Bonum Certa Men Certa

Yesterday's Misleading News From Team UPC and Its Aspiring Management of the Unified Patent Court (UPC)

Alexander Ramsay, Bristows, and the UPC gold rush
Rumours said that Battistelli intended to pursue the top position in the UPC (reserved for a French person)



Summary: The Unified Patent Court (UPC) enthusiasts -- i.e. those looking to financially gain from it -- continue to wrestle with logic, manipulate words and misrepresent the law; yesterday we saw many law firms trying to make it sound as though the UPC is coming to the UK even though this isn't possible and UPC as a whole is likely already dead

Team UPC and EPO management (notably Battistelli and his chosen colleagues at the top) have long spread lies about the Unitary Patent or Unified Patent Court (UPC). This isn't entirely surprising because lying has become the norm in those circles. We'd like to take a moment to remark on belated coverage from patent law firms, which continue to twist words for the "greater good" which is their profits.



"...there's nothing in the paper that suggests 'unitary' patent participation, only aspiration to "explore" the possibility/prospect."Some UPC spin was posted yesterday by Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review, a site which champions the "Life Science" agenda (calling life itself a science to facilitate patents on life/nature); the British government admits the issue with UPC and then issues a paper which is instantaneously distorted by Team UPC, as one might expect. Well, there's nothing in the paper that suggests 'unitary' patent participation, only aspiration to "explore" the possibility/prospect. Now watch what this site made of it, citing a legal expert/firm:

Truscott noted that while it’s a relief to see IP specifically mentioned, there remains significant uncertainty around the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the unitary patent. The life sciences section of the UPC’s central division is planned to be based in London.

“The UK has ratified the UPC Agreement and intends to explore staying in the court and unitary patent system after the UK leaves the EU,” said the White Paper.

Whether this is possible will depend on the ability for the participants to agree to modify the existing agreement, said Truscott.

He added: “This could ultimately be beneficial if it were to allow for other non-EU countries to join, so that the UPC could perhaps ultimately act as the court for all contracting states to the European Patent Convention and provide a true one-stop shop for litigants.”

For Bacon, the UPC system would represent the most important change ever seen in the European patent landscape, and the continued involvement of the UK would be welcomed by the life sciences industry.


The "life sciences industry"? That's just a euphemism for an 'industry' that's pursuing patents on life -- something which is currently not legal in pertinent European nations. Speaking of this "life science/s" label, mind Patent Docs pushing this envelope again yesterday (by Bryan Helwig) and the same in Managing IP yesterday. "In-house counsel, private practice lawyers and scientists discussed life sciences advancements such as the move towards personalised medicines, at the Hogan Lovells Life Sciences Summit," Patrick Wingrove wrote.

"The "life sciences industry"? That's just a euphemism for an 'industry' that's pursuing patents on life -- something which is currently not legal in pertinent European nations."Team UPC hopes that UPC can miraculously expand patent scope overnight, enabling for example software patents and patents on life/nature in member states where these are currently illegal. They try to bypass national courts and national patent offices. It's pretty obvious.

Herbert Smith Freehills LLP's Mark Shillito, Laura Deacon and Peter FitzPatrick have also just written about the above. Quoting the relevant part:

Opinions vary on the likelihood of whether the UK could continue as part of the UPC and Unitary patent system post-Brexit. The Foreword to the White Paper by the Prime Minister states that the proposals in the White Paper would end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in the UK. It is not clear whether the UK would nevertheless accept the role of the European Court of Justice in respect of references from the UPC on matters of European law.


They cannot. They said so just a couple of weeks back. Novagraaf (another legal firm) said this yesterday:

On the former, it announced plans to establish its own GI scheme after exit; on the latter, it simply states that it ‘intends to explore’ staying in the Unified Patent Court and UP system after the UK leaves the EU (click here for more on the unitary patent).


The key part is "explore" or "intends to explore". This is not actually possible and the government knows it. But Bristows is now paying (we assume) that same site to push its lie that "UK confirms it will seek to remain in the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court after Brexit" (that word, "confirms" being the word of choice, has been common among UPC boosters).

"Team UPC hopes that UPC can miraculously expand patent scope overnight, enabling for example software patents and patents on life/nature in member states where these are currently illegal."Here is another new analysis from yesterday (there were about half a dozen yesterday alone) and a new comment from IP Kat, citing Article 23 EPC:

I think that you are slightly missing the point that I was trying to make about possible actions of the President of the UPC (Court of Appeal). My point was not that legal mechanisms exist that a "malign" President could validly exploit. Rather, it was that the mechanisms to counter a "malign" President that has overstepped the mark (ie contravened the rules) are unreliable, toothless and/or non-existent.

Ten years ago, and based upon Article 23 EPC, one could have made the case that there was "legally no risk that a judge, how irksome he might be, be removed from office by the President of the EPO". We all know how that worked out in practice.


It is meanwhile being reported that "UKIPO patent applications decline" (news headline) and this doesn't sound like a negative thing if patents are more selectively applied for, e.g. based on better quality/higher bar. To quote:

Patent applications made directly to the UK Intellectual Property Office (UKIPO) have seen a decline between 1995 and 2017.

