Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 8: The EPO's Tweedledum, Raimund Lutz

Series index:

  1. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 1: How the Bundestag Was (and Continues to be) Misled About EPO Affairs
  2. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 2: Lack of Parliamentary Oversight, Many Questions and Few Answers…
  3. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 3: A “Minor Interpellation” in the German Bundestag
  4. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 4: Parroting the GDPR-Compliance Myth
  5. The EPO Bundestagate -- Part 5: The Federal Eagle's Disconcerting Metamorphosis
  6. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 6: Dr Petri Starts the Ball Rolling…
  7. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 7: Ms Voßhoff Alerts the Bundestag…
  8. You are here ☞ The EPO's Tweedledum, Raimund Lutz


Raimund Lutz, EU
Raimund Lutz, former EPO Vice-President of DG5



Summary: Under the regime of Benoît Battistelli, who broke the law countless times, Raimund Lutz was engineering the legal machinations by which Battistelli could get away with it all (a dark legacy that continues under António Campinos as EPO President)

In this part we introduce one of the key protagonists in intrigue which deflected the Legal Affairs Committee of the German Bundestag from scrutinising the EPO's deficient data protection framework in October 2015.



The subject of our attention here is Raimund Lutz, a figure who will be familiar to readers of Techrights.

Back in 2015 Lutz was a Vice-President of the EPO in charge of the directorate of Legal and International Affairs (DG5).

"One of Lutz's most shameful actions as EPO Vice-President was participation in the campaign of moral harassment against staff union officials conducted by Battistelli and his mignons."He held this position from 2011 to 2018 and during that time he had the unenviable reputation of being one of the most unscrupulous and "ethically challenged" members of the EPO's senior management team. If EPO insiders are to be believed he was a master of intellectual duplicity and moral vacuity.

One of Lutz's most shameful actions as EPO Vice-President was participation in the campaign of moral harassment against staff union officials conducted by Battistelli and his mignons.

"Bergot's witch-hunt led to the dismissal of Brumme and the downgrading of Weaver on spurious charges of "serious misconduct"."Readers may recall that, in tandem with the notorious Željko Topić, Lutz was responsible for a joint communiqué issued in October 2015 advising EPO staff that the EPO staff union's “Rules for the Grant of Legal Assistance” to EPO staff members were "against good faith and/or national law … and are thus unlawful and void".

These highly contentious and ill-founded claims by Lutz and Topić were used by Batistelli's HR dompteuse, Elodie Bergot, to pursue a witch-hunt against selected SUEPO officials, most notably Ion Brumme and Malika Weaver. Bergot's witch-hunt led to the dismissal of Brumme and the downgrading of Weaver on spurious charges of "serious misconduct".

The unjustly persecuted SUEPO officials subsequently won their complaints before the ILOAT in Geneva (cases nos. 4042 and 4043, published on 26 June 2018) as the Tribunal delivered a final slap in the face to Battistelli shortly before his departure in ignominy at the end of June 2018.

We will take a closer look at other significant aspects of Lutz's role inside the EPO in the next instalment.

But before doing that we would like to trace the earlier stages of his career path which culminated with his appointment as the EPO's Vice-President in charge of Legal and International Affairs.

"From 1982 to 1984 Lutz worked in Munich as a judge and subsequently as a public prosecutor."Georg Raimund Lutz was born in Bavaria in 1950. He studied law at the University of Regensburg. This was followed by an internship which included a placement in Paris.

From 1982 to 1984 Lutz worked in Munich as a judge and subsequently as a public prosecutor.

In 1985 he joined the Federal Ministry of Justice in Bonn where he initially worked as an Assistant in the Department for Commercial and Intellectual Property Law.

From 1989 - 1999 Lutz was assigned to the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) as head of the Berlin sub-office. From 1997 he was also head of the trademarks section of DPMA in Munich.

In 2000 he moved to the Federal Ministry of Justice in Berlin as head of the Department for Commercial and Intellectual Property Law.

8 - EPO OJ 7-2000

Lutz's tasks at the Federal Ministry of Justice included the preparation and monitoring of national legislation relating to IP matters and the representation of Germany in European and international bodies such as the European Union, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organisation.

"Georg Raimund Lutz was born in Bavaria in 1950. He studied law at the University of Regensburg. This was followed by an internship which included a placement in Paris."His duties also included participation in the German delegation on the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation.

Lutz's name first appears in the official records of the Administrative Council in June 2000 as the alternate or deputy representative of the German delegation.

By December 2004 he had become joint head of delegation, a position which he shared with the then head of the German Patent and Trademark Office, Jürgen Schade.

Lutz and EPO
By 2004 Lutz had become joint head of delegation on the EPO's Administrative Council



In May 2006, Lutz was appointed as Chairman of the Federal Patent Court ("Bundespatentgericht") by the Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries. The appointment ceremony took place in the Orangerietrakt of the Nymphenburg Royal Palace in Munich.

Nymphenburg Palace
The Orangerietrakt of the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich where the appointment ceremony of Lutz as Chairman of the Federal Patent Court took place in May 2006.



After he became Chairman of the Federal Patent Court, Lutz continued to act as the head of the German delegation on the EPO's Administrative Council.

8 - EPO OJ 11-2010

In October 2010 it was announced that he had been appointed as a Vice-President of the EPO and that he would be taking up this new position in January 2011.

