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This is insanely disturbing if it's true, but on the other hand not entirely surprising that Europe's tech dinosaurs like Nokia turn to patent trolling, as that

This is insanely disturbing if it's true, but on the other hand not entirely surprising that Europe's tech dinosaurs like Nokia turn to patent trolling, as that's the only card they can play at this point, having been out-competed by Apple and Huawei. Does anyone know, are there any EU legislators we can write to about this issue? I'm (shamefully) not familiar how EU democratic processes work.

zoobab 4y ago
I booked NokiaPlanP.com back in the days, P for Patents, I guess I was right. "how EU democratic processes work" Well, to make things worse, the EU is not signatory of the Agreement, so you cannot seize the European Court of Justice, nor complain to the European Parliament. The plan to validate software patents in Europe was to keep the European Court of Justice away from Patent Law. The elected President Klaus Grabinski of the Unified Patent Court made some public statements where he said the exclusion of computer programs is not a problem to grant software patents, beacuse it can be ignored with the "as such" provision.
- ano-ther 4y ago
  > the EU is not signatory of the Agreement, so you cannot seize the European Court of Justice, nor complain to the European Parliament The European Parliament approved the unitary patent rules: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20121210IPR04506/parliament-approves-eu-unitary-patent-rules https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20121210IP... The council agreed on the Unified Patent Court: https://www.unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/upc_documents/agreement-on-a-unified-patent-court.pdf https://www.unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/upc... Which states: “Article 21 Requests for preliminary rulings As a court common to the Contracting Member States and as part of their judicial system, the Court shall cooperate with the Court of Justice of the European Union to ensure the correct application and uniform interpretation of Union law, as any national court, in accordance with Article 267 TFEU in particular. Decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union shall be binding on the Court.”
  - zoobab 4y ago
    The 'common court' is being disputed by academics, as the jurisprudence of the CJEU on what is a 'common court' does not fly with removing national courts from interpreting EU law (art 4.3TFEU, art19.1TFEU and art267TFEU): https://ffii.org/unified-patent-court-wont-survive-a-legal-challenge-at-the-european-court-of-justice-says-dr-thomas-jaeger/ https://ffii.org/unified-patent-court-wont-survive-a-legal-c... Countries basically misread the opinion 1/09 of the CJEU, with a similar design (national courts being removed) that was rejected in 2011. Now the question is how to get this question to the CJEU ASAP. The German Const Court did not want to escalate the question, this was seen as a political decision by the complainant Dr Stjerna. Guess which country will profit the most from the reform, and which country controls the new Court?
mrtree 4y ago
Nokia is not the phone company but the network service’s provider. Patent trolls do not produce products, Airbus and Nokia DO -very competitive- products. Airbus in particular is far superior to their competitor Boeing, which seems to be a sore point on many US-based commenters. Nokia is no longer “the phone company”, Nokia refers to Nokia Networks (Alcatel included). Nokia, Huawei and Ericsson produce most of the wireless telco infrastructure today, which the US infrastructure depends on as no US company does this competetively. The article itself is a bit on the FUD side of things tbh and the comments here are a bit uninformed.
- zoobab 4y ago
  Nokia is also very aggressive in patent enforcement. And the article is about corporate capture of the court, not Nokia in particular.
simulation_ 4y ago
One thing : Nokia looks quite strong in their core business, that is telecommunication equipment (like base stations, not phones), and the phone brand isn't theirs for years. So they are competing with Huawei, but with Apple?
- Maakuth 4y ago
  The network equipment business was largely a sideshow back when their phone business was successful. Apple and especially Android outcompeted the phones, so networks is what they have left.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    And their networks business is also eaten alive by Samsung, Huawei and ZTE. The only thing saving them and Ericson is EU/Western bans on Chinese tech for security reasons.
denton-scratch 4y ago
> I'm (shamefully) not familiar how EU democratic processes work. There's no shame in that; only lobbyists have that familiarity (you might think politicians, but I think it's too complicated for them). But at least politicians know who to ask. So the best thing is probably to write to your MEP. You don't have an MEP? Then you don't get a say in EU judicial procedures.

zoobab 4y ago

I booked NokiaPlanP.com back in the days, P for Patents, I guess I was right. "how EU democratic processes work" Well, to make things worse, the EU is not signatory of the Agreement, so you cannot seize the European Court of Justice, nor complain to the European Parliament. The plan to validate software patents in Europe was to keep the European Court of Justice away from Patent Law. The elected President Klaus Grabinski of the Unified Patent Court made some public statements where he said the exclusion of computer programs is not a problem to grant software patents, beacuse it can be ignored with the "as such" provision.

ano-ther 4y ago
> the EU is not signatory of the Agreement, so you cannot seize the European Court of Justice, nor complain to the European Parliament The European Parliament approved the unitary patent rules: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20121210IPR04506/parliament-approves-eu-unitary-patent-rules https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20121210IP... The council agreed on the Unified Patent Court: https://www.unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/upc_documents/agreement-on-a-unified-patent-court.pdf https://www.unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/upc... Which states: “Article 21 Requests for preliminary rulings As a court common to the Contracting Member States and as part of their judicial system, the Court shall cooperate with the Court of Justice of the European Union to ensure the correct application and uniform interpretation of Union law, as any national court, in accordance with Article 267 TFEU in particular. Decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union shall be binding on the Court.”
- zoobab 4y ago
  The 'common court' is being disputed by academics, as the jurisprudence of the CJEU on what is a 'common court' does not fly with removing national courts from interpreting EU law (art 4.3TFEU, art19.1TFEU and art267TFEU): https://ffii.org/unified-patent-court-wont-survive-a-legal-challenge-at-the-european-court-of-justice-says-dr-thomas-jaeger/ https://ffii.org/unified-patent-court-wont-survive-a-legal-c... Countries basically misread the opinion 1/09 of the CJEU, with a similar design (national courts being removed) that was rejected in 2011. Now the question is how to get this question to the CJEU ASAP. The German Const Court did not want to escalate the question, this was seen as a political decision by the complainant Dr Stjerna. Guess which country will profit the most from the reform, and which country controls the new Court?

mrtree 4y ago

Nokia is not the phone company but the network service’s provider. Patent trolls do not produce products, Airbus and Nokia DO -very competitive- products. Airbus in particular is far superior to their competitor Boeing, which seems to be a sore point on many US-based commenters. Nokia is no longer “the phone company”, Nokia refers to Nokia Networks (Alcatel included). Nokia, Huawei and Ericsson produce most of the wireless telco infrastructure today, which the US infrastructure depends on as no US company does this competetively. The article itself is a bit on the FUD side of things tbh and the comments here are a bit uninformed.

zoobab 4y ago
Nokia is also very aggressive in patent enforcement. And the article is about corporate capture of the court, not Nokia in particular.

simulation_ 4y ago

One thing : Nokia looks quite strong in their core business, that is telecommunication equipment (like base stations, not phones), and the phone brand isn't theirs for years. So they are competing with Huawei, but with Apple?

Maakuth 4y ago
The network equipment business was largely a sideshow back when their phone business was successful. Apple and especially Android outcompeted the phones, so networks is what they have left.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  And their networks business is also eaten alive by Samsung, Huawei and ZTE. The only thing saving them and Ericson is EU/Western bans on Chinese tech for security reasons.

denton-scratch 4y ago

> I'm (shamefully) not familiar how EU democratic processes work. There's no shame in that; only lobbyists have that familiarity (you might think politicians, but I think it's too complicated for them). But at least politicians know who to ask. So the best thing is probably to write to your MEP. You don't have an MEP? Then you don't get a say in EU judicial procedures.