12.06.15
Suppression of Voices Critical of the European Patent Office (EPO)
Mind the AstroTurfing parallels… and remember that it’s Guillaume Minnoye who is notably concerned about EPO leaks (whistleblowers)
Summary: An analysis of recent trends in EPO coverage and conversations, which seem to be artificially steered (or manipulated) so as to better project authority and disseminate the EPO’s misleading talking points
THE EPO‘s threats against critics (lawyers, national delegates, bloggers, staff representatives, judges etc.) have meant that many participants in the system have opted for self-censorship. But we believe that it goes further than this. There is censorship that we never even hear about, let alone can hear about (gag orders and demands of confidentiality contribute to this).
“There is censorship that we never even hear about, let alone can hear about (gag orders and demands of confidentiality contribute to this).”Now that the EPO pays a lot of money for fake media coverage and media distortion I have begun tracking — a lot more closely than before — anything which relates to the EPO. We ask others to report such things to us as well. EPO AstroTurfing already seems likely given what we saw earlier today. This is familiar to us because we already know Microsoft AstroTurfing and techniques of Microsoft PR agencies, having researched these for over a decade. One way to warp a debate is to inject positive (for the client) comments into typically hostile forums, thereby derailing the discussion.
Particular patent lawyers are weighing in, latching onto anonymous comments which seem likely to be AstroTurfing. They are of course supporting the almighty President Battistelli as if all the abuses can be magically swept aside and the examiners are merely spoiled and paranoid. The following new comment demonstrates what’s wrong (reversal of the forum’s momentum, putting staff on the defensive): “I was tired to read since more than two years only comments about suicides, human rights violated, non-respect of the law, abuses, nepotism, etc.”
“Particular patent lawyers are weighing in, latching onto anonymous comments which seem likely to be AstroTurfing.”Bear in mind that such comments aren’t from regular commenters; these are patent lawyers whose personal blogs attack the staff of the EPO and actively help the management’s relatively dubious narrative, even in recent posts such as this one from “Meldrew” (“Patent Attorney” from London) or this one from “TreatyNotifier” (Dutch male).
Seeing how quickly (especially today) the discussion in IP Kat got derailed, we must at least suspect a subversive hand, perhaps part of the €880,000 media campaign. As one regular pointed out, “lying to the AC and asking them to take an illegal decision would be dismissed by his supervising authority in the outside world.” (and if not above the law)
“The EPO is a truly sick organisation and more people need to get the real facts, not the fictional ‘facts’ which EPO managers paid €880,000 for FTI Consulting to spread around.”Another person, in a separate thread, wrote about PACE (which is being defended by some anonymous commenters) that “the directors can change the priorities of individual files and some are using it as a means to insure the directorate reach its global objectives. Some directors want their bonus as well (or fear to be sent to pension).
“Also: there are instructions not to allow examiners who have a large prio 1 stock to take Christmas leave. As one can only transfer so many days, they will lose their leave. That motivates some to work only on files with “top” priority, which may or may not be PACE files.”
We wrote about this last month. How is this even complying in any way with European laws?
In our next post we are going to focus on how the EPO abuses not just holiday leave but also sick leave. The EPO is a truly sick organisation and more people need to get the real facts, not the fictional ‘facts’ which EPO managers paid €880,000 for FTI Consulting to spread around. It’s like a lobbying campaign by very affluent people, trying to protect their astronomical (secret but very high) salaries. █
“Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.”
–W. Somerset Maugham
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