Bonum Certa Men Certa

Fake Software Patents, Patent Trolls and Assault on Generic Medicine in Europe



Now that the European Patent Convention is effectively abolished (EPO President António Campinos does not obey it) the future is grim

EPO escalation



Summary: The state of the European patent system is starting to resemble that of the United States about a decade ago; the status quo is seriously detrimental to all except lawyers and aggressors (at the expense of public health, science and technology)

THE escalation or the escalating severity of EPO problems isn't too hard to see; without any sense of shame, for instance, the patent microcosm is promoting illegal software patents (not allowed in Europe) in private (echo chamber event where no dissenting views are permitted/invited). As revealed in their tweets (with photos): "Huge thank you to @Copytwilight, Ana Andrijevic, @MichelJaccard, @bastianbest and @PHeckeler for sharing their views this afternoon at the "AI & Intellectual Property" track @appliedmldays."



Watchtroll, similarly, promotes software patents 'dressed up' as "AI" and even as "Blockchain". "Techniques for Patenting Blockchain in Europe, the United States, China and Japan" is the latest output from this site, which acts more or less as a front for patent trolls.

"This system is systematically discriminatory (against the small)."Europe has attracted quite an influx of such trolls, as measured by the number of cases filed, especially in Germany.

"Trolls in Dusseldorf, the Eastern District of Europe. At least VW is a large company, they can afford litigation, which is not the case for most of us, small companies," Benjamin Henrion wrote, citing a report from Mathieu Klos about the patent trolls infestation in Europe. The gist of it:

Germany's largest carmaker Volkswagen faces the next lawsuit from an non-practicing [troll] entity. Dutch company Innovative Foundry Technologies filed an infringement suit against VW, Ford and Texas Instuments at the Regional Court Düsseldorf before Christmas. The patent covers a special chip manufactured by Texas Instruments that VW and Ford install in the infotainment modules of their cars.


There probably would be out-of-court settlements if the targeted companies were smaller. This system is systematically discriminatory (against the small). As we noted earlier this month (see "The EPO’s Low Patent Quality Can Kill the European Software Industry and Kill People Too" and what we wrote yesterday about cancer patients), poor people literally die because of patents like these. Yesterday Selin Sinem Erciyas (Gün + Partners) wrote in IAM (blog of patent trolls) about a Turkish generic company coming under attack from likely bogus European Patents granted by examiners under pressure and in a rush. Now they're reassessing (belatedly). In her own words:

A Turkish generic company filed an invalidation action against a leading US pharmaceutical originator company in Turkey and requested the invalidation of its patent – a Turkish validation of a European patent granted by the EPO. The opposition proceedings were still pending before the EPO at the filing date of the invalidation action in Turkey. The patent owner subsequently requested a delay of the national proceedings, stating that the patent claims could still be amended during the opposition and appeal proceedings before the EPO.


Well, opposition and appeal proceedings can be slow and overburdened. The number of pending appeals, for example, is said to have skyrocketed to around 10,000. This is insane. Team Battistelli planned to just get rid of these appeal proceedings, replacing the Boards of Appeal (BoA) with the UPC. Tom Lorkin of Dehns (Team UPC) has just remarked on the dependent and afraid BoA trying to determine patent scope while illicitly ruled and intimidated by abusive EPO management, even in gross defiance of the EPC that governs this entire framework. Lorkin mentions T990/96 and T1085/13, which can in turn relate to medicine, too. To quote:

In what may come as a welcome departure from existing practice, an EPO board of appeal in decision T1085/13 has clarified the conditions under which patents can be granted for known compounds at higher grades of purity.

A leading case concerning purity of materials has been T990/96 where it was held that a document disclosing a compound for the first time ordinarily makes the compound available in all desired grades of purity. EPO practice has been to view the earlier disclosure as novelty destroying to a later claim in which the same compound is claimed at a higher purity. To take an example, a document discloses a new dye, which is manufactured in 90% purity. The position based on T990/96 is to assume that that dye can be purified to all levels of purity by conventional methods and so is made available to the public in all desired grades of purity. Consequently, a later application claiming that dye in 95+% purity would lack novelty over the earlier disclosure.


This EPO board of appeal is certainly aware that it enjoys no independence from the rogue management of the Office; so what can be made of its decisions? The EPO boards of appeal generally complain about this repeatedly.

"Who benefit from this? Certainly not Europe."What we're seeing more evidence of, over time, is the impact of the Battistelli era; patent trolls, software patents, invalidation of European Patents in courts and lack of access to life-saving medicine. Who benefit from this? Certainly not Europe.

Recent Techrights' Posts

People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
 
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats