Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO is Now Corrupting Academia, Wasting Stakeholders' Money Lying to Stakeholders About the Unitary Patent (UPC)

UPC boat



Summary: The Unified Patent Court/Unitary Patent (UPC) is a dying project and the EPO, seeing that it is going nowhere fast, has resorted to new tactics and these tactics cost a lot of money (at the expense of those who are being lied to)

NOT a day goes by without some EPO scandal (large or small). It's like watching the 'action' on the deck of the Titanic while worrying for the fate of helpless passengers aboard.



“Those so-called ‘studies’ published by the EPO are mendacious speak totally worthless...”
      --Anonymous
Yesterday, as noted by Benjamin Henrion (FFII), the EPO wrote: "New report finds that the #UnitaryPatent could significantly enhance technology transfer in the EU. Other findings here..."

I've asked them: "New report or new lies?"

Henrion responded by saying "enhance "patent litigation" in the EU."

Because it has nothing to do with "technology transfer" -- whatever exactly that means (it usually gets used as a euphemism for "licensing", amicable of coerced for).

“they actually do the opposite by suppressing permanent employment for new recruits from 1st January 2018 at the EPO. The impact on patent quality will be huge. But still, Battistelli prefers burning money by producing pro-UPC lies!”
      --Anonymous
Funnily enough, the EPO has once again linked to localhost:8080 in its official news feed (RSS) -- an issue which they only fixed later in the day and several days too late. Are any competent workers left at the EPO? They appear to have misconfigured their software. Did some key IT staff leave? Either way, the 'news' at hand (warning: epo.org link) says the report was "carried out by a team of economists from the EPO, the University of Colorado Boulder and the London School of Economics..."

They did that for a fee, or with direct support from the EPO. The chief economist of the EPO seems like an old French mate of Battistelli and we have repeatedly caught him lying about the UPC.

What we see here is the EPO basically wasting a lot of money. It's paying to produce pro-UPC lies and frame these as scholarly. Stakeholders' money well spent? Of course not! And worse -- it corrupts academia just like the EPO corrupts European media.

"Those so-called ‘studies’ published by the EPO are mendacious speak totally worthless," one insider wrote. The "EPO should invest in patent quality," s/he continued, "but they actually do the opposite by suppressing permanent employment for new recruits from 1st January 2018 at the EPO. The impact on patent quality will be huge. But still, Battistelli prefers burning money by producing pro-UPC lies!"

"What we see here is the EPO basically wasting a lot of money."Shame on WIPR for being a mouthpiece for the EPO on this. As far as we can tell, it's the only publication (so far) that amplified the above. Knowing a little about WIPR inside affairs, I am not at all surprised by this. The publisher actively tried to suppress if not spike some articles that revealed the ugly truths about the EPO.

See the comments on the corresponding tweet. EPO insiders have beaten me to it, seeing that WIPR is even quoting Benoît Battistelli directly from the press release (it can be found here). It's almost as though journalism is dead and investigation/fact-checking is actively discouraged. Money (income) is in lying for the EPO now that Battistelli feeds some 'parrots' off his palm. He does not use his own money but EPO budget. He scatters it to the wind while lowering everyone's salary but his own (and his cronies'). If Eponia was really a country, Battistelli would be accused of treason.

"If Eponia was really a country, Battistelli would be accused of treason."Yesterday the EPO also wrote: "Negotiation is the preferred way to solve potential infringement issues; litigation is regarded as a last resort."

Not if the UPC ever got its way and brought patent trolls to Europe. It would be totally chaotic and chaos of the kind that prosecutors earn a lot of money from (at technologists' expense).

Recent Techrights' Posts

SUEPO Central Made a Strike (or Striking) Success
Europe has more than enough qualified patent officials
 
