Bonum Certa Men Certa

“ILO Gave the EPO Medical Committee a Good Slapping”

Guy Ryder Guy Ryder, Director-General of ILO



Summary: The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation quits ILO (or its jurisdiction), whose tribunal has just released very few new decisions, only one of which regarding the EPO

SEVERAL days ago ILO's tribunal (the Administrative Tribunal) issued a ruling on the European Patent Organisation (EPO). We had heard some speculations and quick/shallow analyses, but we preferred to refrain from commenting (maybe SUEPO will remark on this soon). It's hard to guess based on the outcome alone because behind each case/appeal there may be years' worth of ordeals (stories of one's life/career). We don't want to remark on cases we don't fully understand.



"I see the ILO gave the EPO Medical Committee a good slapping," one reader noted, adding that "[i]n the 127th ILO session, there was only one EPO case."

"It's hard to guess based on the outcome alone because behind each case/appeal there may be years' worth of ordeals (stories of one's life/career)."That's all? Just one? To be fair, there are only 3 decisions in total. There may be something mysterious going on and insiders notice. To quote ILO: "During its 334th Session (Geneva, 25 October-8 November 2018) the Governing Body of the International Labour Office took note of the intention of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) to discontinue its recognition of the Tribunal's jurisdiction and confirmed that the CTA will no longer be subject to the competence of the Tribunal with effect from 30 October 2018, except as regards the complaint currently pending before the Tribunal."

Are they noticing ILO's incompetence?

Here is a selective quote from the EPO decision, cherry-picked by the above reader: "In the present case, as noted earlier, the members of the Medical Committee were divided in their opinion before the experts were consulted. Dr S. and Dr B. were of the opinion that the complainant’s invalidity was of an occupational origin. After the experts delivered their report, Dr S. indicated that he had changed his mind. His altered opinion was contrary to the opinion of the experts. However, in his writings before the medical opinion was acted on, and in the opinion itself, he did not refer to the experts’ report. The Tribunal infers that Dr S. did not, at a minimum, give earnest and substantial consideration to the views of the experts before the issuing of the medical opinion, as he should have and, necessarily, did not provide cogent and compelling reasons for rejecting their views. In this respect, he failed to perform his duties as a member of the Medical Committee. Similarly, Dr K. did not provide cogent and compelling reasons before the medical opinion was issued, or in the opinion, for rejecting the views of the experts, in breach of his duty as a member of the Medical Committee."

We already know that the corrupt EPO management makes people ill, then lies about it. Even the tribunal can see that. We can guess who the above doctors are based on the initials alone; we already named some of them in the past.

Here is the official page for the 127th session and the English language PDF of the above decision [PDF] (there's also French [PDF]). The links to the French version are all broken at the moment (from multiple anchor pages); how hard can it be to test the links in just three newly-issued decisions?

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