Last year: It Wasn't Judges With Weapons in Their Office, It Was Benoît Battistelli Who Brought Firearms to the European Patent Office (EPO)
Summary: Lawlessness prevails at Europe's second-largest institution as the managers (i.e. people with connections, not skills, some with notorious military background) try to suppress both science and justice (much like the Trump administration across the ocean); this has become a parasites' paradise and a bottomless pit for graft (theft)
THOSE who follow our series about Thierry Breton will be very well aware that Breton accomplished most things because of people who knew rather than things he knew. He left a destructive tail behind him (many dead people, too) and there are lots of parallels/overlaps with the EPO, as we noted in part 17 yesterday.
"Not many people were enraged; sites/sides owned and controlled by patent maximalists viewed Battistelli as a liability and were happy to accept just about anyone but Battistelli (even if it's another Battistelli)."Battistelli managed to rig the process and spurn the judge (Cuno Tarfusser) who wanted to become President of the European Patent Office (EPO), instead 'fixing' the appointment process for a longtime friend and compatriot, António Campinos. Not many people were enraged; sites/sides owned and controlled by patent maximalists viewed Battistelli as a liability and were happy to accept just about anyone but Battistelli (even if it's another Battistelli).
"EPO management carries on as if nothing happened."Things have not changed at the EPO and a strike is likely imminent (5 out of 6 workers voted in favour a couple of days ago). We are grateful to each courageous person -- usually examiner -- who votes for a strike. The EPO needs to be fixed to avoid total collapse and great economic harm to Europe (the US is a cautionary tale in this regard).
EPO management carries on as if nothing happened. A day after the vote for a strike it was 'business as usual' and retweeted by EPO on Friday was this UK-IPO tweet that said: "Come and join us and the @EPOorg at the @TheCIPA in #London on 5 or 6 Dec. We will be providing an update on our latest and upcoming online service developments."
"All they want is litigation, litigation and more litigation."So EPO management is once again mingling with patent and litigation zealots instead of scientists. CIPA is a very integral part of Team UPC, lobbying our politicians by endlessly lying to them. All they want is litigation, litigation and more litigation.
There's meanwhile that rekindled 'debate' (fake news) about UPC, manufactured by CIPA's friends at Managing IP. Don't fall for it. They're pestering judges in Germany, as usual. These people couldn't care any less about the law and about the Constitution. They'd burn the Magna Carta on Bonfire Night if they could.
"The latter two men are both parked elsewhere at the moment; one heads a law school (yes, a criminal heading a law school!), whereas the second is meanwhile creating a private firm in Zagreb."The UPC will never exist, but in the meantime the Office relies on a panel of terrified judges, whose colleague was driven close to insanity after years of bullying by Battistelli and his Croatian Mafioso. The latter two men are both parked elsewhere at the moment; one heads a law school (yes, a criminal heading a law school!), whereas the second is meanwhile creating a private firm in Zagreb. What they've made of the EPO's tribunal is a sordid mess in Haar. The judges there have repeatedly complained -- even in public -- that they lack autonomy/independence. But their decisions, likely made in violation of the EPC (not the judges' fault!), are still being adopted as de facto EPO practice. Just promoted in Mondaq (shortly before the weekend) was this article by HGF Limited (law firm) regarding a Technical Board Of Appeal decision:
Inherency is not relevant to the novelty of a "purpose-limited product claim" filed in accordance with Article 54(5) EPC.
The EPO's Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.09 in T0694/16 has clarified that claims to purposively selected patients for treatment with a known drug is novel over the prior art treatment of a broader and/or overlapping patient group with the same drug.
If there is a functional relationship between one or more biomarkers and responsiveness to treatment with a drug, and the claim defines the drug for use in the treatment of a patient defined by said biomarkers, then the presence of this functional relationship confirms that the purposive selection of the patients is an essential technical feature qualifying the claim(s), and this must be taken into account when assessing novelty.
Labelling the co-applicants approach an EPO approach appears somewhat misleading. Requiring that co-owners of the priority right exercise their right in common has been widespread practice in the member states to the Paris Convention outside the US and is present practice in the EPC Contracting States as exemplified by the recent decisions in the UK HTC v Gemalto , [2013] EWHC 1876 (Pat), at pt. 131 f., confirming Edvards v Cook, [2009] EWHC 1304 (Pat), at pt. 99, and in Germany, BGH – Drahtloses Kommunikationsnetz, GRUR 2019, 271, at pt. 60ff. The co-applicants approach is an expression of the general legal principle that jointly owned rights have to be exercised in common. It protects the co-owner of the priority right against the exploitation of this right without his participation.