04.15.21

Gemini version available ♊︎

EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 19: The Deafening Silence of the Media

Posted in Deception, Europe, Patents at 12:06 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

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. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 9: A Veritable Virtuoso of Legal Sophistry
  10. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 10: A Faithful Lapdog Despised and Reviled by EPO Staff
  11. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Appendix (Benoît Battistelli’s Vichy Syndrome): Georges Henri Léon Battistelli and Charles Robert Battistelli
  12. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 11: The BMJV’s Tweedledee: Dr Christoph Ernst
  13. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 12: A Worthy Successor to His Mentor?
  14. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 13: The Failed Promise of a “Good Governance” Guru…
  15. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 14: The Notorious Revolving Door
  16. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 15: Different Strokes for Different Folks
  17. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 16: An Inimitable Duo
  18. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 17: Jawohl, Herr Minister!
  19. EPOLeaks on Misleading the Bundestag — Part 18: Zero Tolerance for “Lawless Zones”?
  20. You are here ☞ The Deafening Silence of the Media

Heiko Maas
Heiko Maas was undoubtedly grateful for the easy ride which the German media gave him in relation to EPO affairs.

Summary: “There has been speculation that Maas might have had his own political interest in protecting Battistelli and the Balkan Express because of certain allegations about financial irregularities involving the German Patents and Trademark Office (DPMA) which were doing the rounds at the time.”

Techrights has frequently commented on a "strange conspiracy of silence" and a "blackout" in the German media when it comes to coverage of EPO affairs.

The “presstitutes” responsible for this state of affairs have regularly been taken to task for their moral cowardice (see here, here and here).

The de facto German "media blackout" in relation to EPO affairs greatly assisted the Justice Minister, Heiko Maas, in his efforts to “duck away” from his responsibility to tackle the “lawless zone” of the EPO.

“The de facto German “media blackout” in relation to EPO affairs greatly assisted the Justice Minister, Heiko Maas, in his efforts to “duck away” from his responsibility to tackle the “lawless zone” of the EPO.”There has been speculation that Maas might have had his own political interest in protecting Battistelli and the Balkan Express because of certain allegations about financial irregularities involving the German Patents and Trademark Office (DPMA) which were doing the rounds at the time.

These allegations which were originally published in the Croatian press in March 2012 [PDF] concerned a transfer of funds from the DPMA to the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (DZIV) in Zagreb during the time when Željko Topić was in charge there.

These funds were intended as part of a programme of international cooperation to assist with the consolidation of documentation and automation at the DZIV.

However, according to the published allegations the funds ended up in the private bank account of the DZIV’s Director-General, Željko Topić.

In response to queries from German journalists, the DPMA denied that any transfer of funds to Croatia ever took place. However, this denial may not be entirely credible given that the official website of the DPMA mentions that there have been a number of official cooperation programs between the German DPMA and the Croatian DZIV in the past.

The unresolved question here is whether these cooperation programs involved the transfer of funds to Croatia and, if so, what exactly happened to that money.

Bearing in mind the stories that have circulated about Lufthansa's activities in Croatia, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that “sweeteners” were paid from Germany to keep people in Croatia “on the right side”.

If any evidence had emerged to support the allegations that financial irregularities involving the DPMA had taken place, it could have opened up a highly unpleasant can of worms for Heiko Maas because the DPMA comes under the remit of the Justice Ministry.

We may safely conclude that the Justice Minister was very grateful for the easy ride which he was given by the German media in relation to EPO affairs.

Udo Ulfkotte and Dr. Ernst of EPO
In April 2008 Ernst shared a platform with German journalist and author Udo Ulfkotte.

One interesting coincidence which emerged during the research for the present series was the fact that back in April 2008 [PDF] the self-styled “good governance” guru Christoph Ernst shared a platform with the maverick German journalist and author, the late Dr Udo Ulfkotte at a management conference in Wiesbaden.

Udo Ulfkotte
Udo Ulfkotte exposed the systematic corruption of the German media in his book “Gekaufte Journalisten” (2014).

Some time later in 2014, Ulfkotte who had previously worked as a journalist for the leading liberal-conservative German daily the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a book entitled “Gekaufte Journalisten” (Bought Journalists: How Politicians, Intelligence Agencies and High Finance Control Germany’s Mass Media).

In this book, Ulfkotte revealed how the CIA and other secret services pay money to German journalists to report stories in a certain light. This is part of a larger pattern of media corruption which he describes. An English version of the book was subsequently published under the title “Presstitutes Embedded in the Pay of the CIA: A Confession from the Profession”.

In his later years, Ulfkotte became an increasingly marginalised figure in Germany, largely due to his associations with anti-immigration groups like Pegida. He died on 13 January 2017 at the age of 56, allegedly from a heart attack. Publications have appeared suggesting that he may have been murdered but there is no conclusive proof of this.

We don’t know whether Ernst and Ulfkotte rubbed shoulders at that management conference in Wiesbaden in April 2008 and, if so, what they might have said to one another on that occasion.

But whether or not Ernst ever discussed the topic of “bought journalists” with Udo Ulfkotte, it can be safely assumed that this wily old fox from the Federal Ministry of Justice is fully aware of the fact that he can rely on the mainstream media in his home country to keep a discreet silence about the rogue international organisation whose headquarters is located on the banks of the Isar in Munich.

