting everything under the Sun. Spain (-1.7%) is absent from the EPO's map, for obvious reasons. Now, watch this new tweet from the EPO. Yesterday is said: "Philips remains no. 1 patent applicant at the EPO in 2016 – 2nd year in a row. http://buzz.mw/b1wxh_f"

"In today's EPO, it's garbage in, garbage out (applications, granted patents)."But Philips is the only European company at the top. 60% of the top 5 are east Asian, and only one is European. So much for "European" Patent Office... "90 per cent of patents in Australia are foreign owned," someone pointed out to me last night, but Europe is not a population as small as Australia's. There are similar numbers in India, where software patents are not permitted.

Whose interests are served? In today's EPO, it's garbage in, garbage out (applications, granted patents). The GIGO Office is what Battistelli is after.

"It doesn't matter to them what it means to innovation, as long as there is a lot of litigation and money keeps flowing into the pockets of middlemen (including robber barons like Team Battistelli)."Last year, shortly after the so-called 'results', we spent some time explaining that patents from China aren't quite what they seem. Many are just in Mandarin. It's faked growth and the quality of this 'growth' is low.

Pro-litigation (or pro-trolls) sites like IAM are obviously infatuated with east Asia these days, as we noted here before. They see this is a growth (profit) opportunity, at least for those who make money -- at professionals' expense -- by suing and settling. Baker McKenzie, a legal firm, has just written about Thailand and IAM relayed this placement/ad for a firm from Taiwan. It doesn't matter to them what it means to innovation, as long as there is a lot of litigation and money keeps flowing into the pockets of middlemen (including robber barons like Team Battistelli).

Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
 
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.