Bonum Certa Men Certa

Benoît Battistelli Reinforces the Perception That García-Escudero is His Pet Chinchilla at the Board of Appeals Committee (BoAC)

And entertaining the possibility of "opening disciplinary proceedings against the President”

Patricia García-Escudero and Benoît Battistelli



Summary: The autocrat who controls the Office in an unprecedentedly totalitarian fashion and has reduced its so-called 'overseers' to little more than useful chinchillas needs to face the music, for he keeps breaking even his own rules and disgraces (not to mention severely harms) the entire continent, not just his country and the Office

THE President of the European Patent Office is the source of many of today's problems; the many scandals that are purely his own fault make the USPTO look like a saint and it doesn't help when Benoît Battistelli speaks about his pet chinchilla García-Escudero in his blog, reinforcing the perception of nepotism and protectionism under his reign.



Readers may need to revisit our older series about her connections -- a subject which we mentioned a few days ago in light of her doing photo ops with Battistelli. Right now we even have Battistelli writing about it in his so-called 'blog' (warning: epo.org link), to be promoted in this couple of tweets after EPOPIC, twice on Friday morning/noon [1, 2]. Mind the part which isn't just self-promotional and EPO promotion/hogwash but speaks specifically about García-Escudero, namely:

The latest of the international agreements is, fittingly, a new bilateral cooperation plan signed with Ms Patricia García-Escudero, Director General of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, which will also include projects in the field of patent information and awareness between the EPO and SPTO.


Asking Battistelli for the perception of justice and independence for the boards was apparently not enough from the chinchillas of the Administrative Council -- a subject which we are likely to revisit in the future, maybe over Christmas when more time is available. As one comment put it a few days ago, the "Council gives instructions to the President, the President simply ignores them and does as he wishes."

Here is the full comment:



Is it at all possible for the Council to force the President to do anything?

As recent history has shown several times this year, when the Council gives instructions to the President, the President simply ignores them and does as he wishes. In the present case, the Council explicitly asked the President to refrain from dismissals, we see what the President did. I gather that Merpel's proposal to use Article 20 PPI would have the same effect.

What can the Council do?

Correct me if I am wrong, I am not a specialist of the EPC. I understand from Article 11.1 of the EPC that the Council can nominate a new President. But first, I am not really sure they can do so before the end of his term (can they or not?) and second, they need a majority of 3/4 of the votes for doing so (Article 35). There are 38 member states, so the votes of 28 are needed. Conversely, if Battistelli gets the votes or the abstentions of 10 countries, he can stay forever. Any 10 countries.

Is there anything else that the Council can do?

There is Article 19 of the PPI: the Council can waive the immunity of the President. This has never been tried and I have no idea how many votes would be necessary. Even the Article is not clear as the German, English and French texts are actually different (English: "waive immunity", German and French "waive one of the immunities"). Besides, this would be very slow.

There is Article 11.4 EPC: the Council shall exercise disciplinary authority over the President. Apparently, only a simple majority is needed under Article 35.1 in that case, so 19 countries. But this has never been tried and I don't know under which conditions that "disciplinary authority" can be exercised or what sanctions they can impose on the President, whether the President can appeal (which would add delays), etc... Can they actually dismiss him? That seems to be in contradiction with the number of votes needed to elect a new President. Can they impeach him? If yes, he would then be automatically replaced by one of the vice-presidents (Article 10.3 EPC), which may not be very useful if that vice-president is Minnoye, Topic, etc...

Last, there is Article 172: the Convention can be revised (for example to include more checks and balances to the President powers). Here again, 3/4 of the votes are necessary.

Did I forget something?


Writing in a separate thread, one person correctly notes that "[t]he EPO doesn't have the power or inclination to take on the EU..."

Here is the full comment:

Well the EU doesn't like dissent and so it will be interesting to see how this pans out. The EPO doesn't have the power or inclination to take on the EU and so will presumably need to look for a way to reverse the G decision. Perhaps there needs to be a mechanism for the EPO to refer questions to the CJEU as a way of preventing this happening again.


It often seems like the EPO feels free to just disregard everything and everyone, ranging from the EPC to the European authorities (local), the central government (Commission), human rights lawyers, ILO, and the highest Dutch court. Yet is certainly feels comfortable enough to (mis)use the law to bully bloggers like myself, in an effort to silence or at least intimidate critics. These are provocative tactics which would only backfire on Battistelli and his goons.

“Also there is no problem with them opening disciplinary proceedings against the President,” wrote the following new comment, but who would be brave enough among these useless, powerless chinchillas to even propose disciplinary proceedings against the President, who breaks his own rules and gets away with it? To quote:

Did I forget something?

Yes. You forgot Article 4a. Call a ministerial conference to discuss the situation. It is long overdue. Supposed to be held once every five years. But so far none held.

Also there is no problem with them opening disciplinary proceedings against the President. The disciplinary committee would then issue an opinion and the Admin Council would then vote on this opinion. Of course it's not going to happen. The ship will sail on. Just like the Titanic.


Well, here are a couple of responses to this invocation of Article 4a:



@Article 4a: the article calls for a meeting on IP matters, not a conference... All the UPC meetings can be counted under Art. 4aEPC...

Article 4a[ 4 ] Conference of ministers of the Contracting States Art. 4 A conference of ministers of the Contracting States responsible for patent matters shall meet at least every five years to discuss issues pertaining to the Organisation and to the European patent system.




All the UPC meetings can be counted under Art. 4aEPC.

What do you mean by "UPC meetings"?

The Unitary Patent is an agreement of certain member states (28 EU states) under Article 142 EPC. http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/2016/e/ar142.html

Article 4a foresees a conference of the ministers of all 38 contracting states.



Now, consider this:

There is no requirement that all EPC members need to be present, just a conference on patent matters and/or the organisation....

28 out of 38 is even a majority.....



In light of Battistelli's abuses (continuing to bust unions in defiance of the Administrative Council) we think that Techrights needs to drop some new documents soon. Battistelli's escalation of this conflict has given Techrights reasons to release even more documents soon, if not this month then during Christmas when there's time to catch up. The secrecy of the EPO is its worst enemy because this growing secrecy, over time, has been breeding growing levels of abuse.

We always, we urged all readers who are European to contact their national delegates and explain to them what a disgrace the EPO has become.

Recent Techrights' Posts

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
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
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
 
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
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
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
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