Bonum Certa Men Certa

Koch's Reply to EPO Through ILO and Techrights' Interpretation of Koch v EPO Documents Help Show That ILO-AT is Played by EPO Management

"Played" an understatement for controlled?

You should re-run the case. When we're about to lose the case.



Summary: Sending cases back and forth, without the complainant being involved, means that justice is in eternal 'limbo' and thus the abusive management of the European Patent Office (EPO) -- first Team Battistelli and now Team Campinos -- can get away with anything the bullies do (no judgment of substance being delivered)

THE gross injustice at the EPO is absolutely astounding. What's even more astounding is the fact that politicians tolerate this. Astonishing! The EU? It blocks EPO staff that talks about it. "Shut up, little man, you're interfering with the system!!"

This will, at least for the time being, be the last post regarding Koch v EPO [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]). It's a case which concerns a dismissed staff representative who suffers from a disability (likely due to the EPO's working conditions) and the case isn't being properly handled by ILO-AT. It's almost like there's nobody to talk to -- no safeguards in other words. Somebody ought to inform the Dutch courts (even the highest one) because if all these courts refuse to intervene -- even ECHR (the European Court of Human Rights) -- China's Communist Party will be having a day field. The EPO's management already clarified, even on Dutch TV, that even if the highest court ruled against it, the orders would be ignored, i.e. disobeyed. Just like China ignoring the ICC regarding the island of Scarborough (among others).

"The EPO's management already clarified, even on Dutch TV, that even if the highest court ruled against it, the orders would be ignored, i.e. disobeyed."Are EPO employees being employed outside the rule of law? Is EPO like a sweatshop in China (except the higher pay)? What can management be allowed to get away with? That question concerns/impacts not only thousands of EPO workers but workers in dozens of international organisations (not only those ILO-AT is responsible for).

We're still trying to digest what we saw in legal documents of Koch. Some of those are public and others we've requested so as to better study the case.

The 129th session of ILO-AT is now over. SUEPO has not said anything in its public site. No updates there (for 3 days now)...

"SUEPO has not said anything in its public site."It is understandable that SUEPO will not want to comment on this case for a number of reasons, but we're not bound by the same rules EPO staff (and staff unions) are subjected to, so let's explain again what we have here.

As far as the referrals of cases to the EPO for "re-running" the internal appeals are concerned, these issues refer to the functioning of the EPO's juridical system in rather general terms, not just to Koch's individual case/s. In cases AT 5-4532 and AT 5-4384 we see an example of that; these concern very serious issues (AT 5-4532: refusal of an employment medical examination in case of occupational disease;AT 5-4384: irregular dismissal -- see these tweets with the parties' latest replies in re AT 5-4532). The complainant could potentially be hit very hard by any flaws of this system.

Unusual in re AT 5-4532 is also the realisation that the EPO attempts to have the fees of its (probably extremely expensive!) lawyers in Geneva (chosen and commissioned by the EPO, of course) to be paid -- at least partly -- by the complainant, alleging that case AT 5-4532 would be an "abusive and unnecessary" procedure (the EPO in its surrejoinder, para. 62) while the complainant receives just a small early retirement pension under protest. Such course of action reveals the EPO management's completely unfounded, but extreme hate against the complainant, a former staff representative with disabilities.

"Unusual in re AT 5-4532 is also the realisation that the EPO attempts to have the fees of its (probably extremely expensive!) lawyers in Geneva (chosen and commissioned by the EPO, of course) to be paid -- at least partly -- by the complainant..."The issue of "re-running" of internal appeals (IAs) by the EPO is particularly noteworthy. The EPO might attempt this in many dozens is not hundreds of cases, impacting a lot of aggrieved (abused) EPO employees. It is particularly serious because the EPO does this (i) after a final decision on them, contrary to the Tribunal's standard Jurisprudence: Judgment number 2906, under 8., Judgments number 994, under 14., or Judgement number 1006, under 2. and (ii) after their lawful referral to the Tribunal and (iii) without awaiting any decision by the Tribunal on them. The EPO withdraws final decisions and "re-runs" IAs of its own volition/initiative.

Worse yet is the fact that no fresh view on the cases and no fairer or more impartial Opinion by the Internal Appeals Committee (IAC) can be expected from the "re-running": The reason for this is that -- to paraphrase what we we wrote earlier -- the IAC's unbalanced composition reproved by the Tribunal in Judgment number 3785, under 7., i.e. participation of volunteers being nominated by the President or selected by lots(!) instead of being nominated to the IAC by the Central Staff Committee (as the former rules on the IAC's composition required) was just "legalised" by the EPO in the meantime, by just a change of the respective rules for the IAC's composition during the Battistelli era.

"...such issues of lawlessness under the EPO's Service Regulations are now being exploited to also neutralise ILO-AT and ILO-AT apparently allows this to happen!"These issues are likely to concern hundreds of cases of EPO staff against their employer, such cases being lawfully pending before the Tribunal. In the unlikely event that the Tribunal deemed this way of acting by the EPO lawful, the EPO would largely benefit from its own turpitude while staff would remain deprived of access to the Tribunal as the only judicial instance under the Service Regulations for an indefinite (in some cases probably meaning an infinite) period of time. In other words, cases could be referred to the Tribunal and back to the EPO like in a ping-pong game, as the EPO was (probably intentionally) introducing "flaws" in the IAs procedure which it subsequently alleged to mend in a "re-run" IAs procedure, with different flaws in different rounds of repetition of the IA. This way a treatment of a case in substance by the Tribunal could be prevented by the EPO. Put another way, a treatment of a case in substance by the Tribunal could be prevented by the EPO, at least a treatment "within a reasonable time", contrary to the complainants' fundamental rights under Article 6 ECHR.

"Re-running" of internal appeals on (the defendant's initiative only) would be an incredible precedent; such issues of lawlessness under the EPO's Service Regulations are now being exploited to also neutralise ILO-AT and ILO-AT apparently allows this to happen!

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's Big Lies Regarding This Week's Mass Layoffs Have Already Begun (and They're Already Being Spread by Slopfarms)
Microsoft is the "market leader" in slop
They Made Technology Scary and Taught Us That It's Innocent, Friendly, Even "Social"
Rejection of all this "apps" and "gadgets" and "Smart" (whatever that means!) status quo isn't a rejection of society
 
