Bonum Certa Men Certa

Report on the (Mal)Functioning of the ILOAT From the 332nd Session of the ILO Governing Body

Guest article

ILOAT Governing Body Original: March report [PDF]



Summary: Although the non-EPO backlog had been reduced to 84 cases at the end of December 2017, there was an EPO backlog of 155 cases representing 64 per cent of the total backlog

At the 332nd Session of the ILO Governing Body held in Geneva on 8 to 22 March 2018 an update was provided on "the situation regarding the impact that the number of complaints filed against the European Patent Organisation (EPO) has on the functioning of the Tribunal" and related matters.

According to the report (document ref no. GB.332/PFA/INF/9): "[T]he ILO has, over the past few years, devoted considerable attention to addressing the situation arising from the disproportionate number of complaints persistently filed against one single organization", namely the EPO.

In 2015 the Tribunal itself pointed out that the large number of complaints filed against the EPO represented the main challenge to its effective functioning.

The excessively large number of complaints filed against the EPO has been the subject of discussions between the Director-General and the EPO President in one direct meeting and numerous exchanges of letters, and has been regularly followed up by the relevant services of the ILO and the EPO.

The Director-General offered ILO expertise on social dialogue to assist the EPO in the dialogue between the administration and staff union but this was not taken up. (!)

The EPO President claimed that reform efforts have already led to a significant drop in the number of internal appeals, and are expected to result, in due course, in a decrease in the number of complaints lodged with the Tribunal.

The Tribunal confirmed a declining trend in the number of new complaints filed against the EPO whose share of the total number of new complaints filed dropped from 74 per cent at the beginning of 2016 to 39 per cent in 2017.

However, the drop in the number of new complaints is mainly due to the procedural consequences of Judgments 3694, 3785 and 3796 which dealt with the composition of the internal appeals body of the EPO and related matters. The flawed composition of the internal appeals body and other procedural irregularities resulted in the withdrawal of several hundred final decisions taken by the EPO President and the EPO’s Administrative Council.

This in turn led to the related internal appeals being re-submitted to the EPO’s newly composed internal appeals body where they are currently pending. Consequently, fewer final decisions had been taken by the EPO President, and fewer new complaints were therefore filed with the Tribunal.

The Tribunal also noted that several new complaints challenge the legality of the new composition of the Appeals Committee with respect to the members appointed by the staff and it is committed to examining this issue shortly.

Thus, although decreased, the proportion of EPO-related complaints remains high.

The report notes that the large volume of complaints filed against the EPO cannot be solely attributed to weaknesses in the EPO's internal appeal mechanism but may also be symptomatic of the industrial relations climate within the organization. In this regard, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) recognizing trade unions present at the EPO as social partners and creating a collective bargaining framework was signed in March 2016 with one of the staff unions, the European Civil Service Federation (FFPE). However the MoU has not yet been signed by the most representative staff union, the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO).

Concerning the Tribunal's backlog of cases, it was noted that although the non-EPO backlog had been reduced to 84 cases at the end of December 2017, there was an EPO backlog of 155 cases representing 64 per cent of the total backlog. Many of the EPO cases are linked and require consideration at the same Tribunal session.

"In order to reduce the EPO backlog more rapidly it would be necessary for entire Tribunal sessions to be devoted exclusively to the EPO."The report states that it is clear that the statistics of the Tribunal are distorted by the EPO cases, either as the “backlog cases” or newly filed cases (for example, one former EPO official filed 97 complaints against the EPO; in October 2015 some 660 complaints were filed against a single decision of the EPO).

In order to reduce the EPO backlog more rapidly it would be necessary for entire Tribunal sessions to be devoted exclusively to the EPO.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman's Next Public Talk is on Friday, 17:30 in Córdoba (Spain), FSF Cannot Mention It
Any attempt to marginalise founders isn't unprecedented as a strategy
 
