Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO's Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) is “Requesting Immediate Action”

Video download link | md5sum 7d12153c747f7ab91b69c309bcc83489 EPO Staff Still Resents the EPO Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Despite relatively quiet weeks there is no calm at the EPO; the quality of patents continues to fall and staff isn't being properly rewarded for the work

THE national delegates will discuss the EPO next month (warning: epo.org link) in a meeting that involves some new representatives (Bulgaria and the UK for instance). These are the people who enabled Benoît Battistelli's countless crimes and continue to support the same from António Campinos, in exchange for bribes of course!



The EPO has become so tragic on so many levels. As noted in the video above, it's staining Germany's reputation (warning: epo.org link) and lobbying a government that reciprocates kindly for corruption. It's difficult not to feel cynical about the EPO emulating China as well (warning: epo.org link)... all this while pretending to be "green" and to value science (warning: epo.org link). The PR strategy is shallow and superficial, complete with "Hey Hi" (AI) hype instead of actual substance.

"The EPO has become so tragic on so many levels."However, the video above focuses on the following new letter. The Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) further and more widely disseminated a message to staff earlier today, stating:

Education Allowance Portal: legal drawbacks - Letter to VP4 requesting immediate action



Please find in attachment an open letter to VP4 concerning severe deficiencies of the Education Allowance Portal. Please read the letter carefully as it contains important information regarding the Portal and the procedure to follow.

In the meantime to have legal certainty we would advise you to send to hrservices@epo.org the request for reimbursement of any educational costs forcedly deducted when requesting the advancement and/or the reimbursement. Please make sure to have your ticket open and a written trace of the HR reaction (e.g. rejection). Once your claim has been officially rejected, we would like to remind you of the possibility to launch a request for review within 3 months from the official rejection.

From now on until the problems with the Education Allowance Portal are solved, we advise you to send all the requests for full reimbursement to hrservices@epo.org, and to use the portal only in case you need an advancement urgently, mentioning a disclaimer in your request if needed. In our previous publication you find more details about the excluded education costs, guidance on how to have them reimbursed, and the disclaimer to be used to safeguard your rights.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.

With kind regards,

Your Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH)


Shown above (in the video) but not discussed much is the corresponding open letter:

European Patent Office | Postbus 5818 | 2280 HV RIJSWIJK | NETHERLANDS

Ms. Nellie Simon Vice-President Corporate Services, DG4 ISAR – Munich

Open Letter on issues with the Education Allowance Portal

Dear Ms. Simon, dear Nellie,

We are addressing you concerning an important IT issue regarding the Education Allowance Portal. When sending the request for reimbursement or advancement, it appears that the Education Allowance Portal does not provide any feedback, and only in the cases where there is a problem, it automatically sends an error message rejecting the claim with no indication of what the problem is.

It appears that the reason for these problems is that there is presently no possibility in the portal to have the request partially approved where the submitted costs are considered only to be partially reimbursable or advanceable. Therefore, colleagues are expected and asked verbally to modify their request and resubmit it in order to make their claims processed even if the amount applicable is contested by the requester.

We believe that the Education Allowance Portal by not providing a complete record of the facts and submissions is not fit for purpose. This and many other important features are still missing in the portal. This results in legal uncertainty for the users by depriving the colleagues to exercise their legal rights according to Article 107 ServRegs. and moreover, it goes against the provisions of Article 106 (2) ServRegs., by which “any decision adversely affecting a staff member shall state the grounds on which it is based”.

We therefore request that this issue be corrected as soon as possible. We expect that the Education Allowance Portal leaves a written permanent trace of any action, including request for correction handled by phone, to both parties. In the meantime we urge your services to provide alternative means to the colleagues affected in order for them to be able to request the reimbursement of the education expenses according to Article 71 ServRegs. without being deprived of their legal rights according to Articles 106 and 107 ServRegs.

We feel it is our duty as staff representatives to warn the colleagues about this fact and recommend them to send their requests via email to hrservices@epo.org until the problem is solved.

We thank you for your attention to this matter,

Jorge Raposo On behalf of the Local Staff Committee The Hague



SUEPO The Hague Committee is also involved. "To address the plethora of different legal aspects related to the Education and Childcare Reform," it recently said, "we have prepared a table collating the legal cases already initiated, their status and timeline."

Action is underway, coordinated, to give staff what it is entitled to.

"The video does not say much about this topic as it concerns financial details and staff salaries."It's not just staff in The Netherlands by the way. Munich too is taking action. There is coordination across sites. "SUEPO Munich informs you that the Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) organises a hybrid information session on the topic of rewards / career advancement: promotions, steps, bonuses on Tuesday September 13th, at 11:30," a recent announcement said. "Check which of the following dates is the earliest and note it down: 1) having been informed verbally by the line manager of not having received a reward; 2) reception of email with link to salary slip of July 2022..."

The video does not say much about this topic as it concerns financial details and staff salaries. Those aspects don't relate to the topics we typically cover, including software patents. Expect our EPO coverage to carry on for years to come.

Recent Techrights' Posts

'Tech' Gimmicks Are for Advertising, Not for Usability
In the case of Microsoft, they latched onto slop
BetaNews Sacked Brian Fagioli and Deleted His Comments, But He Still Tries to Use the "BetaNews" Brand for Self-Affirmation
Fagioli takes the work of other people
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
 
Informa TechTarget's ITProToday is Becoming a Slopfarm Generated by Microsoft Chatbots
Busted.
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day