Summary: The media is filled with UPC misinformation/disinformation no more credible than 'tweets' or 'troll farms' (it's the agenda that counts, not the accuracy or underlying facts)

THE UPC is dead and good riddance to it. One can easily tell who it's for based on who's lobbying for it and lying about it (to push it through and demonise resistance).

Yesterday the FFII's President was quoting from Kluwer's response, "UPC: Judges in the morning, barristers in the afternoon..."

There are many technical and legal issues associated with the UPC. That's why constitutional complaints exist (and aren't being dismissed even 3 years later).

As we've said from the start, the death of the UPC would be accompanied by 'military-grade' propaganda. The liars would become more vocal and the lies ever more hilarious. The liars have become laughing stocks even in the legal community and several Bristows workers who spent years lying about the UPC recently left. Good riddance to them too...

Liar in Chief Alexander Ramsay is next to go. His job is obsolete now, unless he wants to reinvent himself as an undertaker ("preparatory" as in embalming). How are those robes?

Rich Pinckney of Bristows has nothing left to say, so he's just copy-pasting from the Liar in Chief Alexander Ramsay. Nice copy-paste you got there, Mr. Pinckney: "In light of last week’s UPC news on the UK’s position (reported here), the UPC Preparatory Committee has today published here the following message from its Chair, Alexander Ramsay: “Following the UK government’s decision not to pursue remaining in the Unified Patent Court and in the Unitary Patent, work on the implementation of the Unified Patent Court continues. Once Germany will be in a position to ratify the UPC Agreement and the Protocol on the Provisional Application, arrangements will be made to deal with the practical implications of the UK‘s departure. These will be published in due course.”"

"Welcome to Team UPC of 2020. It's a chain of letters containing nothing but lies."So one liar quotes another as if to disclaim or rid oneself from responsibility for these lies.

"Trump said..."

"Xi said..."

Welcome to Team UPC of 2020. It's a chain of letters containing nothing but lies.

And holy crap, look at this prank! JUVE continues to print lies as headlines for Team UPC and Alexander Ramsay.

Well done, JUVE, you are now officially a compromised publication -- the complete opposite of what you used to be.

When can you be labeled a lying tabloid?

Mathieu Klos amplified these lies when he tweeted: "We don't expect major disruption to the UPC," says Alexander Ramsay, chair of its Preparatory Committee, following the announcement of UK withdrawal. JUVE Patent caught up with Ramsay to see if he's still optimistic for the UPC's future. Full interview..."

"Well done, JUVE, you are now officially a compromised publication -- the complete opposite of what you used to be."So they don't fact-check. They just print and reprint lies, even with lies as headlines!

Amy Sandys does it again. Is this journalism or vandalism?

Shame on you, JUVE. Shame on you.

I miss the old JUVE, the JUVE that cared about facts and actually exposed or (un)covered EPO abuses.

Has the business model changed?

Anyway, JUVE isn't the sole culprit. One might say that it's merely the echo of the litigation industry (neither science nor jurists).

Over at Lexology, for instance, Mayer Brown's Christoph J. Crützen, Mark A. Prinsley, Oliver Yaros and Ulrich Worm have just amplified their article entitled "UK confirms that it will not become a member of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court" (well, there's no Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court... it's dead. You cannot participate in things that do not exist!)

Here's what they say:

It is currently unclear how the UK government's decision will impact the implementation of the UPC, particularly given the UK's involvement in the UPC project to date. Such involvement includes the UK (alongside Germany and France) being one of three signatories whose ratification was required for the UPC to come into force. Likewise, a central division of the UPC was to be located in London and was set to host patent disputes concentrated on the life sciences sector.

Wait... set to host? That's ignoring so many issues/obstacles to that, even other than Brexit...

But the litigation people carry on telling that this is merely a delay, a slight inconvenience to their agenda.

Also in Lexology and in its own site, Novagraaf is acting as if UPC already exists (it does not). It will never exist. UPC propaganda in FAQ form?

