Bonum Certa Men Certa

More Evidence in "iLearn AI Day" (a Buzzwords Festival) That EPO Intends to Eliminate Staff and Deviate Further Away from Fairness, Law, and Constitutions (Including Its Own!)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 23, 2024

The case of formalities officers

The Central Staff Committee of the EPO has circulated a paper regarding Formality Officers - a subject we've covered here many times before, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4].

Formality (or Formalities) Officers are sometimes known as FOs - related to JG5&6 - and the Central Staff Committee has introduced them succinctly as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

With no new recruits and ambitious plans for automation and AI on the horizon, formalities officers (FOs) find themselves facing an uncertain future within the EPO. Yet, amidst the uncertainty, FOs are demanding clarity and transparency from management regarding the future of their job.

A regular dialogue with Staff Representation under the scope of Working Group JG5&6 must be reactivated now.

The full paper from the Central Staff Committee is dated yesterday. We reproduce it as HTML, plain text, and GemText.

Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich, 22.05.2024
sc24029cp

Job Group 5 and 6
The case of formalities officers

With no new recruits and ambitious plans for automation and AI on the horizon, formalities officers (FOs) find themselves facing an uncertain future within the EPO. Yet, amidst the uncertainty, FOs are demanding clarity and transparency from management regarding the future of their job.

Recruitment stagnation sparks knowledge drain
Since 2019, an alarming ”recruitment trend” has emerged for formalities officers: there has been none. Moreover, there's an unsettling lack of clarity regarding any recruitment plans for 2025 and beyond. Should this trend persist, between 2018 and 2028, the number of FOs will have reduced by 44%.
The consequences are dire. Experienced colleagues leave, taking with them invaluable institutional knowledge without the possibility of knowledge transfer. Roles and responsibilities used to be clearly defined, fostering efficiency and productivity. The lack of recruitment and the resulting decreasing staffing level has led to constant shifts in priorities and disruptive changes. FOs find themselves in a perpetual state of 'fire brigading,' instead of operating within a stable framework. This is of course causing extra working pressure and stress to the colleagues.

Future of FOs work
The administration’s communication surrounding the evolution of FO work remains frustratingly vague. Hints about upskilling and handling exception cases offer little substantive insight into what lies ahead. There is no communication regarding the roadmap, timeline, and training plans, leaving FOs in the dark about their professional future.
During the 7th of March 2024, iLearn AI Day, the lack of information regarding FO training on the new AI platform raises concerns about the organisation's commitment to equipping FOs with the skills and tools necessary to thrive in an increasingly complex digital environment.

Future of FO team managers
The current trend is to reverse the 2018 reorganization and merge FO teams again. As a result, some FO teams are led by two (or more) team managers (TMs). This creates a stressful situation for both TMs and forces the teams to find once again a new balance. The TMs are not given any precise indication of how long the intermediate setup will last. It is unclear how many of the TMs will remain in their posts and what will happen to the ones who won’t be renewed.


Future of expert roles
It is unclear, whether the roles of former SCAPEs and LPSs change due to the development of automation. Exception handling will always remain as it cannot be automated. The administration must provide information regarding the evolution of the expert roles in terms of content and quantity.

Your future / NO future?
FOs deserve to be regularly informed and involved in matters related to their job. It is high time to inform FOs on how management plans to “leave nobody behind” while FO tasks are disappearing.

Will the tasks progressively be shifted to the examiners, this way increasing further their workload?

We are missing the so-called ”human centric approach” the administration purports.

The Staff Representation seeks to ensure that FOs are properly supported during this pivotal moment for their job category and that informed decisions are made. What FO colleagues need now is not just reassurance, but a concrete roadmap for the future and active support throughout the transition process.

A regular dialogue with Staff Representation under the scope of Working Group JG5&6 must be reactivated now.

The Central Staff Committee

The EPO's "roadmap" is merely some PR exercise, it's not a real, viable roadmap. As long as the EU ignores EPO corruption and habitually participates in the corruption (e.g. UPC) we'll just learn about more EPO corruption crossing over to the EU.

