Bonum Certa Men Certa

Leaked: EPO Prioritises Work for Large Foreign Corporations, Discrimination Not Accidental But Centrally Planned

NASCAR sponsorsCorporate fast lane, like NASCAR sponsors

Summary: Canon, Philips, Microsoft, Qualcomm, BASF, Bayer, Samsung, Huawei, Siemens, Ericsson and Fujitsu receive V.I.P. treatment from the EPO, despite most of them not even being European

HOW can an outsider tell that the EPO operates like a business rather than a public service (to Europeans)? It's simple. Just watch how, as a matter of policy (i.e. coming from above), the EPO is tossing aside patent applications of small European companies and instead researching, under pressure and in a rush (hence unlikely to find adequate prior art) for large foreign corporations, probably resulting in the granting of poor patents, due to notoriously overzealous bossing and work-induced pressure (examiners rewarded based on the wrong yardsticks) and secret corporate partnerships. It's just wrong and it creates a toxic work environment with false goals. As the EPO is supposed to be transparent (considering the consent allegedly given by the public), we believe that the information below must be in the public domain. It compromises nobody except entities that selfishly collude.



Watch the following leaked memo. Is this the spirit of science or of business?

Memo: Closer Contact with Major Applicants



J.Scott

16/02/2015

Why is closer contact with major applicants desirable?



Both The President and VP1 have expressed the opinion that there needs to be closer contact between examiners and their applicants. We should foster a better esprit de service, not least to ensure that we do not lose workload market share to other major offices.

History



Historically, DG1 has had frequent contacts with applicants but no systematic way of approaching them or feeding back business intelligence obtained from them. Moreover, DG1 has not always passed on consistent messages to them.

Microsoft, Canon, Siemens



The ICT cluster has had close contact with both Canon and Microsoft recently and their experience has prompted the proposal for this pilot. Microsoft had 450 files which they regarded as “stalled” within the EPO. Under the auspices of Grant Philpott, Francesco Zacca and the PA KAM, together, they have found a mutually acceptable way to treat these files. Similarly Canon had a list of files which they considered excessively delayed. However, again with Grant Philpott supervising, Franco Cordera and PA KAM have started working on the first list of around 170 files. In JC EET, Jeremy Scott has initialised general and specific lectures from Siemens, their global patent strategy and specific training to examiners working in the fields of Sub-sea Connectors and Wind Turbines. At the same time, informal checks were made about what Siemens thought of the EPO way of handling their files. These are concrete ways in which the EPO’s major applicants are being facilitated through issues due to concrete contact with DG1 PDs and directors.

Proposed Pilot



It is proposed to start a pilot for ten major applicants, worldwide, lasting one year (1.4.2015-1.4.2016). The applicants will be selected by DG1 but taking into consideration input from PA, PDQM and DG5. This will be based around strong existing contacts. 5 liaison directors will be selected to deal with two major applicants each. They will be in regular contact with these applicants and will have at least one face to face meeting during the year of the pilot.

Liaison with DG2 and DG5



Patent Administration will be an integral player in this pilot project and close links to the Key Account Managers will be needed. To facilitate this PD PA will be kept fully in the loop. DG5 has been approached and informed. They will be present in the kick off meeting for the contact directors.

Benefits for DG1



This pilot will bring significant benefits to DG1: - more efficient use of missions - technical training - predicting incoming workload - targeting recruitment to the right areas - dealing with file requests such as PACE/late files - esprit de service - production

Optimising Missions



Historically missions were organised on a directorate and cluster level with little coordination beyond that. Moreover, they did not always target he largest applicants, but more often the “nicer” locations. With the deployment of the Coordination Tool for External Contacts and with more directional input from the PDs, along with the experience from the liaison directors it is guaranteed that DG1 missions will be more focussed on our major applicants and delivering a better service to them.

The Coordination Tool for External Contacts



The coordination tool can provide a good starting point for coordinating this pilot. For example there can be a link with the highlighted companies so that anyone wishing to visit should first contact the liaison director to a). see if the visit can go ahead; b). check what messages should be passed or if the applicant has specific issues; c). provide a place to feedback any business intelligence gathered on the mission.

Organisational Structure



It is envisaged that there will be 5 DG1 directors, each in contact with 2 major applicants. These directors will also work closely with the appropriate KAMs. The ERG should nominate someone to oversee the whole structure, to help with harmonisation of what is done, sharing of knowledge and best practice, and to make sure everything runs smoothly. Currently it is proposed that Jeremy Scott takes on this role. He would additionally sit on the ICT group, set up by Grant Philpott in this role.

