Double Blow To The EU's Long-Delayed Unified Patent Court, But Supporters Unlikely To Give Up

from the increasingly-anachronistic dept

Remember the EU's unitary patent plan? No surprise if you don't -- attempts to create a unitary patent system across the region have been dragging on for decades. Back in 2012, Techdirt noted that the European Parliament had finally approved the plan to set up a new Unified Patent Court (UPC) for the EU, but it still hasn't come to fruition. Recently, the scheme has been dealt two major blows that are likely to delay it further, even if they don't kill it off entirely.

The first concerns the UK. It's one of the three nations that had to sign up to the UPC agreement for it to come into force. A big question was whether it could or would do so after brexit. The answer turns out to be "no". The second problem comes from Germany, where the country's constitutional court has ruled as follows:

The Act of Approval to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court ("the Act of Approval") to confer sovereign powers on the Unified Patent Court is void. In its outcome, it amends the [German] Constitution in substantive terms, though it has not been approved by the Bundestag with the required two-thirds majority.

However, it's possible that can be solved by the Bundestag -- German's parliament -- holding another vote which does attain the two-thirds majority. There is likely to be pressure to do so because elsewhere the ruling by Germany's constitutional court (full translation from FFII.org) is helpful to supporters of the UPC, for reasons explained by The Register:

the German Constitutional Court effectively rejected the other arguments against the UPC's validity. In essence, they were: that because the UK is exiting the EU that the UPC is no longer valid because the UK was one of three compulsory signatories to it (the other two being France and Germany); and that the European Patent Office (EPO) is insufficiently independent because of "reforms" made by its former president Benoit Battistelli that concentrated power in his hands.

Importantly, the first point means the refusal of the UK to sign up is not regarded as an issue now that it has left the EU. As Florian Mueller writes on his blog: "there is widespread consensus that re-ratification (subsequently to renegotiation) is a question of when, not if." Although FFII.org agrees the patent industry will push hard to get the UPC implemented, it notes there are yet more bumps in that particular road:

the German Constitutional Court still have to decide soon over 4 other complaints, where complainants have raised the issue that the European Patent Office (EPO) cannot be brought to court for maladministration, in breach of the "rule of law" principle. If the court finds the EPO not in line with fundamental rights, this might have a bigger impact over the current system.

This point relates to the central role that will be played by the EPO in issuing the new unitary patents, valid across the EU. The EPO has long been a controversial institution: it is not part of the EU, its premises enjoy extraterritoriality, and its executives are granted diplomatic immunity that effectively places them outside the law. If allegations of maladministration cannot be brought to EU courts, that seems like a recipe for disaster. Irrespective of those particular questions, The Register article raises a more fundamental one: is it really worth bothering with a plan that was born decades ago? Both the unitary patent and UPC reflect a very different world from the one we now inhabit, which no longer regards more powerful patents as an obvious blessing.

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Filed Under: brexit, epo, eu, germany, patents, uk, unified patent court

EU Patent Office Rejects Two Patent Applications In Which An AI Was Designated As The Inventor

from the watch-this-space dept

We've written a bunch about why AI generated artwork should not (and need not) have any copyright at all. The law says that copyright only applies to human creators. But what about patents? There has been a big debate about this in the patent space over the last year, mainly lead by AI developers who want to be able to secure patents on AI generated ideas. The patent offices in the EU and the US have been exploring the issue, and asking for feedback, while they plot out a strategy, but some AI folks decided to force the matter sooner. Over the summer they announced that they had filed for two patents in the EU for inventions that they claim were "invented" by an AI named DABUS without the assistance of a human inventor.

And now, the EU Patent Office has rejected both patents, since they don't have a human inventor.

The EPO has refused two European patent applications in which a machine was designated as inventor. Both patent applications indicate “DABUS” as inventor, which is described as “a type of connectionist artificial intelligence”. The applicant stated that they acquired the right to the European patent from the inventor by being its successor in title.

After hearing the arguments of the applicant in non-public oral proceedings on 25 November the EPO refused EP 18 275 163 and EP 18 275 174 on the grounds that they do not meet the requirement of the EPC that an inventor designated in the application has to be a human being, not a machine. A reasoned decision may be expected in January 2020.

