Brussels, 1st April 2024 — Microsoft’s lead patent attorney William Gates has been elected as part-time judge at the Unified Patent Court. The Unified Patent Court is understaffed for the mathematics field of technology. Microsoft will provide an AI assistant to the Court to help the judges understand mathematics, and learn how to count to 5. Microsoft now joins Nokia, Airbus, 3M and Agfa as part-time judges at the Unified Patent Court.
The german President of the Unified Patent Court, Klaus Grabmyski, reacted to the nomination:
We welcome Microsoft as technical judge at the Unified Patent Court. We recently had problems to count technical judges at the UPC’s Appeal Court. Legally trained professionals are usually very bad at math, that’s why we had problems to count the number of technical judges required by law. We hope the new Microsoft’s AI Assistant will help us to count, at least till 5 to start with. That will ensure swift decisions that are legally binding.
The President of Microsoft is proud of the election of its lead patent attorney William Gates at the UPC:
We are excited to see our lead patent attorney elected as part-time judge at the Unified Patent Court. Europe always wanted to be like the United States, american attorneys are so proud to help the leading patent court in Europe to grow the number of patent disputes. We have lots of patents and wasteful litigation in the US, and we don’t see why Europe should not have the same. We hope our Azure AI copilot will help legally qualified judges to learn to count till 5.
Irish open source developer Mike O’Really reacted in an Irish newspaper, where Ireland should join the Unified Patent Court after referendum in June:
Citizens of Ireland, vote NO to the UPC! Irish citizens will vote for a corrupted court in June, where Multinational Corporations like Microsoft are also becoming part-time judges.
References
August-Debouzy: Is the UPC appeal court so in its youth that it has not yet learned to count up to 5 https://www.august-debouzy.com/en/blog/2054-la-jub-enfreint-deja-larticle-6-de-la-cedh
MWE: Legal Lens on the Unified Patent Court | March 2024 “The CoA’s decision also addressed an important practical question: whether the CoA can rule without technically qualified judges on the panel when the appeal does not involve technical issues. Despite Article 9.1 of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA) requiring any CoA panel to consist of three legally and two technically qualified judges – based on an analogous application of UPCA Article 9.2 – the CoA determined that technically qualified judges were not necessary in appellate proceedings dealing with purely procedural questions. The CoA emphasized the need for a flexible and balanced application of the RoP, consistent with Recital 6 of the UPCA, which ensures rapid decisions, efficiency and cost-effective proceedings.” https://www.mwe.com/insights/legal-lens-on-the-unified-patent-court-march-2024/
IPKat: Do certain panel compositions of the UPC Court of Appeal breach article 6 ECHR? https://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2024/04/guestpost-does-judicial-composition-of.html
FFII: Nokia and Airbus elected as judges at the Unified Patent Court, an unheard corruption of Justice https://ffii.org/nokia-and-airbus-elected-as-judges-at-the-kangaroo-unified-patent-court-kupc/
Microsoft Patents: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Legal/IntellectualProperty/patents/
Boulier comptoir Montessori: https://materiel-montessori.fr/nido-0-3-ans/436-boulier-5-couleurs-7863100488757.html