A two-tiered society for large corporations and for little people

Summary: The EPO's 'damage control' is so weak that it almost resembles satire and staff protests are having a strong effect, with people threatening to take their exceptional skills elsewhere

ENGLISH-SPEAKING media is starting to catch up with news about EPO leaks.

Recall the special role Microsoft plays in all this. Microsoft's role is prominent for reasons explained in this new article. "According to the memos," it says, "the idea for the scheme was prompted by alleged complaints by both Microsoft and Canon that a number of their applications had been excessively delayed." Neither Microsoft nor Canon is European. Why are they driving European policy?

"Florian Müller," continues the reporter, "author of the FOSS Patents blog, said the memos are “incontrovertible evidence of the EPO’s institutionalised unfairness”. Roy Schestowitz, author of the Techrights blog, said they show that the EPO is acting like a business."

Well, guess what? EPO hides the evidence. They are now blocking both sites which speak about this, the Techrights blog and also the FOSS Patents blog, based on this morning's revelations.

The EPO tried to tell us on Twitter that our leak is "wrong", as if just putting an EPO document up there on the Web makes us "wrong" (as in incorrect). This is just hilarious in a sense. They don't know what to do as they cannot deny the authenticity of the document (shown to journalists by several independent sources, maybe because EPO tried claiming -- to journalists -- that the document had been forged). With the accuracy having been verified, they now go right into spin mode (not denial).

"The EPO tried to tell us on Twitter that our leak is "wrong", as if just putting an EPO document up there on the Web makes us "wrong" (as in incorrect)."It is hard to read the new article with a straight face. Consider excuses like this one: "The EPO spokesperson said the net effect is that smaller applicants will benefit because RAEX will not be flooded with requests from the biggest filers."

That's like saying that having a 'fast lane' for First Class and Business Class (for rich people) is a Good Thing™ for the rest of the passengers because it helps shrink the queues of Economy Class. There's no logic there. In fact, this is so illogical that it's hard to think where to begin refutation. It's almost self-refuting.

Well, they also try to frame this as a temporary thing even though, based on our sources, this may just be an afterthought/spin/revisionism because of the negative publicity.

There is a staff protest right at this moment and there is another new article about today's protest. It starts as follows:

EPO labelled ‘totalitarian state’ as controversy and demo hit

The president of the European Patent Office (EPO), Benoît Battistelli, has reportedly urged the Administrative Council (AC) to dismiss a member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) despite that body not recommending such action.

It comes amid separate allegations of harassment and as workers demonstrate today, October 14.

Battistelli’s request was allegedly outlined in a message sent to the AC ahead of its meeting this week, according to the IPKat blog yesterday, October 13.

Under article 23 of the European Patent Convention, a member of the EBA cannot be dismissed without the body lodging an official request with the AC, a supervisory organisation of the EPO.

Article 23 is in place to guarantee the independence of the EBA from the AC and EPO president.

So far, the EBA has not made such a request and in fact last month rejected a request by the AC to dismiss the member.

One person who is apparently attending the protest told us s/he "just saw appeal board members demanding he is fired. Poor sign." ⬆