Monsieur Claude Sahl, Part of the Administrative Council of the EPO (Which Fails to Administer the EPO), Has Been There For Over 30 Years
They have basically built themselves a very expensive palace in Bavaria (Germany), in which to grant European monopolies to billionaires and companies that aren't even European
The European Patent Organisation is a pan-European one-party system. It is the Party of Corporations. It reveres money.
National Delegates at the EPO are some of the same people who protected Benoît Battistelli. Now they do the same for António Campinos, a friend and protector of Battistelli. In some cases, but not most cases, they're even the very same people (not just roles or hats or offices). In some countries, especially autocratic ones, the same people remain in power for many years, sometimes decades. There is no real "Transfer of Power" and even elections are shams (symbolic or worse). They're more like kingdoms with monarchies, which means that the EPO inherits their autocratic tendencies.
While preparing the list of people to contact, based on the official list, we noticed that some stand out.
Three of them are from Eastern European member states:
- Albania: Gentiana BARDHI, Head of the Patent Sector at the General Directorate of Industrial Property;
- North Macedonia: Luljeta RAMADANI, Head of IT at the State Office of Industrial Property;
- Romania: Simona GEORGESCU, Director of the Economic Department of the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.
However the award for the most privacy-conscious member of the Administrative Council must go to the fourth person:
- the mysterious Monsieur Claude Sahl, alternate representative for the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg.
Monsieur Sahl is an official at the Luxembourg Ministry of the Economy where he heads the Department of Intellectual Property and is responsible for legislative matters.
He has been on the EPO's Administrative Council for over 30 years as can be seen from the July 1994 issue of the EPO Official Journal where his name appears as the alternate representative for Luxembourg, a position which he continues to hold to this very day.
It's a quite a surprise to see that despite his long and dedicated service at the Ministry of the Economy in Luxembourg and on the EPO's Administrative Council not a single photograph of the Monsieur Sahl could be found anywhere despite an extensive search.
Of course like anybody else Monsieur Sahl is entitled to his privacy and if he doesn't want people to be able to put a face to his name we'll have to accept that.
But that doesn't alter the fact that when they sit on the Administrative Council of the EPO, Monsieur Sahl and his fellow representatives are exercising a public administrative function and are responsible for taking decisions which can have a significant impact on patent administration matters in the 39 member states of the Organisation as well as on the working conditions of the staff of the European Patent Office.
And it is well-documented that the Administrative Council's record when it come to safeguarding the fundamental rights of EPO staff is nothing to be proud of.
So we make no apology for subjecting the decisions made by Monsieur Sahl and his colleagues to scrutiny as a matter of public interest. █