Here's one part of it:

Companies can avoid using the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court altogether by opting instead to file a national application (or to opt-out of the UPC system when filing and validating an EP application) in the individual European countries of their choice. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to both options. For example, depending on the countries selected, national filings can be more costly (e.g. because of translation requirements). In comparison, EP and/or Unitary Patent application can be filed in English, and no translations are required until grant.

Notice how bad this advice seems; the readers are led to believe that UPC already exists!

Novagraaf has also just published "UK confirms withdrawal from the Unitary Patent" (and a lot more than that).

Withdrawal from something that does not exist? Not only was this promoted for a fee; the original says:

Despite fears that Brexit would halt negotiations, the UK ratified the Unified Patent Court (UPC) agreement in April 2018. At the time, this was considered an important milestone, as the UK was one of three mandatory signatories required for the agreement to come into force. The announcement last week that the UK is withdrawing from the system could represent the end of the line for the UPC, which is also waiting on the outcome of a challenge in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court.

The outcome? It barely even matters anymore. Germany is not going to ratify. The British ratification is now moot. This leaves only France, one of three nations that must ratify. So UPC is perpetually dead. It's finished. They might rename and start something similar in the future (a campaign without the UK), but that's not UPC anymore...

Managing IP, a megaphone of chronic liars at the EPO, is still propping up or squeezing its love affair with Campinos in London. The person responsible for the puff piece wrote: "EPO President Antonio Campinos tells @ManagingIP International Patent Forum thats it’s “a great pity” that the UK will not seek to be a part of the UPC. However he insists the UPC can still work and be an attractive system. [...] Campinos: “Some will say it’s a blow but is it the decisive blow? No.” He adds that with the political will and effort there are “1,000 ways to make it work.”

1,000 ways [citation needed]...

"Not at all appropriate for media to be this close to [the] EPO unless it's not really media but [a] peripheral PR department," I've told him after he again promoted the "Full story on Campinos's #UPC comments..."

"Germany is not going to ratify. The British ratification is now moot. This leaves only France, one of three nations that must ratify."We've meanwhile stumbled upon some other new nonsense from Team UPC. "The European Commission, via its IP Helpdesk," one of them wrote, "seems to acknowledge the news reported by ⁦ @IAM_magazine⁩ that UK will not participate in #UPC. http://www.iprhelpdesk.eu/news/uk-will-not-participate-unified-patent-court-system …"

This comes from a person who's rude to the judges, just like the EPO's management. Another new tweet says "UPC DE constitutional complaint, as of 2nd half of Feb 2020: „[The Court] expects a ruling in case 2 BvR 739/17, concerning the complaint against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement ‘within the next few months’. An FCC spokesman has declared this [...].“

He's citing something seemingly irrelevant, in fact citing an old Kluwer (Team UPC) tweet, predating the final blow to UPC (the UK's announcement)! How convenient....

This is what he cites: "UPDATE: Ruling of German Federal Constitutional Court in case 2 BvR 739/17, concerning German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, expected ‘within the next few months’..." (Brexit and the latest announcement can delay this further).

So again we see subtle lies. People now cite something from last month, which also refutes Managing IP's claims that we can expect a decision by this month's end.

The FFII's President recalls and quotes: "UPC: Poland and the Czech Republic backed out because the UP and UPC system turned out to incur high economic costs, rather than benefits..."

"It's not hard to guess which side litigators are on. They're with the liars.""Team UPC never or rarely brings that up," I responded. "It might scare away those whom they lie to."

They still pretend that if the FCC in Germany dismisses the complaint, then all will be rosy. But the government in Berlin already stated that it would not ratify in light of Brexit and the latest situation. Team UPC is now hanging onto outdated barriers.

It's not hard to guess which side litigators are on. They're with the liars.

"Progress towards the Unitary Patent System has been delayed" is a quote we saw this morning in Open Access Government.

Nope.

Not delayed.