Our Desktops Are Not Your Experiments, X is Not an Experiment
Breaking what already worked
Summer Plans in Techrights and Elsewhere
massive layoffs at Microsoft
Explaining the Full Story of SLAPPs From Microsoft Staff
For every action there is a reaction, for every attack there will be proportionate consequences
The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part III: IRS and Status of OSI
"They lied to the US IRS and there’s a paper trail"
IBM Red Hat's Dogmatic Fanaticism Under a Thin Veil of "Modernism"
IBM now has the audacity to paint people who don't agree as "nazis"
Microsoft's Share in Guatemala Fell From 97% to 14%
Eventually Microsoft will get stuck in a loop of layoffs, layoffs, and more layoffs
The Media is Under Attacks Partly Because There's Little Other (Remaining) Press to Speak in Its Defence
The biggest danger here is that when there's very little press or no "opposition media" left it becomes even easier to crush critics because there aren't many people left to speak about the matter
If Your Web Site is Run by Bots, Eventually Nobody Will 'Read' It Except Bots (People Don't Want to Read Slop)
Eventually people learn from mistakes
Links 29/06/2025: Microsoft Releases False/Fake Benchmarks, "Google Wants You to Watch Ads or Take Surveys to Read Articles"
Links for the day
Links 29/06/2025: Data Breaches and Online Censorship
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/06/2025: "The Price Of Eggs" and Gemini 3D Tic Tac Toe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 28, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 28, 2025
The "News" You Saw About Canonical is Misleading, It Made Only 18 Million Dollars Last Year and Barely Paid Any Taxes
Lies are the norm these days...
Pushing Wayland Using Straw Man Arguments
phoronix.com has long promoted the talking point of "Wayland people" (for at least a decade already)
Australia: Windows Fell to All-Time Low, Even Lower Than iOS
There's a good reason why next week there will be so many Microsoft layoffs
Slopwatch: Linuxsecurity, WebProNews, and Google News Boosting Slopfarms as 'News'
People who don't recognise the slopfarms and don't know which sites are fake would struggle to understand what's really going on
Links 28/06/2025: Hardware/GPU Wars, GAFAM Throws Money (Borrowed Cash) at Hopeless Slop Pipe Dream
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/06/2025: Shellshock and Network UPS Tools
Links for the day
Links 28/06/2025: The Age of Integrity and FreeBSD Foundation Added John Baldwin as Board Member
Links for the day
Fedora 44
IBM now does to Fedora what it did to RHEL
Microsoft Already Shaved Off Costs Anywhere It Could. It Was Not Enough.
Office and Windows aren't "selling" (licences) like they used to
Scheduled Maintenance Next Week
Our community is alive and well
BetaNews: We're Publishing LLM Slop About LLM Slop
Beta version of a slopfarm?
3-Month Updates on Our Complaint to the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
In short, the complaint remains open, updated, and is advancing
IBM Red States Hat (Project 2025): Our "New Thing" Replaces This "Old Thing"
The new replaces the old. That's how IBM frames it.
Start X
Just because something is old does not mean it is bad
Slopwatch: Linuxsecurity, Google News Slopfarms, and Linux Journal (LJ)
Today we take a quick look at 3 slopfarms
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 27, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, June 27, 2025
Links 28/06/2025: "CC Signals" Virtue-Signals to Slop Ponzi Schemes, North Korea Aims for Tourism
Links for the day
Links 27/06/2025: International Tensions and Contentions Over Plagiarism Perfumed as "Hey Hi" and "Fair Use"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/06/2025: Poetry and Censorship by Social Control Media Centralisation
Links for the day
Links 27/06/2025: Journalists Under Fire and Microsoft Has Serious Slop Problems
Links for the day
X is Dying, But Not XServer/X11. Twitter X.com is Dying.
People or businesses or government officials (and departments) that still rely on Social Control Media are playing Russian Roulette with their future online
Wayland is About Less Choice, About Removing Choices, It's Not About Freedom
IBM insists that it cares about "diversity"
Keeping Things Accessible
Gemini Protocol seems to be growing
Escaping Colonialism (or 'Hegemony') Requires Abandoning GAFAM, Microsoft in Particular
Europe is already in the process of abandoning Microsoft
Microsoft Will Shut Down More Studios This Week, Its Media Operatives Will Tell Lies About the Magnitude of the Shutdowns and Layoffs (They Always Do)
Many people who get counted as "workforce" are "temps" or similar
Not Much Better Than LLM Slop: Linux Foundation-Funded 'News' Site Writes Linux Foundation 'News', Composed by Linux Foundation Operative, Quoting Linux Foundation Staff
...they get paid (sponsored) to produce this spam. Then they call it "journalism".
What Linux Foundation 'Research' is: Paid Marketing
What is Linux Foundation 'Research'?
Annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 22x) 'Bought' by Microsoft and Microsoft Exceeded Sponsorship Limits by Giving Double the Maximum Permitted Amount
When people get bribed they tend to forget how to utter a simple word: "No."
No, IBM Does Not Care About People With Disabilities
"Aktion T4" did not seem to bother Watson
Microsoft's Financial Problems Mean Shutdowns, Not Just Mass Layoffs
If the original rumour is true, then expect almost 30,000 Microsoft workers to be let go this year
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 26, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, June 26, 2025
The Netherlands: GNU/Linux Measured at All-Time High
Are any Dutch cities going to announce dumping Microsoft?
Gemini Links 27/06/2025: "Interstitial Existence" and Autocorrect
Links for the day