In the next part we will take a critical look at some aspects of Lutz's career as EPO Vice-President.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Hopping From One Set of Buzzwords to the Next
Rotating hype and vapourware
Currys PCWorld Hates GNU/Linux Even Though It Runs the World
If more and more people choose to remove Windows, then Currys PCWorld will feel the financial impact of its dumb policies
The Register MS Takes More Money to Boost Slop Hype, This Time From Snyk, a Notorious FUD Source
At some stage or at some point they might even decide to stop doing so
"AI" Hype or LLM Slop is Not About Efficiency, It's About Lowering Standards
It does not seem like IBM is genuinely committed to the same goals (or commitments) as the original Red Hat
 
Moral Standards From the Masters of Linux
They get hung up on minor language issue and promote this crazy theory that racism will go away if only everyone spoke a little differently (no matter where he or she came from)
Links 14/08/2025: Data Brokers Hiding Opt-Out Pages From Google, "Fight Chat Control"
Links for the day
FSF Infrastructure Under Constant Attack
The disconnect (literally) has had an effect on credibility
Feels Like The Register MS is Trying to Diversify a Bit
If The Register MS goes back to being The Register US (or UK), that will be a nice improvement
Gemini Links 14/08/2025: Reading Journal and LLM Fatigue Revisited
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 13, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Internet Relay Chat and Gemini Protocol Help Us Relive the Net of the Dial-Up Era
The kids were alright
"GPT-5" is Another Microsoft Dead Cat Trying to Bounce
The hype, the momentum (or the inertia) is wearing off
Microsoft Windows Losing Its Grip Near Turkey and Russia
The 'corridor' nations connecting Iran to Europe
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Google News, and Serial Slopper (SS)
The slop, the bad, and the ugly
Links 13/08/2025: The “Incriminating Video” Scam and Corruption in South Korea
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/08/2025: Movie Memories and Mystery Machine Bus
Links for the day
Links 13/08/2025: GitHub Trouble and Openwashing by Microsoft OSI With the Typical Buzzwords
Links for the day
If Free/Libre Software is Adding Trillions in Value to the European Economy, Then the European Commission Must Crush Software Patents
Further to what we wrote yesterday
Microsoft Swallows GitHub Losses
Only Microsoft knows how much money it has already lost on GitHub
Gemini Links 13/08/2025: Climate, Coffee, and Deploying Troops in Washington DC After Pardoning 1,000+ Insurrectionists in Washington DC
Links for the day
The Register MS Lowered MS Focus This Week
We hope The Register recognises its errors and tries to make up for them
Learning Ethics From Jeffrey Epstein's Enabler/Client/Ally, Coca-Cola, and Microsoft Accenture
Whatever merits vocabulary changes initially had are being tainted or obscured by later iterations, which tell us to avoid word like "normal", which apparently offend some people (so they argue)
Personal Attacks From Rust People Serve to Confirm They Have Lost the Argument
"The discussion I find around the net so far has no technical merit and centers around ad hominem"
Physical Meters and Purely Mechanical Meters Aren't Dumb; It's Dumb to Mock or Dismiss Them as Antiquated
I've learned a lot this week, both online and over the telephone
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 12, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 12, 2025
GitHub Will End Up like XBox and Skype
It is not likely that the XBox franchise will survive the next 5 years
Stones Thrown in Glass Houses
Projecting? You bet!
As Europe Gets Increasingly Serious About Software Freedom and Digital Sovereignty It Needs to Enforce a Ban on Software Patents ASAP
many councils in Europe move to Free software and US policy/companies cannot be trusted
Windows 12 in Bahrain (Microsoft "Market Share" Down to 12%, an All-Time Low)
They really ought to get away from Windows even faster
The Web Needs 'Pest Control' When It Comes to LLM Slopfarms
The goal is to discourage more sites becoming slopfarms
Microsoft Can Now Stop Reporting the GitHub Layoffs (Even When They Happen)
GitHub's original staff will see the true cost of becoming "b0rged" - something that Microsoft earned a bad reputation for
How to Get Very Bad or Even Malicious Code Into Linux? Write it in a Language That Linus Torvalds and Most Other Linux Developers Don't Understand.
One point nobody brings up is, what if code gets committed while evading audits and scrutiny?
Links 12/08/2025: Wikipedia Fails at UK High Court, Perlmutter Still Fights to Squash the Slop Lobby
Links for the day
Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Field Recording and Digital Legacy
Links for the day
Links 12/08/2025: WinRAR Zero-Day, SonicWall Does More Harm Than Good
Links for the day
Links 12/08/2025: More Sabotage of Underwater Cable Ahead of Russian Alaska Summit
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Will Not Miss Microsoft GitHub, It Was Only Good at Harvesting a Lot of Code for Plagiarism-as-a-Service
investors are apparently willing to lose money for buzzwords
Slopfarms Slopping Away at "Linux" and Spreading Microsoft Misinformation
Slopfarms don't comprehend this as they lack actual comprehension, they're just parrots
Links 12/08/2025: Science, Hardware, and Ukraine Excluded From Negotiations About Its Future
Links for the day
GitHub the Company Has, in Effect, Just Died (Time to Look for Alternatives)
To Microsoft, what's left of GitHub after dismantling/folding it is some "training set" (people's code, without permission to "train" i.e. misuse under the guise of "GenAI" plagiarism)
Linux Foundation Says "Housekeeping", "Hung", "Normal", "Native Feature/Support" and "Girl/Girls" Are Offensive Words
Bombing people is OK, just use the right "terms"
It Looks More Like Microsoft GitHub Layoffs
GitHub is just losing loads of money
Gemini Links 12/08/2025: Meditation, OpenStreetMap, Smolweb, and More
Links for the day
Google News is Dying: Most of Its Top Stories Now Are LLM Slop With Slop Images (i.e. 100% Fake 'Content')
Google News has been drowning in this sort of stuff for quite some time
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 11, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 11, 2025
Our Predictions Were Right: GitHub Dying as Losses Pile Up (as a Company It Cannot Continue to Exist, It's Not 'Free Hosting')
GitHub always lost money