Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Patent Office Illegally Gutting and Outsourcing Its Functions, Acting Like an Above-the-Law Commercial Business (It Won't Stop at Formalities Officers (FOs) and Classification Slop at the EPO)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 19, 2025,
updated Sep 19, 2025

Displacement of Formalities Officers roles: Open letter to the Chief Operating Officer

Angel Aledo Lopez and António Campinos: (basically white-collar criminals who net huge salaries by breaking/violating laws and conventions - a problem they've already spread to the EU)

Group photo from left to right: Sonja London, Linda Norrgård, Eeva Hakoranta, Angel Aledo Lopez, Alessia Volpe, António Campinos, Roberto Castagno, Antti Riivari, Gilles Requena and Jani Päiväsaari

Older and related (context and background to all this):

"Dear Colleagues," wrote the Central Staff Committee to staff. "Ahead of the upcoming meeting scheduled for 23 September 2025 between the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the Formalities Officers community, the staff representation sent in an open letter to the COO requests for transparency and clarity about the future of Formalities Officers."

That's next week.

"Besides highlighting the lack of clear information," they said, "the letter also stresses the need for a channel for social dialogue dedicated to DG1 matters."

The EPO is Europe's second-largest institution, utterly ripe for and rife with corruption under Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos (who bought their 'election' and basically engaged in vote-buying), so the matter belongs in the public domain. Scrutiny is well overdue, even prosecution, but the overseers are so complicit that it's not likely to happen any time soon. Europe is heading in a similar direction to that of the United States and Russia.

For a little bit of context, in 2010 Battistelli and fellow "alphamales" pushed out the EPO's President, a female Brit, and then shoehorned the litigation industry - along with illegal kangaroo courts - into the sole authority for granting monopolies in Europe (not just EU). Having done loads of illegal things that merit an arrest, Battistelli then meddled in many affairs to ensure his French friend, Campinos, succeeds him for another decade or so, effectively covering up what happened while continuing the destruction of the Office (for personal gains of associates). They even plunder former EPO staff. It is a giant racket set up by people who wear suits and cannot even speak the local language (poor English, no German).

What has happened to Europe?

Here it is as plain text, HTML, and GemText (depending on the protocol one uses to read this:

European Patent Office
80298 Munich
Germany

Central Staff Committee
Comité central du personnel
Zentraler Personalausschuss

centralSTCOM@epo.org

Reference: sc25052cl

Date: 18/09/2025

European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY

To: Mr Angel Aledo Lopez (Chief Operating Officer)

By email:
To: coo@epo.org

OPEN LETTER

Displacement of Formalities Officers roles

Dear Chief Operating Officer,

Dear Angel, On 15 September 2025, you sent an invitation to the Formalities Officers for a meeting on 23 September, without an agenda.

This meeting is a follow-up to the previous meeting that took place on the 7th of May. It was during that meeting that the displacement of Formalities Officers roles was announced.

Our colleagues Formalities Officers need a clear, transparent roadmap developed in close collaboration with their staff representation. Moving forward, we respectfully request to start a discussion with DG1 on the following:

1. Identification of job opportunities within other units of the Office where FO colleagues’ patent-related expertise could be utilised (e.g. within DG 4/BIT, DG 0, or DG 5).

2. Update on the announced transfer of some examiner tasks to formalities officers.

3. Details on the scope of the measure, including the number of posts available and whether this concerns a broad or limited offering.

4. A clear timeline and transparent conditions under which the displacements would occur.


We reiterate our urgent call for the creation of a proper channel for dialogue on DG1 matters, and we look forward to receiving an invitation at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely yours,

Derek Kelly
Chairman of the Central Staff Committee

It is worth noting that this letter was sent to Angel Aledo Lopez, whose role is sinister (he's part of the nepotism circle of Campinos, who quit giving a f--k about his corruption being so obvious and even refers to himself as "the f--king president" because manners don't matter either). We've already mentioned Lopez in the following articles:

As long as the EPO breaks so many laws and grants European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable - the EPO is a potent and active enemy of Europe. Russia uses rockets, drones and "hybrid" methods; the EPO uses white-collar corruption. About two-thirds of the EPO's customers/clients (this is what the EPO calls them) are not European. Need we mention that the EPO sent a lot of money and data to Belarus?

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

If We Move Everything to Devuan...
IRC, Git, Apache and so on
Campinos is a Lame Duck President This Year at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The strikes are not ending. If anything, they intensify further.
Links 29/04/2026: "Snowden Affair 13 Years Later" and "Landmark Data Center Pause"
Links for the day
 