Frankly, this is the right decision and its one that I hope patent offices around the globe recognize and continue to keep this line in place. I fear that this will actually kick off the process that comes to the opposite conclusion, and that patent offices will change the rules to allow for AI-generated patents.

The problem, yet again, is in people's misguided belief that everything must be owned by someone, and that somehow without a patent it is impossible to successfully commercialize or market a product. There is tremendous evidence to the contrary (including just by looking at products after their patents run out -- which is often a time when more innovation occurs, since there's greater competition driving improvements). But, instead, you hear nonsense like the following from Prof. Ryan Abbott, who helped file the two now rejected patents, arguing that without patents, somehow these inventions might not come to be:

Abbott and his team believe that powerful AI systems could eventually find cures for cancer or find workable solutions for reversing climate change. “If outdated IP laws around the world don’t respond quickly to the rise of the inventive machine, the lack of incentive for AI developers could stand in the way of a new era of spectacular human endeavor,” Abbott said.

But why? AI doesn't need the monopoly control as incentive to create an invention. That's not what motivates the AI. What's wrong with just letting the AI come up with those cures for cancer and workable solutions for reversing climate change and just giving them to the world to make the world a better place?

Filed Under: ai, dabus, epo, eu, humans, incentives, ownership, patents, ryan abbott

European Patent Office Threatens Blogger With Defamation Lawsuit For Criticism

from the thin-skin dept

World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR) is reporting that the European Patent Office, EPO, has threatened Roy Schestowitz with a defamation lawsuit over a blog post he did. Schestowitz writes the Techrights blog, which I personally think can go overboard with some of its stories at times. However, to argue that his stories are defamation, especially by a government agency, is crazy. Back in October, Schetowitz had a story claiming that the EPO was prioritizing patent applications from large companies like Microsoft to "foster a better esprit de service." I actually don't think the program described by the EPO actually sounds that crazy, and the EPO's response isn't that crazy either -- it's just about more efficiently handling certain patent applications to keep the office from getting swamped. Indeed, it does seem like Schestowitz may have overreacted with his interpretation of the memo. But, misinterpreting something is hardly defamation.

In fact, to argue that Schestowitz's post is defamatory is crazy. Threatening Schestowitz with a defamation claim is much crazier and dangerous than even Schestowitz's own interpretation of the EPO's memo. If you're working for a government agency, such as the EPO, you have to be willing to accept some amount of criticism, even if you disagree with it. To claim it's defamation and to threaten a lawsuit is really, really screwed up. Frankly, this calls into question what the EPO is focused on much more than any claims of favoring large companies. Also bizarre is the fact that WIPR edited its own story to remove any mention of what Schestowitz's original blog posts were about in the first place. They had originally included a sentence briefly describing the original Techrights blog post that got the EPO upset, but then deleted that part.

The EPO has been coming under a fair bit of criticism lately, and the entire organization appears to be astoundingly thin-skinned. A few months ago, the office apparently blocked access to Techrights altogether from within its network. That seems like a pretty strange move in the first place. Florian Mueller (and, yes, I know that many people here don't trust Mueller, but...) has pointed out how absolutely ridiculous the EPO can be about just about anything related to how it works:

The European Patent Office is the last dictatorship on Central European soil. Local police cannot allowed to enter the EPO's facilities without an invitation from the president. National court rulings cannot be enforced; compliance is voluntary. Employees and visitors are subjected to covert surveillance. And if employees are fired (or "suspended"), which just happened to several staff representative, they won't get their day in court for about ten years.

The EPO's leaders have a rather selective attitude toward the law. When it's about their wrongdoings, they want their organization to be a lawless, autocratic island that disrespects human rights. But when the rules of the world around the EPO come in handy, the leadership of the EPO tries to leverage them against those who dare to criticize it.

I'm having trouble thinking of any other governmental agency that has ever threatened a public critic with defamation. Basic concepts around free speech suggest that the EPO should suck it up. If it disagrees with Schestowitz's interpretation of what it's doing, then it can come out and explain its side of the story. Threatening him with defamation actually only makes me think that perhaps his interpretation hits closer to home than I originally believed.