The EPO is a very potent danger to Europe's unity and the very concept of lawfulness. It exists to serve international monopolists and patent lawyers.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's Bing Falls to Fourth in the Europe/Asia-Based Turkey, Share Halved Since LLM Hype, Now Only 1% (Sometimes Less)
Turkey (Eurasia) is another example of Microsoft failing with LLM hype and just burning a lot of energy in vain (investment without returns)
Backlash and Negative Press After Microsoft Tells Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) People to DIE
Follow-up stories
Censorship as Signal of Opportunity for Reform
It remains sad and ironic that Wikileaks outsourced so much of its official communications to Twitter (now X)
The World Wide Web Has Been Rotting for Years (Quality, Accuracy, and Depth Consistently Decreasing)
In the past people said that the Web had both "good" and "bad" and that the good outweighed the bad
Comoros: Windows Plunges to Record Low of About 6% in Country of a Million People (in 2010 Windows Was 100%)
Many of these people earn a few dollars a day; they don't care for Microsoft's "Hey Hi PC" hype
The Mail (MX) Server Survey for July 2024 Shows Microsoft Collapsing to Only 689 Servers or 0.17% of the Whole (It Used to be About 25%)
Microsoft became so insignificant and the most astounding thing is how the media deliberate ignores it or refuses to cover it
Windows Down From 98.5% to 22.9% in Hungary
Android is up because more people buy smaller mobile devices than laptops
Microsoft Windows in Algeria: From 100% to Less Than 15%
Notice that not too long ago Windows was measured at 100%. Now? Not even 15%.
 
