TODAY was Battistelli's last day at the Office (the European Patent Office). António Campinos commences his job next week and we keep seeing his name in this month's news, more so over the past week in relation to two potential OHIM or EU-IPO 'scandals'. One of these was recalled some hours ago by IP Kat, remarking on the bizarre case of who 'owns' France.com. Remember that the head of OHIM or EU-IPO is French and he is close to Battistelli, whose history with trademarks in France gives room for concern.
"...a much bigger scandal can be attributed to Battistelli, whose financial scandals are now in Austrian media."To quote IP Kat, "the US-based company France.com Inc. lost its registered rights in France to the domain name and trade mark ‘France.com’ in favour of the rights held by the Republic of France (hereand here)." This eventually reached CJEU.
Either way, a much bigger scandal can be attributed to Battistelli, whose financial scandals are now in Austrian media. This was pointed out by SUEPO (we wrote many articles about that last month and broughtit up a few days ago).
The articles of relevance:
"Remember that the head of OHIM or EU-IPO is French and he is close to Battistelli, whose history with trademarks in France gives room for concern."Lies like these we have, over time, become rather accustomed to; we also became accustomed to IP Kat (Bristows/CIPA Kat) not touching EPO scandals even with a bargepole. It's intentional. Here's their weekly summary, published earlier today with not a single mention of the EPO. As if there was nothing to report or at least comment on... still not a word from any of the contributors there regarding ILO or ILO-AT. They have totally abandoned EPO staff, they use Bristows as their de facto headquarters, and nowadays push more or less the same agenda as Battistelli. Christian Kirsch of Heise has just published an article (in German, as usual) on this matter. But IP Kat cannot? IAM cannot? Managing IP cannot? They'd rather ignore Battistelli's abuses. They say they cover "IP"; they're highly selective it seems... (Heise isn't even about patents!)
Speaking of Battistelli (which we'd rather not, but it's his last day), he has just come up with some rather insulting lies, which are the verbal equivalent of spitting on staff, or adding insult to moral injury. The EPO has just wasted money on another 'booklet' of lies. Not commenting on the outcome from ILO-AT, the EPO has instead released this garbage around midday (warning: epo.org link). Maybe they're just googlebombing with lies about "social" aspects at the Office, hoping to distract applicants (for jobs and patents) from all those 'pesky' news reports about the social climate. Not only for 8 years did this happen. It's a longterm issue which greatly exacerbated under Battistelli and not even on his very last day at work will Battistelli (and the crooks he brought with him) stop lying to enrage staff and mislead the whole world. "The EPO has published its Social Report 2017," the EPO said, "which provides a comprehensive overview of staff and working conditions at the Office."
Don't expect staff to agree with any of the contents; some are literally converting these 'booklets' into coarse toilet wipes.
"The EPO has just wasted money on another 'booklet' of lies."One last Battistelli photo op/self-promotion (before this parasite leaves the EPO) comes from or about South Africa (warning: epo.org link). This is definitely the last and if he is to be put on trial some time soon (his immunity runs out any moment now), then maybe his next one will be next to policemen and lawyers (or at the back of a police car, just like Nicolas Sarkozy). Now that he does photo ops with a South African official remember where they (South Africans) stand on software patents. They're very apprehensive when it comes to patents. "Under the MoU," says the Battistelli puff piece, "the EPO will support the CIPC in establishing substantive search and examination of patent applications in line with South Africa's new National IP Policy. "
But Battistelli has eliminated "substantive search and examination of patent applications"; instead they have "Early Certainty" and other such buzzwords for rushed examination that likely results in a grant (it takes a lot more work to reject as that requires authoring detailed grounds for rejection, which in turn takes a lot of research, not just typing).
Other than "Early Certainty" there's also PACE, which also speeds up examination beyond what's reasonable and truly harms small companies. The EPO has just pushed more of that #IPforSMEs nonesense (this is a routinely-repeated lie and it will likely carry on under Campinos). "Battistelli's policy at the EPO greatly harmed SMEs," I told them. "Reusing this hashtag ad infinitum won't change the facts..."
"...Battistelli has eliminated "substantive search and examination of patent applications"; instead they have "Early Certainty" and other such buzzwords for rushed examination that likely results in a grant (it takes a lot more work to reject as that requires authoring detailed grounds for rejection, which in turn takes a lot of research, not just typing)."They later (today) added: "Well thought out filing strategies enable companies to speed up the granting process as well as to postpone decisions where needed."
But either way the examination isn't done properly due to lack of time. Slow or fast, the workload is far too high to maintain any reasonable level of quality.
Do not overlook the critical fact that the EPO is still not commenting on ILO. Nothing. Neither the Office nor the Organisation has said anything. Suppression of information has long been part of the modus operandi. In fact, Techrights is still blocked and we don't expect Campinos to end this crude act of censorship.
I could never figure out why the "European Patent Office" (account name) Twitter account is "EPOorg" (username) because the Office and the Org(anisation) are very different things. Deliberately conflating? Or insinuating that the Office (i.e. a one-man team/monarchy) took over the whole Org (its boss), grossly violating the EPC?
"Do not overlook the critical fact that the EPO is still not commenting on ILO. Nothing."It often seems, as Bausch said quite recently, that one man runs the entire thing, even the supposedly 'independent' courts. A few hours ago the EPO wrote: "The annual "Boards of Appeal and key decisions" conference provides a unique opportunity for patent practitioners to gain an insight into the case law of the Boards of Appeal."
Well, the Boards of Appeal repeatedly complain (even as recently as 2 months ago) that they lack resources, are overworked, and are being intimidated by Battistelli (who made an 'example' of their colleague).
But life goes on at the EPO. The Official Journal for June 2018 (warning: epo.org link) has been released and announced. Having quickly browsed though it, there's not much of interest in it. This time, for a change, it's not a load of promotion for Battistelli's other employer (like in April). ⬆