Source (original): Rospatent
THE MEDIA turns a blind eye to abuses at its own peril. Workers across Europe can see who covers important issues and who simply issues puff pieces and marketing. Case of point, from a few days ago, was this 'article' by Ozge Atilgan Karakulak and Selin Sinem Erciyas (Gun + Partners), who occasionally put puff pieces at IAM (part of IAM's business model). Search for news about the EPO and find stuff like this:
Ever since Turkey became a member to European Patent Convention (EPC), the enforcement or invalidity of the Turkish validation of a European Patent (EP), while proceedings before European Patent Office (EPO) are pending, has been a hot topic.
The owner of a EP is normally concerned with if and how the pending opposition/appeal proceedings before the EPO impacts the enforceability or validity of the national patent validated in Turkey.
The strength of a patent may seem questionable in an enforcement attempt at national level because of pending EPO proceedings, whereas the matter is much more complicated and risky if the patent owner is faced with an invalidation action at national level as well.
"...invalidations are about to become a lot more common, albeit the EPO already wages a war against the appeal boards, which mean that invalidations will be carried out in expensive court battles (i.e. not many, for costs are prohibitive)."EPO workers openly state that patent quality has declined, but EPO management is notorious for repeating lies over and over again, hoping that repetition will help such lies stick. IAM is the main supplier of such lies. As we noted a number of years ago, IAM was being paid by the PR agency of the EPO for its Unitary Patent propaganda -- something which continues to date and irks Spaniards like Francisco Moreno on Twitter. In relation to the Spanish political changes he bemoans IAM's latest spin, which we responded to about a day ago. Team UPC's promotion of SPCs (there's an agenda overlap) was noted here over the weekend and here comes IAM again, admitting that "uncertainty continues over unitary regime" but still promoting the SPC agenda.
But IAM's EPO lobbying goes further than this and was made rather apparent several hours ago, just as predicted half a day beforehand. It's about a so-called 'survey' of IAM -- an annual ritual of theirs. The survey does not even talk about patent quality but other things such as pendency. They are trying to make it 'come across' as "reader's choice" or "independent" -- a classic trick or a classic form of deception, constructed with particular outcomes in mind. Joff Wild has just claimed that "Europe soars" in his headline. Here's the relevant part:
Despite the controversy that has surrounded it in recent years, the EPO continues to garner by far the best approval ratings among the IP5 from IAM’s readers. As in the last two years, it ranked highest in perceptions of patent quality - significantly higher proportions of respondents regard its offering as excellent or very good than for any other office listed, with only a tiny minority regarding the quality as poor – 1% of those in operating companies.
epo.org link) with the following summary: "The EPO has for the seventh consecutive time been ranked number one among the world's five largest patent offices by users for the quality of its patents and services in Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) Magazine's latest annual benchmarking survey."
"They already corrupt media and academia, so this is loose change which helps obscure the message of actual EPO examiners."IAM is the propaganda department of the corrupt EPO, with equivalents in North Korea such as the “Working Party for Quality” (yes, they actually call it that). "EPO ranked No. 1 for quality and service in largest-ever @IAM_magazine survey," they said in Twitter, basing that only on one site that the EPO is paying (even if indirectly). The best lies money can buy? They already corrupt media and academia, so this is loose change which helps obscure the message of actual EPO examiners. ⬆