Bonum Certa Men Certa

Leaked: EPO Award of €880,000 “in Order to Address the Media Presence of the EPO” (Reputation Laundering)

Propaganda and media distortion, but at whose expense?

Summary: The European Patent Office, a public body, wastes extravagant amounts of money on public relations (for 'damage control', like FIFA's) in an effort to undermine critics, not only among staff (internally) but also among the media (externally)

TODAY is Black Friday and there might be something black at the EPO (like black budget), whose documents, which show how public money is (mis)used, keep being leaked for us to publish. It took less than a day after our request.



Having already absorbed anti-corruption people (who were supposed to investigate the EPO) into its own ranks, the EPO now wants to devour the media too.

The following is self-explanatory really.

EPO media spendings page 1



EPO media spendings page 2



EPO media spendings page 3



The above 3 images can (and probably should) be shared widely.

The source of this material referred to our recent article and wished to highlight the following bits from the document. They may be of interest to those who are too lazy to read it. It confirms the allocation of €880,000 "in order to address the media presence of the EPO" and to quote the detailed breakdown:

13. Main Project with a duration of 1 year with a campaign in Germany and the Netherlands : EUR 600K

14. Additional Project with support for Dir. External communication: EUR 280K


According to the Summary on the title page, the beneficiary of the contract in this case was FTI Consulting:

In accordance with Art. 57 (b) FinRegs a report is provided on the award of 2 direct placements to FTI Consulting for EPO's positioning campaign and support for Directorate External Communication.


We are going to write a lot more about it in the future. Please note that this was submitted by "President of the European Patent Office" (that's Battistelli). It is an "award of urgently required direct placements," which doesn't sound so benign at all.

"In order to address the media presence of the EPO, a targeted positioning campaign has been launched," says the document. When people in this field say "targeted positioning campaign" it implies something against the spirit of journalism.

"Proposals from 3 PR agencies were submitted," says the document, "evaluated and decision taken."

It is "new positioning campaign". There's that word again: positioning.

"Foreseen time-frame is 1 year."

Almost a million dollars in just one year? Wow. "Main Project with a duration of 1 year," the bottom part states.

Why do all this? The document says "reputational risk issue and crisis communication." In simple terms? Reputation laundering.

Here is the full document as text:

CA/F 19/15 Orig.: en Munich, 24.09.2015

SUBJECT: Report on award decisions owing to urgency pursuant to Article 57 b) of the FinRegs and Article 2.4.1 (2) of the Tender Guidelines

SUBMITTED BY: President of the European Patent Office

ADDRESSEES: Budget and Finance Committee (for information)




SUMMARY

In accordance with Art. 57 (b) FinRegs a report is provided on the award of 2 direct placements to FTI Consulting for EPO's positioning campaign and support for Directorate External Communication




CA/F 19/15 e LT 1659/15 - 152440001




I. STRATEGIC/OPERATIONAL

1. Operational.

II. RECOMMENDATION

2. To take note.

III. MAJORITY NEEDED

3. n/a

IV. CONTEXT

4. Under Article 57(b) of the FinRegs, a report is to be provided on the award of urgently required direct placements where it is not possible to await the outcome of the forms of invitation to tender and the award decision exceeds EUR 250K.

V. ARGUMENTS

5. In order to address the media presence of the EPO, a targeted positioning campaign has been launched.

6. Proposals from 3 PR agencies were submitted, evaluated and decision taken.

7. To maximise the effectiveness of communications, the new positioning campaign had to be prepared and implemented without delay.

8. Foreseen time-frame is 1 year.

9. To have one single strategy towards the media, the support of Directorate for External Communication must be provided by the same PR agency.

10. Support is required in the analysis for the current communication work, achievements and aspirations after 5 years of reforms and to pilot a project on reputational risk issue and crisis communication.

11. This need also to be implemented with the same time line as for the main project.

CA/F 19/15 e LT 1659/15 - 152440001 1/2




VI. ALTERNATIVES

12. n/a

VII. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS

13. Main Project with a duration of 1 year with a campaign in Germany and the Netherlands : EUR 600K

14. Additional Project with support for Dir. External communication: EUR 280K

VIII. LEGAL BASIS

15. n/a

IX. DOCUMENTS CITED

16. n/a

X. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION

17. n/a

CA/F 19/15 e LT 1659/15 - 152440001 2/2



Journalists should probably be made aware of the EPO's plot to distort the media. That's some very high-budget campaign.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
 
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Was Right About "Sideloading" in 1996
We now have computers that treat booting GNU/Linux like an act of "Sideloading"
Panama: Windows Down From 97% "Market Share" to Less Than 30%
In 2009, Windows was measured at 97.24% (compared to 62.32% right now or less than 30% if one also counts Android)
The UEFI 9/11 - Part I - Introduction to Impending Catastrophe (Microsoft Preventing People From Booting Non-Windows Systems)
eight-part series
Why Techrights is Slow Today (Bot Floods)
We don't know if those bots are connected to LLMs (we have not checked), but that is a possibility
Slopwatch: DDoS Slop, LinuxBSDos.com Spam, and Slopfarms in Google News, Including webpronews.com
Among the news we also found fakes, albeit not so much today
Links 26/08/2025: "Ballooning Debt" in France and "Transnational Repression in the UK"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/08/2025: Listening to Alcest and Google Doing Evil (Users Installing Software is "Sideloading" and Prohibited)
Links for the day
Links 26/08/2025: DNS Tampering and TikTok Layoffs
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows "Market Share" Overestimated
Microsoft's income sources are shrinking
We Shall See...
My wife and I are hardly the first victims of Brett Wilson LLP
This New Determination on a Case Echoes the Modus Operandi of Microsoft's Serial Strangler vs Techrights (Its Online Decision/Judgment Says Truth and Public Interest Defend the Publisher)
Noel Anthony Clarke hopefully has enough money left to pay his victims, which include the publishers
Going Offline
There was life before the Net
The Register MS Has Apparently Shut Down Its Office
It is basically a fake address on the face of it
There Are Also Expectations of IBM Layoffs Very Soon With "Narrative Control."
Some of them mention Red Hat and how IBM failed to achieve anything substantial with that acquisition
After at Least Two Rounds of Mass Layoffs in August Microsoft Said to Have "September Layoff Confirmed - Performance Based"
Those "M5 level meetings" sound plausible
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 25, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 25, 2025