European Patent Office (EPO) Crisis: Huge EPO Strikes, Profound Corruption, and Cocaine Use by Managers Tolerated
At the end of last month there was a huge EPO strike and 7 days ago we wrote about working conditions there (still deteriorating).
Yesterday there was another big strike at the EPO (like most Fridays) and the union in Munich (SUEPO Munich) prepares to do the same this coming Monday, then Friday again. To quote a communication they sent around last week, following a familiar structure:
Dear SUEPO Members,
Dear Colleagues,
On Tuesday 2 June at 11.00 hrs, the Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) held a general assembly gathering 600 attendees.
The LSCTH reported on the Budget and Finance Committee of 20 and 21 May, the interventions of the delegates and the impact of the industrial actions. The presented slides can be found at the link below:
Salary Erosion Procedure – Fourth General Assembly of 2026
If this is what they do when all indicators are green, what will they do when they are red?!
Therefore, the SUEPO Munich Action Plan 2026 adopted on 19 January 2026 continues with
Work-To-Rule actions,
Days of strike on Friday 5 June, Monday 8 June and Friday 12 June
Two days of strike per week (Mondays and Fridays) in June
Demonstration on Thursday 30 June in front of the Isar building, all Munich staff is invited and staff from other places of employment will also joinFor your information, SUEPO The Hague has declared Monday 8 June as an “anchor day” for a maximum number to strike.
They cannot ignore us if we stand together
These strikes won't be ending any time soon, they will likely intensify further, and stakeholders can feel the impact.
At the moment we are covering the political scandals of the EPO's President and his EU enablers. We'll also habitually give updates on Cocainegate. That such a corrupt person with no real background in patents wants to be "king" of the largest patent office for 1.5 decades isn't astounding, it is outright intolerable. Those who are backing this with their vote are part of the problem; we'll urge European readers to contact their national delegates when the time is right.
As noted this morning, "hired guns" connected to the ones hired by the EPO (Mishcon de Reya LLP is in the same lobby/guild) arrange to send me almost 100 KG of legal papers and the habitual death threats too (British police is investigating these). Their thin-skinned client openly admitted third parties fund these and he works closely with a man who strangled women and told them to kill themselves. Sounds like a bedtime story from Ana and Luis Berenguer (Ana is the girlfriend of the EPO's President, who protects her bother Luis, a cocaine addict that is revered by EPO's President).
We don't deal with ordinary people here but with alcoholics and drug addicts who are clearly drunk on power. Exposing their behaviour to the public is imperative. Thankfully we've got the ears of British ministers. They genuinely wish to put an end to this. █