Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO's Paid Propaganda Campaign in the Media

Who needs facts, editorial discretion, and scientific peer review anyway?

Book



Summary: EPO buys (using public money) coverage that is favourable to its rogue management's agenda, demonstrating utter disregard for scientific processes

THE EPO faces difficult times because the management is corrupt. Everyone suffers from this. There have been puff pieces and placements from Kongstad and his friend the 'President' (Benoît Battistelli), notably from patent lawyers' sites, and there has generally been very shallow coverage from press that is associated with patents. It's all about the money; services to European citizens are, in hindsight, not even an afterthought.



Watch Benoît Battistelli bragging about lowering patents' standards (compromising quality) to increase output. They are operating like a production line rather than an examination centre and based on this recent post from IP Kat, people are now encouraged to "take on extra work". To quote the relevant part: "DG1 is facing challenging production plans."

Yes, production. It's a factory's mentality. "Examiner capacity for search, examination and opposition," says the post, "is being maximised to achieve these goals."

Production. Of what? Paper and pen marks? Printouts?

"Besides other initiatives to increase core time," says the post, "all investments where examiners are involved in so-called "section Ill" activities, for support of projects or other DG plans, were revisited and rationalised. The "section lll" envelope covers the time budgets for projects and activities outside our normal operational business in DG1."

This very well illustrates what the EPO has become. Battistelli runs it like a factory and then brags about production volume, not quality of the product. It's a sham and it is a sham that benefits from ever-broadening patent scope (i.e. harm to many fields due to excessive protectionism). It is all about money now, not scientists. Will Europeans tolerate these? Patents on pigs, on algorithms, on human genetics?

The New Scientist recently sold out by publishing paid placements, even for the widely-maligned EPO that is desperate for some positive press. As Merpel put it: "Fresh from publishing the thoughts of a former member of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office, Merpel just noticed this article: A day in the life of a patent examiner appearing in the New Scientist.

"Merpel was immediately struck by the byline "The interview was produced by New Scientist in conjunction with the European Patent Office, which paid for it to be produced." Need the EPO be paying for publication about the career path of an Examiner in order to attract suitable candidates?

"Merpel wonders what readers think about the article itself, and whether the EPO should be paying for placement of such pieces."

The blog later wrote that the post "recorded, without criticism or comment, the fact that the European Patent Office had paid a highly respected journal to carry an interview with someone who, it now seems, may not actually be an examiner on life as an EPO examiner. This blogpost encouraged many of our contributors to fire off their salvos against or in defence of the beleaguered body."

The EPO is a complete sham. The management resorts to what seems like the notorious fake testimonies strategy, having produced some softball 'interviews' in an effort to cleanse its reputation. Don't let this spin go on unchallenged.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
 
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025
Links 04/05/2025: Science, Conflicts, and Monopolies
Links for the day
GNU/Linux Above 7% in Bulgaria, Rising Just Like in Most of Europe
Up to 7%, not counting Chromebooks
Data Shows Largest EU Economies Shifting to GNU/Linux
all-time highs
statCounter Says Only One in 6 Web-Connected Clients in Hungary Are Using Windows, iOS Almost Bigger Than Windows Now
Hungary is a cautionary tale in the world of European (or Russian) politics
Many Reports About Microsoft's Financial Report/Performance Are False, Fake News, Churnalism/Parroting, and LLM Slop (Machine-Generated Lies)
Even if you see a thousand sites saying that Microsoft is performing well ask yourself why the company is rushing to fire tens of thousands of workers and cancelling datacentres
Links 04/05/2025: FCC Turning Into MAGA’s Censoring Machine, SEC Pressured to Delist Chinese Companies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/05/2025: Historical Artifacts and Date Calculations in POSIX Shell
Links for the day
In the First 3 Months of 2025 GAFAM Debt Rose by More Than $14.4 Billion
That's based on their official statements
10-Step Strategy to Get BRETT WILSON LLP ("Gun for Hire"), Microsoft's Serial Strangler, and the Serial Defamer to Compensate Techrights and Tux Machines for Years of SLAPPs and Abusive Litigation
There's no room or capacity for forgiveness here; enablers and protectors of crime need to be scuttled and pay up in full
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 03, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 03, 2025