Selected Directors and Companies



Canon (22) F.Cordera Philips (3) F.Cordera Microsoft (28) C.Platzer Qualcomm (9) F.Zacca BASF (5) M.Weaver Bayer (16) M.Weaver Samsung (1) under discussion Huawei (11) under discussion Siemens (2) J.Scott Ericsson (10) F.Zacca Fujitsu (20)

As can be seen, the applicants selected are major ones (their ranking in terms of applications filed in 2013 is parenthesised). The lowest applicant selected, Microsoft, filed 600 applications. All in the top 12 file over 1000 and Samsung filed 2833 applications in 2013. These applicants come from different technical areas and different geographical locations to maximise the learning potential of the pilot. It can be explored as to what the EPO can do for them and vice versa. Many of these applicants have been chosen because of the strength of existing contacts, which will facilitate the speedy implementation of the pilot.

Upscaling the Pilot



If the pilot is deemed successful, the idea would be to upscale the pilot to more companies in the second half 2016. The speed at which this would be done is determined mainly by the manpower PA requires to deal with the requests.

Further Contacts/Approval



To carry out this pilot, approval is sought from VP1.


If this whole spiel sounds too familiar, perhaps it should. We wrote about this before and commented on it, explaining why this is inherently corrupt. Microsoft, as it turns out, is one among several such partners -- something which Florian Müller, who had worked for Microsoft, publicly told us about.

Don't let the EPO's reputation be tarnished by managers who treat it like a monopolies 'meat market', where 'meat' is sold to the highest bidder.

Stay tuned as we have a lot more to come this week. We are going to assemble pieces of some other puzzles which help show just how rotten the EPO became under Battistelli's merciless reign. Demonstrations (to be staged by staff of the EPO, as the European public is still largely uninformed) are only days away and we have more stuff to share than we can publish in just a couple of days. If any of our readers possesses additional material that they can share, please send it anonymously. In our 9-year history we never compromised a single source.

Recent Techrights' Posts

People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
 
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025
Links 28/05/2025: 'Emulation Layers' (Measurements and Linguistics), Libraries, and Discomfort
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: More Arrests for Bitcoin-Connected Torture and Prosecutions for Dieselgate-Linked Executives
Links for the day
Even Microsoft (MSN) Covers Richard Stallman's Public Talk in Milan 2 Days Ago
He spoke in Spanish earlier this month (Alicante)
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Techo-authoritarianism With Slop Plagiarism and "No Online June" (Going Offline)
Links for the day
Links 28/05/2025: GitHub MCP Exploited and MathWorks Discovers Huge Windows TCO
Links for the day
Very High Attendance Level at Richard Stallman's Talk Shows People Can Relate to His Message
Smear campaigns have their limits
Gemini Links 28/05/2025: Celsius-Fahrenheit, Endless Scrolling/Infinite Scrolling, and Trapping LLM Slop Bots
Links for the day
Prison gate backdrop to baptism by Fr Sean O'Connell, St Paul's, Coburg
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
More Photos From This Week's Milan Talk by Richard Stallman
The posts are in Italian, not English
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 27, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Links 27/05/2025: Science Defunded, India Arrests an Academic
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/05/2025: From Celsius to Fahrenheit and Deleting Social Control Media
Links for the day
Microsofters Have, in Effect, Attempted Extrajudicial Action Against Us
Courts and Judges (or Masters) don't exist to facilitate this kind of "bro" culture
UK High Court Masters Are Not Your Jesters, Microsoft
Judges aren't there for "funny" spectacles, they're there to act as arbiters in critical cases, not SLAPPs
Links 27/05/2025: Mass Layoffs at Volvo and More Evidence of 'AI' (Slop) Being a Passing Fad
Links for the day
The Code of Conduct (CoC) Gaslighting Phenomenon
There are still many people and projects foolish enough to outsource their labour to Microsoft via GitHub
They're Very Jealous of Richard Stallman and His Freedom (or Simple Lifestyle)
Jealousy is toxic because it can cause rational people to act irrationally and even severely harm themselves
Akira Urushibata on GNU coreutils
new message
Anouk Rozestraten (Deputy Director) Appears to Have Left the Free Software Foundation
Let's hope Rozestraten is still using and promoting Free software
There's Nothing Funny About Lawbreaking
There's plenty of room in society for humour, but "hacking" the state by breaking laws isn't cool or hip
More Mass Layoffs Coming Soon to Microsoft, Just a Question of When and How Many
Numbers from Washington were close to 5% and judging by prior rumours, it would be 5% + 5% (total 10%) at a later month
Links 27/05/2025: Bikes, Ideal Computers, and BYO
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 26, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 26, 2025
Richard Stallman's Milan Talk (Public Presentation) Was Packed, Video Available Soon
Looks like they even ran out of seats