09.06.19
National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI France) Not Immune Like the EPO and the Courts Find it Guilty of Mismanagement
Summary: The rot or the odor passes from one institution to the next when corrupt officials are put in charge, as INPI too serves to show
“Dear Roy,” one reader wrote, “here an article in French about the disastrous management of the INPI. I sounds familiar, isn’t it?”
Except INPI lacks diplomatic immunity, so it can be sued, just like the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
It’s about abuse if not corruption where Battistelli came from months/years before dragging a whole bunch of other INPI people into the highest ranks at the European Patent Office (EPO) — same thing which happened over the past year at EUIPO. Here’s a partial automated translation of the article about INPI:
Red card for the National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). In a court decision released Tuesday, the Court of Accounts severely pinpoints the management of this institution under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy, which manages and centralizes industrial property rights. “The persistence of dysfunctions within the INPI, even though these shortcomings and bad practices have long been criticized by the Court as other stakeholders, is not acceptable,” warn the sages of the street Cambon.
These flaws include the purchasing processes that must be “reviewed and centralized”, the management of the housing stock that “lacks rigor” and the allocation of remuneration and bonuses, which turns out to be “a problem recurrent”. So the performance bonus was given to … all the staff. In addition, the objective of dematerialization of patent management seems, for the time being, to be compromised. “The court found that this approach did not rely on a master plan information systems duly approved,” said the interlocutory, which points to the “deficiencies of the general management in the supervision of the project.”
We reckon CEIPI too might be corrupt by now. This institution cannot teach law when it’s headed by a person who broke so many laws. Musical chairs with its former head, António Campinos, who is now the EPO’s President? █