Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO Does Not Want Skilled (and 'Expensive') Staff, Layoffs a Growing Concern

French unions Reference: "With French Election Over, Unions Fear Layoffs"



Summary: A somewhat pessimistic look (albeit increasingly realistic look) at the European Patent Office, where unions are under fire for raising legitimate concerns about the direction taken by the management since a largely French team was put in charge

PDF FILES WITH GRAPHS in them (internal EPO data) have already taught us all we needed to know (we learned from them what examiners are seeing). Patent quality at the EPO is dying if not dead. It's only a matter of time before the public finds out about it and applicants come to grips with it. This would have a devastating effect on anyone who was granted an EP (European Patent) before Battistelli and potentially affect the valuation of companies to the point where they're becoming insolvent.



"One might hesitantly say that union-busting agenda is intended to set the tone or prepare the ground for appalling 'reforms', such as layoffs."What we're seeing inside the EPO is horrifying for outside observers and even mortifying for insiders. It looks like they're about to lose their jobs. Battistelli, a nontechnical charlatan, even thinks he can replace human operators and examiners with machines. What a lunacy this is!

It's easy to see why Battistelli attacks staff that speaks out, notably staff representatives. These people are seeing the writings on the wall and speak to colleagues about it. The latest attack on staff (blaming everything on them, especially the senior ones) reinforces the belief that the EPO will replace highly-specialised examiners with junior workers (or rubberstampers) on short-term contracts and no lucrative benefits that are necessary to attract true talent (the EPO is no longer an attractive employer).

"It's easy to see why Battistelli attacks staff that speaks out, notably staff representatives. These people are seeing the writings on the wall and speak to colleagues about it."The so-called 'social study' will be the subject of future posts of ours. "There seem to be some interesting discrepancies between the "Social Study" and "OHSRA"," one reader told us. Prepare for some major debunking of the EPO's management with its talking point for next month's conference. Given the spending waste of over a millions Euros per year on PR, expect some media to repeat the lies as early as next week (starting tomorrow). Managing IP is already coordinating with the EPO a release of a bogus 'interview' with Battistelli (part 2), in which he will be allowed to spread his latest misinformation (which he himself commissioned with EPO budget). Managing IP is generally regarded as somewhat of an EPO mouthpiece these days.

"Battistelli has put the EPO on a euthanasia plan."Putting aside the so-called 'social study' and conference (actually lobbying the Administrative Council just before an important meeting where social climate is on the agenda), let's not forget that EPO managers "harass, attack/charge methodically their victims on Fridays and/or on their birthdays or before holidays," as one insider told us last night. Let's also not forget that they lie about their mistreatment of these people, they allegedly make “demonstrably fabricated accusations,” (we saw that in Munich and now it's happening in The Hague) and they presently witch-hunt representatives in virtually all branches including Berlin (even the President of SUEPO Central was warned). No wonder SUEPO's Web site has not been updated for nearly a fortnight now! Nothing but silence...

"EPO staff is rightly concerned and unless Battistelli and his cronies drop their agenda immediately (the UPC is already failing for them), everyone in Europe will suffer, not just EPO staff."One might hesitantly say that union-busting agenda is intended to set the tone or prepare the ground for appalling 'reforms', such as layoffs. The EPO is unable to hire talent, and even after lowering the employment requirements the hiring is far too slow and members of the recruitment team are leaving (high staff turnover). We saw reports about it and the numbers speak for themselves. Battistelli has put the EPO on a euthanasia plan. Those who don't leave or retire early will be increasingly -- more and more over time -- be pushed out or face growing demands that are not fulfillable. It's like they were set up to fail, so that Team Battistelli can replace them with low-wage, obedient staff that are on limited contract, making them disposable and without pension liabilities. It does not make fiscal sense for Europe, but maybe it makes fiscal sense to Battistelli and large corporations that wish to amass tens of thousands of patents (each!) in Europe. They just want another USPTO.

The next post will present more facts supportive of what was stated above. EPO staff is rightly concerned and unless Battistelli and his cronies drop their agenda immediately (the UPC is already failing for them), everyone in Europe will suffer, not just EPO staff.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part V - Strongest Strike Under António Campinos
SUEPO Munich is also reminding people of the threat of PIPs
GNU/Linux May Have Grown to 7% in Equatorial Guinea
Has there been some kind of mass migration there or is this just noise in the data?
 
