Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 9: A Veritable Virtuoso of Legal Sophistry

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. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag -- Part 8: The EPO's Tweedledum, Raimund Lutz
  9. You are here ☞ A Veritable Virtuoso of Legal Sophistry


Lutz - Breakfast in Beijing
Breakfast in Beijing: Lutz together with his master Battistelli at an IP junket in the Nuo Hotel (November 2017).



Summary: "Lutz is also reputed to be closely linked to the German branch of the influential UPC lobby group centred around Prof. Winfried Tilmann."

As head of the German delegation on the EPO's Administrative Council, Lutz is reputed to have been a key mover-and-shaker in the secretive backroom political machinations which took place during the controversial and protracted procedure (copy here [PDF]) to find a successor to EPO President Alison Brimelow in 2009/2010.



"During his time as Vice-President of the EPO's Directorate of Legal and International Affairs (DG5), Lutz gained notoriety for being one of Battistelli's most faithful and devoted lapdogs."Lutz is believed to have been instrumental in securing the deal which led to Battistelli's election as EPO President in March 2010.

It is also rumoured that an element of this deal included the understanding that Battistelli would subsequently see to it that Lutz was rewarded with a cushy sinecure as a Vice-President of the EPO.

Such upper management positions at the EPO are greatly coveted by senior German civil servants because they provide a lot of perks, including a generous tax-free salary and a convenient pre-retirement opportunity for the lucky winners to beef up their pension entitlements using the disproportionately generous compensation arrangements for EPO managers.

During his time as Vice-President of the EPO's Directorate of Legal and International Affairs (DG5), Lutz gained notoriety for being one of Battistelli's most faithful and devoted lapdogs.

"...whenever Battistelli had any dubious undertaking in mind, his standard modus operandi at meetings of the Council was to wheel out Lutz who could be counted upon to brush aside any reservations expressed by sceptical or dissenting Council delegates."EPO insiders reckon that his role was even more sinister and corrosive than that of Željko Topić.

Topić basically played the part of a "placeholder" or "stub" Vice-President providing cover for Batistelli's HR dompteuse, Elodie Bergot, who ruled the roost as the de facto "prima donna" of the EPO's personnel department.

Lutz, on the other hand, was entrusted with the far more consequential task of ensuring that the EPO's Administrative Council was supplied with the right kind of legal advice.

Thus, whenever Battistelli had any dubious undertaking in mind, his standard modus operandi at meetings of the Council was to wheel out Lutz who could be counted upon to brush aside any reservations expressed by sceptical or dissenting Council delegates.

By means of a carefully deployed smokescreen of bluff, bluster and legal sophistry, the Council delegates were repeatedly conned into rubber-stamping all sorts of questionable measures and at the same time dissuaded from asking too many awkward questions.

EPO insiders confirm that the catastrophic erosion of legal standards and the rule of law at the EPO during the Battistelli era was largely attributable to the intellectually corruptive influence of Lutz as the provider of phony "legal advice" to a gullible and naïve Administrative Council.

Lutz the Klutz
Lutz is reputed to be the author of the "legal fiction" of EPO compliance with the standards and requirements of European data protection law.



Of particular relevance to the present series is Lutz's reputed role as the author of the "legal fiction" of EPO compliance with the standards of European data protection law.

For example at the 155th meeting of the Administrative Council in March 2018, Lutz made a statement about the impending entry into force of the GDPR in which he assured the Council delegates that "[t]he Office had its own data protection guidelines, at a level comparable to the new regulation" and that national offices could transmit their data to the EPO "without breaching the GDPR".

Lutz also referred the Council to the "public interest" derogation under Article 49(1)(d) GDPR as a legal basis for data transfers to the EPO.

However, such reliance on Article 49 (1) (d) GDPR is at odds with the position of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB).

The relevant guidelines published by the EDPB (copy here [PDF]) state that Article 49(1)(d) GDPR should not be relied upon as a basis for data transfers which take place on a large scale and in a systematic manner. According to the EDPB, the derogations set out in Article 49 should not become “the rule” in practice. On the contrary, all data exporters (in particular public bodies) are encouraged to put in place appropriate safeguards in accordance with Article 46 GDPR rather than relying on the derogation as per Article 49(1) (d).

The EPOnian myth of GDPR-compliance created by Lutz has formed the basis a whole host of self-congratulatory EPO puff pieces such as "Linked data, secure data" (warning: epo.org link; copy here [PDF]), published by Battistelli in his presidential blog on 25 May 2018 - the day on which the GDPR entered into force - and carefully designed to pull the wool over the eyes of the public about the true state of the EPO's data protection framework.

