Everyone loves Benoît

Summary: Having 'infiltrated' most key positions at the EPO, Benoît Battistelli now ejects everything that remains potential threat to his unquestionable total domination

THE EPO isn't viewed as a villain for no reason. TPP apologists and lobbyists (the corporate media being a big part of it) try to paint TPP critics as clueless (with no access to the text because it's intentionally kept secret), paranoid (assuming the worst), irrational haters and the EPO's management hopes that the European public will view internal backlash as just a few disgruntled employees (or laid off staff seeking revenge).

Those who hate the TPP ought to take a closer look at the UPC and the EPO, which is privately and even publicly pushing for the UPC (to essentially change the law, meaning that the EPO does politics now). The EPO is totally out of control and anyone who dares to say so is being eliminated, if at all possible, by stretching the law (or by simply changing the rules). We are among the victims because Techrights has been permanently blocked by the EPO (for the first time in history) and put under rogue surveillance. Nothing and apparently nobody -- not even outside the EPO --- can escape the ire of Benoît.

Techrights has become an eyewitness to something rather disturbing. Based on a circulated PDF from people who are familiar with the EPO's abuses, Battistelli and his cronies are definitely going to crush the boards and even go further than that. To quote the text of relevance:

Are the Boards of Appeal dying out?

Some public debate already took place at the beginning of the year 2015 as regards staffing of the Boards of Appeal (BoA). The business distribution scheme revealed in June an increased number of posts as chairpersons or members left vacant as a result of the decision of the President of the EPO to refuse to propose to the Administrative Council (AC) any new appointment to the BoA, which is his exclusive prerogative according to Article 11(3) EPC. Some AC delegations already questioned this decision, to no avail until now.

The problem obviously worsens with time, in particular with chairpersons and members choosing to leave the Office before a new pension system comes into place. At the beginning of 2016, it is already certain that 7 chairperson posts, 13 technical member posts and 7 legal member posts will be vacant. The situation is particularly critical for chairpersons and legal members, where roughly one post out of four is not staffed. Moreover, some technical fields might become orphaned when the competent technical members retire.

In the meantime, the production of the Boards per capita increases. The President of the Office presents this as a confirmation for his very personal decision to block appointments, neglecting to mention that part of the increase stems from the efforts of the Board members and chairs, but also, and to a non-negligible amount, from increased withdrawal rates (see Rule 103 EPC: Reimbursement of appeal fees). It thus seems that the President applies for the Boards the same recipe as in other departments, most notably DG1, where statistics and production figures are misused to justify policies and reforms.

We kindly ask anyone with information about the status (or fate) of Wim Van der Eijk (Chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal) to contact us anonymously. We need to get to the bottom of it because some people hypothesise that he too was dismissed/terminated using some loophole or misinterpretation of the rules. Sources told us that he had stood up to Battistelli and that therefore there might be a correlation, leading not to resignation or firing but something rather vague, judging by history. If Wim Van der Eijk is really ill, then some of the EPO's AstroTurfers in IP Kat would probably have stated something to that effect by now.

There is a tendency to think that only the boards are in Battistelli's crosshairs; Not so! Based on what we have seen, DG4 (Directorates-General) is also in a bad state (Wim Van der Eijk is Vice-President of DG3). To quote:

Musical chairs in DG4

We all know the game of “musical chairs” where – when the music stops – n participants rush for n-1 chairs. The one who did not get a chair is out. We do not know whether this game was played for real in HR, but we know many did not enjoyed the music. Since Ms Bergot took over the HR department as PD43, four (out of five) HR directors have gone elsewhere, the last one being about to do so (the fifth and last one, director 433 should soon leave elsewhere in the Office). Heads of unit have also changed. We are not aware that any of these managers have volunteered to give up their posts. As a consequence several positions are now held by happy few - none of them belonging to the "old" team - who enjoy the trust of Ms Bergot (at least for now...). For such an - almost military - efficiency in getting rid of so many people in so little time Ms Bergot certainly deserves a bonus at the end of the year!

Remember how Ms Bergot is connected to Battistelli and that her husband, a former colleague of Battistelli, is now Director at the EPO. Well, maybe just a coincidence... ⬆