Summary: The lack of interest in the EPO's services has just caused Battistelli to offer discounts -- as pathetic as that may seem -- and Grant Philpott continues promoting software patents

IT HAS BECOME common knowledge that the EPO is overgranting patents and in order to maintain an illusion of quality control it rejects applications based on minor technicalities rather than lack of merit/novelty. Prior art search is too 'costly' (in terms of time, talent and so on). People inside and outside the Office are noticing this and they are not happy. They're quite rightly upset and some are courageous enough to speak out about it. What good is a piece of paper which courts are likely to disprove or disregard?

The number of patent applications is declining, the most talented/experienced staff is walking away, and the EPO cannot attract "demand" due to diminishing reputation. This was foreseeable and staff representatives warned about this. Earlier today Battistelli wrote in his 'blog' (warning: epo.org link) about his reactionary move. This was promoted about 4 hours later by the EPO and we interpret this is a desperate effort to spur "sales" using a discount. Battistelli, like a used cars salesman, tries to frame it all as "savings" for the "clients" and says it "equates to a 5% reduction which will save our users around 7 million Euro next year."

"What good is a piece of paper which courts are likely to disprove or disregard?"Basically, European Patents (EPs of the past, present and future) have lost their value due to Battistelli and his abusive behaviour. He probably shaved off BILLIONS worth of "value" (losses for those who invested in EPs), but why should he care? All he cared about was the inflow of money, even if that led to the collapse of the Office in the long run.

Earlier today the EPO wrote: "With Patent Translate you can translate patent documents at the click of a button...

But not accurately. Many people have already pointed out the weakness of such translations. They're of no use in a legal context; these are, at best, approximations.

The EPO is also planning this conference next week and today (Monday) we discovered that Grant Philpott (epic name for a grant-by-default policy) still promotes software patents in Europe. He is using buzzwords that are meaningless. There are photos there and the text says: "Grant Philpott @EPOorg about #patents created by #ArtificialIntelligence & #Computer-implemented #inventions #CII in #Industry40 @Telefonica"

"People who came up with the EPC would turn in their grave if they could see what Battistelli had done."Where are the boards when one needs them? The EPO is not supposed to grant software patents, but Battistelli has already taken care of that by defanging judges. The EPO has sent the appeal board to 'exile' to prevent them having a sense of independence, or the courage to do their work without fear. Earlier today the EPO wrote: "How can you get to the new location of the Boards of Appeal?"

Maybe if there were exiled to Poland, nobody would bother appealing at all and patent quality would seem superb. What we have here is a crisis of governance and a collapse in patent quality. People who came up with the EPC would turn in their grave if they could see what Battistelli had done. ⬆