Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Staff Appraisals Apparently Benefit Kakistocracy, Including Cheaters Who Grant Illegal Patents and Punish Good Patent Examiners (Who Find Valid Reasons for Denials)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 09, 2025

Empowering the most uncompromising

They're causing stress and anxiety, harming the people who try to do the "Right Thing" (not the kakistocracy, e.g. Georg Weber and Razik Menidjel)

"This letter on behalf of the Local Staff Committee the Hague and relating to the appraisal process was sent to management on 6 March," the Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) of the EPO said before the weekend, having written to an António Campinos deputy, Mr. Rowan from Wales.

Colleagues were informed of this letter, composed in Microsoft Word and dated Friday (7th of March):

European Patent Office
Patentlaan 2
2288 EE Rijswijk
NETHERLANDS

Local Staff Committee
The Hague

dhstcom@epo.org

Date: 07-03-2025

Ref: sc25003hl

To: Mr Rowan, Ms Aledo Lopez

By email only

OPEN LETTER

Appraisal process

Dear Mr Rowan,
Dear Mr Aledo Lopez,

We need to bring to your attention a concerning trend regarding the appraisal process.

We are receiving an alarming and disproportionate number of reports from colleagues expressing disappointment with their 2025 appraisal reports. The volume and frequency of these messages have been increasing in the last few years. This year, there is a seriously worrying dimension.

Colleagues report that any deviation from individual targets, however minor, results in a disproportionately negative assessment. In some cases, even when targets are met, negative comments are still included under production/productivity. There are concerns that such incongruous negative comments may serve as a pre-emptive justification for denying rewards.

A significant number of colleagues feel that their efforts are neither recognised nor fairly assessed. This is leading to frustration and disengagement. Generating frustration and disengagement is obviously at odds with the management’s stated goal of fostering motivation and staff engagement.

The design of the appraisal report and the use made of it is not helping. The appraisal reports are vague, allowing room for subjective or arbitrary decisions regarding rewards. Despite the box markings for each specific target, decisions are often justified based on the text of the final assessment which lacks clear and objective criteria for comparison across individuals.

The cumulative effect of omnipresent negative comments, the perceived arbitrariness in the decisions, the lack of transparency in goal setting and reward distribution, and ever-increasing individual targets are contributing to unprecedented levels of stress and anxiety among staff. This is leading to cycles of demotivation and disengagement.


2/2 Where a significant portion of employees within an organisation is deemed to be underperforming the blame should not rest solely on its staff. Instead, an effective organisation must reflect on its processes and identify the root causes of these systemic management and appraisal issues.

We appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to meaningful dialogue on developing and implementing improvements in the appraisal system.

Kind regards,

Isabelle Brandt
On behalf of the Local Staff Committee The Hague

In prior reports the staff representatives said that rewards typically went to people who granted many patents, i.e. didn't do proper examination and instead just allowed many fake patents get enshrined as EPs, causing fiasco (from which some patent attorneys could profit). This encouraged cheating and generally rewarded wrongdoing, including granting of European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Speed of GNU/Linux
The media seldom speaks of the dangers of "proprietary software"
Proprietary Windows Versus "Linux" News (Trying to Keep People on Windows, Never Exploring GNU/Linux)
Good editors know better how to recognise threats and not give them lip service
Ensuring That Every Computer User Anywhere in the World Can Take Control of All His or Her Computers
We must fight the people who attack general-purpose computing, in particular those who push this agenda very aggressively inside Linux
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: Autism and Structural Navigation
Links for the day
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: The Purge, the Cover-up, and the Witch-hunts
OSI has gone "full Microsoft"
 
New Leaks Coming Soon, We Maintain 100% Record of Successful Resistance to Censorship
We won't be told what we can and cannot say (especially when it's true)
Central African Republic (CAR): Vista 11 is Only ~0.2% Market Share
99.8% to go!
BSD and GNU/Linux Replaced Microsoft in Secure Servers, All Microsoft Has Left is LLM Slop for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD)
the FUD machine never rests
Gemini Links 28/04/2025: A Simple Task Tracking and Auto-Prioritization Tool and Other Programs
Links for the day
Links 28/04/2025: Canada's Election, Pakistan-India Conflict
Links for the day
Glue Inside Your Pizza (or Why People Will Get Fed Up With Slop)
People are given "answers" from non-intelligence word dumpsters
Links 28/04/2025: Cyberattacks Happening, Chatbots Disappointing, and "Free Speech Under Fire"
Links for the day
Phone Adoption Very Low in Vatican, Windows Usage Fell Nonetheless
Even in places where people still use desktops/laptops most of the time (and have access to these) Windows is gradually losing ground
GNU/Linux 9% in Cuba, Vista 11 Waning, Android Dominant
Microsoft has pretty much lost Cuba
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 27, 2025
In 24 Countries Observed by statCounter Vista 11 is Still Less Than a Quarter of Windows Users Despite All Other Versions Being 'Expired'
They ought to move to GNU/Linux
Links 27/04/2025: Pope Goodbyes, "Politics of Fear", Slop Redux and More Google Shutdowns (Google Debt Had Grown This Year)
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Serenity Dialectics, Hockey Jersey Ethics, and More
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Death of Nest Thermostats, Death of Metaverse
Links for the day
Links 27/04/2025: Projects Workflow and Discovering Technology
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 26, 2025
Microsoft Isn't on the Map in USSR
To them, it's either Google or Yandex
In Central America Windows Became a Small Force
These are countries where Windows used to have well over 95% of the "market"
What's Very Vexing to GAFAM, EPO and Others Is That It's Incredibly Hard to Censor Us (and Nobody Ever Successfully Did That Before)
resist, do not capitulate
Site May be Even Faster Now
It basically takes less than a tenth of a second to serve the page
Receiving SLAPPs and Collecting Them Like Trophies (the SLAPPs Always Fail)
People who file lawsuits bring even more attention to themselves (or to embarrassing statements about them)
Year of GNU/Linux on the Laptop?
It's not happening only in Lenovo
What People Must Understand About the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
some facts about the Open Source Initiative (OSI)
Many of the Scandals Are Interconnected (Overlapping People and Corporations)
We're only getting started
More Copyright Lawsuits Against LLM Slop Providers and Suppliers of LLM Slopfarms Would Benefit Society
It's not just bad for the Web and for society; it's also legally dangerous
Links 26/04/2025: General Assassinated in the Town of Balashikha, US Promoting Seafloor Mining
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: Facebook Layoffs Again, Remembering What's Real, and Say No to Mass Surveillance
Links for the day
Links 26/04/2025: NOAA Budget Cuts and "Dog Days Ahead"
Links for the day
In defence of JD Vance, death of Pope Francis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Three Years in Prison for Disney Employee’s ‘Menu Hacking’: The Economic Fallout of Digital Menus
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 25, 2025