Bonum Certa Men Certa

Who Does the Legal System Really Serve or Favour in European Patent Disputes?

People like myself are being denied access to the underlying facts

Florian on Ericsson
Image credit: Florian Müller



Summary: People who oppose software patents are being denied access to the courts, the media and so on; the EPO keeps getting away with serving patent trolls, e.g. those that are connected to large companies such as Ericsson (as above)

THE existence of software patents in Europe is a threat to all programmers. Why are they being granted? It's illegal. The European Patent Office (EPO) has not had a scientist as President for over a decade now. António Campinos is a former banker, Battistelli is a politician and Brimelow is regarded or considered to be a public servant (vague term). This is a problem because it means that people with no clue are responsible for bad decisions, having perhaps been instructed by (or consulted) law firms, legal departments, and even patent trolls. They barely ever meet any scientists. It's like they don't care about the impact of patents on science and technology -- an impact which is rather intricate.



"It’s like they don’t care about the impact of patents on science and technology — an impact which is rather intricate."Yesterday, responding to this new post that said "IP [sic] has become ever more concentrated into the hands of capitalism’s high temple – the corporation," Australian attorney Mark Summerfield said: "Not only is this true, it is possible to track the transition historically."

He added the following, linking to his blog:

There is data on this in Australia, that I think may be unique globally. Last year I worked with IP Australia to generate data (using a machine learning system) going back over 100 years distinguishing between corporate and individual applicants. The results show a clear transition during the period between the first and second world wars, between dominance of individual applicants (i.e. the inventor as patentee) and corporate applicants (i.e. the employer as patentee).

I think that this data is fascinating, and I would love to see it linked to economic or sociological research. However, there does not seem to have been much interest in this to date.

An article presenting this data (with links to the source) can be found on my blog: https://blog.patentology.com.au/2018/05/new-data-released-by-ip-australia.html


This is a real problem. The patent system has been rigged.

Yesterday, for example, a famous patent blogger (Florian) wrote: "An Ericsson privateer named #OptisWireless opposed a petition I filed last year for access to a Federal Patent Court case file, arguing that I'm "a blogger known for positions critical of the #patent system." Court ruled in favor of my petition: screenshot #privateering #patents" (screenshot at the top).

Ericsson keeps a bunch of these patent trolls around. We wrote about these before. I happen to know that Florian attempted to crack open some more 'worm jars' (secret or scarcely-explored patent disputes in his country) only to be fought by corporate lawyers and judges, who are terrified by people like us, the critics and sceptics. No transparency. Florian had sent me some legal documents to show reactions. It would be jaw-dropping it I didn't already know that it is a system of powerful people; it's a system that discriminates against 'poor' 'activists', unlike greedy and monopoly-centric corporations. The above just serves to show what we patent realists face in a court of law.

Speaking of Ericsson, watch how the patent trolls' lobby (literally funded by trolls), a site called IAM, is publishing Ericsson propaganda (composed by Ericsson itself). They promote a large thicket of bogus patents, mostly software patents, wrapped up using buzzwords such as "IoT" (published Monday at 2PM). Ericsson tries to distance itself from the extortion, so it uses trolls in various parts of Europe to bully just about everyone, even Chinese companies. It's a protection racket.

Where does the EPO stand on all this? Well, yesterday it promoted software patents again, using hype waves as usual. "Over 300 participants from around the world attended our conference on #patentingblockchain," it said.

Benjamin Henrion looked at the cited document [PDF] and quoted "Klaus Haft, attorney-at-law at Hoyng Rokh Monegier, added that open source does not mean patent-free #blockchain #swpats …"

Software patents and "open source" (Free/libre software) can never coexist and they know it. IBM-centric and Microsoft-connected front groups lie to us about it.

Meanwhile, the EPO is also intentionally conflating inventions with patents. It does so every single day (almost) and yesterday it wrote: "This guide is intended to help you avoid many of the common mistakes associated with inventions" (they mean patents).

Words like "inventions" are commonly being misused by these people. Here is an example from yesterday (article titled "Pam Bryer: Scots have never lost the urge to invent"). The corporate media is really that awful* and it is not being composed by journalists.

The Scotsman is regularly used for patent propaganda (marketing/sales as "news"), usually from Marks & Clerk LLP. This includes software patents promotion and lawyers' lies about UPC prospects. We covered that before and named The Scotsman as a culprit. Generally, this so-called 'news' paper may be good in other sections, but by posting such crap it does its reputation a great disservice. In this case, patent extremists smear Scotland to cause Scots to come to their employer, Marks & Clerk LLP, and ask for patents (thinking it's the same as inventions). Just look at the insulting headline. It's worth noting that only at the very end the disclosure comes: "Pam Bryer is a patent attorney for Marks & Clerk LLP" (so it is marketing and should be labeled as such).

Novagraaf's Philippe Vigand has meanwhile written about the EPO getting another chance to eliminate software for good. "The EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal is to consider the patentability of computer-implemented inventions in the context of appeal T0489/14," he wrote. Will he mention that the appeals board lacks independence and may therefore not be able to judge impartially? An issue that the judges themselves keep complaining about? _____ * We've just noted the lack of coverage about EPO corruption. Due to an 'economic' nature of this greedy society and publication 'industry', a lot of so-called 'news' these days is just "tweets", ads, computer-generated crap, self-promotional nonsense and intentional falsehoods/fabrications with agenda in mind. Really bad state of affairs. Honesty may be dead.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
 
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
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
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
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
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
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
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: Intangible Stuff and Slop Issues
Links for the day
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part I: Complaints to IRS or USDOJ Needed
If enough people do it, this will be more effective, more so if people who are based in the US do it
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbying and the OSI's Status at Stake
At the end we plan to summarise all the issues in one very long article
Breaking Into Other People's Devices Without Authorisation Isn't "Funny" or "Research"
“Chaos was the law of nature; order was the dream of man.”
The Issue Isn't the Internet, the Issue is How People Are Taught to Use or Misuse It
The Web is circling down the drain. The Internet is not.
A Healed Reputation of a Movement's Leader and His Robust Message
The more aggressively you push against resistors, the more credibility they will gain
Links 26/05/2025: Deletions from Microsoft's GitHub, Telegram Blocked in Vietnam
Links for the day
Linux Released Last Night and There's Already LLM Slop With Slop Images
BetaNoise does not seem to mind this anymore
Links 26/05/2025: Walmart Layoffs and DRM Dumpster Fire ('Old' Fire TV Devices Lose Netflix Access)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/05/2025: USB Camera Viewer and Fantasy Life
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 25, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 25, 2025