Lutz UPC marketing
Lutz at a UPC promotion event in Munich (November 2017)



Lutz is also reputed to be closely linked to the German branch of the influential UPC lobby group centred around Prof. Winfried Tilmann. In this connection he is said to have been responsible for recruiting Margot Fröhlinger to act as the EPO's "Mrs UPC" in charge of unitary patent "marketing activities" at the EPO.

In the next part we shall see how Battistelli's virtuoso of legal sophistry was almost universally despised and reviled among the rank and file of EPO staff.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Approaching 10,000 Articles/Pages Since Going Static
Trying to silence or derail the site was always a dumb strategy
 
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025
Links 25/04/2025: Slop Fatigue and Patent Judges Flocking to Fake, Unconstitutional and Illegal Kangaroo Court (UPC, Captured 'Justice')
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Night Manager and Devuan in Hosting
Links for the day
Windows Falls to New Lows in Nicaragua, Now Below a Quarter (It Used to be Almost 100%)
Another all-time low for Windows
Microsoft is Shedding Off Loads of Staff and That Can be Dangerous Too
Working for Microsoft is a choice; nobody forces you to do it
Richard Stallman and the Unix Philosophy
When asked about systemd people must remember that RMS speaks as an active Board member of the FSF and also the founder of the FSF
The Cost (to Linux) of LLM Slop
Slop 'artists' like Fagioli are far from harmless
Links 25/04/2025: Ubisoft Spyware, Hegseth Fails at Tech on Every Level
Links for the day
Gemini Links 25/04/2025: Food Forest Update and Facebook Destroying the Net
Links for the day
Get Rid of Back Doors, Don't Obsess Over Bounties and Other Corporate PR Stunts (or Needless Reboot Rituals)
Security as a term has mostly lost its meaning due to repeated misuse for many years
Serial Sloppers Are Killing the Web (They Probably Don't Care, Either)
Slop is a disease on the Web
Streaming Apps Are “Investor Fraud” That Kills the Planet
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Things Get Increasingly Nasty at Microsoft Ahead of the Fake Results and May's Mass Layoffs Wave
They try to get people to 'resign' so that they won't count as layoffs and the company's 'wellbeing' will seem better
IBM's Debt Ballooned by 8.5 Billion Dollars in Just 3 Months!
Hallmark of a company in a state of disarray, trying to spend its way out of trouble
Big Trouble in GNOME
even GNOME people admit the CoC went wrong
Slopping the Trough: Disney Plus Loses Billions and the Decline of Physical Media in America
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 24, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, April 24, 2025
Links 24/04/2025: GAFAM Problems and No Peace (or Ceasefire) in Sight
Links for the day
Slopfarms on the Web Almost Always Generate Anti-Linux FUD When They Produce "Linux" Output
Welcome to the dying Web
Richard Stallman's Oxford Talk Has Just Ended, Here Are Some Photos
he might hop over to another European country
Gemini Links 24/04/2025: Birthday and Good Work of Academia in Esotericism
Links for the day
Links 24/04/2025: EU fines Apple and Facebook, Another Microsoft GitHub Security Blunder
Links for the day
New Article Explains How the GPL Came About and WordPress Having Copyleft Obligations
Having been involved in the WordPress development community since almost the beginning, I know why it chose the GPL and how it restricts abuse by Automattic
IBM Gained Almost 6 Billion Dollars in "Goodwill" Value in Just 3 Months, According to IBM
Congrats to the management!
In Belarus, Yandex is Now Measured as 50 Times More 'Popular' (by Usage) Than Microsoft
Yandex continues to gain, whereas Bing cannot even register at 1%. Last month it was registered or measured at a measly 0.65%.
IBM Cannot Lie to Shareholders Anymore
"I would not be surprised if we see a layoff every quarter this year."
Dr Richard Stallman (RMS) Gives Talk in Oxford University in 4 Hours
If you live nearby, go there (it's free as in gratis)
Using a Law Firm's Licence to Exercise Politics Through Frivolous SLAPPs and Nastygrams (to Silence People, Remove Pages, Demand Fake or Forced 'Apologies')
Things must be getting really bad when lawyers act for raving antisemites
We're Working to Make Full-Site Search Available
This site has over 1,000 'wiki' pages, many thousands of documents, several thousands of videos, and about 50,000 blog posts or articles. We need to make them easier to find/navigate.
Links 24/04/2025: IBM Loses Many Contracts, Intel to Lay Off Over 20% (Not Counting Those Who Leave 'Voluntarily')
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Can Explain to Oxford Artificial Intelligence Society Why LLM Slop is Not Artificial Intelligence and Why It Hurts Society
another 'crop' of LLM slop that damages GNU/Linux and facts
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 23, 2025