Related: EPO Management Severely Harms the Health of Staff by Bullying Them | Most “Job Applicants to an Examiner Position at EPO Who Were Offered a Job Did Not Take it”

The 'production' prediction. From the latest publication of the EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH).

Summary: "Circus" or "shitshow" suitably describes the state of today's EPO management; with plenty of lawsuits on the horizon (staff against management) outsiders must familiarise themselves with EPO affairs and finally realise that unless matters get rectified, it is a massive deferred liability

A person called Benoît Battistelli has done a rather astounding job turning the world's leading patent office into the most notorious patent office, which can barely even recruit examiners! He made this achievement in only a few years and behind him (after 8 years of demolition) he left a minion, who futher worsened things, based on the latest staff survey.

"Over-encumbered and unhappy examiners cannot perform the work properly; some get burned out and leave, only to be replaced by unsuitable workforce or none at all."Shown above is a small portion of this more lengthy report [PDF] from a meeting that recently took place, covering also suppressed subjects like "harmonisation". There's a lot of stuff in this PDF and it's itemised/enumerated as summarised below. The EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH), or EPO representatives based in Dutch soil, put it like this (the outline):

Dear colleagues,

your Local Staff Committee The Hague met with VP1, VP4 and the administration on 13 June 2022.

We addressed the following topics:

- DG1 production pressure:

● low recruitment vs increase in filings,

● harmonisation efforts,

● contradictory instructions regarding teleworking;

- Job group 5&6;

- Education allowance:

● siblings,

● education portal & billing,

● mandatory trips;

- Skills self-assessment;

- Back to the office: room for a day.

Conclusions

Staff Representation notes that some clarity was found on certain aspects: - although permission from the line manager must be sought there is a presumption that teleworking from abroad is allowed; - staff is only expected to do their best, and to work collaboratively and if there are red files remaining then this is a matter for the TM, Director and senior team working with colleagues from across the office to ensure that we have the right capacity in the right areas; - no buildings will be sold[1], colleagues will have their own office if and when they want one.

Patent applicants too ought to read this. It has implications and direct impact on them. Over-encumbered and unhappy examiners cannot perform the work properly; some get burned out and leave, only to be replaced by unsuitable workforce or none at all.

What's more, as noted here before, much litigation is ahead. We'll soon release a video concerning the above publication. ⬆