11.29.20
Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:22 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Last year’s ‘naughty list’
Summary: Constructive suggestions from EPO staff, made just over a year ago and assembled into a letter to their EPO colleagues
ALMOST exactly a year ago the Central Staff Committee of the EPO circulated the following letter, citing the abuses of Benoît Battistelli (ironically occupying a law school now) and the dubious claims from António Campinos (regarding the financial situation of the Office). Today we reproduce the letter in full:
Munich, 19.11.2019
sc19165cp – 0.2.1/1.3.1/1.3.2
The President’s “Phase II Team Feedback” exercise
Thank you for speaking and standing up, for your staunch support, for your solidarity and for your scarce time
Dear colleagues,
The President had requested team managers to ask staff to voice preference amongst “measures 1 to 10” proposed in Phase II of the Financial Study. The Central Staff Committee, the local Staff Committees and individual Committee members received a flood of e-mails in which you copied the replies you sent to your Team Managers or Directors – or the managers and directors sent to senior management.
The overwhelming feedback you gave followed our earlier publications, the general assemblies across the sites and the demos in Munich and The Hague. The e-mails differed in form and size, some with a brief and direct message, others quite elaborate with sound analysis and alternative proposals, and made for interesting reading. You, too, concluded that the measures were political.
Most of the e-mails claimed for discussing the issue with elected staff representatives as the legitimate port of call, a very large proportion clearly doubted that there was a funding-gap and many of you complained that you were bothered with a fake consultation exercise in the situation of having to meet the highest production demands ever. The vast majority of those of you who copied us in did not choose between evil and worse, whilst some still voiced preferences for particular measures. Others were explicitly outspoken against some measures. Many claimed a fairer distribution of any potential burden also over e.g. member states and applicants. Some stressed that savings could be made also from sources other than those covered in the 17 measures, namely not engaging in a comprehensive building investment programme, dropping events like the Inventor of the Year, reducing the number of managers, throwing less money at consultants or bringing the Boards of Appeal back into Office buildings.
Before the Battistelli reforms, which are still a millstone around staff’s neck today, staff representation always discussed and managed to convince management to drop not so good ideas and limit detrimental impact for staff. It is time to return to the consultation our Codex foresees, so that we can add value again to the Office’s decision making process.
If you are still undecided whether the 17 measures are necessary, useful or good, please take some of the very limited time at your disposal to read up on what can make or break your future. Check out our recent publications Gathering the views of staff, Transcripts of the TH general assemblies – includes many links to other documents, Reply to the interviews with 4 TM’s, Feedback from the Pensioners Association, SUEPO Munich – A divisive Exercise and Staff Committees’ 1st views on the 17 measures.
The deadline for the President’s Phase II Team Feedback has passed. We appreciate your involvement and input, so please keep the e-mails coming to centralstcom@epo.org if you want to share your thoughts with the Staff Committees. We are preparing for the discussions with the management team on Wednesday, studying the dossier and having people who know about finances, know about career, know about pensions, and have a long experience in discussing with management. Watch this space for more news after the first meeting on Wednesday!
Thank you
Your staff representatives
The patent office needs to go back to basics; no silly festivals, gambling and union-busting activities. No censorship either. Why would a patent office block a site like ours? Are they employing kids or grown-ups? █
“They [EPO examiners] claim that the organisation is decentralising and focusing on granting as many patents as possible to gain financially from fees generated.” —Expatica
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 4:55 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Contrary to what Team UPC wants people to think, UPC(A) isn’t a “done deal” in Germany; they never actually addressed the substance of complaints and with help from Benoît Battistelli‘s friends in the Commission they’re just attempting a blatant coup
EARLIER this month many scholars across Europe publicised their position on the UPC, which they oppose. The minds, not the litigation lawyers, consider UPC/A to be a bad thing. They’re still adding more signatures and are actively working to squash the UPC, seeing that it is bad for Europe and insulting to the Rule of Law. As someone put is on Friday, citing/quoting FFII: “Politicians willfully ignored the problem that the UPC violates the “Rule of Law” principle, as the EPO still cannot be sued for maladministration, where there are 4 pending complaints in Karlsruhe, which should be issued in early 2021.”
