THE British media had a leading/breaking story yesterday regarding the NHS (for the most part). Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn revealed some rather damning documents with focus on the NHS, but there's stuff in there that also pertains to patents (such as the above).

"Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn revealed some rather damning documents with focus on the NHS, but there's stuff in there that also pertains to patents (such as the above)."It is no secret that the UPC is an EU system, i.e. if Britain leaves the EU, it won't be able to participate and moreover UPC is strongly tied to the UK, so if the UK leaves the EU, then there's no UPC.

Ursula von der Leyen has just been blasted by the FFII's President, who told her in a reply that "the EPO does not respect the "rule of law", while you will outsource your patent granting for the Unitary Patent to this institution. How cynical are you?"

He has meanwhile told us (in IRC) about the press conference of Corbyn, highlighting what it tells us about patent policy. A high-profile pro-EU pundit wrote: "Going to read them - but first flick - there’s lots more than just pharma in here - implications for agriculture, “Geographical Indicators”... and eg here - US querying why the UK seeks to stay part of the (non-EU) [sic] Unified Patent Court - why would they do that? [...] Quite the leak this - the entire proceedings of the rather secretive UK-US Trade and Investment Working Group... body set up by May and Trump that started work in July 2017: 6 documents, hundreds of pages of official read outs, mostly not about Pharma..."

"Even access to generics (i.e. patents-related issues) would be directly impacted."It is not a leak per se, but Paul Waugh called it: "Secret documents summary from @jeremycorbyn NHS press conference..."

"Corbyn has revealed unredacted records of Johnson’s trade negotiations with the US," another person stated, and "they show: Our NHS is for sale Environmental, food and safety protections are up for grabs US corporations will be able to take our government to court This is a billionaire takeover."

Even access to generics (i.e. patents-related issues) would be directly impacted. As the high-profile (in Britain at least) Peston wrote: "Here UK lead negotiator in trade talks with US says US patent issues could be problematic for “NHS access to generic drugs (ie cheaper drugs)”. Negotiator says “it will be a key consideration going forward”. Which plainly means negotiator is anxious about this. It does not... [...] Most damaging charge made by @jeremycorbyn based on leaked trade-talk documents is that UK government is open to increasing patent length on drugs made by US companies. That would increase price of drugs paid by NHS. So @BorisJohnson has to say whether he would countenance that [...]" (source/context in [1, 2])

"It's easier to mobilise people for protests against NHS privatisation than to get them riled up over UPCA ratification."Thankfully, for the Tories, few in the public arena truly understand patent policy (lawyers and robber barons whom they work for prefer it that way). It's easier to mobilise people for protests against NHS privatisation than to get them riled up over UPCA ratification.

The UPC is designed to harm Europe and merely emboldens those who call the EU all sorts of things like "CIA project" (UPC is for rich and quite often American multinationals with their law firms, so it is an extension of a global class war). We know who stands to benefit from lowering of the patent bar. The legal barbwire is a form of protectionism by artificial means.

"We know who stands to benefit from lowering of the patent bar."European Patent Office (EPO) presidents like Campinos and Battistelli sought to advance software patents in Europe and other ridiculous patents by taking control of the legal process. Now they face obstacles and blowback (even from their own workers). We'll say more about this in our next post. ⬆