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New


  1. Links 28/05/2023: eGates System Collapses, More High TCO Stories (Microsoft Windows)

    Links for the day



  2. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 27, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, May 27, 2023



  3. No More Twitter, Mastodon, and Diaspora for Tux Machines (Goodbye to Social Control Media)

    People would benefit from mass abandonment of such pseudo-social pseudo-media.



  4. Links 28/05/2023: New Wine and More

    Links for the day



  5. Links 27/05/2023: Plans Made for GNU's 40th Anniversary

    Links for the day



  6. Social Control Media Needs to be Purged and We Need to Convince Others to Quit It Too (to Protect Ourselves as Individuals and as a Society)

    With the Tux Machines anniversary (19 years) just days away we seriously consider abandoning all social control media accounts of that site, including Mastodon and Diaspora; social control networks do far more harm than good and they’ve gotten a lot worse over time



  7. Anonymously Travelling: Still Feasible?

    The short story is that in the UK it's still possible to travel anonymously by bus, tram, and train (even with shades, hat and mask/s on), but how long for? Or how much longer have we got before this too gets banned under the false guise of "protecting us" (or "smart"/"modern")?



  8. With EUIPO in Focus, and Even an EU Kangaroo Tribunal, EPO Corruption (and Cross-Pollination With This EU Agency) Becomes a Major Liability/Risk to the EU

    With the UPC days away (an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court system, tied to the European Union in spite of critical deficiencies) it’s curious to see EPO scandals of corruption spilling over to the European Union already



  9. European Patent Office (EPO) Management Not Supported by the EPO's Applicants, So Why Is It Still There?

    This third translation in the batch is an article similar to the prior one, but the text is a bit different (“Patente ohne Wert”)



  10. EPO Applicants Complain That Patent Quality Sank and EPO Management Isn't Listening (Nor Caring)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German (here is the first of the batch); the following is the second of the three (“Kritik am Europäischen Patentamt – Patente ohne Wert?”)



  11. German Media About Industry Patent Quality Charter (IPQC) and the European Patent Office (EPO)

    SUEPO has just released 3 translations of new articles in German; this is the first of the three (“Industrie kritisiert Europäisches Patentamt”)



  12. Geminispace Continues to Grow Even If (or When) Stéphane Bortzmeyer Stops Measuring Its Growth

    A Gemini crawler called Lupa (Free/libre software) has been used for years by Stéphane Bortzmeyer to study Gemini and report on how the community was evolving, especially from a technical perspective; but his own instance of Lupa has produced no up-to-date results for several weeks



  13. Links 27/05/2023: Goodbyes to Tina Turner

    Links for the day



  14. HMRC: You Can Click and Type to Report Crime, But No Feedback or Reference Number Given

    The crimes of Sirius ‘Open Source’ were reported 7 days ago to HMRC (equivalent to the IRS in the US, more or less); but there has been no visible progress and no tracking reference is given to identify the report



  15. IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 26, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, May 26, 2023



  16. One Week After Sirius Open Source Was Reported to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for Tax Fraud: No Response, No Action, Nothing...

    One week ago we reported tax abuses of Sirius ‘Open Source’ to HMRC; we still wait for any actual signs that HMRC is doing anything at all about the matter (Sirius has British government clients, so maybe they’d rather not look into that, in which case HMRC might be reported to the Ombudsman for malpractice)



  17. Links 26/05/2023: Weston 12.0 Highlights and US Debt Limit Panic

    Links for the day



  18. Gemini Links 26/05/2023: New People in Gemini

    Links for the day



  19. IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 25, 2023

    IRC logs for Thursday, May 25, 2023



  20. Links 26/05/2023: Qt 6.5.1 and Subsystems in GNUnet

    Links for the day



  21. Links 25/05/2023: Mesa 23.1.1 and Debian Reunion

    Links for the day



  22. Links 25/05/2023: IBM as Leading Wayland Pusher

    Links for the day



  23. IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 24, 2023

    IRC logs for Wednesday, May 24, 2023



  24. Links 25/05/2023: Istio 1.16.5 and Curl 8.1.1

    Links for the day



  25. Gemini Links 25/05/2023: On Profit and Desire for Gemini

    Links for the day



  26. SiliconANGLE: Sponsored by Microsoft and Red Hat to Conduct the Marriage Ceremony

    SiliconANGLE insists that paying SiliconANGLE money for coverage does not lead to bias, but every sane person who keeps abreast of SiliconANGLE — and I read their entire feed every day — knows that it’s a ludicrous lie (Red Hat/IBM and the Linux Foundation also buy puff pieces and “event coverage” from SiliconANGLE, so it’s marketing disguised as “journalism”



  27. Links 24/05/2023: Podman Desktop 1.0, BSDCan 2024, and More

    Links for the day



  28. Gemini Links 24/05/2023: Razors, Profit, and More

    Links for the day



  29. [Meme] When the Patent Office Controls Kangaroo Patent Courts and Judges

    The EPO has been hijacked by industry and its lobbyists; now the same is happening to EU patent courts, even though it is illegal and unconstitutional



  30. The Illegally 'Revised' Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is Disgracing the Perception of Law and Order in the European Union

    The Unified Patent Court (UPC) isn’t legal, the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) is being altered on the fly (by a person patently ineligible to do so), and so it generally looks like even patent courts across Europe might soon become as corrupt as the European Patent Office, which has no basis in the Rule of the Law and is basically just a front for large corporations (most of them aren’t even European)


RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts