Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Union Says Monopoly-Granting Targets at EPO "Difficult to Achieve Without Compromising [Staff] Health, Personal Time or the Quality of the Final Products" (Products as in Monopolies, Not Real Products)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 20, 2025

Targets DG1

Targets DG1

"Dear members, dear DG1 examiners, dear colleagues," said the SUEPO TH committee (SUEPO is staff union of the EPO and TH is The Hague). "As previously mentioned, the DG1 production objectives for 2025 have been increased by at least 7% compared to 2024. When the targets were handed down, this translated into double digit percentage increases for many colleagues."

Days ago they sent out a new publication highlighting stress and compromised patent quality (or lack of validity; good luck proving that at great personal expense!). The EPO is basically circling down the drain and staff takes the brunt, too.

Here's what the publication said.

INTERNATIONALE GEWERKSCHAFT IM EUROPÄISCHEN PATENTAMT
STAFF UNION OF THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
UNION SYNDICALE DE L'OFFICE EUROPEEN DES BREVETS

Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO)

14 January 2025
su25003hp – 0.2.1/4.4

Targets DG1 – update & recommendations

Dear members, dear DG1 examiners, dear colleagues,

As previously mentioned1, the DG1 production objectives for 2025 have been increased by at least 7% compared to 20242.

When the targets were handed down to examiners, we received the following feedback:

- Double digit percentage increases are concerningly common;

- In some directorates, individual time capacity is not correctly calculated with some leave counted as working time, even when the leave is well known in advance, such as parental or home leave;

- In others, the requested productivity is the same for all, irrespective of the field’s technical difficulty.

This leaves a lot of you with objectives which are difficult to achieve without compromising your health, personal time or the quality of the final products. Furthermore, as in previous years and due to the career system3, nothing guarantees that you will receive a step or a bonus if you do reach your targets - whereas the performance requested for 2025 would, in many cases, probably have warranted a double step only a couple of years ago.

Given that your 2025 performance will nevertheless be evaluated based on these targets, it is crucial to promptly bring any doubts or concerns to your manager’s attention in writing and to document them for future reference. Therefore, we once again strongly encourage you to send an email to your line manager regarding the target increases, possibly using the updated template provided in ANNEX 1 below. Additionally, please append this email to your 2025 performance report in SuccessFactors, as detailed in ANNEX 2 below. While doing this early in 2025 is optimal, it can also be completed later in the year.

__________

1 See Objective setting 2025, SUEPO TH, 11.12.2024, and Report of meeting with VP1, point 4, 12.12.2024, LSCTH

2 More particularly, the 2025 budget (See CA/D 1/24, p.21 and Annex 34) adopted by the Administrative Council mentions 413,341 SEO products for 4,025 examiners, i.e. 102.7 SEO products/examiner. At the same time, the DG1 production counter predicts 422,762 SEO products for 4,005 examiners according to DG1 management dashboard2. This comes down to 105.5 SEO products/examiner, an even higher increase than planned by the 2025 budget.

3 Circular 364, Part IV, A(3): “there is no automatic link between appraisal reports and the reward exercise”


We would appreciate it if you could then forward your email to hague@suepo.org.

Additional information:

According to the DG1 production counter:

- on 24 Dec 2024, the production gap was -1162 and the office was closed until 1 January 2025 included,

- on 31 Dec 2024, the production gap was -668.

Despite the production of 494 SEO products during office closure, DG1 did not achieve the targets for 2024.

Such a high production while the EPO was officially closed leads to the question of whether the office is doing its utmost to fulfil its duty of care towards DG1 staff. We would like to draw your attention to the fact that there is a high incidence of illness related to work related stress4 at the EPO and invite you to take care of your health. By disconnecting during time off, taking sick leave if needed and informing OHS if work is affecting your health - or health concerns are affecting your performance.
And finally, the fact that the targets for 2024 were not achieved despite colleagues regularly working during holidays and days off is another reason why the target increases for 2025 seem problematic.

Kind regards,

Your SUEPO TH committee – M18B10 and De Bruyn Kopsstraat, 15, Rijswijk

[...]

_____

4 See reference to COHSEC of 22.02.2024 in COHSEC/DOC 7/2024, p. 4


To those of us (over 99.999% of people impacted by this*) who do not work at the EPO the misuse of words like "products" (monopolies are not products) should be disturbing, but then again consider who runs the Office and what for. The EPO violates its own treaties and spreads its culture of corruption to the EU and to patent tribunals.

People talk about how democracy ends today in the US. We have a similar problem here in Europe.

____

* In a world with over 8 billion people, less than one in a million works for the EPO.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
 
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Links 05/02/2025: Kessler Syndrome and News Online
Links for the day
statCounter: Monaco Now 7% GNU/Linux ("Proper")
GNU/Linux, not counting Chromebooks, is on the rise
Many Parts of Google Lose Money
It's quite apparent that many parts of Google - even some that rely on ad revenue or push ads - aren't profiting
European Internet Forum (EIF) is Dominated by American Corporations and Microsoft Lobbyists, Staff Take the Lead
Should the officials over here or the European Parliament pay attention to these people?
Links 05/02/2025: Connection without Connectivity and Unionised Grocery Workers
Links for the day
Just Because People on Top of the Microsoft Pyramid Made a Lot of Money Doesn't Mean Microsoft is Wealthy
The bigger they are the harder they fall
Gemini Links 05/02/2025: Learning, Madman Ruling a Mad Country, Back in Geminispace
Links for the day
statCounter Shows "WIntel" Chasing a Dying Market
Microsoft acts as if it's running out of money
Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Still Raising Money, Richard Stallman Contributes
total exceeding $430k
A Lot of Stuff About "Linux" in Google News is LLM Slop, Fake 'Articles'
It seems to be getting worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 04, 2025