Bonum Certa Men Certa

Intellectual Property Judges’ Association (IPJA) Speaks Out Against EPO Tyrant Battistelli

Benoît Battistelli in the crosshairs of European patent professionals



Summary: As the new year starts (first week of the year) Battistelli is already in the firing line of yet more high-level departments/personalities

More criticism of Battistelli, this time from the Intellectual Property Judges’ Association (IPJA), is now reported by Merpel of IP Kat.



Merpel reveals that IPJA, which is the representative association of European National Patent Judges, is getting fed up. "Just in case you missed it," wrote a source to us, the following letter may be of interest. We copy it below for future reference (Merpel put lots of Microsoft Word cruft in it, hence the poor formatting).




The Rt. Hon. Professor Sir Robin Jacob

5th January 2015

Jesper Kongstad,
Chairman of the Administrative Council of the EPO,
European Patent Office,
Bob-van-Bentham-Platz 1
80469 Munich
Germany                                                                                                                                            
            I am writing on behalf of the Intellectual Property Judges’ Association (IPJA) to express the extreme concern of European Patent Judges to the recent events concerning a Member of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO. IPJA is the representative association of European National Patent Judges. This letter has been written after consultation with the IPJA membership.  It has near unanimous support and no objection or reservation by anyone.
            As we understand it the Member was, on the orders of the President acting on his own initiative, physically removed from his office and possession was taken of his computer. It is not, as far as we know, suggested that the Member has committed any criminal offence. That, in any event would be a matter for action by the criminal law enforcement authority, not the President.
            We do not know what it is that the Member is alleged to have done wrong. Nor does it matter. What does matter is that the Member has been treated in a manner we deem to be inconsistent with the status and position of a Member of the Boards of Appeal as provided for in the EPC.
            As Judges we are not in a position to take any concluded view of the legality of the President’s action – the point could well come up in a real case concerning the status of Board of Appeal decisions. But we can say that according to article 23(1) (read in conjunction with articles 10 and 11) of the EPC it seems clear that it is for the Administrative Council and the Enlarged Board to take action, not the President, and that the Administrative Council should have so declared.
            More generally we make one further observation. The present events seriously threaten the judicial independence of the Boards of Appeal and by doing that call in question the guarantee of an independent and impartial review of the European Office's decisions by a judicial body. Not tolerating that should be the common interest of all Member States of the European Patent Organisation.
            A copy of this letter will shortly be sent to EPLAW, IPKat and Managing IP magazine.


UCL Faculty of Laws, Bentham House, Endsleigh Gardens, London, WC1H 0EG

 +44 (0) 20 7679 5831  rjacob@ucl.ac.uk





"Add this to other letters that we have shown before and sooner or later it becomes clear that Battistelli not only runs out of allies; he runs out of apathetic entities that neither support nor dennounce him."As Merpel states: "This letter has the support of "all or virtually all" of the main patent judges of Europe and from 11 countries." Add this to other letters that we have shown before and sooner or later it becomes clear that Battistelli not only runs out of allies; he runs out of apathetic entities that neither support nor dennounce him. The tide is quickly turning, much as we hoped all along. Here is Merpel's summary of some other recent developments, some of which we covered here before:

On Christmas Eve according to the Gregorian Calendar, Merpel posted a round-up and summary of what has been going on at the EPO. Now that we have come to Christmas Eve according to the Julian Calendar, it seems appropriate to revisit the subject. There have been a large number of developments over the last couple of weeks, and the IPKat and Merpel have received an enormous amount of correspondence. There is actually too much for a single post, so Merpel will start with a round-up of brief news, in particular relating to the UK Parliament and the EU Parliament, together with some other snippets. In her next post, Merpel hopes to delve into the Business Distribution Scheme of the Boards of Appeal, where some interesting facts become apparent, and she will also look a bit more into Board 28.

[...]

As reported by the IPKat here, the MP for Cambridge, Dr Julian Huppert tabled a question to ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills:
What steps he is taking to protect the independence of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office.
[Incidentally, while Merpel congratulates Dr Huppert for tabling this question, it would have been better phrased without the "Enlarged"; fortunately, the response addresses the better formulation.]

Yesterday the IPKat learnt that there has been a response as follows:
Officials in the UK Intellectual Property Office are closely and actively involved in discussions relating to the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), including the Enlarged Board. It is the UK Government position that the Boards of Appeal should be independent of the executive of the EPO, and be seen to be so. This view is shared by other EPO member states and we expect proposals to make this clearer to be considered by the Administrative Council, the Office’s supervisory body, in March 2015.
Cautious Katpat to Her Majesty's Government - if there are indeed proposals to make the independence clearer then the IPKat and Merpel applaud the efforts. Thanks to several readers who alerted the IPKat to this.


We too received information regarding that latter item. "There is no doubt that this is a setback for Battistelli," noted one of our readers. "I think what emerges from this is that at least one significant member state of the AC is breaking from Battistelli's public position."

Over the weekend we began preparing some future exclusive posts about the EPO and they will be ready for publication very soon. Right now "we need an increasing drumbeat in the run-up to the next AC," told us a reader. "It's a real shame that EP industrial corporations haven't spoken out yet - if they did he would be a dead duck real quickly."

Combining some of the recent letters and considering the number of scandals we are about to show, Battistelli will almost definitely be out of office soon (no vacation), and he won't be alone in leaving. It would be poetic justice if he was just "suspended" out of office, sitting outdoors in winter calling himself "President" repeatedly when all he really became was a thug in a suit, no better than Željko Topić (Topić too is in serious trouble and he knows it).

In other news, which is very sad, "Bernard Marris, economist against software patents, was killed today in Paris," wrote Benjamin Henrion in Belgium. The articles cited by Henrion are in French. We need to fight for elimination of software patents, especially in Europe. Bernard Marris would have been happy to see that happen. Based on our sources, many in the EPO (science-oriented staff) are against software patents and are not willing to just "follow orders". To Battistelli, quality of patents does not matter and those who don't agree with him shall receive the 'Putin treatment' (EPO staff privately refers to Topić as "Putin").

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete