Bonum Certa Men Certa

Raw: SUEPO Connected the Unitary Patent (UPC) to Abuses at the European Patent Office

Henrik Sass Larsen



Summary: SUEPO's letter to the boss of Jesper Kongstad, a protector of Benoît Battistelli who allegedly got sacked a few years later

Mr Henrik Sass Larsen Minister of Business and Growth in Denmark Danish Ministry of Business and Growth - Erhvervs- og Vækstministeriet, Slotsholmsgade 10-12, 1216 København K min@evm.dk

Unitary Patent and European Patent Organisation - Your duty to safeguard the fundamental rights of EPO staff

Dear Mr Sass Larsen,

We are writing to you as the Central Chairs of the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO). Around 50% of the 7000 staff members of the European Patent Office are members of our Union.

At a time when Denmark is facing an important referendum on whether or not to join the Community Patent Court, it is important to ensure that no relevant factors that could potentially prove damaging are disregarded.

The Kingdom of Denmark is a member of the European Patent Organisation, whose supervisory body is the Administrative Council (AC) of the EPO. The current AC Chairman is the Danish representative, Mr Jesper Kongstad who is also concurrently Director General of the Danish Patent Office (DKPTO). As head of the Ministry of Growth and Business, all of Mr Kongstad’s actions fall ultimately under your responsibility.

There are well-reasoned concerns that suggest that the EPO is flouting established and internationally recognized principles of labour law. SUEPO has brought these concerns to the attention of the Administrative Council and Chair in a letter dated 3 March 2013 entitled “Social Democracy - Mr Battistelli's reform of the Staff Representation”. You will find a copy attached to this letter.

As executive President of the EPO, Mr Benoît Battistelli (FR) has adopted a dubious management style that may be characterized by authoritarianism and a complete disrespect for rights that are assuredly fundamental rights within a democratic country like Denmark. To give you just a few of many examples:

- Mr Battistelli has severely limited the right to strike: it is contingent on his accepting the grounds for striking and eventually approving the request to strike, all before he will then allow any industrial action to take place

- Freedom of speech is severely curtailed; staff who voice dissent are punished.

- Any staff member can be subject to an investigation by a newly created internal police force; they can neither keep silent nor be assisted by legal counsel.

- Access to independent justice is both limited and very ineffective.

All these unilaterally enforced changes have led to the worst social conflict at the EPO in its 40 years of existence. There is no indication of any improvement in the situation on the horizon - on the contrary, it seems the situation will only get worse. Not only are these changes one-sided, they risk emasculating the checks and balances in place to moderate EPO governance. We fear that in the medium term there will be heavy costs to pay in terms of the health and welfare of staff: such a regime will lead to stress, burnout or something worse. In the long term, legal inadequacies could pose problems of liability for the organisation itself, and for the Member States that fail to ensure that EPO employees enjoy the same fundamental rights as all other citizens of Europe.

Moreover, as a minister in a genuinely social-democratic government of a country that has a long-standing reputation for transparent governance, you should be concerned about the opacity of any available information concerning the EPO. The salary and terms of service of Mr Battistelli (in contrast to those of his predecessor) are kept secret. His accountability to the Administrative Council, and therefore the Member States, is limited. The perceived impartiality of one of the Auditors who, in theory, should work on behalf of the Administrative Council, might be questioned when the successful candidate happens to have been the closest associate of Mr Battistelli during his tenure at the French Patent Office (INPI). Indeed, Mr Battistelli has appointed to several key positions within the EPO a number of former associates from INPI, far exceeding the normal level of representation for France (please see http://suepo.org/public/su14062cp.pdf).

All of these changes have happened under the eyes of the Danish delegation and the Chairmanship of Mr Kongstad, both of whom have always supported Mr Battistelli.

Taking all the above information into consideration, we would ask you to take a position on your duty to safeguard the fundamental rights of EPO staff and brief your delegation and Mr Kongstad before the next AC meeting accordingly.

Yours sincerely,

[Omitted]

Recent Techrights' Posts

Always Check Your Inputs
Garbage in, garbage out. Or wrong assumptions, wrong corollary.
 
Unable to Find Anyone to Work as Their Media Lawyer, Brett Wilson LLP Will Continue Losing Female Staff
What sort of sick person would wish to join Brett Wilson LLP to carry this baton?
Microsoft-Sponsored Propaganda Site Has Removed False 'Hit Piece' About Dr. Stallman (With Fake and Misrepresented Imagery) But Only After 4 Years
So they only removed that page some time around 2025, i.e. about 4 years after it had been published
Dan Neidle Said That Tax Evasion Facilitator Mr Zahawi (Working to Silence Bloggers Through Brett Wilson LLP) Targeted Not Only Him (But The Others Kept Quiet)
"Mr Neidle said after repelling Mr Zahawi he was contacted by bloggers and tweeters who had received similar threats. They deleted their work “and in most cases never commented publicly on anything again”."
SLAPP Funding Transparency Urgently Needed in the UK and Elsewhere (in Practice, Not Just in Theory)
Writing about crime - including Microsoft crime - is not a crime
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 09, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 09, 2025
Elodie Bergot Still Doing Illegal Things at the EPO, Based on the Local Staff Committee Munich
They keep taking away from the staff while compelling the staff to do illegal things
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: Extreme Testing and Golang Documentation in Geminispace
Links for the day
Vice President of the European Patent Office (EPO) Complains That Techrights Gives Visibility to Legal and Technical Issues at the EPO
"Follow-up on enquiries relating to Dir. 1218 and 1001"
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com and Various Slopfarms That Lie About "Linux" and Are Promoted by Google News
Google does not seem interested in tackling this problem
Links 09/07/2025: War Updates and Microsoft Moving to India to Cut Costs
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Was Always a 'Movement' of Inclusion of Tolerance
Even the licences themselves remove access barriers
Links 09/07/2025: "Subprime AI Crisis" and "OpenAI May Be in Major Trouble Financially"
Links for the day
Huge Piles of Legal Papers ('Paper DDoS') Do Not Impress Judges and Regulators
they just make judges and regulators even more suspicious of the eagerness to resort to 'paper DDoS'
Brett Wilson LLP Sent Over 5 Kilograms (or Over 12 Pounds) of Legal Papers! Because Writing About Microsoft Abuses is 'Illegal'.
How do you guys sleep at night? On a big pile of Microsoft money?
Extremism as a Weapon Against GNU/Linux (Microsoft Lunduke)
He ought to know the Halloween Documents. Wasn't he a Microsoft employee when these came out?
Lunduke Isn't Even Hiding His Anti-Linux Agenda (From "Linux Sucks" to "Linux is Pedophiles")
just trying to make a lot of trouble
Some People Use Computers to Get Actual Work Done
Tolerance and inclusion must extend to acceptance that some people don't agree with you, might never agree with you, and imposing what allegedly works for you on them is unreasonable
Example of "Old" Things That Still Work
The notion that something being "old" implies it must be discarded is typically advanced by those looking to sell more of something
Some Scheduled Maintenance Later Today
Typically the most vulnerable service during short interruptions is IRC
Computers Are Just a Tool
People don't get married because they love weddings, folks don't join the army because they love war, and most drivers don't drive to work because they love cars
Apple Way Past Its Prime
Apple deserves a decline
The FSF's SysOps Team Recovered From Serious Hardware Issue Within Hours
About half a day ago I noticed that all/most GNU/FSF sites were not reachable and thus reached out to a contact for any details
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 08, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 08, 2025
Slopwatch: Turning Bugs Into FUD About "Linux", Getting Basic Facts Wrong
all the screenshots are of fake articles; we don't want to link to any
Technical Reasons, Not Politics: With Wayland "it feels a lot like Linux from 20-25 years ago, which is horrendously frustrating, because it feels like we wasted one or two decades of progress and stability"
Lately, quite a few benchmarks were published to show Wayland compares poorly compared to what we had
PCLinuxOS Recovering From Fire
It looks like a nightmare scenario, where even backups onsite get destroyed
Links 09/07/2025: More Heatwaves, Officials Culled in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/07/2025: XScreensaver and Resurrection
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025