Bonum Certa Men Certa

The European Patent Office No Longer Acts Like a Patent Office But a Prosecutor

Prosecution 'industry' served, not the real industry

Prosecution



Summary: With Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), Unitary Patent (UPC) and “early certainty” it seems clear that the EPO's objectives are not aligned with those representative of a proper, functioning patent office

THE EPO continues trying -- however futile this effort may seem -- to distract from any meaningful discussion about the crisis. The "SME" nonsense (not a new thing), for example, was repeated once again yesterday. It was repeated pretty much every single day in November. "How can a business leverage the power of patents and other IP rights to achieve business success?" Those are the sorts of loaded questions brought up every day by the EPO. It has become too tiring to even bother responding to them.



"The UPC is going nowhere, but Bristows keeps spreading fake news about it.""The objective of the study," wrote the EPO in another tweet, "is to assess the role played by the current European patent system," linking to the so-called 'study' which is not objective and has already been debunked. It's the EPO-commissioned propaganda for the EPO and its UPC lobby.

Two days ago we wrote about the latest fake news about the UPC. Check out this comment that says "K. Mooney, W. Pors and consorts have been ridden by an illness called "wishful thinking"."

To quote the whole comment (JJ is Jo Johnson):

When JJ is talking about negotiations re post Brexit stay of the UK in the UPC, it clearly means that all those claiming that the stay is easy to obtain (K. Mooney, W. Pors and consorts) have been ridden by an illness called "wishful thinking".

It is understandable that they see big profits flowing away, so that self illusion is an attempt to overcome the loss. The more so since they have invested a lot of time and efforts in devising the RoP of the UPC.

It would be better if they would come back to reality rather than trying to pull wool over our eyes!



The UPC is going nowhere, but Bristows keeps spreading fake news about it. Yesterday it wrote about Belgium. This is nothing noteworthy (of progress); it's a meaningless move, as Belgium has, by Bristows' own admission, "already ratified the UPC Agreement, and has made a declaration regarding its provisional application."

"The agenda of the EPO, as set in stone by the UPC, is worse than malignant. It may be fatal to Europe's producing industries (as opposed to some law firms in England and Germany)."Quite frankly, it no longer surprises us that Team UPC and Team Battistelli are lying so much. Both are rife with abuse. Check out yesterday's EPO puff piece about Brazil and Tunisia (warning: epo.org link), former Portuguese and French colonies, respectively (the next EPO President is a dual Portuguese/French national, as we noted in relation to the validation agreements with Tunisia and Angola, another former Portuguese colony where his father had been born).

This time it's about the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), which speeds up examination at the expense of meticulous analysis. To quote the EPO: "Two major [sic] agreements signed by the EPO with Brazil and Tunisia will enter into force today. The agreements will mean new services for companies and inventors from Europe and the two countries and support innovation through legally robust patents."

How many European Patents even come from Tunisia? How many patent applications? Brazil, in spite of its large population side, isn't so major a player either. So for the EPO to call these "major agreements" with a straight face? Come on...

As someone pointed out in the 14th and last comment this week:

Even it might be legal, it is simply unbelievable to go from the much heralded “early certainty” into “long term uncertainty”.

If it should be necessary it shows how badly the EPO is managed!

The document linked to by head down is a paper introduced in 2009 by 3 member states two of which,DE and NL had deferred examination. It was an attempt to resolve the backlog problem, may be a first instance level, but does not work at the BA level.

If files are under deferred examination, they will not any longer appear in the statistics. This a clear attempt to cheat, as the secret hope is that lot of these applications will be withdrawn at one moment or the other.

It is not sure that the member state will be willing to wait to have their share of the renewal fees.

Wait and see if the new chairman of the AC will accept to put the proposal of the agenda of the AC. Bad management should be sanctioned, certainly not encouraged!


This relates to the UPC in the sense that the envisioned system passes or 'offloads' the task of proper patent examination to courts, where fees are humongous and the language spoken may not been understood at all by the defendants.

