THE revolt of Benoît Battistelli has gone out of control. He is very angry at the institution he purports to be managing. The Stalinist fashion in which he 'disappears' his opposition and the North Korean fashion in which he pretends everyone is happy despite everyone being upset and depressed (not to mention repressed) is quite telling. The anger of Battistelli is revealing.
“The AC may be prevented by law from dismissing the Board member concerned, but no such legal obstacle appears to prevent them sacking the President.”
--AnonymousMerpel's long article uses a humourous tone, but this is no humourous matter because people's jobs are at stake; these are honest, hard-working, well-educated people. "Merpel suggests the AC ought to politely thank the President," she wrote about Battistelli's memorandum, "and place it to one side, perhaps weighing it down and covering it with a copy of the EPC for emphasis. Then the AC should await the Enlarged Board's written reasons, and if it wishes to refer the matter again it can do so, avoiding whatever defects caused the inadmissibility of the initial request. If the EBA ultimately proposes dismissal, then the Board member will go; if not, then that's the outcome of the due process and so be it. In the meantime, Mr Battistelli might usefully be urged to return to the Office with a directive to spend more time building bridges and less time wiring them with dynamite."
There is clearly a cycle of muzzling and gagging here; it is enabled by evidently corrupt appointments that can encircle (outnumber) or corner any sign of possible dissent, even at the highest of levels and in principle independent, e.g. Chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal who is suspiciously absent after reportedly being dismissive of Battistelli's gross behaviour.
What we have here is a classic Streisand Effect recipe. It is being patiently cooked by Chef Battistelli and it won't help well, at least if the theory/premise of the Streisand Effect holds true. One anonymous comment in IP Kat says: "All the legitimacy of the EPO (office and organization) rests on the EPC. I hope the AC understands that following the proposed course denies this legitimation. There are two complaints before the Bundesverfassungsgericht on the alleged independence of the boards. How will the judges there see this proposal?"
Another anonymous comment in IP Kat speaks of dismissal of Battistelli himself: "The AC may be prevented by law from dismissing the Board member concerned, but no such legal obstacle appears to prevent them sacking the President. The reason for his dismissal has just been delivered by him to the AC, being an exhortation to break the law. Dismissing the President would legantly get the AC of a tricky situation (and any threats the President may have made to keep them in line would evaporate the moment he's been dismissed)."
"We still scrape the bottom of a very large iceberg such as the UPC and TPP etc."As SUEPO's site puts it today, "the Administrative Council (AC) delegates have received an extraordinary communication from Mr Battistelli. In it, he asks the AC to disregard a key provision of the European Patent Convention (EPC), and to bypass the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) which he accuses of not properly carrying out its duty in a disciplinary case against a Board member. Mr Battistelli even recommends to go beyond the recommendation of the Disciplinary Committee and to reduce the pension of the soon-to-be-ex-Board member by one-third."
Stay tuned as we have plenty more to show. Tomorrow will be the second day of protests at the EPO and also the second day of the Administrative Council's gathering. This is a fight between a populist core of EPO workers (scientists) and EPO bureaucrats, who are clearly out of control (and fronting for large corporations, unlike honest public servants). See our Wiki for a detailed chronology of this long saga. We still scrape the bottom of a very large iceberg such as the UPC and TPP etc. Billionaires' interests are at stake here. ⬆