In Past 6 Months IBM Lost About 100 Billion Dollars in 'Value' While Debt Ballooned to 70 Billion Dollars
Welcome to a universe of fake finances and phony accounting based on fictional assets with made-up 'worth'
Dr. Andy Farnell on Weaponising Morality Against Technofascism and Slop
It's longer than a "tweet", so social control media addicts are likely mentally unfit to read it
Six Months
Techrights will be around (and active) for a very long time to come
Why We Publish "The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt"
We intend to report the facts, fearlessly, until real and lasting solutions are reached
SLAPP Censorship - Part 61 Out of 200: Garrett and Graveley Must Understand That Reporting Women's Issues in the United States of America (“the US”) is Not Impermissible
when you cover Microsoft corruption and have real effect
Weeks After Mass Layoffs of Red Hat Engineers We Learn of European "Buyouts" and Layoffs at IBM
At Microsoft, they tell us there are merely "buyouts", but they don't tell us what happens if you say "no!"
OS Upgrade Tentatively Scheduled for Tomorrow
We have some contingencies in case the upgrade goes wrong
Links 29/04/2026: LLM Chatbot Usage Goes Down Sharply (as Do Stocks Associated With Them), Microsoft's Circular Financing Accounting Fraud at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2026: Returning to an Exodus and Farewell APU
Links for the day
Slop Has a Long Way to Go Before It Gets Basic Facts Right
Please do not rely on slop for anything
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part IX - European Patents That Are Illegal (But Serve Non-European Monopolists in Exchange for 'Quick Cash')
People who shamelessly violate the European Patent Convention (EPC) have the audacity to lecture workers on "ethics"
Canonical is Selling You, Ubuntu is a Data-Collecting Platform
Canonical is looking for money in the wrong places
Seems Like Only Techrights Covered IBM Laying Off About 33% of Confluent Staff
How can such a large round of layoffs evade today's media?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 28, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Gemini Links 29/04/2026: Bad Diet, New Middle Ages, and Temperature Model
Links for the day
IBM is Already Doing 'Voluntary' Layoffs This Year in Europe ('Buyouts' Ahead of Mass Layoffs)
IBM's efforts to hide or belittle layoffs is noteworthy
Tracing Back the Misuse of the Word "Buyout" to Describe Merciless Mass Layoffs
So we can assume very large Microsoft layoffs are on the way, this time not spun as "buyouts"
Growing the List of Sites That Are Rogue
It's very important to raise and spread awareness of which ones are fake
Links 28/04/2026: Uganda Criminalising ‘Foreign Agents’ and China’s Economy "Starts to Show Cracks"
Links for the day
Anthropic and Claude Are National Security Risks Not Because of Politics But False Marketing and Vandalism, Plagiarism Sold as Innovation
The slop hype is causing severe damage
Like GAFAM, US Telecom Industry Has Severe Debt Problem
Maybe their real problem is true profitability
Gemini Links 28/04/2026: Misfin, ELPiS, and Developing Another Gemini Client
Links for the day
US Government Sites See More Traffic From Apple Devices Than Microsoft Windows PCs
Keep this in mind when Microsoft talks about mass layoffs while calling these "buyouts"
Layoffs Versus Buyouts
Microsoft has mass layoffs and those target the most experienced people in one of the best-paid locations
Latest Example of False Marketing by Anthropic
Like Scam Altman, they're better at buying publicity (paying for hype) than they are at delivering something of genuine value [...] That has the full make-up of fake news and a publicity stunt
IBM: From RAs to "Workforce Re-balancing" (New Names for Mass Layoffs)
Well, "workforce re-balancing" means "RAs", which is a misleading acronym IBM has devised to soften if not hide mass layoffs.
Aaron Hillel Swartz Would Have Turned 40 This Year
Aaron Swartz killed himself in 2013
The Trumps Are Making Jimmy Kimmel More Famous and Popular
Comedy has long been "controversial", but trying to get people sacked for the 'wrong' joke results in having no comedians or only pseudo-comedians who are the dictator's jester/joker
Microsoft's Grip Has Slipped, Market Share Steadily Declining
This is why Microsoft is having financial issue
Links 28/04/2026: Microsoft's GitHub Upselling After Two Leaders Jumped Ship (Losses Pile Up), "Inflation Jumps," and More
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 60 Out of 200: Talking About Corruption at Microsoft and Arrest for Strangulation is "Malice"
At the moment Brett Wilson LLP has no new clients
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part VIII - "Red Line" When the European Patent Office (EPO) President Sleeps With Sister of "Cocaine Communication Manager" (Whom He Unconditionally Protects)
If only management took its own words (idealistic pontification) seriously
IBM Laying Off Thousands of Workers Again, Based on Q1 Earnings Call
under the guise of "workforce rebalancing" we are again seeing that IBM plans to pay people (severance) to leave
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 27, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, April 27, 2026
Gemini Links 28/04/2026: Good Sunrise Viewing and Self-hosting from Home
Links for the day[1;5C
Microsoft Insiders: If You Don't Take the Lousy Severance-Like Offer, They'll PIP You Out (Microsoft Signals to People Over 40 That They'd Better Vacate the Place)
Microsoft targets its most experienced (read: expensive) workers
"AI" 16 Times in One 'Article'. The Register MS Got Paid to Post This Spammy, Promotional Piece of Slop.
Pay closer attention to who pays and who gets paid
Links 27/04/2026: Chernobyl Disaster at 40, "Heartbreaking" Decline of Australia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/04/2026: Gopher Catchup, MNT Reform, and Injuries
Links for the day
Red Hat Circling Down the Slop Drain
IBM, governed by slop fanatics, is going to do a lot of damage
Slop is an Addiction, Its Users Find It Addictive
please do not tolerate people who slop
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part VII - Secrecy at the EPO (Regarding Cocaine and Nepotism) Has Undermined Trust in Management
If Europe's second-largest institution is run by the "Alicante Mafia", does this mean that other key European institutions are "Mafia"?
SLAPP Censorship - Part 59 Out of 200: Mentioning the Fact Alex Graveley Arrested and Charged for Strangulation in Texas is "Reckless" and "Malicious", According to His 'Hired Guns' in London
it was framed as "malicious"
Links 27/04/2026: Strikes, Corruption in Spain (Spanish PM Sanchez' Wife), and YouTuber Faces Jail Time
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/04/2026: Gopher Catch-up, Year of Contentment, and Path to Freedom
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 26, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, April 26, 2026