It's dead.

Stop spreading lies in the media...

Here's the whole thing in context:

As well as taking steps to facilitate AV-related innovation activity and prepare the way for driverless motoring, many EU member states have simplified the process of securing patent protection for new inventions.

The planned introduction of a pan-European Unitary Patent System, which the UK is already signed up to regardless of what happens with Brexit, promises to simplify the patent system considerably. Under the new system, businesses will be able to apply for a single Unitary Patent, spanning all participating countries of the EU, without the need to validate the patent at the jurisdictional level. For innovators of AV-related technologies, the new system could provide a cost-effective way to secure commercial protection across the EU, allowing time for markets and regulatory environments to continue to evolve.

Progress towards the Unitary Patent System has been delayed due to Brexit and a constitutional challenge in Germany. However, once these hurdles are overcome, the newly-harmonised system should bring benefits for European innovators and help to attract investment.

Among those set to benefit most from the incoming changes to the patent system are innovators in dynamic or evolving markets, such as the AV industry. A single renewal fee will be payable annually on each Unitary Patent, which will be equivalent to the current cost of renewal fees in the ‘top four’ European countries – UK, Germany, France and Holland.

Under the current system, once a European patent is granted, the patent owner will normally validate it in just a handful of EU countries. By contrast, with a new Unitary Patent, innovators will have the potential in time to cover 26 of the 27 member states for a similar cost. The coverage provided in these ‘bonus’ countries could deliver unexpected benefits to some companies, particularly if there is uncertainty about where market opportunities could arise in the future due to the evolving regulatory and technological landscape.

This is wrong; whoever wrote this certainly hasn't been keeping up with the news (or is intentionally ignoring the news).

Pro-UPC law firms keep reposting their stuff in more sites (e.g. JD Supra for this article we took note of yesterday) and it's hard to keep abreast of all this misinformation due to its sheer volume.

They bombard everything, everywhere with misleading 'information' or 'advice'.

Here in Mondaq Herbert Smith Freehills has just published "UK Will Not Be A Part Of The UPC – Government Confirms" (well, there's no UPC anyway).

"They bombard everything, everywhere with misleading 'information' or 'advice'."To quote: "The UK Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed (27.02.20) that the UK will not be participating in the UPC system saying: “Participating in a court that applies EU law and bound by the CJEU is inconsistent with our aims of becoming an independent self-governing nation.” Perhaps not surprising, given the wider signs emerging from Downing Street of late and whilst it may be a negotiating tactic, we wouldn’t bet on it. It will be interesting now to see what happens next with the UPC project, post this UK government announcement. All eyes will now turn to Germany and the approach they intend to take. What is certainly clear is that the UPC will be less attractive to business without the UK’s participation in it."

Well, there's no UPC. So that's kind of a pointless statement, isn't it?

Mondaq has also just republished for J A Kemp LLP, which pretends this is about non-participation rather than the whole UPC collapsing (it cannot exist without this participation of the UK). To quote:

Following publication of the UK Government's paper relating to the future relationship of the UK with the EU, a government spokesperson has confirmed that the UK will "not be seeking involvement in the UP/UPC system".

The UP/UPC system is an EU initiative to establish a Unitary Patent (UP) having unitary effect throughout the EU member states, and to establish the Unified Patent Court (UPC) to hear disputes relating to the Unitary Patent, and also relating to European patents having effect in the EU member states.

Last but not least, just to remind readers how corrupt the media has become, watch this 'prank' from something called "Scottish Legal News". Is it even Scottish? It seems to us like this is a fake news site with similar for "Irish" ("Irish Legal News" as noted here); when it says "industry" it means lawyers and it posts identical puff pieces full of lies under different countries' names. Maybe they should also register "US Legal News" and "Canadian Legal News" in which to drop the same pack of lies, claiming to represent American/Canadian "industry".

Don't fall for the lies of Team UPC. These people are so desperate at this stage and they would consciously lie to everyone. ⬆