European Corruption in the European Patent Office (EPO) Targets Culture

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 13, 2025

The EPO is a menace to Europe. A large majority of it clients (customers as the Office calls them) are not European, they're just rich people and corporations from other continents. At what cost are they being served?

Earlier today we reproduced (in several open formats, for a change; the Office is captured by Microsoft, set aside the illegalities) some internal EPO slides.

The Central Staff Committee shared them with staff and then commented as follows:

Dear Colleagues,

The Office has been working on the “Amicale Review Project” allegedly aimed at “strengthening its governance and legal certainty, and reducing liability for the EPO and staff”.

In reality, the project includes a new “legal instrument” shifting administrative burden and liability on EPO staff while creating new uncertainty and externalising Amicale activities. The project bears the risk to deter volunteers from applying to the Amical Committee and organising Clubs.

Here's the publication from the Central Staff Committee:

Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du Personnel

Munich, 12-09-2025
sc25049cp

The Expedited Death of the Amicale?

The Office has been working on the “Amicale Review Project” allegedly aimed at “strengthening its governance and legal certainty, and reducing liability for the EPO and staff”. In reality, the project includes a new “legal instrument” shifting administrative burden and liability on EPO staff while creating new uncertainty and externalising Amicale activities. The project bears the risk to deter volunteers from applying to the Amical Committee and organising Clubs.

A secretive project
Since summer 2024, the Office has organised various “working group” meetings on the “Amicale Review Project” with Amicale Committee members as well as other units such as the Finance Department, the Data Protection Office and Institutional Law.

The participants in the meetings were bound to strict confidentiality requirements and the documents labelled “confidential”.

One of the goals of the project is to replace the “Agreement between the President of the Office and the branches of Amicale” signed by President Kober in 1999. At the time, it was the Amicale which had initiated the draft agreement. Now, Mr Campinos intends to impose his new “legal instrument” containing a “Decision of the President” and new “Agreement” (sic!). The latter is announced to strongly impact the Amicale and cannot be labelled “agreement” in any way. The changes are supposed to address recommendations made by the Internal Audit in a document titled “Office support for Amicale”.

At the time of drafting the present paper, all these documents are confidential. Amicale Committee members might be confronted with more red tape and Office control on their activities, finances and time budget allocation.

Expedited “consultation” of Amicale Clubs
Amicale Clubs Representatives were invited on 4 September 2025 to an online information meeting organised by PD4.2. The timing was “unfortunate” as Bavarian school holidays only end on 15 September and therefore many Club Representatives were not in a position to attend.

The technical settings of the online meeting were such that Club Representatives could not switch on their microphones and could only ask questions in the chat. Only a few of the questions were randomly picked and answered by the representatives of the Office. The feedback gathered among attendees is that the Office made a disastrous communication exercise and showed no interest in the voice of staff.

Club Members were given the opportunity to provide their comments and questions via an online form shortly after the meeting by Monday 8 September afternoon, giving only 18 hours after they were sent the documents from the meeting for the Clubs to consider the information, consult with the members, and prepare the questions.

A second and last meeting was originally scheduled for 11 September and during which Office representatives are expected to bring answers. In view of the 140 comments and questions on legal and operational issues submitted by Club Members, the meeting is now postponed to 17 September in order to give time to PD People and Institutional Law to prepare the answers.

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Staff representation will be the last one to be “consulted” in two technical meetings on 24 September and 2 October and the GCC of 17 November.

What is at stake?
The Office wants to limit the possibilities for externals to become members of Clubs. Former employees and family members can be members, as well as Seconded National Experts (SNEs). Partners are only allowed if the employee is married or registered the partnership. Interestingly, this requirement does not apply to partners of SNEs. While Clubs never received EPO subsidies for externals, some like the Music Club are strongly dependent on the talent of externals who proved to be essential musicians for the EPO bands playing at EPO parties.

Amicale Clubs shall have in the future at least 7 members, of which 50% are EPO employees in active employment, and their elected committee (at least a Chair, Treasurer and Secretary) must be in active employment. First, this puts smaller Clubs at risk, especially in the smaller EPO sites of Berlin and Vienna. Second, many Clubs will have to change their composition or lose their recognition by the Amicale as they rely on pensioners who took over the time-consuming role of managing the Club.

The Office plans to introduce several conditions that require Clubs to have legal personality subject to national law (as an “eingetragener Verein” in Germany, a “Vereniging” in the Netherlands, and a “Verein” in Austria). This raises the question as to whether the provisions of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities still applies to such Clubs as currently stated in the 1999 agreement, and may increase the risk of Club Executives to be brought to national courts. In addition, the amount of voluntary work that is already performed by the Club Representatives is substantial in order to keep the Club activities running smoothly for their members. A requirement to register their Club as an association under national law, open business bank accounts, understanding liabilities and insurance requirements, and potential tax declarations is likely to become such an administrative burden that some Club Representatives will not be able to dedicate the time needed alongside their work and family commitments.

The financial support offered to the Clubs by the Office, specifically the annual subsidy, will only be transferred to a bank account that is being held in the name of the Club. In Germany, this may still be possible if a Club is not a nationally registered association. However, in the Netherlands, it is understood that a recent change means that it is only possible to hold or open a bank account in the name of a Club if it is registered. So for the Clubs that are unable to take on the burden of national registration, it would also mean that the Office would deny them any financial support.

When taking part in Amicale activities, Office staff and their families shall be covered by a liability insurance taken out by the Office. The Office has not brought any clarification as to what is covered by the Office insurance. It is also unclear whether Clubs subject to national law will have to take their own insurance.

Conclusion
For the time being, it is hard to see any good intentions in the project and this is confirmed by the expedited “consultation”. We see no improvement from a staff perspective to Club Representatives and Members, and Amicale enthusiasts.

Amicale Clubs are alive thanks to volunteers working for them on their free time and while coping with work and their family duties.

The Office must consider properly the needs of Club Representatives and their Members, and make a genuine consultation. Otherwise, many Amicale activities will fade out and ultimately stop.

The Central Staff Committee

Even since Benoît Battistelli bought his election for the Office (we covered this in great depth around 2021) corruption and attacks on staff have been never-ending, routine, and very blatant. António Campinos continues that very same practice of crushing the staff, reducing rights to almost nothing. At the same time Campinos and his cronies, who buy elections and roles (yes, more corruption!), force actual scientists who do all the work for the EPO... to break the law. They're being forced to grant European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable.

Some of them complain about this to us (in private). It's a case of "go broke, or do something illegal."

The EPO is an outlaw institution. Because it is politically connected and moreover it actively bribes all those involved, there's not much being done about this.

Where's oversight? Where's accountability? █