“It’s not impossible that there will be multiple constitutional complaints next month. Time will tell; but this was expected all along (as was the outcome of the Bundestag vote).”We said we’d refrain from wasting much time on this, foreseeing another major failure for Team UPC. It is meanwhile more apparent that the complainant the first time around has several weeks to submit another, maybe to be dealt with in substance this time around (the FCC did not get around to addressing all the points the first time around, dealing instead with a formality). As he has just put that in his site:
Update (25 and 26/11/2020):
On 07/08/2020, the German government started its second attempt to ratify the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court and sent its corresponding draft legislation to the Federal Council (“Bundesrat”; Federal Council printed matter 448/20, German language). In its 993rd session on 26/09/2020 the Federal Council raised no objections to the draft (Federal Council printed matter 448/20 (decision) and protocol, p. 297, both German language).
On 25/09/2020 the German government presented its draft to the German Parliament (“Bundestag”, Parliament printed matter 18/22847, German language). In the first deliberation on 08/10/2020 the draft was referred to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection (in charge), the Committee on European Union Affairs and the Committee on Budgets (protocol, p. 23001 (D), German language).
In its 113th meeting on 25/11/2020, the Committee for Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection dealt with the draft legislation (item 3 on the agenda of 20/11/2020, German language) and recommended its adoption, against the votes of the AfD. A motion by the AfD Parliamentary group to hold a public hearing on the dossier was rejected (see the report “Bills pass the Legal Affairs Committee” of 25/11/2020 and the Resolution recommendation in Parliament printed matter 19/24742, both German language).
The Parliamentary group CDU/CSU is of the opinion (Resolution recommendation, p. 4, last para.)
“…that the primacy of Union law provided for in Article 20 of the Agreement affects neither the fundamental domestic constitutional guarantees, in particular the principles laid down in Article 1 and Article 20(1) and (2) in conjunction with Article 79(3) of the Grundgesetz, nor the Federal Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction to review compliance with minimum constitutional standards in the transfer of sovereign rights to European or intergovernmental institutions.”
The SPD parliamentary group thinks (Resolution recommendation, p. 5, first para.)
“…that the final distribution of the competences of the Unified Patent Court with regard to the partial location in London provided for in the Agreement, that is necessary due to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, is still to be resolved appropriately in the future in consent with the other Member States participating in the Agreement.”
Also on 25/11/2020, the Budget Committee consulted on the draft legislation and recommended its adoption, against the votes of the FDP and the AfD (Resolution recommendation in Parliament printed matter 19/24743, German language).
Already on 26/11/2020 the German Parliament will hold its second and third deliberations on the draft legislation (item 15 on the agenda of 25/11/2020, German language).
The consultation of the Legal Committee of the Federal Council is currently scheduled for 02/12/2020 (survey 56/20 of the agenda, German language), the Federal Council can therefore be expected to make its final deliberation on the draft legislation in its 998th session on 18/12/2020.
It’s not impossible that there will be multiple constitutional complaints next month. Time will tell; but this was expected all along (as was the outcome of the Bundestag vote). Even Team UPC spoke about this in advance. It was foreseen.
This has become a matter of politics instead of law. As Benjamin Henrion told me the other day: “Now von der Leyen cabinet does not seem to reply to my emails deposi[ti]ng the letter. Sent it via recommandé 2 days ago, still no proof of good reception. They are playing with us.” █
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Posted in Free/Libre Software, Microsoft at 4:29 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Recent: [Meme] DRM Loves Wintel/Microsoft/Centralisation/Monopoly
Summary: GitHub is proving to be more of a censorship site than a code-sharing site; with the GitHub takeover Microsoft became a ‘censorship police’ or force of occupation against its ideological competition; just weeks after the YouTube-DL debacle and further take-downs seeking to ‘protect’ broken DRM schemes (by banning code) we can see that Microsoft isn’t defending developers at all; it’s just protecting the interests of MPA, RIAA and other Biden circles from the interests of the general population, which sometimes circumvents perfectly circumventable ‘DRM’ schemes
“DRM is the future.”
–Steve Ballmer, Microsoft CEO
“DRM is nearly always the result of a conspiracy of companies to restrict the technology available to the public. Such conspiracy should be a crime, and the executives responsible for it should be sentenced to prison.”
–Richard Stallman
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