Joel Espy Klecker & Debian on Joe Biden's health and Donald Trump's assassination
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 17, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 17, 2024
Links 18/07/2024: Hostname Pedantry and Retro Coding
Links for the day
Fedora Week of Diversity (FWD) 2024 Attracting 0.01% of the IBM Staff "Was a Success"
They expect volunteers (unpaid slaves) to do the PR for them...
African's Largest Population (Nigeria) Approaching 80% Android "Market Share" Amid Steady Monthly Increases While Microsoft Has Mass Layoffs in Nigeria
Microsoft- and Apple-sponsored Western (or English-speaking) media chooses to ignore that or treat it as irrelevant (a racist disposition in its own right)
[Meme] The Warlord's Catspaw
Thugs that troll us
Microsoft Misogyny Will be the Fall of Microsoft (Covering Up for Misogynists is a Huge Mistake and Highly Misguided Short-term Strategy)
Microsoft's undoing may in fact be its attitude towards women
Red Hat Keeps Behaving Like a Microsoft Reseller (for Proprietary Stuff!), Microsoft Employees as Authors in redhat.com
In some ways this reminds us of Novell
UEFI 'Secure Boot' Once Again Bricking PCs and Fake Security Models Are Perishing in Geminispace
Let's Encrypt has just fallen again
Links 17/07/2024: New Attacks on the Press, European Patents Squashed Even at Kangaroo Court (UPC)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/07/2024: Proponents of Censorship and New Arrivals at Gemini
Links for the day
Links 17/07/2024: School Budget Meltdown and Modern Cars as Tracking Nightmares
Links for the day
This Should Certainly be Illegal, But the Person Who Helped Microsoft Do This is Still Attacking the Critics of It
perhaps time for an "I told you so post"
[Meme] A Computer With an Extra Key on the Keyboard Isn't Everyone's Priority
(so your telling me meme)
Africa as an Important Reminder That Eradicating Microsoft Doesn't Go Far Enough
Ideally, if our top goal is bigger than "get rid of Microsoft", we need to teach people to choose and use devices that obey them, not GAFAM
Billions of Computers Run Linux and Many Use Debian (or a Derivative of It)
many devices never get updated or even communicate with the Net, so exhaustive tallies are infeasible
[Meme] Microsoft is Firing
Don't worry, Microsoft will have some new vapourware coming soon
More DEI (or Similar) Layoffs on the Way, According to Microsoft Team Leader
What happened shortly before Independence Day wasn't the end of it, apparently
[Meme] Many Volunteers Now Realise the "Open" in "OpenSUSE" or "openSUSE" Was Labour-Mining
Back to coding, packaging and testing, slaves
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 16, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 16, 2024
Microsoft Windows "Market Share" in New Zealand Plunges to 25%
Android rising
[Meme] Ein Factory
A choice between "masters" (or "master race") is a false choice that results in mass exploitation and ultimately eradication (when there's little left to exploit)
Links 17/07/2024: Open Source Initiative Lies and Dark Net Thoughts
Links for the day
SUSE Goes Aryan: You May Not Use the Germanic Brand Anymore (It's Monopolised by the Corporation)
Worse than grammar Nazis
Media Distorting Truth to Promote Ignorance
online media is rapidly collapsing
Gratis But Not Free as in Freedom: How Let's Encrypt is Dying in Geminispace
Let's Encrypt is somewhat of a dying breed where the misguided CA model is shunned
Android Rises to New Highs of Almost 80% in Cameroon
How many dozens of nations will see Windows at under 10% this coming winter?
Links 16/07/2024: TikTok Ban in Europe and Yandex Split
Links for the day
Gemini Links 16/07/2024: On Packrafting and on Trump Shot
Links for the day
[Meme] Firefox Users Who Think They Know Better Than Mozilla
Enjoy Firebook
Firefox Used to Have About Half the Market in Switzerland, But It Doesn't Stand a Chance Anymore (Chrome Surging This Summer)
Mozilla has managed to alienate some of the biggest fans of Firefox
Microsoft's Biggest Losses Are in Europe This Summer
Microsoft's ability to milk a relatively rich Europe is fast diminishing
How to Make Software Suck and Discriminate Against People at the Same Time
ageism glorified
Bing Was at 2.6% in Russia When LLM Hype Started. Now It's Down to 0.8% (for 3 Months in a Row Already)
The sharp fall of Bing may mean that exiting the Russian market won't matter to anybody
[Meme] Microsoft Seems to be Failing to Comply With WARN Act (by Refusing to Announce Mass Layoffs as They Happen)
since when does Microsoft obey the law anyway?
Microsoft Layoffs Are Still Too Frequent to Keep Abreast of and Properly (or Exhaustively) Classify
The "HR" department knows what's happening, but whistleblowers from there are rare
Bahamas Joined the "5% Windows" Club
statCounter only traces back about 1 in 20 Web requests to Windows
Links 16/07/2024: Salesforce Layoffs and Microsoft's DMARC Fail
Links for the day
Antenna Abuse and Gemini Abuse (Self-hosting Perils)
Perhaps all this junk is a sign of Gemini growing up
Possibly Worse Than Bribes: US Politicians and Lawmakers Who Are Microsoft Shareholders
They will keep bailing out Microsoft to bail themselves out
The Software Freedom Conservancy Folks Don't Even Believe in Free Speech and They Act As Imposters (Also in the Trademark Arena/Sense)
Software Freedom Conservancy was already establishing a reputation for itself as a G(I)AFAM censor/gatekeeper
Djibouti Enters the Windows "10% Club" (Windows Was 99% in 2010)
In Africa in general Microsoft lost control
GNU/Linux Share Doubled in the United States of America (USA) in the Past 12 Months
Or so says statCounter
Even in North Korea (Democratic People's Republic Of Korea) Google Said to Dominate, Microsoft Around 1%
Google at 93.26%
[Meme] The Red Bait (Embrace... Extinguish)
They set centos on fire, then offer a (de facto) proprietary substitute for a fee
Shooting the Messenger to Spite the Message
segment of a Noam Chomsky talk
[Video] Boston Area Assange Defense (Yesterday)
It was published only hours ago
Guinea: Windows Down From 99.3% to 2.7% 'Market Share'
Guinea is not a small country
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 15, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, July 15, 2024
What's Meant by "Antenna Abuse" (Gemini)
syndication is not a monopoly in Gemini and if one doesn't condone political censorship, then one can create one's own syndication service/capsule
Microsoft Layoffs and Entire Unit Termination: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
What an announcement to make just before Independence Day
Links 16/07/2024: Old Computer Challenge and One Page Dungeon Contest
Links for the day