Bonum Certa Men Certa

With EPO 'Strike Regulations' Belatedly Ruled Unlawful, EPO Management May be Lowering the Salary Even Further by Introducing Outside 'Temps' or Casual Workers

Force-feeding Europe their unconstitutional vision

Scabs

Summary: Institutional capture by an 'IP' (litigation) Mafia is nearly complete; with illegal so-called (anti) 'Strike Regulations' out the door, they're quickly moving on to another plan, or so it seems on the surface

SEVERAL days ago I saw and then publicly mentioned this new post from Scotland, which said (it is already in Daily Links along with some editorial comments, expressing disbelief and wondering what this whole thing even means):



The University of Stirling has joined the Pan-European Seal Programme, a prestigious EU training scheme, becoming the first in Scotland to partner with Europe’s leading Intellectual Property (IP) organisations: the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO).

[...]

The Pan-European Seal Programme is jointly organised by Europe’s IP Offices, EPO and EUIPO, and offers paid, trainee roles in Alicante or Munich.



What is that? Remember that EPO and EUIPO are deeply connected (also in a corrupt sense) and there's an influx/flow of unsuitably trained managers from Alicante to Munich (notably António Campinos and his cronies). Yesterday the Central Staff Committee (CSC) of the EPO circulated a publication to explain what this new programme is all about. It bears resemblance to something from the Benoît Battistelli era, aside from the Serco outsourcing [1, 2]. Likely illegal from the EPC's perspective, but who pays attention to the EPC anymore? It's just some paper, right? And staff's rights can be abolished through contracting to some foreign firms.

We already know that EPO managers bribe academia for bogus 'studies' and bribes media for propaganda or silence (including censorship of already-published articles about Serco outsourcing), so it's useful to hear what this "Pan-European Seal Programme" is really about. It definitely sounds like a race to the bottom. "A new group of Pan-European Seal trainees joined the EPO in mid-September," the CSC tells staff, "and one or more of these trainees may have recently joined your team or directorate. If you have wondered who they are, how they are affiliated with the EPO, and what their role is, this publication serves to provide a summary of the information available to us, and we hope it can be of use to answer some of your queries."

To me, personally, it certainly sounds like bringing low-cost labour from elsewhere, then forcing you to train the people who will later replace you. Only years ago the EPO limited the length/span of work contracts to just 5 years. Should workers be reading the writings on the wall? Maybe not. The CSC publication is trying to be cordial and informative. We reproduce it below.

Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich, 14/10/2021 sc21125cp

The Pan-European Seal Trainee Programme – What is it?

Dear Colleagues,

A new group of Pan-European Seal (PES) trainees joined the EPO in mid-September, and one or more of these trainees may have recently joined your team or directorate. If you have wondered who they are, how they are affiliated with the EPO, and what their role is, this paper serves to provide a summary of the information available to us, and we hope it can be of use to answer some of your queries.

The Pan-European Seal programme is jointly organised by the EPO and EUIPO, and in collaboration with almost 100 member Universities, provides recently graduated students with paid, year-long traineeships that are described as “on-the-job work experience and professional training”. Although the PES programme was introduced at the EPO in 2015, you may have only become aware of it more recently, since the number of trainees is steadily increasing year-on-year, from 32 in 2015 to 117 in 2021, this scaling up due to its inclusion in the SP2023.

The PES programme is open to applicants who already hold a bachelor’s/master’s degree, no more than two years after their most recent graduation, with language requirements of “a minimum level of B1” in any of the three official languages or “a very good level of English; knowledge of French or German is an advantage” depending which part of the same webpage is accurate. The graduates must first be shortlisted by their universities and then undergo a selection process by the EPO. The successful candidates are paid 2000 Euros per month, subject to local taxes, and the traineeship usually lasts 12 months, although the period was extended last year, and SP2023 documentation implies the expansion to a “2-year traineeship”. It is noted that many of these trainees are very likely already fully qualified for a regular appointment at the EPO, since the requirements for recruitment in job group 1-4 are a diploma at “master’s level” and “excellent knowledge of one official language and ability to understand one other”, and lower for recruitment in job groups 5-6.

The trainees are deployed all across the Office in different departments. There are positions open for the trainees in seemingly all areas of the EPO, including formalities, HR, communications, talent academy, and interpreting. Within DG1, the examiner trainees are assigned to teams within selected areas of expertise. They follow “Course A” of the newcomer examiner academy training, and are then performing core search and examination work under the supervision of a mentor. This outsourced work is checked and signed off by their mentor, to whom the resulting points/actions are assigned. The very limited feedback we have received from mentors thus far is that they are satisfied with this arrangement and that the trainees are well equipped to complete the tasks assigned to them.

The SP2023 programme passport of the PES scheme gives some indication of the intentions and future directions that the EPO is planning. In particular, it defines a benefit of the programme to be feeding “the talent acquisition pipeline” and that information regarding job vacancies will be communicated to current and former PES trainees. It further defines the goal of providing a “new legal and administrative framework” to be included in the CODEX that allows the trainees to be “considered as employees” and offers trainees “conditions of employment similar to those of other employees of the Office”.

Finally, on behalf of the Staff Representation, we would like to extend a warm welcome to all the new PES trainees! Should you want any assistance or advice, you are invited to contact us at centralstaffcommittee@epo.org and we will do our best to help. If you are a mentor or otherwise involved in the PES programme and would like to share your experience, please also get in touch with us.

The Central Staff Committee


The CSC seems overly optimistic here, perhaps avoiding potential alienation/embarrassment to newcomers, but with a management that steals from pensioners while lying about "a gap" anything can be believed...

The EPO is being plundered. EU officials and German officials look the other way as quality of patents collapses. We know too well who stands to lose and who stands to gain from this. This is another UPC but at the level of the granting authority (Office) rather than the courts all across the EU.

Staff can strike? Take them all out!
The only strike oligarchs approve of is a drone strike (assassination). Union-busting or union-bombing? With the veneer of "academia"...

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October