Czech dictator meets well-connected corrupt criminal based in Germany

Summary: This August was fascinating in the sense that we grappled with likely legally-invalid threats from Germany, on behalf of someone from the Czech Republic

As we noted here last week, something we wrote about EPO corruption an entire year ago attracted the attention of some German patent troll, who seems to be scattering threats to a lot of sites. For the public record it's worth outlining what's wrong with those threats.

First of all, the date on the Power of Attorney letter is June, i.e. 2 months earlier. Has he been on a 'crusade' for two months already? As someone told us a week ago, maybe he sends 100,000 such letters. But who knows...

But let's go back to the beginning and explain what happened.

Earlier this month I received a nasty (and frivolous) letter from a lawyer/attorney, but it was so weak and baseless that it seemed safe to ignore. Maybe I'll publish a full copy at a later date, but it would likely help the troll more than it harms the troll. We've already seen so-called 'researchers' wasting sites' time by sending them threats to 'study' the response. 8 days later another letter was sent, this time too following more of a script. It didn't seem personalised, except a name and address (which seemed wrong).

This is a copyright troll, as per the definition, sending messages only/mostly on Friday nights (that's strategic sometimes; it denies access to legal advice). I ended up attaching all the material, sending it to people who specialise in copyright trolls. This needed cataloging.

What's wrong with the threat?

Among many issues:

• he does not specify an actual page but a group of pages
• he does not specify which image
• it seems to be sent in bulk to many people (several things make this rather obvious)
• it's actually a low-resolution meme, hence fair use likely
• I'm not based in Germany
• I'm not subjected to US law, either
• this was posted a year ago
• it's in post in the public interest, not for-profit (it's about corruption at the EPO)
• I still don't know what photo he talks about, but it is likely a depiction of nature (again, subjecting that to fair use doctrine)

In short, it seems like someone is wasting money and time on clueless law firms, or maybe they look for easy targets with no access to legal advice on Friday.

I decided to write about this tonight as this Friday, for a change, no communication arrived.

One can trivially see he follows a script. Notice date.

June? Really?

I sent this short reply almost 15 days ago^*, asking" [w]hich specific image are you talking about?" He never responded to my message. He seems to work like a script or a bot, not even keeping abreast of anything mildly "off-script".

He should be disbarred. This is abuse or misuse of power, not following very simple protocols, misinforming his targets later on a Friday.

I know a thing or too about patent bullies trying to use "copyrights" to muzzle criticism or scare critics; it happened before and they ended up with an egg in their face, without me even needing a lawyer.

Does this have anything to do with the EPO itself? Hard to tell. For reasons specified last week, it's not impossible, but the simpler explanation is that we're caught in the drift net of a copyright troll.

"Does this have anything to do with the EPO itself? Hard to tell. For reasons specified last week, it's not impossible, but the simpler explanation is that we're caught in the drift net of a copyright troll."Remember that the EPO's management is wasting over 6 million euros (with approval from Josef and the other puppets) on lawyers whose sole purpose is to fight against EPO staff in court. Josef is the head of the 'IP' office in the Czech Republic, which is incidentally the same nationality as the name above.

One possible theory here is that we're dealing combative legal hacks who are battling people with legitimate grievances by reaching out to deep pockets, not by presenting anything of merit (like complainants drowning out the respondents with paperwork to waste time, until they run out of budget and simply give up).

We ought not end up in a society where law firms and lawyers are manifestations of SLAPP, e.g. the formalisation of a totally bullshit/bullish "system" whereby rich people can twist "the law" to do anything to people whom they dislike. In dictatorships, the prosecutors too are doing this, with their mates called "judges" (wearing various lousy costumes). In the EPO we saw numerous examples of this.

Having sought some advice and discussed this with people who know copyright trolling very well, one of them told me: "I think you just ignore them. I'm not a lawyer, but I doubt that filing a suit against you in the USA will be cheaper than the maximum damages you'd be forced to pay. If you don't have an EU presence and/or bank account, they're probably out of luck."

"They operate in complete darkness, recklessly breaking laws, and the legal threats come to people who expose the corruption, not those who are responsible for the corruption."I still think in the grand scheme of things it is plausible that this is connected to SLAPP over EPO reporting, based on the track record of EPO management. It will never be possible to prove such a thing though.

Another person whom I've asked about this said it is "clearly impossible to remove an image if you don't know which one it is. IANAL, but if he won't specify, seems empty threat at the moment..."

The amount of corruption at the EPO is just unbelievable and it is closely connected to EUIPO/OHIM, i.e. the EU (I'm pro-EU, but this is just horrible). The corruption is so profound that they corrupt the media, bribe the national delegations, stack the courts etc. We need the wider public involved in this battle, as we're dealing with a kind of "mafia" here and thus we get lots of whistleblowers. Sadly, the ombudsman too never mentions these issues. They operate in complete darkness, recklessly breaking laws, and the legal threats come to people who expose the corruption, not those who are responsible for the corruption. ⬆ _____ ^* This is the message I sent within a day (my question has not been answered in 15 days!)

Hi,
the post http://techrights.org/2021/12/13/credit-to-norway/ contains
memes from a meme site, https://imgflip.com





That's where I got it from.





Which specific image are you talking about?





I'll remove it as soon as you identify which one.





Regards,





-- 
Dr. Roy S. Schestowitz | http://schestowitz.com | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
Editor @ http://techrights.org & http://tuxmachines.org