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The Market Mogul covers why the European Patent Office's (EPO) current patent filing system may be stifling innovation. Among many other reasons, the European Patent Office prioritizes the applications from large multinationals over smaller European businesses from any of 38 European nations. Not quite half of all European patent applications come from the EPO member states, followed by the US, Japan, China and South Korea. Another large point of contention caused by the EPO is their granting of software patents in direct violations of the European Patent Convention (EPC).
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Is European Patent Office Filing a Rigged Game in Europe?
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Q: How many marketing people does it take to change a light bulb?
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(Score: 5, Informative) by qzm on Saturday September 09 2017, @10:58PM (1 child)
Pretty much this.
After having spent several years trying to get a patent accepted in the US (after being accepted in a range of other countries) it certainly becomes apparently how twisted the system is.
This was not a 'software patent', and was for a system that was unique and in use (by us..)
In the us they played 'denial pingpong' where they would wait as long as possible, then bring up another unrelated patent as being prior-art. we would respond immediately with the reasons why it was not.
They would then wait the maximum time, and bring up a second patent as prior art, we would respond again. they would then wait and bring up the first one again.
After several times through this process is became apparent that they were simply refusing the allow the patent, and it would never proceed.
Shockingly, about a year after that, they awarded a nearly identical patent to a much much larger US domestic organisation - one we have approached shortly after filing our patent application.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Sunday September 10 2017, @12:09PM
You need to contact the local industry groups and survey how widespread this problem is. The lawyers are benefiting financially from the reapplications so even if they know about it, they won't make an effort to reduce their billable hours by contacting officials themselves.
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