Invalid Patents (IPs) or European Patents (EPs)? Let the spin begin...

'Free' propaganda

Summary: Appalling quality of reporting and truly awful bias in the media, primarily owing to the fact that it is dominated/manned not by actual reporters but the firms looking to patent life itself; they use their lawyers and operatives who are literally funded by these lawyers (wearing "journalist" badges to mislead)

TODAY'S European Patent Office (EPO) repeats all the same mistakes made by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which celebrates reduced patent quality this week (it's all over the news and in our Daily Links too).

Non-scientists like António Campinos and Battistelli want us to believe that "success" means more patents and vice versa, neglecting -- perhaps intentionally -- to take account of what patents actually are. Iancu flagrantly snubs 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 and Campinos happily violates the EPC when he lobbies judges to allow software patents in Europe.

"When they say "inventions in the field of AI" they mean algorithms. They mean code with some logic in it."World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR), a mouthpiece of the EPO (it wasn't always like that, but staff changed), has just parroted the puff piece of Campinos, Iancu and others. They're pushing the "hey hi" (AI) nonsense. To quote: "The aim is to pinpoint which areas can most benefit from joint IP5 responses, ranging from employing AI to improve the patent grant process, to applying the patentability requirements to inventions in the field of AI, and handling applications for inventions created by machines."

When they say "inventions in the field of AI" they mean algorithms. They mean code with some logic in it.

But let's brush aside the whole controversy about those abstract patents and focus on what happened in Munich Haar last week. Many EPO patents that had been illegally granted on nature and life came under scrutiny. A large portion of these patents and all CRISPR ones have just been rendered worthless and the EPO still says nothing about it. It is a lying institution that deserves no respect.

Did it speak about it yesterday? Nope. Instead this: "Want to know what can be patented in #biotech? Join us for this event in Zurich" (it did the same around the time of the above decision).

So the EPO is happy to lie when it needs to distract from its law-breaking. When law-breaking becomes more visible the EPO says nothing. As we noted earlier this week, this CRISPR patent battle was only covered by monopolists and their mouthpieces. There has been virtually no journalism about this. Quickly came IAM out of the gate, with its Life [sic] sciences [sic] reporter [sic] Adam Houldsworth, basically a lobbyist for the monopolisers of life and nature (they pay him for it).

Then there was BioNews (UK), where Dr Yvonne Collins wrote:

The European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it will uphold an earlier ruling to retract a key CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing patent held by the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Massachusetts.

The EPO Board of Appeal reversed its earlier decision to refer the case to a higher panel, and stated that it would uphold the 2018 ruling of the EPO's Opposition Division to cancel the Broad Institute's patent for failing to prove novelty and a valid priority claim.

The EPO panel concluded that:

'This prior art became relevant because the opposition division did not acknowledge the patentee's claim to priority from a US provisional application naming more applicants than the subsequent PCT application [Patent Cooperation Treaty application- this is the application that was made to the EPO] from which [the patent] is derived. Since the omitted applicant had not transferred his rights to the applicants of the PCT application the priority claim was considered invalid.'

Mondaq, a propaganda outlet of law firms (connected to IAM), is still posting nothing balanced at all. Aside from this latest litigation jingoism from Francois Pochart, Elodie Bardon and Lionel Martin (August Debouzy) it posted "Broad's CRISPR/Cas9 Patent EP2771468 Revoked By The European Patent Office" by Lisa A. Haile. Check affiliation. To quote:

In the ongoing CRISPR patent battle, after four days of oral arguments, it was announced today that the European Patent Office's (EPO) Technical Board of Appeal (Board) upheld the earlier EPO Opposition Division ruling from January 2018, stating that Broad Institute's European patent EP2771468 is not novel and therefore fully revoked.

The Board confirmed the prior decision, finding that all claims of the Broad Institute's patent for gene editing were invalid because the Broad Institute was not entitled to its earliest priority dates and therefore the claims lacked novelty in light of prior art. Thus, all claims of the Broad Institute's patent remain fully revoked and the Opposition Division's decision to revoke the patent is now final.

Where are the non-lawyers? This whole thing was mentioned by almost no scientists. The case was followed closely and subjectively by an attorney from AstraZeneca at IP Kat and yesterday we saw this article about AstraZeneca leveraging dubious European Patents against generics:

AstraZeneca is the holder of European Patents EP1250138 (EP'138) and EP2266573 (EP'573), which claim an intramuscular formulation of fulvestrant for the treatment of breast cancer. EP'573 is a divisional of EP'138 and both patents will expire on 8 January 2021.

AstraZeneca is also the holder of Patent EP1272195 (EP'195), which claims the use of fulvestrant for the treatment of a sub-type of breast cancer patients. This patent expires on 2 April 2021.

In July 2017 AstraZeneca sued Teva for alleged infringement of the formulation patents EP'138 and EP'573. It also requested and was granted an ex parte preliminary injunction. In January 2018 AstraZeneca sued ratiopharm for infringement of the same patents, plus use patent EP'195.

In parallel, in May 2017 the European Patent Office (EPO) Opposition Division revoked the divisional EP'573 due to lack of inventive step; AstraZeneca's subsequent appeal was pending.

We're still trying hard to find an actual investigation of what's at stake, but it's Googlebombed to death by lawyers of monopolists striving to 'own' all lives and nature. Misfiled under "European Union" was this piece by Christopher Wilkins (Dehns, Team UPC) entitled "CRISPR Patent Portfolio Edited: The Broad Institute Has Lost Its Appeal On A Key CRISPR Patent In Europe..."

"As I have discussed previously here," he said in a blindly promotional fashion, "CRISPR-based techniques have revolutionized the field of gene editing in recent years. The Broad Institute is at the forefront of this technology and holds many of the original patents. However, the validity of some of those patents has been challenged at the European Patent Office (EPO) and developments this week are a blow to the Broad Institute's patent coverage in Europe."

So what? Are they your client? Or similar to them?

Speaking of the misfiling under "European Union", this morning Benjamin Henrion wrote: "Still no answer on why the EPO, who will grant the Unitary Patent, is still not following the "rule of law" principle, and cannot be taken to court for maladministration."

How come the EU's rules are being ignored by the EPO? Need it be mentioned that the Unitary Patent is an EU system?

Can the EPO persist in this existence without any oversight whatsoever? This morning the EPO tweeted about its close connections to the EUIPO (EU), but later they tell us that the EPO has nothing to do with the EU.

It might also not help the EPO that the title "SeaTwirl Gets EU Patent" has just been published (along with "European Patent Office Nods to SeaTwirl"). Too many still think that EPO is EU (even applicants and journalists). The EU had already said "no" to such patents (patents like CRISPR) a long time ago, including last summer, but the EPO carried on ignoring it. ⬆