thelayoff.com Deletes On-Topic Discussions (Layoffs) While Leaving in Tact Pro-Corporate Trolling Made by LLMs (Slop)
Who at thelayoff.com deems spam made by LLMs (slop) to be on-topic and unworthy of zapping, whereas actually on-topic and authentic threads get routinely deleted?
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part IV - Machos in Charge of the House (and System), Even If the Faces Are Female (Optics)
basically a Windows/Microsoft (US) shop
Gemini Links 09/02/2026: Great Salt Lake Ecological Observatory and Offpunk 3.0 "A Community is Born" Release
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2026: Mass Plagiarism and Pollution/FakeCoin Company Nvidia Contacted Anna’s Archives, Narges Mohammadi Gets Second Prison Sentence
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2026: Russia Intentionally Killing Civilians, Jimmy Lai Effectively Sentenced for Life for Publishing News
Links for the day
Microsoft Competitions, Addictions, and Popularity Contests Are Not Going to Help Perl, They'll Waste Everybody's Time and Give Microsoft More Control Over Its Competition
Microsoft does not like Perl
A Can of WORMS - Part IV - They Would Even Attack RMS for Criticising Autocrats (Saying This is "Politics")
Conforming to society's perceived expectations isn't how effective activism can ever be done or was ever done in the recent past
Gemini Links 09/02/2026: The Exploration Myth and Making JavaScript Fun
Links for the day
EPO Outrage and Maintaining the Pressure
A vending machine does not fall over after a first push
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 08, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, February 08, 2026
"Low Performer" and "Underperformer" as Harmful Misnomers That Damage a Company's Reputation
Misnomers need to be avoided or called out
Expensive errors: Forbes Gold price, $44 billion Bitcoin given away by Bithumb, South Korea
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 08/02/2026: Microsoft OSI (Openwashing Lobby) in Europe, Raised Against Social Control Media Provocateurs in EU
Links for the day
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Lobbies for Microsoft in the EU, Promoting Proprietary Lock-in
OSI pushing and selling Microsoft and GitHub. OSI is Microsoft front group.
Getting the European Court of Justice to Annul the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Kangaroo Court (UPC)
We're still working on it
Finland's Dependence on GAFAM (US) Needs to be Lessened, EU Must Follow This Path
It's unwise to make one's entire national infrastructure (computer systems) dependent on a regime which compares its black citizens to monkeys and assassinates nonviolent dissenters
Links 08/02/2026: Microsoft GitHub as Burden on Developers and "The Chomsky Epstein Files"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2026: "Doing Not Much Tweaking" and "Reclaiming Digital Agency"
Links for the day
Forbes: BitCoin, Cryptocurrency pages removed from investment database, links stop working
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin warning followed immediately by network outage
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Money Funneled to Protection of Software Freedom, But Nothing Really Lost
Crossposted from personal site
They Tell Us Slop Replaces Workers, But the Reality Is, US Debt Has Surged 2,300 Billion Dollars in Six Months (the Economy is Collapsing)
Oligarchy already entertains the option of running away to (or colonising) some other planet without pitchforks and "unwashed masses"
Mozilla Firefox Sinks to Just 1.5% in the United States
According to analytics.usa.gov
We're Still Fast
The site is even faster than the BBC's despite being on shoestring budget with only a small technical team
Gemini Protocol is Not a Waste of Time of Effort
We see more and more GNU/Linux- or BSD-focused bloggers turning to Gemini
Our Gemini Protocol Support Turns 5 Today
today is a rare anniversary for us
In Today's World, One Must be Tough and Principled to Get Ahead Morally
But not financially (sellouts)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 07, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, February 07, 2026
The Right Wing in the United States Does Not Support Free Speech, It Supports Its Own Speech
Free speech is often opposed by those who also oppose Free software
IRC is a Lot Better Than Social Control Media (They're Not the Same at All)
A good social analogy for IRC is, there are many buildings with a party in each building
Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' is 'Dead Meat'
Or 0xDEADBEEF as some geeks might call it
When Identifying "Low Performers" and "PIPs" Aren't About Improving Performance But Reinforcing a Clique in Your Company/Organisation
It's very troubling to see once-respectable brands like IBM and institutions like the EPO resorting to this
Slop and Flop (IBM), Slopfarms and Hybrids (Linuxiac)
Did Bobby Borisov assume he would never get caught?
Crowdfunding vs Bitcoins: donations are better investment than digital tulip mania
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 07/02/2026: Misinformation by Slop, Overrated Slop Causes Stock Market Panic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: Diode Function Generators and Panic Over Buzzwords and Slop
Links for the day
A Can of WORMS - Part III - Envying the Influence and Accomplishments of RMS, Socially Deleterious Attacks on Popular Movements
the actions are deliberate and coordinated, not some 'organic' or grassroots behaviour
Crisis teams assembled as financial regulators anticipate Bitcoin implosion
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reddit as a Hive of Trolls, Social Control Media Curated (Many Voices Censored and Banned) by Marketing Firm of GAFAM
Typical Reddit
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Delusion - Part III - Women Failing Women to Help Violent Americans From Microsoft
Summed up, SRA will gladly prioritise the "legal industry" over women strangled, raped etc
The World Gets Smaller, as Does Its Real Economy ('Human Resources') and So-called 'Natural Resources' (What Humans Call the Planet)
Don't talk about "AI"
Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
transcoded version of the video
Links 07/02/2026: More White House Racism, "Europe Accuses TikTok of Addictive Design"
Links for the day
Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
Layoffs by another approach
Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
Canonical selling Microsoft
Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
Links for the day
Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
Does Microsoft create jobs?
Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
Who will be held accountable for all this?
In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
American workers out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Keep pushing
Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
it's a race to the bottom, basically
Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
LLM slop is a nuisance
Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
Links for the day