On DebConf and Debian 'Bedroom Nepotism' (Connected to Canonical, Red Hat, and Google)
Why the public must know suppressed facts (which women themselves are voicing concerns about; some men muzzle them to save face)
Several Years After Vista 11 Came Out Few People in Africa Use It, Its Relative Share Declines (People Delete It and Move to BSD/GNU/Linux?)
These trends are worth discussing
Canonical, Ubuntu & Debian DebConf19 Diversity Girls email
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 23/04/2024: Escalations Around Poland, Microsoft Shares Dumped
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/04/2024: Offline PSP Media Player and OpenBSD on ThinkPad
Links for the day
Amaya Rodrigo Sastre, Holger Levsen & Debian DebConf6 fight
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
DebConf8: who slept with who? Rooming list leaked
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Bruce Perens & Debian: swiping the Open Source trademark
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Ean Schuessler & Debian SPI OSI trademark disputes
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Windows in Sudan: From 99.15% to 2.12%
With conflict in Sudan, plus the occasional escalation/s, buying a laptop with Vista 11 isn't a high priority
Anatomy of a Cancel Mob Campaign
how they go about
[Meme] The 'Cancel Culture' and Its 'Hit List'
organisers are being contacted by the 'cancel mob'
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 22, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, April 22, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Don't trust me. Trust the voters.
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Chris Lamb & Debian demanded Ubuntu censor my blog
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Ean Schuessler, Branden Robinson & Debian SPI accounting crisis
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
William Lee Irwin III, Michael Schultheiss & Debian, Oracle, Russian kernel scandal
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Microsoft's Windows Down to 8% in Afghanistan According to statCounter Data
in Vietnam Windows is at 8%, in Iraq 4.9%, Syria 3.7%, and Yemen 2.2%
[Meme] Only Criminals Would Want to Use Printers?
The EPO's war on paper
EPO: We and Microsoft Will Spy on Everything (No Physical Copies)
The letter is dated last Thursday
Links 22/04/2024: Windows Getting Worse, Oligarch-Owned Media Attacking Assange Again
Links for the day
Links 21/04/2024: LINUX Unplugged and 'Screen Time' as the New Tobacco
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/04/2024: Health Issues and Online Documentation
Links for the day
What Fake News or Botspew From Microsoft Looks Like... (Also: Techrights to Invest 500 Billion in Datacentres by 2050!)
Sededin Dedovic (if that's a real name) does Microsoft stenography
Stefano Maffulli's (and Microsoft's) Openwashing Slant Initiative (OSI) Report Was Finalised a Few Months Ago, Revealing Only 3% of the Money Comes From Members/People
Microsoft's role remains prominent (for OSI to help the attack on the GPL and constantly engage in promotion of proprietary GitHub)
[Meme] Master Engineer, But Only They Can Say It
One can conclude that "inclusive language" is a community-hostile trolling campaign
[Meme] It Takes Three to Grant a Monopoly, Or... Injunction Against Staff Representatives
Quality control
[Video] EPO's "Heart of Staff Rep" Has a Heartless New Rant
The wordplay is just for fun
An Unfortunate Miscalculation Of Capital
Reprinted with permission from Andy Farnell
[Video] Online Brigade Demands That the Person Who Started GNU/Linux is Denied Public Speaking (and Why FSF Cannot Mention His Speeches)
So basically the attack on RMS did not stop; even when he's ill with cancer the cancel culture will try to cancel him, preventing him from talking (or be heard) about what he started in 1983
Online Brigade Demands That the Person Who Made Nix Leaves Nix for Not Censoring People 'Enough'
Trying to 'nix' the founder over alleged "safety" of so-called 'minorities'
[Video] Inauthentic Sites and Our Upcoming Publications
In the future, at least in the short term, we'll continue to highlight Debian issues
List of Debian Suicides & Accidents
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Jens Schmalzing & Debian: rooftop fall, inaccurately described as accident
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Teaser] EPO Leaks About EPO Leaks
Yo dawg!
On Wednesday IBM Announces 'Results' (Partial; Bad Parts Offloaded Later) and Red Hat Has Layoffs Anniversary
There's still expectation that Red Hat will make more staff cuts
IBM: We Are No Longer Pro-Nazi (Not Anymore)
Historically, IBM has had a nazi problem
Bad faith: attacking a volunteer at a time of grief, disrespect for the sanctity of human life
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bad faith: how many Debian Developers really committed suicide?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 21, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, April 21, 2024
A History of Frivolous Filings and Heavy Drug Use
So the militant was psychotic due to copious amounts of marijuana
Bad faith: suicide, stigma and tarnishing
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
UDRP Legitimate interests: EU whistleblower directive, workplace health & safety concerns
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 21/04/2024: Earth Day Coming, Day of Rest, Excess Deaths Hidden by Manipulation
Links for the day
Bad faith: no communication before opening WIPO UDRP case
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bad faith: real origins of harassment and evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 21/04/2024: Censorship Abundant, More Decisions to Quit Social Control Media
Links for the day
Bad faith: Debian Community domain used for harassment after WIPO seizure
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
If Red Hat/IBM Was a Restaurant...
Two hours ago in thelayoff.com
Why We Republish Articles From Debian Disguised.Work (Formerly Debian.Community)
articles at disguised.work aren't easy to find
Google: We Run and Fund Diversity Programs, Please Ignore How Our Own Staff Behaves
censorship is done by the recipients of the grants
Paul Tagliamonte & Debian Outreachy OPW dating
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Disguised.Work unmasked, Debian-private fresh leaks
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Meme] Fake European Patents Helped Fund the War on Ukraine
The European Patent Office (EPO) does not serve the interests of Europe
European Patent Office (EPO) Has Serious Safety Issues, This New Report Highlights Some of Them
9-page document that was released to staff a couple of days ago
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 20, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, April 20, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Microsoft-Run FUD Machine Wants Nobody to Pay Attention to Microsoft Getting Cracked All the Time
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) is the business model of "modern" media
Torvalds Fed Up With "AI" Passing Fad, Calls It "Autocorrect on Steroids."
and Microsoft pretends that it is speaking for Linux
Gemini Links 21/04/2024: Minecraft Ruined
Links for the day