Bonum Certa Men Certa

A Little Taste of European Patent Office 'Justice'

A fair trial... fair enough for the king.

ErdoÄŸan for EPO



Summary: Justice at the European Patent Office (EPO) remains elusive because a so-called 'investigation' seems more like a retroactive (going years into the past) exercise in dirt-digging, character assassination (of the accused), and insistence on overwhelming secrecy (in this public institution enjoying a state-granted monopoly)

IT IS important for Techrights to show the low standards for dismissal of perceived threats at the EPO, even staff representatives. Team Battistelli wants to keep everything secret (except perhaps the character assassination against defendants), so wouldn't that be just? The EPO wants a "trial by media" with gross omissions and neglect of context, defense, etc.



Last night we responded to the EPO management's preparatory notes of the so-called 'investigation' which is really just union busting disguised as something else. Here are some of "The Charges" on which we wish to comment based on our limited understanding of the situation:

11. Statement of Facts: The first charge arises from investigations C-62, 62a and 62b/2014 conducted by the IU.


Any investigation conducted by the goons of Team Battistelli cannot be treated as objective or independent. We already know, based on another investigation, that the I.U.'s work is highly deficient. It's political and it's controlled from above, by Team Battistelli.

2) failed to cooperate with the investigative procedure, inter alia refusing to appear at an interview to which she had been invited by the IU.


This was acceptable, based on these lawyers' take, which we put in text the other day. The I.U. is somewhat of a sham because it obviously disregards basic human rights. Rejecting it isn't just an act of civil disobedience and investigation of the Investigative Unit is probably well overdue because it does not seem to comply with international standards [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. No wonder people at the EPO call it the "gestapo".

20. Pursuant to Article 14 (1) ServRegs, a permanent employee shall carry out his duties and conduct himself solely with the interests of the European Patent Organisation in mind.


First of all, it's not known if the accused was actually disseminated anything as alleged. Moreover, there are higher priorities sometimes.

The EPO insists that people who work for the EPO should conduct "solely with the interests of the European Patent Organisation in mind." When one becomes aware of apparent misconduct, however, one should be allowed to blow the whistle, even inside an international body. People who work at the EPO don't deserve to be reduced to slaves without speech or consciousness. To suggest otherwise would evoke all sorts of famous novel names/titles.

It is worth noting that whenever the accuser says stuff like "repeated dissemination of information" there's basically a reference to an entirely another person, another case, and another dubious set of allegations. So it's all an effort to bring forth guilt by association, where association is established by something quite loose like mere communication.

The accuser talks about "causing a corresponding risk of damage to the public image of the European Patent Organisation" as if the EPO has got some sort of God-given right to a good public image, irrespective of the management's actions. There is later a claim about "safeguarding of the integrity and reputation of her employer." This basically is a demand for blind loyalty.

Having failed to actually make much headway with a case against the defendant, a secret accuser is then brought into the text to attack the defendant's character from a vacuum, with repetition of the word "sniper" (plentiful). This comes across like a cheap personal attack, or ad hominem tactics. It goes on for many pages (endless repetition) in an effort to paint the accused as a sort of harasser, which is so hypocritical a claim coming from the EPO's management. These personal attacks are so cheap that they're not even worth broadcasting and responding to. They serve to show just how desperate Team Battistelli is to destroy the character of the defendant. It's a common technique in high-profile national security cases.

Skipping a lot of the ad hominem we get to:

77. On 18.09.2015 the Office received a reply sent by Ms Zegveld on behalf of the defendant denying any liability for breach of confidentiality and claiming inter alia that it was the defendant's right as staff representative to inform all staff about the investigation being conducted against her (Annex 19).


Seems reasonable enough. We wrote about this before.

Then again the EPO reverts back to the notion that it can bust unions in secret:

87. By the further e-mail sent by the defendant on 17.11.2015 to all the other members of the Munich including those who had not been involved in any capacity whatsoever with the said investigation, and to she has demonstrated again the intentional disregard of the confidentiality requirements which form a necessary part of her employment with the EPO.


Well, union-busting isn't exactly an ordinary situation and informing others that it is happening may be essential and justifiable. It's evident that Team Battistelli wants a monopoly on power and it wants to acquire and secure this power by mass surveillance and censorship.

Team Battistelli seems to have received a sobering reminder of this whole situation's true nature:

95. In her defence, the defendant has brought forward, through her legal advisor, the following arguments: a) That marking a communication as "confidential" does not necessarily mean that it is so. b) That the defendant was entitled as a staff representative to disclose to staff that she is being investigated by the Office. c) That in any case the Office has provided no evidence that the defendant disclosed the e-mail concerning the investigation.


