Bonum Certa Men Certa

Response to Bogus Accusations That EPO Staff Protests Are Really an Attempt to Derail UPC

False portrayals of an internal conflict

Snowden and China



Summary: Common myths about staff protests in the European Patent Office (EPO) debunked, with some additional background and general perspective on recent events, the unitary patent (UPC) and so on

TECHRIGHTS has been against the UPC in all its previous incarnations (and names) for nearly 8 years because it increases injunctions, damages, and serves as a vehicle through which to expand the scope of patents, e.g. to software.



"It looks like an effort to paint SUEPO as an external enemy -- the same tactic which right-wing politicians and media attempted against Edward Snowden shortly after he had unmasked himself in Hong Kong."We have never, however (not even once!), heard from a source of ours regarding the UPC. We therefore conclude that our views on such matters are ours alone. SUEPO never expressed an opinion on the matter, neither publicly nor in person (as far as we are aware). So Where does such a fictional allegation come from? As our previous article made apparent, some say that "Battistelli said that EPO staff wants to block the community patent." It looks like an effort to paint SUEPO as an external enemy -- the same tactic which right-wing politicians and media attempted against Edward Snowden shortly after he had unmasked himself in Hong Kong. We cannot verify the claim that "Battistelli said that EPO staff wants to block the community patent," but let's assume we can take it at face value. A response to that has just been posted and it says: "I genuinely can't think why BB can suggest that the staff are trying to block the EU patent. I can't remember the union ever voicing an opinion and, in any case, that's only a few disgruntled staff in hus view so that hardly equates to 'the staff'. Indeed staff would quite happily be closer to the EU in terms of staff rights of association et al, so I think this may just be some form of paranoia about his pet subject. Either way, it's not true."

MaxDrei wrote about the French angle (remember that the main proponent of the UPC was a French commissioner): "I was startled to read that BB has accused the EPO staff of trying to sabotage the EU patent. That suggests to me that BB's [Battistelli] actions are indeed explained as actions in support of the political imperative of making the Paris-based UPC a popular success, from the get go. When members of BB's management team look through their group prism, why else than to frustrate their management objective is anybody opposing the team? Ergo, any resistance is mounted only by those seeking to sabotage the EU patent."

“That suggests to me that BB's [Battistelli] actions are indeed explained as actions in support of the political imperative of making the Paris-based UPC a popular success, from the get go.”
      --MaxDrei
"How to make the UPC popular from the get go (and thereby please not only France but also Germany)? In an earlier post I suggested how. Reduce the EPO to a registation only office and disable the appeal and post-issue opposition processes. How to do that? Use EPO funds to manipulate opinion at AC level. Elevate staff distress to such high levels that everybody who can takes early retirement. Effectively stop all recruitment. That should do it! "

One classic way to discredit a movement is to mischaracterise its goals, which in turn confuses the public and makes the movement less popular, due to poorer comprehension of motivations and aims. When it comes to the EPO, the management is either framing it as a personal attack, a witch-hunt against a single person ("Sun King" Battistelli), or an attack on the office itself (if not Europe itself), attributing it all to just a few disgruntled individuals. This is another pattern of EPO deception. They try to present it all (e.g. to the media) as a few militant people (pointing the finger at SUEPO) who are simply trying to crush the Office or its management (because of a personal vendetta).

“The last time there was a strike ballot, the 'few' turned out to be about 90% - which meant even more than just all union members had voted for the strike...”
      --Anonymous
As this new response makes clear: "The last time there was a strike ballot, the 'few' turned out to be about 90% - which meant even more than just all union members had voted for the strike (BB only allows himself to organise the union strike ballots and he chooses who can vote in order to try to scupper the vote - it was touch and go whether he would insist that he got a vote himself...). Either he forgets or he misspeaks."

"Sun King" is fighting a losing battle here. Trying to misrepresent staff intent and mischaracterise staff protests would achieve nothing except reinforce that perception that he lies habitually.

"Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders."