According to a report on trends from the UKIPO, there was a decline in patent applications at the office, but applications filed at the European Patent Office (EPO) are continuing to rise, especially those filed at the EPO designating the UK.

The report notes that Brexit is a possible reason why applicants are seeking alternate routes.

Also highlighted, is the increase of international applications filed using the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Applicants of UK residency make up the greatest share of applications at UKIPO, although the share of applications from non-residents increased to 40 percent in 2017.


"UK trademark applications soar over 22-year period," another new headline (WIPR) said yesterday, so it's not as though UKIPO is running out of work. In fact, it claims to be hiring.

"It's passing all the powers to patent maximalists in the same way copyright maximalists strive to take total, complete control over the EU."Another article of interest was published yesterday by Allen & Overy LLP's Marjan Noor and James Fox under the headline "English Court of Appeal rejects the EPO’s “serious contemplation” test for anticipation by prior disclosure overlapping with later patent. This makes one wonder what will happen to confidence in European Patents:

In the case of Jushi Group v OCV [2018] EWCA Civ 1416, the Court of Appeal has considered the question of the relevant test to apply when assessing whether a prior disclosure of numerical ranges will anticipate a later claim to overlapping numerical ranges.

The Patent at issue relates to the composition of a type of glass which is capable of being formed into fibres. Claim 1 of the Patent specifies a list of constituents for the claimed glass, along with a range of percentages by weight for each constituent as a proportion of the whole.

A prior art patent called “Neely”, referred to in the description of the Patent, disclosed a glass with the same constituents and similarly specified the percentage by weight as a proportion of the whole. It was common ground that the range of each of seven of the constituents in Neely fell entirely within the ranges specified in the Patent for that same constituent, and the ranges for a further six constituents overlapped with them.


UPC is all about taking low-quality European Patents to court, fast-tracking potential sanctions (like embargo, raids) without hearings in the accused party's language, without proper chance of appeal in one's national courts, without assurance of independence for judges and so on. It's like DMCA takdowns. UPC is tarnishing the stated goals of the EU in the same sense that the "link tax" and "censorship machines" (copyright proposals) do. It's passing all the powers to patent maximalists in the same way copyright maximalists strive to take total, complete control over the EU. The copyright maximalists have thus far failed (the first round at least); so will patent maximalists.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Lovers and Haters
Always beware hate preachers and demagogues (or how they frame issues or whose fault they distract from)
Punching People Doesn't Work
It makes nobody any safer
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
 
Links 25/09/2025: French Unions Want Another Strike, Super Typhoon Ragasa Kills Many
Links for the day
Microsoft 'Secure Boot' and Shim as Barrier or Obstacle to New GNU/Linux Users Trying to Escape Microsoft
Just as intended all along
Focusing on What People Have in Common Instead of Killing and Cancelling One Another
Men and women of both "wings" stand to gain a lot by working together on common interests
'Cancel Culture' Isn't About Enforcing Ethics (and It's Done by People on the Right, Not "The Leftists")
Smarter folks would leave social control media
Russia's Attack on Europe (and NATO) Will Worsen Censorship and Corruption in Europe
Can we still debate issues that predate the invasion of Crimea?
Lawyers Should Permanently Lose Their Licence (and Worse) for Using Chatbots in Legal Work
They not only waste people's money and time. They pollute the literature with falsehoods. They commit perjury. [...] Brett Wilson LLP sent the Judge nearly 1,000 pages of material (mostly mine, copied without proper permission) shortly before a short Hearing, which lasted less than an hour
GAFAM and MATA (Mythical, Metaphor) as Explained by analognowhere.com
They're instruments of suppression that sponsor the oppressor
We've Already Mentioned Who Nowadays Funds Garrett's SLAPP Against Us (Not Garrett), Let's Examine Who Sponsored His Litigation Partner (Other Than Microsoft Salaries There's a Buddy of Bill Gates)
it's alleged that the Serial Strangler from Microsoft got money from him
Florian Müller: Using Software Patents to Attack Software Developers, Agitate Against Patent Reform
He also promotes attacks on the German Constitution and laws
Reliance on Typepad Seems to Have Doomed the Voice of Software Patents and Patent Maximalists in PatentDocs
Follow the money
UEFI 'Secure Boot' is Potential Mayhem to the Environment (Older and Leaner Distros Stop Working)
creating new problems, disguised as "solutions" to problems that do not exist
Sometimes 'Cancel Culture' Backfires Badly
There's no such thing as "too much" coverage
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 24, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Links 25/09/2025: Jimmy Kimmel Returns to Air (With Limitations) and London Stansted Airport Latest to Have Incident (Fire)
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, SPAM With Slop, and Google News Directs People to Read Slopfarms
why does Google News insist on still linking to prolific slopfarms?
Gemini Links 25/09/2025: New Game for Gemini Protocol, Eleven, and Network Solutions Woes
Links for the day
Look Ma, No "Cloud"
So far this year we've had an almost perfect uptime
Links 24/09/2025: Autism Blame-Shifting and Typhoon Ragasa Enters China
Links for the day
Buying From Oneself is Not Business Success
This isn't at all a joking matter even if you already laugh at the whole thing because your pension, savings etc. are tied to this scam at some level
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights