Bonum Certa Men Certa

Elizabeth Holmes Charged With “Massive Fraud” and Team Battistelli Rushes to Distance Itself From Her

Elizabeth Holmes might be the only person who stains the European Inventor Award more than Battistelli does

Theranos and EPO
EPO was so proud of Theranos...



Summary: Theranos in the headlines again... as the EPO tries to distance itself from its previous association with Elizabeth Holmes

Theranos and the EPO's top-level management are a good pair; corruption and fraud are becoming such a banal thing to be merely covered up, not tackled. Those who blow the whistle or complain politely are being punished and information about scandals is not being published. Media plays a role in the so-called 'conspiracy' (of silence or of PR). In the case of the EPO, it actively served to legitimise this scam. Battistelli is in some ways like Elizabeth Holmes, only a lot older.



Below are some thoughts and links sent to us by a reader earlier today (days after this scandal had been recalled again, even in relation to the EPO):




Theranos in the headlines again ... as the EPO tries to distance itself from its previous association with Elizabeth Holmes

Theranos has been hitting the headlines again recently.

In March there was this: Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes Charged With 'Massive Fraud' — Here Are The Highlights http://digg.com/2018/theranos-lawsuit-elizabeth-holmes-highlights

And more recently: Theranos Losses A Drop In The Bucket For DeVos, Murdoch, Waltons And Kraft https://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2018/05/04/theranos-losses-a-drop-in-the-bucket-for-devos-murdoch-waltons-and-kraft/#242b45d627b2

The original Wall Street Journal article is behind a paywall: Theranos Cost Business and Government Leaders More Than $600 Million https://www.wsj.com/articles/theranos-cost-business-and-government-leaders-more-than-600-million-1525392082

In the meantime it seems that the EPO has been busy trying to distance itself from its previous association with Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes who was a finalist in the European Inventor Award in 2015.

Back in April 2015 the EPO website contained this entry for Holmes (original webpage retrieved courtesy of the WayBack Machine): https://web.archive.org/web/20150428054613/http://www.epo.org/learning-events/european-inventor/finalists/2015/holmes.html

The original webpage contained a reference to three European patents granted to Theranos which list Holmes as co-inventor:

EP2205968 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20100714&CC=EP&NR=2205968A1 EP2018188 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20090128&CC=EP&NR=2018188A2

EP1662987 https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?DB=worldwide.espacenet.com&II=0&ND=3&adjacent=true&locale=en_EP&FT=D&date=20060607&CC=EP&NR=1662987A2

There was also a link to a "puff piece" in one of the EPO' leading German "media partners" the Hamburg-based Handelsblatt:

EUROPÄISCHER ERFINDERPREIS: Revolution mit einem Tropfen Blut http://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/forschung-innovation/europaeischer-erfinderpreis-revolution-mit-einem-tropfen-blut/11768208.html
According to the archives of the WayBack Machine the webpage still appeared with its original content as recently as 14 March 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180314210306/http://www.epo.org/learning-events/european-inventor/finalists/2015/holmes.html
In the meantime the entry for Holmes appears to have been "sanitized" by deleting the previous content including references to the granted European patents and the link to the Handlesblatt article and replacing it with the following "disclaimer":

Important note: The nomination of Elizabeth Holmes for the European Inventor Award was put forward in 2014, and her selection as a finalist announced in April 2015. The nomination itself and material produced about Ms Holmes were based on the information available at that time. Serious concerns about the technology and its purported benefits have surfaced since then. https://www.epo.org/learning-events/european-inventor/finalists/2015/holmes.html

The EPO's original press release from 2015 mentioning Elizabeth Holmes can still be found online here:
The document is downloadable in Word format and in the file metadata the author is named as "Philipp Nisster".

According to LinkedIn, Philipp Nister is the Head of Public Relations of the Echolot Group, a PR outfit based in Stuttgart: https://de.linkedin.com/in/philipp-nisster-8b159693

https://echolot.de/







Echolot works for the EPO this year [1, 2] and we can recall it working for the EPO in the past, albeit more covertly. We wonder how big their contract is compared to FTI Consulting's. If someone out there has access to the related document/s (contract etc.), please consider leaking these to us. ⬆

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Corrupted Corporate Media is Spinning Massive Microsoft Layoffs as "Investment in AI" Instead of Evidence That "AI" Nonsense is Catastrophic
Microsoft asking 30% of its staff to leave is a sign of bubble
100 Years of IBM Racism
GAFAM is not about "diversity" or "equity" or whatever. It's a greedy, money-making venture, even if they appoint CEOs of colour
Intercontinental Brigading - Part IX - Literature About Malignant Narcissists in America Silencing the Press
There's a price for criticising abuses
 
Links 28/10/2026: Slop Bubble Pops in China, Rocky Linux Creator Becomes Slopper, Openwashing by the Slop Pushers Explained
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/10/2026: Slop Plagiarism Considered a "Weapon", "Completely restored HTML interface to the Orbital Fox mailing list"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2026: "Rest of World Faces Prospect of Shutting Down" and Robert Reich Says "Musk Wants Me Imprisoned"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/10/2026: Cold Outside Again and Maths
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XX - Restricted and Moot, or How 'Secure Boot' Turns Out to be a Disaster (Again) This Week
It already has a history of breaking/bricking servers
Racism at Microsoft
Microsoft tribalism has an element to it aside from corporate allegiance
Compelling Examiners at the European Patent Office to Fake "Growth" (in Patent Monopolies) Using Slop and Sloppy Processes
The agenda of management is likely illegal and the methods likewise
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 27, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 27, 2026
The Cyber Show on Plagiarism (BS Artists) and Fear of GNU/Linux Users
Take a look at these articles
"EVENTS" as Paid Spam (Marketing) at The Register MS
Now that layoffs are "buyouts" and debt is "credit" (or "investment" in slop) why not call spam "event"?
Just Jealous
LLMs vs Developers
The Need for Operating System Kernels That Forbid LLM Slop
Not even OpenBSD is an alternative to Linux slop
Gemini Links 28/10/2026: BaseFree Numerical System, Tolino Vision 2, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/10/2026: "Why My Dad Didn’t Have a Cell Phone" and Sudan Famine Risk
Links for the day
Links 27/10/2026: Google Increases Spying on Online Everything (Personal Files, Mail), Anthropic Takes Its Losses and Debt Public
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVIII - Microsoft is Not the Victim (It Was Never the Victim), It's Just DARVO
"DARVO is now in the dictionary. That’s a win for abuse survivors"
The British Economy Too Dependent on an American Slop Scheme
United States Government debt will soon eclipse 40.5 trillion dollars
We've Already Begun Work on the 20th Year of Techrights
We'll do a yearlong endeavour of improvement instead of a one-day hurrah
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVII - The Relevance of Silent Layoffs at Microsoft
"Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act: strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs)"
Volunteers or Unpaid Developers Won't Bother Interacting With Mindless LLMs That Pass Labour From Lazy Companies to Human Beings
The people who run Debian are killing the will to do Free software
Slop is Killing the Open Web
The Web is a jungle and "open sites" (without restrictions or walls) are exposed to the 'feeding frenzy' of reckless plagiarists who call their "theft" something like "super intelligence" or "training"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 26, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 26, 2026
As Microsoft Tells Close to 30% of Its Staff to Leave IBM Takes Notes
IBM does the same with PIPs
It's Perfectly Possible That Microsoft Has Just Told Most of Its American Workers to Leave
A better news headline might focus on the US and give a figure like 50%, not "quarter"
Richard Stallman Was Right About "Hey Hi"
Now the chicken come home to roost
Gemini Links 27/10/2026: "To Change or Not To Change?" and "Initial Planner Plans"
Links for the day
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XVI - The Faustian Pact That Irritates Hired Guns is Still a Distraction From the Serious Harm Done by Their Clients to GNU/Linux Users (Notably Plagiarism and Back Doors)
We'd rather talk about the harms caused
Links 26/10/2026: Microsoft Chaffbot "Building Detailed Psychological Profiles of Its Users", Man Executed for Childhood Offenses
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Writing Down Dreams and "Sabbath as Resistance"
Links for the day
The Register MS Gets Rid of Disclosures About Paid-for Spam Regarding "AI", It Also Composes Fake News for the Sponsors
Selling away its credibility is known as "Sellout"
Microsoft 'Buyouts' Sound Just Like 60,000 Layoffs of 'Expensive' or More Experienced Staff ('Soft' Layoffs or Even Worse, Negligible Severance)
This is not a "gift" to staff, it's just a pink slip with a hundred dollar bill attached to it
This is How Microsoft Ends (Over a Quarter of the Company Now on the Chopping Block)
Microsoft has quit pretending
Search Without Encryption for Legacy Systems (Permacomputing) and Full Backward Compatibility
At your own risk
Shift to the Lula (Left)
Lula is a friend of Free software and ODF
More Stories and Material Than We Can Publish
We're gaining or have amassed material faster than we manage to publish
European Patent Office Takes From the Poor to Give More to the Rich
The "pension schemes are overfunded at 120.5%"
Intercontinental Brigading - Part XV - Annualised Consequences for Opposing Microsoft Back Doors in Linux Since 2012
a roundup of what we got from GGG
Links 26/10/2026: China’s Communist Party Plenum and Aleksandar Vucic Concedes Defeat
Links for the day
In Reporting, Timing is Everything
If you keep calling people "paedophiles" when you yourself are connected to paedophiles (or are a paedophile), you're attracting a lot of unwanted attention to yourself
Links 25/10/2026: Microsoft Layoffs and Cuts, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Wins Election
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/10/2026: Brazilian Politics and Leaving Bear Blog
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 25, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, October 25, 2026