10.11.16
Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:31 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The effect of the EPO’s SLAPP-happy lawyers in London or FTI Consulting’s branch in London? (or both, or maybe just good old entryism)
Summary: Criticism of the EPO has become harder to find not because people have come to accept the EPO’s management but because there’s a censorship campaign and people are growingly afraid to speak
FEWER and fewer publications nowadays cover EPO scandals, for reasons we attempted to explain some days ago. SUEPO too hardly publishes anything. The other day we mentioned censorship at IPKat (or IP Kat) — an issue we had been writing about for a while now, especially in recent months.
“Very mysterious things [are] going on at the IPKat recently,” this one comment said this week. To quote in full: “Good to see that my comment submitted on 10/06/16 at around 11:30 CEST and again on 10/07/16, 10:41 CEST has now finally been published. Remarkable, however, is the alleged publication date and time of 10/07/16, 9:42 BST. It was not published (yet) when I looked for it on 10/08/16 and in the morning of 10/09/2016; I first saw it this morning (10/10/16). Has the publication date/time been backdated and if so, why? And what happened to the first comment filed on 10/06/16?
“Apparently — and over time it seems ever more plausible — there is just an attempt by the EPO’s management to cause media blackout and information lockdown, not just by shutting down critical media (or critical elements within it) but also scaring EPO staff.”“Very mysterious things going on at the IPKat recently.”
A reply like “Yours is not to question why, yours but to grant or reject” (sounds like pro-management slant) was posted in reply to “We have even been urged not to discuss among ourselves or with our union committee(s)…”
Apparently — and over time it seems ever more plausible — there is just an attempt by the EPO’s management to cause media blackout and information lockdown, not just by shutting down critical media (or critical elements within it) but also scaring EPO staff. Self-censorship is an incredibly powerful weapon they have attempted to use even against non-profits. Regarding IP Kat, not a single EPO-hostile article has appeared there since the one-day censorship by the EPO. IP Kat is not responding to my queries about this.
“New rumour [is] circulating at the EPO,” said this new comment, showing that rumours get around whether the management likes it or not. Laughably enough, it’s believed that Battistelli’s bulldog is being considered for the job of managing the boards of appeal (which Battistelli cannot help bullying). If true, that would be a new low for the EPO and for the independence of the boards. “It is being whispered in the corridors of the EPO Isar building,” wrote this person, “that VP4 has applied for the job as President of the Boards of Appeal citing his vast experience in litigation matters and his extensive knowledge of court procedures including appeals.”
Is it also being whispered in the corridors of the EPO Isar building that he faces many criminal charges in Croatia? Does that count as experience in litigation matters? These boards, one might add, face risk of getting replaced by UPC courts. Battistelli promotes the UPC like it’s his sole baby and he keeps demolishing the boards by all means possible. He just can’t help himself. It has gotten so bad that it’s difficult for outsiders to believe and the media hardly covers the matter. Watch what IP Kat has turned into; it’s like a textbook example of vendor captive/capture. As we put it recently, "IP Kat is Lobbying Heavily for the UPC, Courtesy of Team UPC" (notably Bristows, which continues to stomp on EU citizens by UPC lobbying).
“Laughably enough, it’s believed that Battistelli’s bulldog is being considered for the job of managing the boards of appeal (which Battistelli cannot help bullying).”The latest from Bristows says that “In a press release (here) on 7 October 2016, the Italian Ministry of Justice announced that the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Milan will be located in an existing court building at via San Barnaba 50.”
They just refuse to give up and they are willing to mislead even politicians. “UPC, Brexit and swpats are on the agenda of next 22nd November,” Benjamin Henrion wrote the other day. “I give you the benefit of doubt.”
Red Hat’s Jan Wildeboer said he was “Thinking of returning to Brussels a bit more often. Lobbying for Open the @hintjens way is needed. Be very afraid :-)”
“Sadly, and not to suggest that it was ever not the case, IP Kat spends a lot of time advocating/promoting the UPC, occasionally software patents, and apparently it now suppresses or self-censors particular EPO criticism.”Wildeboer speaks about software patents, which he campaigned against a decade ago. UPC threatens to bring this curse back in a very big way. See the entire thread in [1, 2] to witness who’s pulling the strings. “Of course,” Dr. Stefane Fermigier wrote to Henrion about proponents of software patents, “but then they shouldn’t pretend they are working for the common good.”
Sadly, and not to suggest that it was ever not the case, IP Kat spends a lot of time advocating/promoting the UPC, occasionally propping up software patents, and apparently it now suppresses or self-censors particular EPO criticism. █
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Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 6:52 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The sorts of pictures that Battistelli doesn’t want the delegates to see ahead of tomorrow’s meeting…
Summary: The EPO’s so-called ‘Social Conference’ (prepackaged, commissioned and paid-for bundle of lies) took place today, but staff was outside protesting against this Orwellian charade from President Benoît Battistelli
THE very many scandals at the EPO (all of them the management’s fault) have led staff of the EPO to to taking the great risk of going out, leaving their office to protest against the management at lunchtime. Personal sacrifices are plenty; these people aren’t the selfish/overpaid/cushy job/spoiled types which pro-Battistelli media tries to portray them as. They are loyal to fellow workers, not (just, if at all) to autocrats who manage them and do a great disservice to Europe with their horrible policies. Techrights has enormous respect for examiners who support their representatives and are willing to ruin their work security, personal safety, health etc. just to do the right thing. We cannot stress strongly enough that collective punishment isn’t of merit here because many examiners have served the Office since long before Battistelli arrived at the scene and brought his cronies. We all want to save the EPO, not destroy it. It’s Battistelli who is destroying the Office.
“We all want to save the EPO, not destroy it. It’s Battistelli who is destroying the Office.”Shown above is Ion Brumme (dismissed by Battistelli earlier this year). He was speaking at today’s SUEPO demonstration, which took place directly under the room where the EPO Social Conference was taking place (this photo is from today by the way).
Clever move there from SUEPO. Did it help highlight the great degree of injustice that this entire Social Conference was? SUEPO was denied access so that Battistelli can lie unchallenged. He was ‘grooming’ people ahead of tomorrow’s meeting. He wants to avoid/dodge accountability for social injustice at the Office. He wants demands from March to simply vanish as though they never existed.