Then the EPO returns to some character assassination attempts, trying to even blame depressions and suicides on SUEPO itself.

The following point is hypocritical beyond belief, as Team Battistelli claims to be -- wait for it! -- "safeguarding the welfare of employees". In context:

110. The defendant's acts strike at the core of her employer's reputation and functioning, notably the preservation of an office culture safeguarding the welfare of employees, as well as at the heart of the relationship of trust and confidence between the defendant and her employer.


Put simply, Team Battistelli no longer feels like she is loyal to Team Battistelli. Should anyone at all be loyal to it given its abusive practices? This whole witch-hunt should only serve to reinforce the perception of Team Battistelli having vendettas and megalomania.

The accuser says that the defendant wanted to "maximise the harm to the procedure" (meaning the attack on unions, referred to as "procedure"). The use of the word "harm" makes a suppressive action sound like some kind of vulnerable human.

The following shows the hidden motive all along -- it's to sack the defendant. But Battistelli's folks try to frame themselves as gracious and apologetic with the beginning of the following point:

114. The Office earnestly sought to remediate the situation but has now exhausted all means and must accept that the employment relationship with the defendant is no longer sustainable.


Wow, "earnestly"? Yeah, right...

Since Battistelli's people don't actually have a solid case here (just some allegations and character assassination) they welcome more opportunities for more allegations and character assassination, maybe in order to deter the defendant:

116. The Office reserves all its rights under inter alia Article 101 (2) ServRegs to call witnesses to the hearing before the Disciplinary Committee and/or submit further evidence as well as to bring forward any other procedural or substantive requests including any further relevant incidents that may occur in the meantime and were not known to the Office by the time of signature of the present report.


Get this:

117. The present report is also submitted without prejudice to any claims against the defendant under inter alia Art. 25 and 28 ServRegs.


It's "submitted without prejudice". Funny that one...

To summarise, the main cause for this case (character assassination aside) is communication with a person, a judge who the EPO alleges is some kind of armed Nazi (seems like another ongoing character assassination). They're building a castle of sand on top of another castle of sand.

Team Battistelli is very much hurt by the fact that there was no cooperation with its precious I.U., which is only a sham or a prelude to show/mock trial.

Is this really something which merits dismissing a staff representative? Readers can decide for themselves.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Cloudflare Gives Us All Another Reason to Boycott Cloudflare
If Cloudflare wants to use its vast surveillance network (which is what it does as a CDN) to foist paywalls and maybe something worse (like DRM on top), then Cloudflare should be more widely rejected as a company
Someone Expiring Certificates on the Day of the 9/11 Attacks is Not Someone I Would Want Controlling My PC (or Deciding What's Authorised for Booting)
"social justice warriors"
More Microsoft-Red Hat Cross-Pollination as the Company Loses a Managing Director
some people move from Microsoft to Red Hat and some do the opposite
 
This is How Microsoft's XBox and Entire Consoles (If Not Gaming) Ventures Will Ultimately Die
Ensure you can blame "Tariffs" (politics)? If not "hey hi", the fashionable go-to excuse when businesses fail?
What They Really Hate David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) for
Nothing to do with code
Smart People Won't Buy 'Smart' Cars
Imagine trying to sell someone a house (proper home) while insisting that it'll need to be demolished 5 or 10 years later, then rebuilt again from scratch on the same vacant lot
The Relationship Between IBM Red Hat and Microsoft, Visualised
This metaphor goes a long way (projects, collaborations, and outsourcing
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part III - Spying on Reporters' Families, Chaining Cases for Microsoft Employees Who Demand Censorship of Facts (Even Politely Expressed)
the time seems right to wrap up this introductory series
Links 24/09/2025: "NASA Moving Out of Entire Buildings as It's Gutted" and Purge of Online Critics (Opposing Fascism Becomes Unlawful)
Links for the day
Science is Under Attack
Oligarchy prefers a dumbed-down population
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has Reportedly Failed People With Wrong Advice
At the moment the SRA has a PR blunder
The Man Suing Brett Wilson LLP and Gervase de Wilde (5RB)
Now he's probably using the (almost) 200,000 pounds he's supposed to receive to sue Brett Wilson LLP and former colleagues/partners
Slopwatch: A World Wide Web That's Rotting for Companies That Won't Even Exist in a Few Years
some of the junk Google News is promoting
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 23, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Links 24/09/2025: Qt Creator 18 Beta, Microsoft Cannot Bail Out "ChatGPT" Anymore, China and US Intensify Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/09/2025: Gemlogs and Politics
Links for the day
Links 23/09/2025: Japan Limits Uses of Skinnerboxes ('Smartphones') With Toxic "Apps", Fentanylware (TikTok) Tapped by "MAGAts"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025