Not April Fools But April First: Red Hat Staff Becoming "IBM"
claims of mass layoffs set to kick off at IBM some time soon
Gemini Links 31/03/2026: Antenna Packed Up, AuraGem and AuraSearch Maintenance
Links for the day
Links 31/03/2026: More Social Control Media Bans, BBC Now Run by GAFAM (US) Executive
Links for the day
'Broligarchs' Don't Want Science, They Want Entertainers to Entertain Them (and Make Them Richer)
Of course this will result in things getting worse in the sciences and everyone who relies on the sciences
When Republics Turn From Democratic Governments Into Imperialistic Dictatorships
What goes on in the US would require talking about politics
Companies That Have Nothing Except Buzzwords and Promises Will Perish
Dishonest media will perish along with the companies it is covering up for
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to be Grilled in Two Weeks' Time by the British Government for "Recent Regulatory Failures"
we escalated to our politicians
GNU/Linux Will Thrive as Long as It's Modular, Not Monolithic
To IBM, it's all about money. Nothing else matters.
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part X - People Are Leaving
"I was happy to be at the EPO in the beginning, but since I realized it's all a big mafia"
IBM's 33 Years as a "Financial Engineering" (Accounting Tricks) Company
In relation to Red Hat, this "financial engineering" involves culling many workers and trying to replace them with slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 30, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 30, 2026
Links 31/03/2026: Rising Costs, Cyberattacks, Novo Patent Expiry
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2026: American Spring, Distributed Systems Simulator, and Calculus for Electronics
Links for the day
IBM Layoffs and Their Expected Scope in April 2026
Such layoffs impact not only IBM "proper"
SLAPP Censorship - Part 28 Out of 200: Facing Consequences for Impersonation and Worse
It's not "funny". It is moreover libellous.
Links 30/03/2026: South Korea Next to Curb Social Control Media Addiction and Manipulation, Notorious Patents in the US Challenged
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2026: Going Back to Wrist Watches and Why LLMs in Programming Suck
Links for the day
Did IBM Pay thestreet.com for Puff Pieces? (Like It Did With Forbes)
If so, there is no disclosure
Wikipedia - Funded by Slop-pushing Companies and 'Broligarchs' - Gave Benefit of the Doubt to Slop, Then Regretted It
Wikipedia sucks. Without slop it'll suck a little less.
Payoffs of Lifelong Commitments
"The Lifelong Activist"
Links 30/03/2026: "We Can’t Income-Tax Ultra-Elites"; "The Pirate Bay’s Oldest Torrent Turned 22"
Links for the day
Today, Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) Goes on Strike That Can Last Until 2027. Nobody in the Media Covers This!
"We stand with the protesters"
When the Cost (or Time) of Maintenance Exceeds the Value
In recent years it seems like more people learn to remove things from their lives, not add more things
Passage of Wealth Upwards, Blaming the Victims
Tim Sweeney's net worth is 5.1 billion USD according to Forbes
More Media Needs to Tell the Public Slop is a Giant Bubble, It Should Stop Taking "Sponsorship" Money to Inflate This Bubble
If enough of (what's left of) the media changes its tune and quits being a parrot of GAFAM, then we can debate slop like grown-ups
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 29, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 29, 2026
Trying to Hide One's Abuses by Imposing Silence on Critics ("My Profile Was Private")
With enough daylight, sooner or later everyone knows you are a vampire
Fedora Badges System Shows the Demise of Fedora Under IBM
IBM isn't good at keeping what it buys
IBM is Sunsetting Red Hat, It Only Uses the Brand and the Shell
IBM buys or spins off companies as containers for "toxic assets" and debt
Cisco Systems is a Still Weak Spot With Bug Doors
nothing to offer except storytelling
EPO Strike Begins Today and It's the Longest One Yet (Can Last a Year)
Where's the media?
Gemini Links 30/03/2026: Approaching April and Arvelie Calendar
Links for the day
No Daylight Saved
Is there still any practical reason for this ritual?
Microsoft Azure Does Not Have "Hiring Freezes", It Has Had Mass Layoffs Every Year Since 2020
Things are always a lot worse than Microsoft formally or publicly acknowledges
SLAPP Censorship - Part 27 Out of 200: Using the Tor Network to Hide From Consequences
Only 1-2 weeks after the countersuit the Canadian attempted to deplatform several Web sites
The Limits of Inclusion
Inclusion with caution isn't "opinionated"; it's a defence mechanism, sometimes a survival instinct
Almost 20 Years After Microsoft/Novell
The mission has not changed, but the priorities evolve all the time
People Discuss Rumours of Mass Layoffs at IBM Becoming Public in 1-2 Weeks
IBM is killing its brand or its "goodwill"
LLM Slop Kills Sites, as Sites That Adopt Slop Are Doomed
People won't subscribe to such sites and visit them if they recognise it's just slop
Links 29/03/2026: Indonesia Cracks Down on Social Control Media Addiction, China Becomes World’s Scientific Superpower
Links for the day
Fedora at the Mercy of Microsoft Because of Back-Doored Kick-Switch Boot
We'll soon revisit the defamation attacks on Torvalds
Links 29/03/2026: Water Shortages and No Kings Rallies
Links for the day
The Old Days
In the early days of this site (2006) it was mostly just a couple of people, plus comments
Gemini Links 29/03/2026: Return to Gopherspace, "Zen of Marking Playing Cards"
Links for the day
The Real XBox is Dead, So Microsoft is Calling Everything "XBox" Now
It even wanted to run a campaign to convince everybody that XBox is not actually a console
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 28, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 28, 2026