--Friedrich Nietzsche



Recent Techrights' Posts

Alyssa Rosenzweig's LibrePlanet Talk About Freeing the Apple GPU
Alyssa Rosenzweig is the graphics witch behind the reverse-engineered drivers for the Apple GPU. She previously led Panfrost, the free drivers for Arm Mali GPUs powering devices like the Pinebook Pro. She graduated in 2023 with a Computer Science degree from the University of Toronto and now writes free software full-time.
Links 30/06/2024: LLMs Under Fire and Dictatorship of the Old
Links for the day
[Meme] Walking Outside the Guardrails of the Walled Gardens Built by Monopolies
So-called "advertiser-unfriendly" material was never a problem for Wikileaks
This War Crime Footage, Nothing Political Per Se, Is What They Made Julian Assange Plead Guilty To (War Criminals Not Convicted, Only Those Who Expose Them)
Wikileaks' Julian Assange: Exposing the US Military Crimes
20 Years Passed, Let's Go Even Faster Now
We are hoping to bring more original stories
Windows Lost Almost 92% Market Share in Egypt
From over 99% to just over 7%
 
A Crisis of Online Journalism
Almost a week ago a journalist was forced to plead guilty for an act of journalism
Germany One of Many Countries Where Microsoft's Bing Lost Market Share After All That LLM Nonsense (Bing Chat and Further Rebrands/Renames)
openai.com traffic plunged 60% last month
Microsoft’s Latest Antitrust Scrutiny
4 new stories
Microsoft Layoffs, Mass Plagiarism, and More
outrage included
GNU/Linux Climbed 0.25% This Month (in statCounter)
Around midday on Tuesday we'll start seeing preliminary data for July
Ilya Gulko Introduces Pollyanna
"Pollyanna is a web framework that makes it easy to create your own libre social space, such as a social network or blog."
'FSFE': Underage Labour, GAFAM Fronting, and Identity Theft to Undermine the FSF's Current Fundraiser
looking to raise funds at the same time as the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 29, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, June 29, 2024
Links 29/06/2024: Astronauts at Risk, Ukraine Updates
Links for the day
Fedora and Red Hat Leftovers
mostly redhat.com
Microsoft is Now Googlebombing or Spamming 'Open Source' and 'Linux' to Promote Proprietary Surveillance, Azure
Notice the title and the image, what's being promoted etc.
Seychelles: GNU/Linux Doing OK
Seychelles cannot be considered poor
Gemini Protocol Isn't Even Remotely "Dead"
"Lupa knows of 505,000 (half a million!) working Gemini URLs at present, up from about 425,000 this time last year"
About 10 New Free Software Foundation (FSF) Members Per Day
The total changed from 46 to 47 while typing the article
Vista 11 Adoption Unusually Low in Germany and It's Going Down, Not Up
This is not happening only in Germany
Kevin Korte on Computers Being Allowed to Make Decisions Based on Cryptic Algorithms and Proprietary/Secret Data
It uses buzzwords where none are needed
[Meme] Garbage In, Garbage Out (linuxsecurity.com)
It is neither Linux nor security, just chatbot-generated slop
Microsoft-Invaded CISA Spreads Anti-Free Software FUD (as If Proprietary Software Has No Memory Safety Issues), Brittany Day Uses Chatbots to Amplify and Permutate the Microsoft FUD
linuxsecurity.com became an anti-Linux spam site
Microsoft Laying Off Staff in an Act of Retaliation and Union-Busting
retaliatory layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 29/06/2024: Content Drowning in 'Goo' and LLM Slop
Links for the day
In Ecuador, GNU/Linux Adoption Surged From Under 1% to Over 4% in About 3 Years
Not even counting Chromebooks
LibrePlanet: Cultivating Backups (of Recordings)
an appeal to recover some of these talks
Microsoft/Windows Machines Are Turned Off (or Windows Deleted/Decommissioned) in Web Servers, as the "Market Share" Collapse Continues
Taking full history into account, this is a decrease of over 90% in some cases
Corwin Brust Hosting Freedom: A Behind-the-scenes Tour With the GNU Savannah Hackers
"the "smiling faces" behind it."
Android at 90% or More in Chad
Windows below 2%
David Wilson: Cultivating a Welcoming Free Software Community That Lasts