As one person put it in comments the other day:
that is no real wonder.
Internally only the last two weeks things started happening.
We live in a cycle of 3 months, which is dictated by the four meetings of the AC every year.
Management tables their proposals as late as possible, to deny everyone a possibility to fully read all the papers and make an informed opinion, thus eliminating any possibility for positive feedback (this became an obvious tactic under Miss Brimelow) and staff has learnt to wait for the proposals to be on the table instead of guessing what might come.
The fight for PR has already started on management side, the staff has a bit more difficulty with that, as it has less money available for that, and is not allowed to discuss anything our management considers to be internal matters anywhere. We have even been urged not to discuss among ourselves or with our union committee(s)…
“It’s a total disgrace and it makes it abundantly clear that the Administrative Council no longer does its job.”One day, time permitting, we might get around to revisiting the demands from March and what exactly happened to them back in June. It’s a total disgrace and it makes it abundantly clear that the Administrative Council no longer does its job.
Earlier today we mentioned an open letter to the Delegations of the EPO's Administrative Council. It relates to the change proposal for new WIPO Investigation Guidelines (see the WIPO Investigation Guidelines proposal from 3 weeks ago [PDF]) and this was covered earlier today by IP Watch, a site that closely follows WIPO — more so than it follows the calamity at the EPO. Here are portions of what it published:
The Administrative Council (AC), made up of members of the EPO member states, meets 12-13 October in Munich. In an 11 October letter to the council, the EPO-FLIER team, which identifies itself as a “group of concerned staff” who wish to remain anonymous “due to the prevailing harsh social climate and absence of rule of law” at the office, blasted President Benoît Battistelli’s proposed new disciplinary and investigation guidelines and urged governments instead to consider a WIPO proposal (available here).
Battistelli’s new guidelines, if approved, would allow the president to dismiss staff members for “professional incompetence” without any meaningful advisory review, and would also permit the administration to investigate and discipline employees without due process, the EPO-FLIER letter said. It asked AC members to consider WIPO’s recently proposed investigation guidelines, saying that while WIPO has “immense problems in its staff relations,” it seems to have floated a balanced proposal that includes an independent investigative unit, due process guarantees and whistle-blower protections.
A summary of conclusions from the 22 September AC Board meeting noted that the German delegation “was unhappy with President’s change proposal for the Investigation Guidelines CA/52/16 Rev. 1 … so that ‘no common understanding could be reached on the right to be silent and on other issues. The President had strong reservations on this issue, insisting on the necessity to ensure an efficient procedure to fight fraud and harassment, and reserved the possibility to withdraw the package from the agenda.’”
[...]
In a 12 February 2016 letter, made public on 29 September by techrights.org (available here), http://techrights.org/2016/09/29/netherlands-institute-of-patent-attorneys-on-battistelli/ the president of the 500-member Dutch Institute of Patent Attorneys (Nederlandse Orde van Octrooigemachtigden) told the AC that while the Orde applauds EPO efforts to set worldwide standards in patent quality and efficiency, it “has to express its serious and on-going concern” about the way in which the office’s reinvention process is happening and the “effects that it has on the image of the EPO.” Specifically, the letter said, patent lawyers are worried about developments regarding the organisation and government of the Boards of Appeals and the treatment of EPO personnel.
The Orde observed that employment conditions at the office and the basic rights of employees are “seriously compromised.” In the beginning, staff opposition seemed to be a common and understandable reaction to changes every organisation experiences, but over time the information that reached the public became more and more serious, with union officials subjected to disciplinary measures and downgraded, pension reductions and firings, the organisation said.
“It seems that the people at the EPO are afraid of their own management,” the Orde said. “We sincerely believe that the current situation at the EPO has spun out of control by the actions of its President,” and that the AC should stop Battistelli from “continuing these unproductive and destructive practices,” it said.
The current climate holds negative consequences for the future of the European patent, EPO-FLIER said. The estimated 2016 over 2014 increase in production (up 23 percent) and productivity (up 11 percent) “is not a sign of successful reforms but rather proves that the examiners have lost any ambition to withstand unrealistic and arbitrary production targets imposed on them by the Administration” – to the detriment of patent quality.
Publications in Battistelli's pocket have said nothing about it and relative quiet/calm/apathy in the media is what we predicted several days ago, due to threats and money awards from Battistelli to the media. It’s nice to see IP Watch returning to EPO coverage and we hope to see more of that in the future.
There was also a new article today in the French media, focusing on the social situation not at WIPO but at the EPO (Battistelli — it’s worth repeating — tried to become WIPO’s head). Hopefully a SUEPO-provided translation of this French article about the EPO is imminent; several people told us about it today and SUEPO too linked to it. Do we have any volunteers for translation?
“It’s nice to see IP Watch returning to EPO coverage and we hope to see more of that in the future.”As for the EPO, it has said nothing at all (publicly at least) about the Social Conference. Not even a tweet about it! Nothing about the Friday release of the so-called 'social' 'study', either. Maybe they just want to keep it all covert/internal so as to avoid outside scrutiny, criticism, or independent assessment. They know it’s junk/pseudo-science and propaganda that wouldn’t carry water. The EPO chose quite some timing for useless PPH distraction (warning: epo.org link), having just published this nonsense today and repeatedly warned people about a deadline for participation in Battistelli's next public lobbying event. Getting desperate there, eh? Maybe because people don’t play along with the stunt/lobbying this time around? They have 'spammed' nearly 50 universities across Europe about it, but these universities hardly reciprocated. One of these latest calls of misery says: “Tomorrow is the last day! If you know a researcher who has invented something amazing, nominate them now…”
Another one says: “Nominations close in about 24 hours. Who should win next year’s European Inventor Award?”
Elizabeth Holmes, definitely! Give her another chance. She had the same level of integrity as the President of the EPO. █
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10.10.16
Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:19 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Source (original): Rospatent
Summary: A concise new letter explains the situation at the EPO and what Battistelli is planning to do next, especially if the Administrative Council gives him a carte blanche, as usual
THE heads of the delegation of the Administrative Council of the EPO are about to meet and the following letter is being sent to them from staff that, as a matter of survival, must remain anonymous. Below is the content of the letter:
Open letter – by email to the Heads of Delegation
11 October 2016
Copies to:
Competent Ministries of the Member States
The social situation at the EPO and the Administrative Council’s responsibility
Dear heads and members of the delegations to the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation, dear Chairman, dear Mr Grandjean,
We would like to share our concerns about the current social climate at the EPO and urge you to take appropriate action.
‘Social Conference’ – how to avoid social dialogue
You will probably agree that in any organisation the first step towards genuine dialogue is to work towards a shared understanding of the problems at hand and of the long term goals, in other words, to share an agreed agenda. This seems a reasonably evident requirement for the future success of the EPO. Sadly, the Office missed a chance to take a first step towards this, when it alone set the agenda of the ‘Social Conference’ scheduled for 11 October. Consultants will present a ‘social study’1 while the President refuses to discuss the results of a staff survey2 commissioned by the EPO’s largest staff union. It is difficult to imagine how even the seeds of social dialogue can exist while the Office continues with its unilateral approach to the most multilateral of issues. The President’s threats to and persecution of elected representatives3 of his social partner only serve to shift the situation from bad to worse. Through his actions he makes social dialogue impossible. For staff across the Office, the ‘Social Conference’ can only be seen as just another useless attempt to mould a distorted perception of the reality at the EPO. And to avoid true social dialogue.
The social situation at the EPO – a matter of perception?
You may already have seen a letter of the President of the Dutch Institute of Patent Attorneys, ‘Nederlandse Orde van Octrooigemachtigden’ (Orde)4, dated 12 February 2016 and addressed to the Council, which recently became public5. The Orde perceives the social climate in the Office as follows:
‘… We note that, when we seek information from EPO employees, they are reluctant to communicate in fear of retribution by internal investigative units. It seems that the people at the EPO are afraid of their own management. The Orde rejects this situation vehemently. We cannot understand that the President of an organization that envisages to “set worldwide standards in quality and efficiency“ is not capable or not willing to apply the same standards to its people management. We refer also to the ruling of the Dutch Appeal Court that the EPO appears to be violating basic human rights.
A disgrace, irrespective whether the EPO benefits from its immunity as an international organisation or not. A reputable international organization such as EPO should not have it’s employment conditions and employee rights held up against such a basic thing as human rights.’
Consequences of the current social climate for the future of the European patent
It is illusory to think that a human resources policy without any negotiation, founded on intimidation and the non-respect of fundamental rights can bind highly skilled staff to the Organisation. The Orde is right to use the word “disgrace” to describe any violation of human rights that takes place at the EPO. No amount of immunity can diminish that disgrace. Disengaged and demotivated employees will clearly not be able to examine patent applications with the critical focused mind needed for delivering a legally valid monopoly right. We cannot imagine that the delegations to the Administrative Council still believe that it will be possible to maintain a successful European patent and foster economic growth without the active support of staff. We certainly don’t.
An estimated6 2016/2014 increase in production (+ 23%) and productivity (+11%) is not a sign of successful reforms but rather proves that the examiners have lost any ambition to withstand unrealistic and arbitrary production targets imposed on them by the Administration. The current management style has destroyed staff’s professional attitude and pride to work for an organisation whose aim is, or at least was, to support economic growth by delivering high quality patents. It is our view that the European Patent Organisation finds itself in the deepest crisis7 of its history.
The currently planned reforms, if adopted, would aggravate the crisis
If proposal CA/53/16 Rev. 1 (reviewed Disciplinary Guidelines) gets approval, Mr Battistelli will be in a position to dismiss staff members for ‘professional incompetence’ without any meaningful advisory review instance. He will be able to expose EPO employees to unemployment without the safety net of a social security system. For fear of dismissal, staff will no doubt do their best to deliver another productivity increase. The quality of search reports and the legal validity of European patents will drop further.
By adopting the reviewed Investigation Guidelines (CA/52/16 Rev. 1) the Council would authorise the Administration, i.e. Mr Battistelli, Mr Topić and Ms Bergot, to proceed with investigative and disciplinary proceedings in a way that is in contradiction to the principles of due legal process. Before adopting any revised proposal, we ask the delegations to consider the recent proposal for WIPO’s new Investigation Guidelines8. WIPO has immense problems in its staff relations. But in this case, they seem to have put forward a balanced proposal, at least on first inspection. It takes account of lessons learned9, provides an independent investigative unit, and guarantees due process and whistle-blower protection, including the case of investigations against senior officials10.
Please do not support the current proposals CA/52/16 Rev. 1 and CA/53/16 Rev. 1. There can be no doubt that they give new tools of abuse to those at high level who wish to use them, and increase the risk of victimisation, harassment and miscarriages of justice in a system that is already under fire for not fulfilling the requirements of legal process.
Staff protest against the treatment of their elected representatives by the President and the passive attitude of the Board 28 vis-à-vis this issue in its recent meeting3. We kindly ask all delegations to remember the AC’s resolution 11 of this March and to take the steps that must follow it:
“to ensure that disciplinary sanctions and proceedings are not only fair but also seen to be so, and to consider the possibility of involvement of an external reviewer or of arbitration or mediation
pending the outcome of this process and before further decisions in disciplinary cases are taken, to inform the AC in appropriate detail and make proposals that enhance confidence in fair and reasonable proceedings and sanctions;”
We further plead that matters of such grave concern no longer be discussed in closed session. Arguments put forward need to be visible to the affected parties, being staff and applicant community.
With our best regards,
The EPO-FLIER team
a group of concerned staff of the EPO who wish to remain anonymous
due to the prevailing harsh social climate and absence of rule of law at the European Patent Office
_________
1 European Patent Office – Social Study 2016, by PwC
2 https://www.suepo.org/results_of_the_2016_european_patent_office_staff_survey/d-43311
3 B28/10/16 (21.09.2016): “the Board noted information provided by the President about three current investigations/disciplinary proceedings involving SUEPO members in The Hague”
4The Dutch Institute of Patent Attorneys is the professional organisation of Dutch patent attorneys; its about 500 members are active in private practice and in industry, most of them are also European Patent Attorneys
5 http://techrights.org/2016/09/29/netherlands-institute-of-patent-attorneys-on-battistelli/
6 http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/sc16170cp.pdf
7 B28/2/16 (02.02.2016): “The Board qualified the situation as a crisis – a view challenged by the President.”
8 http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/govbody/en/wo_ga_48/wo_ga_48_16.pdf
9 http://www.ip-watch.org/2016/09/30/gurry-speaks-on-allegations-for-first-time-as-wipo-members-discussion-actions
10 http://www.ip-watch.org/2016/10/10/members-debate-changes-to-oversight-at-wipo/
11 http://www.epo.org/about-us/organisation/communiques.html#a23
I have taken two day off work this week. We can hopefully provide coverage of what happens as the media sure isn’t doing its job. We more or less know why. █
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Posted in America, Patents at 7:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The Federal Trade Commission’s report about patent assertion entities (euphemism for a particular type of patent trolls) is bad news for patent trolls and potentially the catalyst of upcoming patent reform
Having published "Towards the End of Patent Trolls-Friendly Courts in the United States" and "Towards the End of Software Patents in the United States", we finally turn our attention to the FTC’s new study, which comes at a good time because of those former two installments (about courts in Texas and software patents, not to mention Apple’s stupid software patents that it uses to demand hundreds of millions of dollars — a subject of plenty of media coverage at the end of last week).
The USPTO is partly to blame here, for reasons that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) explained a few months back. Patent trolls use software patents quite a lot; without these patents, patent trolls would almost cease to exist. We wrote about evidence of that in the distant past.
“Patent trolls use software patents quite a lot; without these patents, patent trolls would almost cease to exist.”So, what has the FTC just shown us? In the words of CCIA, which took money from Microsoft after it had gone after it: “Ed Black said trolls are exploiting #patent system for a quick buck so we appreciate the #FTC ‘s patent troll study pic.twitter.com/AKdQFRBo19″ (there’s a photo in there).
“The FTC study on PAEs is finally out. A long report with a lot of useful data. It will take a while to parse it all,” wrote Professor Risch, who at times sounded like he defended software patents (several times in the past).
“FTC patent assertion entity study recommends fixing discovery asymmetries,” wrote another person, “mandating more disclosure by PAEs; streamlining litigation…”
“Long awaited @FTC study on patent assertion calls for strong patent reform,” wrote one character upon a quick glance.
More press coverage regarding the FTC’s study (that would likely transform the whole of the US patent system through upcoming reform) was soon generated, starting with blogs like this one:
FTC Releases Big Report On Patent Trolls, Says The Patent System Needs To Change
[...]
For quite some time now the FTC has been making lots of noises about the problems of the patent system and patent trolls in particular. While the US Patent Office itself has done little to address the problem, the FTC has recognized the harm patent trolling is doing to innovation and consumers. More than five years ago, the FTC released a big report on patent trolling and the problems it causes — suggesting that the Patent Office should start getting rid of vague patents with “indefinite” claims. That has happened a little bit, but much more because of the Supreme Court forcing the issue, rather than the USPTO listening to the FTC.
However, since then, it’s appeared that the FTC has only grown more concerned. Basically every year we report that the FTC is investigating patent trolls in some form or another. In 2012 (a year after that first report), the FTC began exploring patent trolling more thoroughly. In 2013, it announced an official investigation that would make use of subpoenas to find out how patent trolls were actually operating. Later that year it was revealed that it would subpoena 25 patent trolling operations. Since then, though, it’s been mostly crickets. There was one famous troll, MPHJ, who sued the FTC in a case that was dismissed.
And now, finally, after all these years, the FTC has released its big report. It appears that 22 patent trolling operations responded to the subpoenas, though many had “affiliates and other related entities” allowing the FTC to study many more patent trolling operations overall. The study lumps patent trolls (they prefer the euphemistic “Patent Assertion Entities” or PAEs) into two categories: litigation trolls and portfolio trolls. In short, litigation trolls are the smaller guys with just a small number of patents, who would threaten and sue companies (and quickly reach settlements) over those few patents. It’s more of a “mom & pop” shakedown kind of business. Portfolio trolls are the bigger, well funded operations, that have a massive portfolio of patents and play a more comprehensive shakedown game, going to lots of big companies and basically saying “you infringe on some of our patents, so give us a bunch of money to not figure out which ones.” Think: Intellectual Ventures or Acacia.
The differences here matter, because the businesses are quite different. Lots of the actual lawsuits come from the litigation trolls as a sort of negotiation tactic. The portfolio trolls don’t actually have to go to court that often — they have “sales people” who are a bit more effective. But the amount of dead-weight loss to the economy from the portfolio trolls is much larger. When big companies agree to a portfolio troll shakedown it’s often for a tremendous amount of money. The FTC study found 80% of the revenue went to portfolios, and only 20% to litigation trolls — even though litigation trolls filed 96% of the lawsuits and 91% of the reported licenses.
One interesting — and potentially surprising — finding of the study was that the FTC did not see evidence of much pure demand letter shakedown. That is, it’s been said that many of the smaller trolls just send letters, but never expect to go to court, since many may just settle based on the demand letter. But the FTC didn’t find much evidence to support that — saying that most of the revenue for litigation trolls came from actually going to court (and then rapidly settling). In short, it appears that the leverage of a federal lawsuit (in eastern Texas, probably) is much stronger than just a threat of a lawsuit. But a key takeaway from this is that attempts to reform demand letters (which has been regularly proposed — such as requiring them to outline what the infringement is) won’t actually help much.
Almost everyone (except trolls) would agree that the patent system in the US needs fixing. See this new article (“Patent reforms must also include our trade courts”) and a National Retail Federation press release (“FTC Study Should Provide Momentum to Pass Patent Reform Legislation”), not to mention a growing bulk of media coverage, such as [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. More media coverage of this kind will continue this week, with patent trolls getting negative publicity after people actually read those hundreds of pages and summarise what’s in them. See “Public Knowledge Applauds FTC’s Call for Strong Patent Litigation Reform” and the excellent early coverage from Jeff Roberts, who said that the “FTC has harsh words for patent trolls – what tech folks have been saying for years http://fortune.com/2016/10/06/ftc-patent-report/ …”
“IAM is nowadays doing to journalism what the US presidential candidates already do to journalism. So-called ‘news’ sites pick a side and hardly pretend to be unbiased observers.”“Both Mayer and the FTC,” I told him, “say what we’ve been saying for years, e.g. code is like prose and protected by copyright” (Roberts liked that). The patent mess in the United States is being tackled little by little; almost exactly 5 years ago Obama signed one patent reform bill and soon there will be another.
IAM’s Mr. Lloyd, quite proudly a proponent of software patents and all sorts of other nuisance, decided to go against the flow because IAM is not really a news site. The voice of the patent trolls, IAM ‘magazine’ (partly funded by trolls), attacks the FTC for saying the truth about them. It’s quite laughable that all they could say (in the headline) about the news is that it “is probably already out of date” (got to be seen to be believed).
IAM is nowadays doing to journalism what the US presidential candidates already do to journalism. So-called ‘news’ sites pick a side and hardly pretend to be unbiased observers. Here is Watchtroll; watch how his site spins the study against troll as pro-trolls — because hey! — it’s not journalism anyway, just lobbying. Talk about lying to or misleading readers.
What did MIP do? Well, it resorted to shooting the messenger or its intelligence, as usual. To quote a portion from this article:
The Federal Trade Commission’s long-awaited patent assertion entity report differentiates between portfolio PAEs and litigation PAEs. The Innovation Alliance has called it an “unscientific case study”
The Innovation Alliance is a think tank, much like the Scientific Alliance and Copyright Alliance. It calls the FTC’s study an “unscientific case study” because its paymasters are unhappy with the findings.
Here is the original page about this study:
A new Federal Trade Commission report spotlights the business practices of patent assertion entities (PAEs), firms that acquire patents from third parties and then try to make money by licensing or suing accused infringers. The report includes several recommendations for patent litigation reforms.
“This report is a big step forward in enhancing our understanding of PAEs and provides an empirical foundation for ongoing policy discussions,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “The recommendations we are proposing are designed to balance the needs of patent holders with the goal of reducing nuisance litigation.”
Patently-O did a fairly decent job covering it (it’s the first such coverage we found):
The report offers important insight into PAE business models – primarily identifying two categories: Litigation PAEs and Portfolio PAEs. The FTC found that Litigation PAE licensies are “typically … less than the lower bounds of early stage litigation costs” and thus seen by the FTC as consistent with “nuisance litigation.” The report suggests a variety of litigation reforms to help alleviate potential abusive litigation tactics by patent owners.
The 269 page report will be a catalyst for patent reform measures and thus should be considered carefully.
I have not personally read this report, but rest assured the patent microcosm and its front groups will attack both the messenger and the message by all means possible. They’ll do anything to derail patent reform that puts an end to (or significantly curbs) patent trolls. █
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Posted in America, Patents at 6:10 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The patent microcosm is hopping mad and in denial over it
Summary: A closer look at the latest historic decision on software patents and other news serving to cement the end of software patents in the United States (provided the cases are appealed upwards)
THE USPTO is gradually departing from software patents, whereas the EPO goes the other way. Does that mean that elimination of software patents in the US would not be sufficient in extinguishing the scourge of software patents worldwide? Maybe. But at least progress is being made in the birthplace of software patents. Today’s article binds together many bits of coverage, focusing in particular on the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC).
There are many ways by which to weaken or thwart patent litigation. One such way, as noted the other day, is blurred allegations. As Patently-O put it, “Lyda appears as a narrow decision against an individual-inventor plaintiff, the decision is important because it establishes that a patent infringement complaint must provide factual allegations at the claim-element-by-claim-element level in order to avoid a dismissal on the pleadings.”
Distracting From Haldane Robert Mayer
What is more interesting, however, is dismissal based on the two-step analysis — something which has happened a lot since Alice and we wrote about thrice since a decision was handed down by Judge Haldane Robert Mayer of CAFC. We are hardly shocked to discover the patent microcosm either refusing to write about it or simply attacking the judge, as we shall show later. Robert R. Sachs of Bilski Blog seems to be among those who simply said nothing about it. Instead, quite a while after the decision from Judge Mayer, he instead wrote about a bundle of cases in favour of software patents. To quote: “For patent prosecutors, MAZ, along with DDR, Enfish and McRo, suggests the value of discussing in the patent application specific problems in the prior art and linking aspects of the claimed invention to their solutions. The general trend over the past several years has been to say less in the background and summary of invention. That is still good advice, and these cases do not contradict that view, as the underlying patents provided very short and concise statements of the prior art problem, not lengthy expositions. Prosecutors that draft only a trivial background and little or no summary of the invention may end up removing an important basis for establishing eligibility and defeating an early dispositive motion. If the motivation for this approach is the risk that the background and summary will narrow the scope of the claims, I would say better a slightly narrowed patent than none at all.”
David Kappos Still Lobbying
What is worth noting here is that patent attorneys and lawyers are still looking for ways to work around the law and patent software in spite of the rules. Here we have some patent law firms scrambling to find tricks for patenting and asserting software patents; see “4 Tips For Overcoming ‘Abstract Idea’ Rejection” or (less relevant) “Anything You Say Can and Will be Used Against You in a Court of Law”. It’s part of a pattern. They write many articles about it and even set up events on the subject. One new event from IAM, advertised just before the weekend, targets patent maximalists and features a corrupt judge, Rader, and an official-turned-lobbyist, David Kappos. IAM ‘magazine’, one might note, evidently doesn’t keep good track of judge names; they spell a key name with a typo, “Radar”, not Rader. To quote the event’s overview: “Are patents in the United States dead? Should US companies continue to file US patents? What are the right innovation policies for the United States? What is the right thing for small companies to do in patenting their innovation? How will investors look at patenting in the future? What is happening elsewhere in the world? Come and join this critical discussion with Radar, Kappos, Schramm, Cabeca and others.”
Kappos is, in our view, the most corrupt public official in this domain, turning from a public official at the Patent Office into a corporate lobbyist for Microsoft, IBM, etc. Are they not at all regulating what people do after their service at the PTO? Is there no cool-off period? Nothing? Watch this news article entitled “Kappos: McRO is CAFC’s “most important 101 case since Alice””. To quote:
“McRO gets to the core issues and for that reason I thought it’s clearly the most important 101 case the Federal Circuit has put out since Alice” – David Kappos”I didn’t see a tremendous amount of the principle or the reasoning in those previous cases,” David Kappos, partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore
This doesn’t disclose that he’s also a lobbyist. Cravath Swaine & Moore is not his sole source of income.
CAFC said copyright should be enough for software, but this continues to be ignored by Kappos and the rest of the software patents boosters, who develop no software at all. They just lean on cases like McRO even a month later.
PTAB is Still Invalidating a Lot of Software Patents
According to this page from the USPTO and an article about it, PTAB fees might soon go up. PTAB has played an important role in improving the USPTO (well, at least quality is improving), but a rise in fees would discourage appeals; the same thing was attempted at the EPO. It has meanwhile turned out that the (in)famous appeal from Kyle Bass (the patent microcosm calls “trolls” those invaliding patents, as in this case where they used to dub the appellant “reverse troll”) was not successful. The appeal was not about software patents however.
Michael Loney of MIP shows that PTAB continues to invalidate software patents at a steady pace; there are no signs of stopping or slowing down. There are charts in the page that says:
Managing IP reveals Patent Trial and Appeal Board filing figures for September and the third quarter, as well as ranking the top petitioners and patent owners for the first nine months of 2016. More PGRs than CBMs were filed for the first time ever in September
The third quarter has ended with 454 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) petitions filed, down only slightly on the 459 petitions filed in the second quarter.
Expect this to carry on for quite some time because SCOTUS certainly isn’t overturning Mayo and Alice. As one article put it the other day (in the headline), “The Supreme Court Refuses To Consider Patents Invalidated Under The Mayo/Alice Framework”. It’s just done with that and given how long it has been since the Bilski case, it might take another half a decade before anything can really change (or reconsidered).
Copyrights — Not Patents — for Software
The main theme in this past week’s news about patent was something along the lines of Haldane Robert Mayer’s ruling, which we covered here several times before. He asserted that copyrights should be sufficient in the domain of software and a new article entitled “Copyright Tools for Protecting Software” got published. SCOTUS “limited the field of software patentability,” it says, hence software developers should focus on copyright, not patents. To quote from the article:
For businesses that run on software, protecting intellectual property is even more important than locking the office door at night. IP protection in the United States comes in many forms, including patents, copyrights, and trade secret laws. Patents have long been considered the gold standard in intellectual property, in large part because they protect inventive concepts and are not limited to specific expressions. However, software companies should think beyond patents in protecting their IP, especially since the Supreme Court in 2014′s Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International, 134 S. Ct. 2347, limited the field of software patentability, and the Post Grant Review system installed by the America Invents Act (Pub. L. 112-29) invalidates more software patents by the day.
Regarding the ruling from Haldane Robert Mayer, it was everywhere in the news and people also brought that up in our IRC channels. Consider articles such as “A judge wants to make patent trolling a first amendment issue” (The Verge) and “WHAT DO SOFTWARE PATENTS AND ‘CHINATOWN DANCE ROCK’ HAVE IN COMMON? FREE SPEECH” (Bloomberg). Also see Mike Masnick’s take on it over at TechDirt. It’s titled “Prominent Pro-Patent Judge Issues Opinion Declaring All Software Patents Bad”. It actually upset Bastian Best, a patent attorney from Germany. “Most people declaring “all <insert subject> are bad” should not be taken too seriously,” he wrote about this article and I told him that it sounded like had made a joke, along the lines of a famous saying from Alexandre Dumas: “All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.” (there are variants of this quote from other people)
In relation to another one of Best’s tweets, Benjamin Henrion wrote, “we believe you. Patent law is a religion…”
Anyway, here is what TechDirt actually said in its article, having followed this subject very closely for many years:
Well here’s an unexpected surprise. A lawsuit brought by the world’s largest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures, and handled on appeal (as are all patent cases), by the notoriously awful Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) may have actually killed off software patents. Really. Notably, the Supreme Court deserves a big assist here, for a series of rulings on patent-eligible subject matter, culminating in the Alice ruling. At the time, we noted that you could read the ruling to kill off software patents, even as the Supreme Court insisted that it did not. In short, the Supreme Court said that any patent that “does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions” is not patent eligible. But then it insisted that there was plenty of software that this wouldn’t apply to. But it’s actually pretty difficult to think of any examples — which is why we were pretty sure at the time that Alice should represent the end for software patents, but bemoaned the Supreme Court not directly saying so, noting it would lead to lots of litigation. Still, the impact has been pretty widespread, with the Alice ruling being used both by the courts and the US Patent Office to reject lots and lots of software and business method patent claims.
But this latest ruling, from the very court that upended things nearly two decades ago in declaring software much more broadly patentable than anyone believed, may now be the nail in the coffin on software patents in the US. The headline, of course, is that the patents that Intellectual Ventures used against anti-virus firms Symantec and Trend Micro, were bunk, because they did not cover patent eligible subject matter. But the part that has everyone chattering is the concurring opinion by Judge Haldane Mayer, that says it’s time to face facts: Alice killed software patents. And Mayer is not some newcomer. He’s been at the Federal Circuit since the 1980s and was actually the chief judge in the late 90s/early 2000s when CAFC was at its worst in terms of expanding patent law. And it appears he’s been born again into the anti-software patent world. It’s… quite a conversion.
Yes, exactly, and this reversal is noteworthy, as we said here many times before. “The greatest expansion in what software is patentable,” the above continues, “occurred when Judge Mayer was chief judge of the USCAFC. Judge Mayer oversaw the creation of software patents. Now Judge Mayer has written an opinion which fully agrees with the points made by any of the anti-software patent people, including me.”
Hence the great significance of it. Not only is the pro-software patents court making a 180-degrees turn; it’s even that particular judge.
A short post by Thom Holwerda was succinctly (but right to the point) titled “US judge: end software patents, copyright is sufficient” and bloggers like Pogson cited the above, stating: “Over on Tech Dirt, there’s TFA about a ruling of a court that could pound in the last nail of the coffin of “software patents”, you know, patents on stuff that’s not patentable because it looks new and shiny just because it’s coded into a computer…”
Readers have told us that even Danish media covered it (we imagine a lot more all around the world); the translation of the headline is roughly “Have software patents died?”
Combining the FTC study (to be covered later and separately) with the CAFC ruling that names software patents as well as patent trolls (the plaintiff was the world’s biggest patent troll, Intellectual Ventures), we can imagine that there were many depressed patent lawyers this past weekend. Here is another news headline: “Circuit Court Judge Has Finally Had It With Software Patents” (from Mother Jones). To quote Kevin Drum:
The interesting thing here is that this was written by a longtime judge for the Federal Circuit Court: Haldane Mayer, a Reagan appointee who is now on senior status. Apparently, Mayer has had enough. In a recent case involving a patent troll, he didn’t feel like fiddling around on the edges of the Alice test handed down recently by the Supreme Court. He believes that Alice effectively does away with software patents entirely. Instead, software should be governed by copyright, as it was for decades before a series of vague rulings and the establishment of a new court accidentally created them in the 70s and 80s.
Mayer’s analysis is just a concurring opinion and has no legal force. Still, it’s encouraging that an experienced judge is saying stuff like this out loud. Maybe a few other will now follow suit. And maybe the Supreme Court will eventually agree. Maybe.
Getting Nasty and Attacking the Judge
The judge above is now being attacked pretty viciously by Watchtroll. We expected this. Joff Wild, the editor in chief of IAM ‘magazine’, made it very clear to me that he’s an adamant supporter of software patents and he had no coverage of this key case until about a week later. These guys were looking for spin, we presume… but they were not alone. The patent microcosm, by attacking a judge who has demolished some software patents, is basically defending a very nasty patent troll here. Is that a clever thing to do?
“Just When You Thought the Federal Circuit Was Softening Restrictions on Software Patents, the Tide Turns Again,” wrote another outspoken patent maximalism site (which habitually mocks judges). To quote:
Intellectual Ventures I LLC (“IV”) sued Symantec Corp. and Trend Micro (defendants) for infringement of various claims of three U.S. Patents (Nos. 6,460,050; 6,073,142; and 5,987,610). The District Court held the asserted claims of the ’050 patent and the ’142 patent to be ineligible under § 101, and the asserted claim of the ’610 patent to be eligible. The Federal Circuit affirmed as to the ineligibility of the asserted claims of the ’050 patent and ’142 patent, but reversed as to the asserted claim of the ’610 patent, resulting in finding all asserted claims ineligible under § 101.
Some reasoning applied during the two-step analysis, and in particular when finding that the patents are “directed to abstract ideas,” is not clearly provided by the Federal Circuit. The analysis for each of the three patents is summarized below. This decision just muddies the waters following other recent patent-owner friendly decisions in which the Federal Circuit seemed to be creating more ways for software patents to survive.
The decision further includes quite an interesting concurrence in which First Amendment rights were discussed as being implicated with Software patents?? Further comments will be provided on the concurrence alone.
This article was relatively polite (for this site), but as expected, Watchtroll went truly nasty. “It did not took [sic] long for the software patent boosters to react to Free Speech clash,” Henrion noted (also see “it did not took long to react to the free speech clash.”) and this nasty piece was the accompanying link. Watchtroll has even exceeded our own expectations and he was propped up by Patently-O and by IAM ‘magazine’ (though we assume linking is not the same as endorsing). IAM said: “No holding back here from Gene (or the many other commenters) on the subject of Judge Mayer, Alice & software patents!” (linking to this tweet)
“Well done,” I told the patent microcosm, “for making yourselves look like an enemy of society and also the court system…”
Henrion added that it happens “when someone is making your job irrelevant.”
“So whether computer programmers think software should be patented is completely irrelevant,” he remarked. Watchtroll (Gene Quinn) does not even know how computer programs work. I debated him over it in hundreds of tweets before he just ran away and blocked me (not that I said anything rude). “Let’s continue the swpat discussion here,” Henrion wrote, “it is fun to rehash the arguments with the other side” (even if it feeds the trolls, like Watchtroll).
If Watchtroll represents “the other side”, then Mayer et al would use Alice even more frequently and crush software patents for spite. Misleading headlines from the likes of Gene Quinn show us that the patent microcosm and software patents proponents aren’t just liars but also morally corrupt. The patent microcosm and those boosters not only attack the Supreme Court (Justices) but also lie about and smear judges. So who’s the rude side? By failing to distance itself from Gene Quinn and habitually contributing to Watchtroll’s site, the patent microcosm associates itself with nasty behaviour. The patent microcosm has gotten so bad and rude — because software patents are a dying breed — that they falsely make mental claims on judges (claiming them to be mentally deranged or ill), even impotence. Mocking sexual health (by connotation at least) of judges is about as low as one can stoop. The patent microcosm and these software patents boosters do themselves a huge disservice here. See our recent article "With Patent Law Firms Like These, No Wonder There's Distrust and Animosity".
Andre Rebentisch (FFII) wrote: “Apparently judge-bashing is considered appropriate in the US as @ipwatchdog shows. Just gets awkward when they target European ones.”
For those who are curious to know what Watchtroll wrote, here are some portions of it, calling for the judge to resign:
It has been obvious for some time now to any objective observer, but recent events make it such that it is time for someone to say it openly. Judge Haldane Robert Mayer, former Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, should step down and move quietly into retirement.
For years Judge Mayer has had his own – shall we say “unique” – view of patent law. He has made a habit out of writing his own rather eccentric anti-patent views into dissents and concurring opinions and then later citing to himself in those dissents and concurring opinions as if they were somehow authoritative. If an attorney were to do something like that they would wind up being sanctioned, as ultimately happened when the Federal Circuit rebuked attorney James Hicks for mischaracterizing prior holdings and rulings in a brief submitted to the Court. But when a Federal Circuit Judge does such things we all just shake our head and sigh.
[...]
Simply stated, the industry and the public deserve better than Judge Mayer. His anti-patent views seem to have matured into an irrational hatred that so cloud his judgment that he twists, exaggerates and misrepresents in order to attempt to impose his radical views into the law. There is no place for a judge like that. It is time for him to leave the Court. If he chooses not to step down it would seem appropriate for the Court to do what they would with an attorney who grossly exaggerates and mischaracterizes cases and rulings to the point of misrepresentation.
IAM, by the way, was hardly much better. It is in denial of course, and with a biased, belated headline too (almost a week late): “No – the CAFC’s Justice Mayer has not just brought an end to software patents or anything close” (yes, the headline starts with the word “No”, just to remind us it’s not really a news site). To quote: “Software patents are not about to be suddenly ripped up thanks to Mayer’s comments – if it wanted to, the Supreme Court could easily have done that by now. What is more plausible is that in writing his concurrence, Mayer is really speaking to an audience of his fellow judges and, perhaps alarmed by recent decisions like McRO, he’s attempting to place a brake on the string of recent pro-software patent decisions.”
They are quoting Manny Schecter, chief software patents propagandist at IBM, as saying: “It is hard to understand why Judge Mayer would push the Federal Circuit “to acknowledge that Alice sounded the death knell for software patents” given that the Supreme Court in Alice did not refer specifically to software, appeared to be warding off this type of sweeping conclusion when it indicated that we must “tread carefully in construing this exclusionary principle lest it swallow all of patent law”, and (contrary to Judge Mayer) stated: “There is no dispute that a computer is a tangible system (in §101 terms, a “machine”), or that many computer-implemented claims are formally addressed to patent-eligible subject matter.” Furthermore, let’s not lose perspective. Judge Mayer is a single judge on the Federal Circuit, which we know to be deeply divided on this subject – recall the inability of the Federal Circuit to reach consensus in Alice when it reviewed the case en banc. My problem with Alice is not that it banned software patents (because it did not), but that its failure to provide clear guidance has resulted in a torrent of uncertainty.”
Law Firms Said Nothing or Resorted to Misdirection
Well, finally, almost a week and a half later, one law firm covered the case, under the headline “Judge Mayer Finds that Section 101 Bars Patents on Software”. To quote:
In Intellectual Ventures v. Symantec, [2015-1769, 2015-1770, 2015-1771] (September 30, 2016), the Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment that the asserted claims of the ‘050 and ‘142 patents were directed to ineligible subject matter and reversed the finding that the asserted claim of the ‘610 patent covered eligible subject matter.
At Step I of the Mayo/Alice Test for the ‘050, the Federal Circuit agreed that the ‘050 patent was directed to the abstract idea of filtering emails, noting that it it was long-prevalent practice for people receiving paper mail to look at an envelope and discard certain letters, without opening them, from sources from which they did not wish to receive mail based on characteristics of the mail. At Step II of the Mayo/Alice Test, the Federal Circuit rejected the argument that because the jury determined that the prior art did not anticipate or make obvious the claimed invention, the claims necessarily met Step II, noting the fact that the claims may not have been anticipated or obvious does not suggest that the idea of “determining” and “outputting” is not abstract, much less that its implementation is not routine and conventional.
All other law firms seem to be looking at other cases, as if the above never happened or isn’t worth covering. This serves to confirm what we have been saying about cherry-picking. The following article by Matthew A. Ambros of Foley & Lardner [1, 2] is an example of misdirection and here is another example of it. From Joseph Robinson and Robert Schaffer came another distracting piece, leaving in tact only the aforementioned attack on the judge (courtesy of Watchtroll himself).
Another utterly misleading bunch of articles whose authors live 3-4 weeks in the past (McRO) and ignore the latest case can be found in [1, 2] or the repeatedly bumped-up (in the news) “Federal Circuit Strengthens Software, Business Method Patents” (behind paywall). One might get the impression from these that software patents are doing great, enjoying a resurgence, etc.
It is absolutely amazing that no legal firm that profits from patents (except from the one example above) speaks about the latest major case at CAFC. They talk about all sort of other things that serve to distract their clients. Covering another case (old case, new article), this one speaks about program running on a general-purpose mobile phone not being patentable. Like that wasn’t already obvious…
Sob Stories
Last week the Wall Street-centric media posted a pro-patents sob story/puff piece. “Patents for diagnostic methods and natural products have become difficult to obtain of late, although the U.S. law in this area is still evolving,” the author stated.
They are speaking for monopolies, not for ordinary businesses. So did Mark Summerfield, who quit his job last month and openly asked Watchtroll for some kind of attack piece on the judge. To quote: “Looking forward to your excoriation of Mayer’s appalling concurring opinion in IV v Symantec. I assume it’s on the way?”
Well, personal attacks are Watchtroll's expertise. We wrote about this a couple of times on Tuesday, expecting some ad hominem attacks from the ‘usual suspects’ and we were right. Henrion said, “if the watchdog would be serious about expropriation, the article would not be about defending patents hein…”
“I can’t speak for Gene, but I care more about my clients than money,” Summerfield wrote, “which is why I just quit my job” (citing his blog post about it).
Speaking to others (Crouch in this case), Henrion said about SCOTUS refusing to revisit software patentability that it’s “another way to say to the patent community if they got the message in the first place?”
Mikko Hypponen, writing about the latest ruling, said: “I can’t wait for software patents to die. And I hold several software patents myself.”
“Writing software is hard,” Daniel Nazer (EFF) wrote. “Having a vague idea about software is easy. Software patents reward the latter and punish the former. End them.”
“If copyrights were adequate,” Henrion said, “why does Red hat so closely associated [sic] with OSS have so many hundreds of patents?”
We actually wrote about this several times in the past.
Linking to this item, one patent attorney wrote that “Uber Has a Big Alice Problem,” as if anyone out there should care about an evil company like Uber and sob for it.
We expect many pieces in the corporate media in the coming weeks, explaining why the CAFC’s ruling has dealt a blow to “innovation” or some other myths. We can envision that such pieces would be composed by large corporations, their patent lawyers, or journalists who sparingly quote those two groups. █
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