Summary: The 'church' of UPC can spread all the lies it wants; the downside is, its credibility has been exhausted and the UPC is still dead

I HAVE BEEN keeping abreast of the Unitary Patent or Unified Patent Court (UPC) since well before it was known as UPC. This monster has been around for nearly a decade and a half, but we only saw its shadow. Over the past couple of days, on at least 3 occasions, Benjamin Henrion presented evidence that the UPC is, among other things, a Trojan horse for software patents in Europe (not just at the European Patent Office (EPO) but also the courts). That's hardly surprising and we've been talking about it since before António Campinos and Battistelli were EPO presidents (and before it was known as "uni" anything; "community" and "EU" were common names back then).

Knowing that the USPTO now faces pressure from 35 U.S.C. ۤ 101, the EPO hopes to ram the UPC down our throats and then spread illegal practices to the US (it openly speaks about this in position papers!). So there's more at stake than Europe's system alone.

"There are few exceptions and one noble person even submitted a constitutional complaint about it in Germany (he used to work for a Team UPC firm)."The patent 'industry' cannot stop for a moment to reflect, self-assess, and -- God forbid! -- be honest. There are few exceptions and one noble person even submitted a constitutional complaint about it in Germany (he used to work for a Team UPC firm). We still see some false predictions based on the Team UPC pressure groups/rumour mills.

Lexology promoted one earlier this week, relaying these words of Herbert Smith Freehills LLP's Rachel Montagnon. The opening paragraph alone: (there's lots more)

As those with an interest in patents will be aware, the Unified Patent Court is still not a reality. The final ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement (“UPCA”) required for the agreement to come into effect, is that of Germany (over 13 states having ratified including the UK and France, which, along with Germany, were the three states which were required to have ratified along with at least ten more, before the UPCA could come into force – see here for ratification details). Without the UPC established to enforce them, unitary patents cannot be granted. Germany’s ratification has yet to be received.

Yet? Notice the arrogant assumption -- all this because of some old interview that was condemned [1, 2, 3]. A month later?

We've meanwhile learned from Henrion that "with the UK leaving [the EU], if they want to get back in the UPC, there is some jurisprudence called AETR which says that CJEU is competent for deals made with non-EU countries, so if they insist on keeping the UK inside the UPC, the patent community will freak out... because the UK patent community always asked to keep the CJEU at bay..."

"This whole affair -- lots and lots of years of false predictions from Team UPC -- helped reveal their true nature."There's further information related to that (the patent microcosm's intentions and strategy), but we keep it private for now. We may come back to this some time in the near or distant future.

This whole affair -- lots and lots of years of false predictions from Team UPC -- helped reveal their true nature. They're liars (lying to us and to our politicians, as means of lobbying). They also digitally bully people into expressing opinions on cases that are ongoing and should be kept confidential (has anyone wondered why the complaint in German was kept private for so long?). The way we see it, Team UPC is a mob with expensive clothes. They may look "sharp" and "smart", but their coup evidently failed and they ran out of time. Reports from the complainant have served to reinforce suspicions of entryism inside high German courts. And again, if true, what does that tell us about Team UPC? He must be glad he abandoned that bunch. Better to live in fear, uncertainty and isolation (which ostracising a person/former colleague entails) than to live a lie, to spread a lie, to betray the European public. This man became to Team UPC what Galileo Galilei became to a church of superstition. Hence the Galileo Galilei photo at the top. ⬆