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03.01.16

Ongoing Investigation: Why Mainstream Media — and German Media in Particular — Has Mostly Ignored Latest Developments at the EPO

Posted in Europe, Patents at 2:53 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Until very recently at least…

FTI and Süddeutsche Zeitung

Summary: Reluctance to cover the severe issues inside the European Patent Office (EPO) and some belated coverage about EPO problems

THE DUTCH media has done a decent job covering the EPO’s abuses, but the same cannot be said about the German media, for reasons we can only speculate or make guesses about.

A translation of this article in German is needed and now that some of the media in Germany finally starts covering EPO scandals we suspect we’ll soon have this video of a German TV programme. It’s probably just a matter of time.

“As long as Germany is at the very centre of a Europe-wide (and beyond) patent system, why would Germany want to jeopardise/risk/chastise it?”For Germany it makes sense to go soft on the EPO and also leave leeway for patent lawyers to interfere in German politics and justice. As long as Germany is at the very centre of a Europe-wide (and beyond) patent system, why would Germany want to jeopardise/risk/chastise it?

Recently, Süddeutsche Zeitung did some questionable journalism about the EPO and we decided to ask them what had happened and why they are saying nothing about the latest situation at the EPO. It just looked very suspicious. Last week I sent them this E-mail:

Urgent: lack of coverage regarding EPO matters

I would like to enquire, with humble and good intentions, why you have been silent about the demonstrations at the EPO in Munich, The Hague, and the general situation at the EPO. The media, including the media in Munich, has an obligation to inform the public about such issues.

Has the EPO been in contact or used pressure to affect your angle on this? If so, you are not alone. Please explain why there has been such a silence for a very long time; it’s not reasonable to just pretend nothing is happening at the EPO.

Kind regards,

I have not received a response from Süddeutsche Zeitung. It has been quite a while now.

“I guess Sueddeutsche has just lost interest in what is hard to figure out from the outside and only matters to approximately 10K people in Munich,” one person told us. “I suspect that German media now treats the Germany-centric EU-wide patent regime the same way it treats immigration issues that serve to discredit Merkel’s policies,” I wrote in response, but we shall know soon if Süddeutsche Zeitung has any intention of covering these matters some time soon. We might even send some more E-mails, maybe more suitably target. Sources indicate to us that something nefarious may have happened at Süddeutsche Zeitung, but we don’t know precisely what and when. It’s still just a rumour. █

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