"a feeling of shared ownership for all users."
Julian Assange Might Continue Wikileaks, But Certainly Not Yet (Recovery Time Needed)
And probably at a symbolic capacity only
Bringing in 12 Santas and Taking 13 Out (Old Interview With Julian Assange)
Julian Assange's life inside the Ecuadorian embassy
Neil Plotnick on GNU/Linux in the High School Classroom
uploaded to the LibrePlanet instance of MediaGoblin
Asia Appears to be Fastest to Adopt GNU/Linux
the home of a considerable majority of the world's population
Alexandre Oliva's LibrePlanet 2024 Talk About "Software Enshittification"
in spite of technical difficulties encountered while recording
What They Used to Do With Mono They Now Do With Systemd (Lower and Deeper Down Than Userspace)
Now we have a project started primarily by Red Hat (and managed by Microsoft GitHub, which is proprietary) being managed by Microsoft and primarily serving Microsoft and IBM
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 28, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, June 28, 2024
Links 28/06/2024: Kangaroo Courts and Patents Spam, EFF Still Fighting for CPC's TikTok (a Digital Weapon)
Links for the day
Links 28/06/2024: Overton window and Polarization
Links for the day
[Meme] In 50 Years...
Microsoft's Vista 11 will take 50 years to be fully adopted
Only About 1 in 8 Russian Windows Users is Using Vista 11
it looks like over the past 12 months Vista 11 hardly grew and it remains very low at around 12% of Windows usage in Russia
Links 28/06/2024: More Attacks on the Press, More Censorship in Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/06/2024: Christmas Prematurely, Self-hosting
Links for the day
IBM: So Long, Suckers. Your Free OS is Now Proprietary. Pay IBM or Else.
almost exactly a year after turning RHEL into proprietary software
Vista 11 is Doomed and Despite Lack of Adoption Microsoft Already Speaks of Vapourware ("12")
"Microsoft has pulled a Windows 11 update after users reported boot loops and startup failures."
ChromeOS Reaches Highest Share in Years at the World's Most Populous Nation, Windows Now at All-Time Low of 13%
We're talking about India today
[Video] "It Is Incredible That Julian Assange Survives"
There was a positive and mutual relationship between Wikileaks and Dr Jill Stein
Never Assume That Because the Law Exists the Powerful Will Follow the Law
Who's going to hold them accountable now?
Nearly a Month Has Passed and Nobody at the Debian Project Even Attempted to Explain What Seems Like Back-dooring of Debian (and Hundreds of Distros That Are Debian-Derived)
I can cynically guess that only matters when a user with a Chinese name does it
[Video] Julian Assange Explains Wikileaks' Logistics
predating indefinite detention
IBM Was Never the "Good Guy", Just a Self-Serving and Opportunistic Money- and Power-Hungry Monopolist, Living Off of Taxpayers' Money (Government Contracts)
The Nazi Party of Germany was its second-biggest client at one point and now it's looking to profit from the work of slaves
"I Hated Working at IBM. They Were the Most Unfriendly People."
Don't forget what Watson the son did to a poor woman on a plane
State of the News (and Depletion of Journalism Online, Not Just Offline)
Newspapers are not coming back and the Web is not coming back either
GNU/Linux Consolidates in North America
Android rising a lot this year, too
[Meme] More Monopolies Granted While Patent Examiners Die (Overworking for Less Compensation)
Work more; Get less
Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) is Taking the New Pension Scheme (NPS) to an International Tribunal (ILOAT)
SUEPO wants more EPO staff to participate in collective action
Stella Assange and the Legal Team Speak to the Media a Day After WikiLeaks Founder Julian Assange Arrives in Australia
Published yesterday by a number of mainstream publishers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, June 27, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, June 27, 2024
RIP Daniel Bristot de Oliveira, Red Hat death
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock