05.04.18

^{Gemini version available ♊︎}

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

Posted in Europe, Fraud, Patents at 4:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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:

http://www.epo.org/news-issues/press/releases/archive/2015/20150421.html

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. █

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