Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Management is Running Out of Time as More Media Remarks on Its Abuses

Even the British and English-speaking media started to cover the scandals from Germany and the Netherlands

Big wheel



Summary: The terrible policies and the atrocious behaviour of the EPO's management is gradually becoming too widespread an issue, leading to a lot more media coverage and with it public scrutiny

THE EPO is in shambles due to EPO abuses. More accurately, it is the management that comes under fire, for coercing smart patent examiners into doing their job improperly while not exercising their very basic rights. The examiners are not tolerating this abuse, which is why there is an EPO staff protest right now (at the very time of writing this), in front of the Dutch Ministry of Social Affairs.



You know something is clearly amiss when most EPO staff (yet to be confirmed) leaves the building to demonstrate against the employer.

There is a mischievous PR effort under way to colour EPO staff "happy". Not even the most cynical among people would find this funny. This is something that we intend to respond to in our next post. It is rapidly becoming widespread knowledge that EPO is managed by corrupt or corruptible individuals, who prioritise the needs of very large (and mostly foreign) corporations, as a matter of policy. The EPO was supposed to be run in the public's interest (the European public). Some people compare the EPO to FIFA, but the EPO is in many ways worse than FIFA and a lot more people are involved (or complicit) in the racket. The general public would be a lot more interested in this scandal if it involved soccer/football rather than something 'geeky' like science.

"It is rapidly becoming widespread knowledge that EPO is managed by corrupt or corruptible individuals, who prioritise the needs of very large (and mostly foreign) corporations, as a matter of policy."Yesterday Techrights was mentioned in Germany's biggest IT news site and this was also mentioned a lot in social media sites (where there are ongoing discussions about it). To quote Stefan Krempl's report (in German): "Das Blog "Techrights" hat ein internes Memo des Europäischen Patentamts veröffentlicht, wonach das Europäische Patentamt zunächst zehn großen Antragstellern in einem Pilotprojekt einen "besseren Service" bieten will. [...] Dem Techrights-Blogger Roy Schestowitz erscheint das Vorgehen in vielerlei Hinsicht mehr als fragwürdig. Zum einen verhalte sich das EPA mehr und mehr nicht wie eine zwischenstaatliche Behörde, die sich dem öffentlichen Dienst verschrieben hat, sondern wie ein Unternehmen. Zum anderen sei nicht nachvollziehbar, wieso gerade viele außereuropäische Konzerne von der "VIP-Behandlung" profitieren sollten. Eine Stellungnahme der EPA auf Anfrage von heise online steht zur Stunde noch aus."

"You know something is clearly amiss when most EPO staff (yet to be confirmed) leaves the building to demonstrate against the employer."There is also coverage in English coming, based on our understanding (reporters who say so). The EPO is already embarrassed in its main headquarter's country, Germany, but not many people around the world can read German. Florian Müller, who lives neat the EPO, wrote that "Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states the following: "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law." But the EPO doesn't believe in human rights and is, as Dr. Schestowitz accurately notes, run like a private, profit-maximizing enterprise as opposed to an honorable institution properly applying the law. I've previously likened the EPO to FIFA, but with the latest evidence I almost feel like I have to ask FIFA for an apology for this comparison, given that different standards must be applied to a sports body vs. a government institution in charge of a key area of commercial law. FIFA doesn't rig soccer matches, at least not the extent the EPO's leadership compromises the patent granting process.

"The general press should take much more of an interest in the EPO's corruption. Yesterday I was pleased to see that Heise online, Germany's leading IT news site, has written about this after reading the TechRights story."

Müller previously suggested to some EPO staff that if they cannot overthrow -- so to speak -- the corrupt management, then they should at least consider working elsewhere (committing suicide works to one's own detriment, obviously). There is already brain drain being reported.

“What’s this about pay-grade? It’s a military term, often misappropriated by civilians who are avoiding an ethical decision. It’s a good excuse in the military: politicians are accountable for the decision to enter a war, while the military are oath-bound to follow orders at pain of court-martial and possibly execution, and are only accountable for the conduct of the war.”

--Bruce Perens, former Debian leader



Recent Techrights' Posts

Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year
Links 08/06/2025: Security Lapses, CISA Cuts, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: Mime Types and Geminisphere Introduction
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: Slop Companies Retain All Private Data, More Books Banned in the US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/06/2025: "A Monk's Guide to Happiness" and "Wireless Earbuds"
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2025: More Rumours of Mass Layoffs in Microsoft's XBox Division, New COVID Variant
Links for the day
Drug Addiction is a Real Problem, It Destroys Families
a rather sensitive matter
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part IV: Political Scrutiny and Errors/Inconsistencies in Official Documents
When such organisations receive scrutiny they start focusing on cover-up and muzzling of facts (or crushing people who say the truth)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 06, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 06, 2025