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European Patent Office fires up lawyers over claims of cosy love-in with Microsoft

Mr. Irreverent

The USPTO is most definitely NOT a rubber-stamping organization. The Italian and South African patent offices are just that: places where you register a patent, and the courts later sort out validity. The USPTO actually examines patent applications - in some cases very badly - but examine it does, and often at great expense to the applicant, particularly when the examiner is a dolt, which as noted is all too often.

EPO examiners are paid much better than their US counterparts, and until a few years ago could almost always be counted on to conduct a more thorough and relevant examination of patent applications. Perhaps EPO examiners are too highly paid (how are their pensions funded, from their own contributions or by the EPO, which would then have to charge ever-higher fees of today's applicants to pay for yesterday's examiners?), but their response to the fat-trimming attempted by their boss is no different than the response of unionized public-sector employees anywhere: we're living off other peoples' money, don't touch our gravy train!

The high-handed legal threats approach employed by the EPO in the present case of laundry-airing is pitiful, but so is the acquiescence to those threats by the blogger. If it's true, you can't be liable for libel, except in the USSR, the old East Germany, and present-day China.

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