Filed Under: criticism, defamation, epo, european patent office, roy schestowitz, thin skin
Companies: epo

Welcome to Eponia, Europe's New Rogue State?

from the above-the-law dept

It would be easy to assume that the European Patent Office (EPO) stands in the same relationship to the European Union as the USPTO does to the United States, but that's actually wide of the mark. The EPO is a very strange beast indeed, as its Wikipedia entry makes clear:

The premises of the European Patent Office enjoy a form of extraterritoriality. In accordance with the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, which forms an integral part of the European Patent Convention under Article 164(1) EPC, the premises of the European Patent Organisation, and therefore those of the European Patent Office, are inviolable. The authorities of the States in which the Organisation has its premises are not authorized to enter those premises, except with the consent of the President of the European Patent Office.

Far from being some boring government office like any other, the EPO is like a mini nation-state. This curious fact has been taken as the starting point for a witty post on the IPKat blog about a little-known country, Eponia:

a small landlocked state mainly based in Munich, though it has established colonies in The Hague, Berlin, Vienna and Brussels. Few people are born in Eponia (though it is rumoured that quite a few have been conceived there); most are settlers -- though they prefer to call themselves by a less provocative term, Examiners.

Here are some details about its financial operation:

One of the most buoyant economies in Europe, Eponia enjoys a unique and apparently inexhaustible source of income: patent tourism. Pilgrims come from far and wide to place their supplications before the local sages, or Boards of Appeal. Well-wishers also ply Eponia with money in order to obtain patents, cancel patents, amend patents or sometimes just to accelerate or retard the rate at which these much-desired services are delivered. Those whose petitions for a patent are successful often find that they are blessed with plenty, and that their influence extends from one end of Europe to the other. Some say that this good fortune can persist for getting on for 20 years, so long as occasional sacred donations, quaintly termed "renewal fees", are paid. What other country in Europe can offer such attractions? The horseshoe, the four-leaf clover, the leprechaun pale into insignificance in comparison.

And let's not forget about more elevated matters:

The national religion of Eponia is contained in a document known as the European Patent Convention, whose Articles (far more numerous than the Church of England's mere 39) are held to have been dictated directly into the ear of Blessed Bob van Benthem by a divine voice in the form of a holy hummingbird. While of less mystical origin, the Rules are also greatly revered. Like any sacred text, its superficial meaning is open to misinterpretation, and only specially trained priests are initiated into the deeper meaning of its rites and rituals (enigmatically referred to as "Guidelines"). When sufficiently inspired, those who are closest to achieving spiritual ecstasy can be seen and heard to be "talking in tongues", which embrace English, German and French -- but never Spanish or Italian.

It's a great piece, but its gentle humor exposes a serious point about the EPO: it is literally above the law. That could be a problem because of a major change to the European patent landscape: the introduction of the unitary patent:

A unitary patent will be a European patent granted by the EPO under the provisions of the European Patent Convention to which unitary effect for the territory of the 25 participating states is given after grant, at the patentee's request.

Unitary patents will be granted and administered by the EPO, and will have effect across most of the European Union. However, they will not be directly subject to the European Union. A perceptive paper by Dimitris Xenos, entitled, "The European Unified Patent Court: Assessment and Implications of the Federalisation of the Patent System in Europe", explores some of the problems this could cause once the associated Unified Patent Court (UPC), the sole arbiter of unitary patent disputes, comes into operation :

The UPC will operate in relation to an upgraded framework of patents that are granted by the European Patent Office (EPO), with such patents being able to have unitary effect in all participating states (i.e. those which have approved the relevant EU Regulation). By replacing the jurisdiction of the national courts in enforcement and invalidity proceedings of such patents, the UPC will take exclusive competence to determine all disputes relating to patents with unitary effect. The new system has all the main characteristics of a federal court, apart from the name. However, although a federal structure is adopted, important elements are strikingly different. First, the EU states do not form a federation under which benefits are pursued for the common good of one state and second, there is no legislative authority to influence the economic policy which underlies the determination of the legal principles and standards that define patents as objects of property in the UPC system.

That emphasizes once more that the unitary patent system has been decoupled from the normal legislative and democratic processes of the European Union, and thus will be under no obligation to take heed of the economic interests of the European citizens. Here's why that is likely to be a problem:

There is no precedent in the political history of modern democracies where important property issues affecting the economic sustainability and development of a country, and the proprietary rights and business prospects of its people, were conclusively and exclusively taken by a judicial body at supranational level. A democratic policy-making process for the determination of patents as objects of property exists, of course, in all countries of the world, including the US, whose system the UPC tries to imitate. The difference is that the US unified patent system does not escape democratic control, and the economic policies that it serves are widely debated by legislators, judges, economists, lawyers and industry players, all of whom are residents of the same country.

