Bonum Certa Men Certa

Negative Publicity (Personal or by Association With the EPO) is Devouring the Institution

The precious snowflakes of EPO management cannot handle criticism from the public

Snowflakes



Summary: Willy Minnoye, Ciarán McGinley, Lionel Baranès, Theano Evangelou and others near the top of the EPO pyramid recalled in light of old news about them

THE EPO is about to have an exceptionally tough year that's agonising to Battistelli's circle (or "Team Battistelli"), which already falls apart (Minnoye will be leaving before his term ends and so will Ciarán McGinley).



"I very much liked what you published in this article, which I second," one reader told us, regarding the article that led to the following E-mail being sent to me in March:

Dear Sir,

I would like to refer to the Article/post on the EPO published on the Techrights webpage on the 15.3.2016 which quotes an anonymous reader who inter Alia makes reference to my name Theano Evangelou.

I would like to note that I do not wish to be mentioned neither by name nor would I like to be identifiable. I would thus kindly ask you to withdraw my name or any such information from the blog and not to spread it further. I must further note that I feel personally impacted by such mention.

Yours faithfully,

Theano Evangelou


Some people at the EPO's management foolishly think we'll self-censor just because they don't want to be held accountable for their behaviour. Some even resort to legal threats. These precious snowflakes think that as heads of an international public institution they deserve to live in a cocoon with privacy levels greater than those of the CIA? They want not only immunity from the law but also invisibility (from the public which they purport to be 'serving')?

"They want not only immunity from the law but also invisibility (from the public which they purport to be 'serving')?"I shared the above letter with someone, who later said to me: "if you want to have a bit of fun with it.... You may ask back if being mentioned as "head of legal department, lawyer" of such an ethically challenging (and challenged) organization is of any bother: If you search in Google for "theano evangelou legal patent", the first result is her LinkedIn profile in all its pretentious pride. I mean, not just a lawyer, but the Head of the Legal Department! Of EPO! And she feels "impacted" by seeing her name? ... give me a break. What a laugh..."

"I think Ciarán McGinley also belongs in the list of rogues," another person added. "He's a former SUEPO official turned manager. (This phenomenon isn't unique to the EPO.)"

Well, McGinley is leaving soon. Maybe seeing SUEPO under attack, combined with a morsel of consciousness, was enough to compel him to withdraw from his "Career Climber" tendencies.

"Remember the PR head that left the EPO almost as soon as he had joined?""My memories of Lionel Baranès are about as faint as his tenure was brief (2002-2004, IIRC)," told us another person. Well, maybe he didn't 'fit in', so to speak. Remember the PR head that left the EPO almost as soon as he had joined? Not just Vincent Bénard...

Baranès' open letter of resignation is quite revealing, but few people even care to remember it. If anyone has a copy of that letter, please get in touch with us.

Recent Techrights' Posts

People Discuss Rumours of Mass Layoffs at IBM Becoming Public in 1-2 Weeks
IBM is killing its brand or its "goodwill"
The Old Days
In the early days of this site (2006) it was mostly just a couple of people, plus comments
Links 28/03/2026: Microsoft's LinkedIn a National Security Risk, Microsoft's Slop "Ambitions Face Investor Scrutiny Amid Soaring Costs"
Links for the day
 
No Daylight Saved
Is there still any practical reason for this ritual?
Microsoft Azure Does Not Have "Hiring Freezes", It Has Had Mass Layoffs Every Year Since 2020
Things are always a lot worse than Microsoft formally or publicly acknowledges
SLAPP Censorship - Part 27 Out of 200: Using the Tor Network to Hide From Consequences
Only 1-2 weeks after the countersuit the Canadian attempted to deplatform several Web sites
The Limits of Inclusion
Inclusion with caution isn't "opinionated"; it's a defence mechanism, sometimes a survival instinct
Almost 20 Years After Microsoft/Novell
The mission has not changed, but the priorities evolve all the time
LLM Slop Kills Sites, as Sites That Adopt Slop Are Doomed
People won't subscribe to such sites and visit them if they recognise it's just slop
Links 29/03/2026: Indonesia Cracks Down on Social Control Media Addiction, China Becomes World’s Scientific Superpower
Links for the day
Fedora at the Mercy of Microsoft Because of Back-Doored Kick-Switch Boot
We'll soon revisit the defamation attacks on Torvalds
Links 29/03/2026: Water Shortages and No Kings Rallies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/03/2026: Return to Gopherspace, "Zen of Marking Playing Cards"
Links for the day
The Real XBox is Dead, So Microsoft is Calling Everything "XBox" Now
It even wanted to run a campaign to convince everybody that XBox is not actually a console
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 28, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, March 28, 2026
Open Web Destroyed by Centibillionaires, Says Anil Dash of Blogging Fame
Blogging was going through its 'prime years' about 20 years ago
"Linux" Slop Going Away, Microsoft et al Pay 'Linux' Foundation to Promote Slop
It's a timely reminder that the Linux Foundation exists to promote whoever pays the Linux Foundation, even pedophiles and companies that attack the GPL
Gemini Links 28/03/2026: "Finding My Base Tone", "Astrobotany", and BugoutBack/OFFLFIRSOCH
Links for the day
Links 28/03/2026: More Worldwide Bans on Social Control Media (Harms to Adolescents), Protests in US Against Dictatorship
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 26 Out of 200: Asking for Documents and Information You Already Have, Even Letters and E-mails That You Yourself Sent!
barristers are expensive
Gemini Links 28/03/2026: Echo Delay and 0x0.st
Links for the day
Rumours of More IBM Mass Layoffs at Beginning of April
IBM is not doing well
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, March 27, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, March 27, 2026
"Headcount" as Distraction From Mass Layoffs and Salary Reductions
Things aren't looking well when one considers revenue is acquired, not earned
"Linux" Slop Turning Rarer, New York Times Nowadays Contaminated With LLM Slop
Another day has passed without much slop about "linux"
Links 27/03/2026: Studying Whale Births, Apple is Cancelling Products, Cambodia Arrests Journalists Over Photographs
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: GTD, Gopher Catchup, Gemini Crawlers, and "Slop Everywhere"
Links for the day
Mozilla Was Ruined Like Sirius Open Source Was Ruined - From the Top Down
Mozilla will never return to its Free software roots
Nokia Could Never Recover From Microsoft
It's very important to remember what really happened
Why Techrights and Many Other Sites Stopped Doing April Fools’ Day Articles
Well before slop (made by LLMs) it was "bad optics" to have satire or humour in a site, irrespective of the day of the year
President Not-Cocaine Campinos Notified of Historic EPO Strikes (Thousands of Workers Not Coming Back to the Office)
Please do pay attention to how the media treats these strikes in Europe's second-largest institution
Slides From the Presentation Discussing EPO Strikes Until End of June or Until End of 2026 (Maybe Next Year Too)
More to come soon (later today)
IBM Cuts Are Everywhere (Global), the Aim is to Lower the Pay
Because the revenues keep falling (IBM buys other companies' revenues using borrowed money)
Perpetual Strikes to Begin at European Patent Office (EPO), Large Majority Votes for Strikes Any Day of the Week
Approved industrial actions [...] Notice how none of the media or even so-called 'IP' blogs write about it
Mozilla is Not a Privacy Company, Mozilla is Run by GAFAM Executives and Managers Who Came From American Surveillance Companies
Would you trust a VPN they claim to be "free"?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 25 Out of 200: That Time Matthew J. Garrett Got Temporarily Banned/Suspended From Twitter
That he gets banned from large social control media platform is hardly surprising given his combative communications
Ubuntu Started as Free With ShipIt, Now It Becomes Payware That Exploits Debian Volunteers (Slaves)
"Ubuntu" the distro now replaces the GNU components inherited from Debian with a bunch of Microsoft GitHub (proprietary) things that reject reciprocal licences
Last Night The Register MS Published a Fake Article. It Mentioned "AI" 27 Times.
Paid-for nonsense! [...] What's left of once-respectable news sites actively harms society
Links 27/03/2026: Google Executive (GAFAM, US, Surveillance) "Named the New BBC Head", Prominent Climate Scientist Resigns From NASA
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/03/2026: "Being Busy" and "Posting Again"
Links for the day
GNOME Has No "Real" Executive Director, Only an IBM (Perma)'Interim' One With No Openings in Sight
GNOME is having financial problems
Microsoft Experiencing "Leadership Exodus"
Microsoft's current position is no better than Meta's (Facebook)
GNU/Linux Distros Should Reject "Age Verification" and Uphold Software Freedom for Users
It's not about protecting children
Slop Plunge
we can already "smell the blood" of the so-called 'AI industry'
IBM Media Puff Pieces While Layoffs Go On and On
Has the PR industry absorbed the press?
Media Says Microsoft Hiring Freezes, But There Are Already Microsoft Layoffs
They want the public to talk about Microsoft as if it's just not hiring when it is actually firing
Richard Stallman lynchings: Sruthi Chandran splitting Debian
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 26, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 26, 2026