The EPO's 'secret police' is put on steroids

Summary: A letter from the Central Staff Committee (shown in the 2 images above) reveals that EPO managers panic to the point of trying to override the rule of law (and state-mandated courts) in order to establish their own secret police or overzealous prosecution department where the EPO's President is the judge, jury, and executioner, whereas the accused enjoy no rights at all

THE EPO, which established its own 'gestapo' (as staff calls it) [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] in order to behave like a state within a state (managed like a de facto monarchy) is apparently still preparing its happy/happiness propaganda, which will probably be pushed out through aggressive, high-budget (about $80,000 per month) reputation laundering campaign (leaked here last week).

EPO staff is not so happy, to say the least. Many are stressed, depressed, and a relatively high proportion -- even those with families to feed -- commit suicide.

Complaints from staff representatives are not ambiguous. The complaints come not just from SUEPO, but also from the Central Staff Committee, as we showed here last month. FFPE-EPO, which expressed solidarity for SUEPO's representatives, is no exception, despite its reputation as a little too management-friendly (maybe a subject for another day).

Here we have some new material from representatives at the Central Staff Committee. Here it is as text (with our emphasis in yellow) for those who don't want just images:

Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité central du Personnel

02.12.2015 sc11915cp – 0.2.1/0.3.2/4.1

Why does the EPO need an investigator performing forensic activities?

With its vacancy notice published on 16.11.2015 under INT/EXT/5918 http://www.epo.org/about-us/jobs/vacancies/other.html , the EPO is looking for a staff member with some skills and a task profile very unusual for a public service employee in a patent office.

Among others the candidate shall have a master€´s degree in e.g. law, criminology, forensic science, fraud investigation, or related subjects, to carry out investigations into cases of alleged misconduct, in particular by: ..., performing forensic activities, gathering and assessing all relevant evidences (physical and electronic records and other pertinent information).

According to the Oxford Dictionary¹, forensic means “Relating to or denoting the application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime”. A list of modern forensic techniques can be found in Wikipedia², including dactyloscopy, DNA analysis and digital forensic.

Staff as well as external readers of this publication may wonder why the EPO needs, in addition to the currently six staff members in the Investigative Unit, one or two (this is not entirely clear from the job advertisement) permanent, full-time investigators for these specific duties, not to forget the costly intervention for unclear purposes of Control Risks€´ staff.

Basically, investigations of criminal cases are a monopoly of the state following, at least in democratic countries, well defined legal regulations (like the Strafprozessordnung StPO in Germany) under the supervision of the relevant prosecutors and courts. This secures also the rights of the accused. The respective regulations define for example the conditions under which DNA samples (see for example ۤ 81g StPO), finger prints and digital records may be taken and how long respective data may be stored.

What now, if indeed a suspicion of crime, like theft, fraud or murder, occurs at the EPO? According to Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the European Patent Organisation (PPI), Art. 19 (2) the President of the European Patent Office has the duty to wave immunity where he considers that such immunity prevents the normal course of justice and that it is possible to dispense with such immunity without prejudicing the interest of the Organisation. Then official prosecutors can do their job under the respective rule of law.

Establishing, however, its own fully fledged prosecution unit, with relevant skills and equipment within the EPO, located in the direct line of command under the president, allows bypassing any national or European law protecting the rights of the accused individual. Moreover, the monopoly of the respective state to investigate potential cases of crime is set aside and prosecution activities are shifted into the Office with the consequence that national or European law does no longer apply.

Once again, this will deprive EPO staff from the application of legal standards every European citizen enjoys.

Your Central Staff Committee

______ ¹ http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/forensic

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science#20th_century

If often seems like the harder EPO managers try to protect their jobs (amid scandals of their own creation and their own fault), the worse things get. They bully staff representatives, bully critics, bully bloggers, bully the media, bully lawyers, bully politicians, they spend extraordinary amounts of money on 'British Blackwater' and reputation laundering firms from another country (at taxpayers' expense). Where does this end? It's like another Watergate Scandal with escalations and culminations which may result in arrests. Just give it up before more people commit suicide.

The above was independently sent to us from several sources today (everyone, even outside the EPO, seems to have become aware of this very quickly). This latest item from staff representatives is not to be mistaken for SUEPO, and vice versa. This is not even a controversial union.

"Why does the EPO need an investigator performing forensic activities?"

Because the EPO is not a public body anymore; it's a sordid mess run by vicious people whose ends, they believe, justify any means. To them, law is just a nuisance or an obstruction, except when they try to manipulate it to punish or crush perceived opponents. ⬆

“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”

--Robert Frost