Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part I: It's a Lot Like the EPO
Publication of objective information about the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland isn't an easy matter. What complicates it is the language barrier (the same applies to other patent offices across Europe). At the EPO there are three official languages: English, German, and French. Many of the official documents distributed to member states, however, are in English. That's not what's happening at the Polish Patent Office (UPRP).
There's a bunch of publications in Polish (2025, 2024) and very interesting stories, based on informed insiders. The materials published by the Stowi Publishing House can be absorbed partly by the visuals, but accurate Polish translations aren't easy to get. We have two people who can speak Polish, but not as a primary language, so this series may take time and we've partitioned it into smaller, pertinent parts.
As we would need a short English summary first, someone has provided us with an overview and this was checked by one of us, who bases fact-checking on basic comprehension of Polish. In addition, a friend and I are still assessing the claims contained therein and are finding everything mostly credible so far. We are thus going ahead with what's connected to prior articles of ours, as already hinted in passing at the end of last week.
So what is this all about? Well, it's about corruption and misuse of the Office for political and financial gain (at whose expense?), much like at the EPO. "The special issue of StoWI Quarterly (1A/2025)," as someone put it, "is an investigative report embellished with photographs and questions, exposing systemic dysfunction within the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) during the presidency of Edyta DEMBY-SIWEK (2019–2024). It documents serious administrative abuses, lack of managerial competence, and persistent failure to fulfill legal obligations in the field of industrial property protection."
Does that sound familiar?
They basically take advantage of actual scientists (whose life they ruin) for purposes other than advancing the sciences.
In the next part we'll show how this abuse or misuse of skilled people resulted in low morale and an utter lack of compliance, just like at the EPO. As a reminder, Poland supported Benoît Battistelli and continues to support the current EPO regime, which is utterly corrupt. Are the people in charge striving to emulate it (and its methods) for political gain? █