It's still early days for the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court, so it's not yet clear how the new system will work, and how serious the problems will be. The danger is that Eponia might turn out to be not so much a quaint oddity in the European political landscape as a dangerous rogue state with serious negative consequences for the region's businesses and citizens.

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Filed Under: above the law, epo, eponia, europe, patents, rogue state, uspto

Europe Continues To Allow Vegetable Patent Despite Being Told To Stop

from the patently-crazy dept

Two years ago, we wrote about how the European Patent Organization had granted a patent on broccoli. The patent was originally on the breeding method, but then it was ruled that the breeding methods were not covered by the patents, leaving just the basic broccoli as patented. Both the European Parliament and the German Parliament have said that the EPO should stop granting vegetable patents, but apparently it hasn't stopped. It's now issued a patent on a kind of pepper. While the new peppers are supposedly "resistant to insects," people are pointing out that it was derived from conventional breeding -- and that's what was rejected in the broccoli case. What's amazing, by the way, is that this pepper patent appears to have gone to Syngenta, which I believe was one of the companies that fought against the broccoli patent.

As for the European Patent Organization, it says that it's still waiting to hear about the final decision on the broccoli patent (and a tomato one) from the Enlarged Board of Appeal (I don't want to know...), and that while it finds the European Parliament's request to stop issuing such patents interesting, the European Parliament has no mandate over the European Patent Organization, so they don't really care that much. In the meantime, careful what you eat in your salad.

Filed Under: broccoli, epo, europe, european patent organization, patents, peppers, vegetables
Companies: syngenta

European Patent Office Gives Staff Bonus For Issuing Bumper Crop Of Patents: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

from the perverse-incentives dept

The European Patent Office (EPO) is a curious body. Despite its name, it is not the patent office for the European Union (EU) in the same way that the USPTO handles patents in the US. As its history page explains:

In addition to all 27 EU member states, Albania, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey belong to the European Patent Organisation.

This gives it an independence from the European Union that is problematic for patent law there. For example, back in 2005, the European Parliament voted definitively not to allow software patents in Europe. And yet as an excellent analysis published on the IPKat site explains, the EPO has continued to move steadily towards granting more and broader software patents in Europe.

Given the largely uncontrolled way the EPO has been issuing patents, this story in Intellectual Property Watch is noteworthy:

The European Patent Office Administrative Council in December agreed to award a controversial bonus of tens of millions of euros to EPO staff at the end of 2012, with 24 positive votes and 8 negative votes. Several stakeholders had protested the proposal and encouraged contracting states in the Administrative Council to vote against the measure.

The reason for the bonus? Because of all the extra money the EPO had made recently as the result of granting so many patents. But as a letter written to representatives of the 38 EPO contracting states in the Administration Council, and obtained by Intellectual Property Watch, pointed out (doc):

[The bonus] contributes to adverse incentive structures and conflicts of interest for the employees of the EPO. In linking the staff's wallet to the Office's surplus, it undermines the efforts to raise the bar in patent examination and fosters a mentality to increase fee revenues for the EPO by granting applications of low quality.

The bonus is effectively rewarding the fact that the EPO's employees issued a particularly large number of patents in 2011. Human nature being what it is, the danger is that this will encourage them to issue even more patents in the hope of receiving another similar bonus.

As the letter goes on:

The EPO should not celebrate increases in patent filing rates as a success story but react to the worldwide critique of a global overheating of the patent system jeopardizing innovation and the proper functioning of the social contract with society upon which the patent system rests.

That is, rather than implicitly making the false equation that more patents automatically mean more innovation -- something that Techdirt has written about several times -- the EPO should strive to reduce the number, but increase the quality, and maybe offer bonuses for those who achieve that.

Sadly, it's in the EPO's interests to have more patents issued, regardless of their quality, since this will encourage yet more companies to apply for patents so as not to get "left behind" in the Great Patent Race. And that will produce yet more surpluses for the EPO, and presumably more bonuses for its staff. Everyone wins -- except, of course European businesses and citizens who have to suffer the knock-on effects of yet more unjustified intellectual monopolies.

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Filed Under: bonus, epo, eu, incentives, patent office, patents