The agenda of the EPO, as set in stone by the UPC, is worse than malignant. It may be fatal to Europe's producing industries (as opposed to some law firms in England and Germany). The "official languages", which oddly enough include French but not Spanish, tell quite a lot about who would literally profit from the destruction of one's own national scientific sector.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Last Week's EPO Strike Was the Biggest (Highest Participation Rate), Hours Ago General Assembly Discussed Next (Growing) Intensity of Strikes
Well done and well attended
 
Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Slop Interview and Why Slop Makes Lousy Code
Links for the day
Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk This Thursday at the University of Bologna (Italy)
Hardly the first time he speaks in Bologna
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 23, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, March 23, 2026
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: "Mandatory" Bad Things and Dangers of Perfection Aspirations
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 20 Out of 200: All Roads Lead to Rome and to GAFAM Funding
Now about 10% into this series
Mass Layoffs at HashiCorp, IBM Hid Them
The media did not mention those layoffs
Microsoft Downgraded on Concerns (Lack of Growth) Amid Silent Layoffs in 2026
The press isn't functioning anymore
Links 23/03/2026: Gulf Water at Risk, Heatwave in Malaysia
Links for the day
Slop Means False, New Article by Cybershow
"We are living in a world that is rapidly divesting from reality."
Debianism election 2026 community poll created, everybody can vote
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/03/2026: "Shocking Peter Thiel Antichrist Lectures", Robert Mueller Remembered
Links for the day
The Scandal Bigger Than IBM/Red Hat Layoffs is the de Facto "Media Blackout" About Those Layoffs
So we have a media crisis, aside from the economic crises
Gemini Links 23/03/2026: Geminispace/Elpher Enhancement and the Cerberus Cinco
Links for the day
Fear is Not a Legitimate Factor
Smart people know that trying to prevent moral people from doing the "Right Thing" will backfire
Fuel Autonomy and What It Teaches Us About Software Autonomy (or Software Freedom)
Need we wait until a "software Pearl Harbor" or protect ourselves proactively by weaning ourselves off of GAFAMware?
Scheduled Maintenance This Coming Wednesday
Other than that, all is the same and we carry on as usual
Most Press Articles About IBM Are LLM Slop, Sometimes With Slop Images
IBM basically laid off almost 1,000 people last week [...] At the moment about 75% of the 'articles' we see about IBM (in recent days) are some kind of slop
Links 23/03/2026: Security Breaches, Energy Shortages, Another SRA Scandal, and Patents on Nature
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 22, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, March 22, 2026
Streisand Effect and Justice
This weekend this site has served over 8 million Web requests
Gemini Links 22/03/2026: "Woman of Tomorrow" and "First Steps in Geminispace"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 19 Out of 200: They Were Ill-prepared for Tough Questions in Cross-Examination
Very ill-prepared for the deteriorating situation caused by their clients' past behaviour towards many people, including high-profile figures who offered to testify
The Media Sold Out to Slop Bros
If you wish for the hype to stop, then stop participating in it
EPO Strike a Week From Now, After That Strikes Can Become Permanent
A week from tomorrow there will be another strike
The Only Non-IBM Staff in Fedora Council/Leadership Attacks Booting Freedom (Just Like the Master Wants)
Last week IBM laid off almost 1,000 people in Confluent and the media didn't write anything about it, so don't expect anyone in what's left of the media to comment on Fedora's demise and silent layoffs at Red Hat
Just Like a Founder of XBox Said, Microsoft XBox is Collapsing, Management Continue to Jump Ship
Nowadays Microsoft tries to promote this idea that Windows is XBox and XBox is Windows
Links 22/03/2026: Slop Triggers Emergency at Meta, Energy Prices Rise Sharply
Links for the day
Links 22/03/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' in Legal Trouble (Plagiarism, Distortion, Misrepresentation); Facebook/Meta Kills Off "Horizon Worlds"
Links for the day
Racism Dressed Up as "Choice"
Racism is rampant at IBM
Probably an All-Time Record
Our investment in our own SSG is paying off
Your Site Should Implement Its Own Search (Before It's Too Late)
GAFAM was never trustworthy
Gemini Links 22/03/2026: LLM Slop Attacks USENET, Announcing Pig (New Game in Gemini Protocol)
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 21, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 21, 2026