Source (original): Rospatent
Jesper Kongstad, the Chairman of the Administrative Council (AC), could save staff representatives at the EPO but chose not to. It's part of a pattern of indifference from the Administrative Council towards EPO staff and protectionism for Team Battistelli. One begins to wonder if the Administrative Council has been so thoroughly infiltrated or incentivised to basically stop doing its job and practically become just an extension -- not a supervisor -- of the Office.
"One begins to wonder if the Administrative Council has been so thoroughly infiltrated or incentivised to basically stop doing its job and practically become just an extension -- not a supervisor -- of the Office."EPO staff has been losing its voice since the EPO bullied some publications like ours (including the infamous ban on IP Kat) and paid a lot of money to control the rest. The EPO did all this whilst attacking the EPO unions, which also constitute the staff's voice. The European Patent Office, which is unaccountable, is now a totally rogue institution without effective controls (either inside or outside). It's even worse than WIPO, where Gurry just got away with everything (stories about this subject can be found in our daily links since Friday). Based on this tweet, Battistelli's lobbying event (charade) that costs millions of Euros will carry on. Who's to say no? Who can even say no? Now that Battistelli is wasting millions of Euros on bogus 'studies' will the Administrative Council hold him accountable? Will anyone ever treat Battistelli as anything other than some kind of monarch? The EPC that establishes the status quo was supposed to ensure this would not happen, but right now the EPO is pretending to care for the EPC -- all this while it violates the EPC on a regular basis, e.g. [1, 2].
"EPO staff has been losing its voice since the EPO bullied some publications like ours (including the infamous ban on IP Kat) and paid a lot of money to control the rest."Next week there is a major propaganda campaign from Battistelli. The target audience is the Administrative Council and Battistelli's lapdog (or pet chinchilla), Jesper Kongstad. We don't expect too see any dissent in the campaign's event because staff representatives have already been intentionally blocked from entering (we wrote a couple of articles about this before). The Local Staff Committee at The Hague met about a week ago and plans to demonstrate in a few days. "Social Conference" nonsense from Battistelli surely and understandably irritates those whom it will lie about (in their absence).
"Meanwhile," one person wrote, "the President is trying to sew together fig leaves, and has called for a “Social Conference”. [...] The SUEPO Committee hopes and counts on staff to provide a clear and solid mandate - one that can be reasonably expected to terminate the abuses of the present management and restore (inter alia) the union rights at the EPO."
""Social Conference" nonsense from Battistelli surely and understandably irritates those whom it will lie about (in their absence)."Protests in Munich will start in just two days. We reckon that a lot of it will fall on Jesper Kongstad's deaf ears, but hopefully politicians and the media will continue to press for justice. The EPO is spending over a million Euros per year controlling the media through FTI Consulting and additional money is spent paying the media directly for puff pieces, so the latter (media) might have priorities other than to cover protests. Media blackout won't affect Techrights and in fact I took two day off work next week, to enable me to cover what goes on in Munich and The Hague (please get in touch with us regarding any updates before, throughout, and after). ⬆