Bonum Certa Men Certa

Tightening Media Control: European Patent Office (EPO) Silences Blogs of Critics by Intimidation, Lawsuits

ErdoÄŸan and EPO Original photo: Minister-president Rutte from Nederland



Summary: How the EPO continues to chill the media around Europe and even outside Europe, in addition to legally abusing staff representatives in an effort to scare the media

THE EPO is a lying organisation. But it gets worse. It now adopts ErdoÄŸanian methods. It pretends to respect the freedom of the press when in practice, contrary to such jaw-dropping statements (shamelessly made to the media upon inquiry), it overzealous attacks the freedom of the press like no other institution in Europe.



I used to find important leaks in IP Kat (whose most prominent person has just retired) and sometimes I found interesting pointers in IP Kat comments. Increasingly, however, I find little more than jokes, speculations, and what sometimes looks like EPO AstroTurfing. Since the most recent attacks on free speech and a PR contract with FTI Consulting we're just not seeing the same kind of journalistic atmosphere online. The EPO is now considered "scary", or a dangerous territory to explore and write about.

"The EPO is now considered "scary", or a dangerous territory to explore and write about."The EPO's threats against me clearly had the intended effect. A lot of EPO-hostile sites are now afraid or reluctant to criticise EPO (or do so very gently, almost tip-toeing). Some sites like these have known about the legal threats against me for nearly 2 months (because I informed them). Today one commenter at IP Kat wrote: "The AC [the EPO's potential Nemesis, the Administrative Council] can order the third party to come and resolve the problem."

Well, whenever the EPO uses the term "investigation" it should be read as union busting and the term "productivity" or "efficiency" means lax granting of patents. People or businesses who apply for a patent at EPO should think long term. Given declining patent quality and ever-increasing fees, are they getting their money's worth? The EPO is a lunatic institution whose eventual state of affairs will likely be horrible, unless the employees manage to rescue it from Team Battistelli (before it's too late).

Florian Müller, who has also just found out about being targeted by the EPO (because I showed him), wrote this widely-cited article this morning and stated: "The EPO leadership is just paranoid about bloggers who criticize what's wrong with the way that organization is run. But those EPO folks don't appear to understand that they're only making things worse by the day. They threatened legal action on at least four occasions against TechRights author Dr. Roy Schestowitz, who is still the most prolific writer on the EPO labor dispute. Now they blame a staff representative for my commentary without a factual basis."

People in the media -- including the BBC -- ought to be aware of the EPO's chilling of the media. Almost a million dollar for a 1-year media manipulation campaign sure goes a long way.

“Now they blame a staff representative for my commentary without a factual basis.”
      --Florian Müller
What we deal with here is not an ordinary institution but an out-of-control nut house, run by a cabal of people drunk on power. Recall the threats to take away Christmas vacation (contrary to what EPO publicly states) and (nearly) threats to people who are ill, whose basic rights are stomped on, especially when they fall ill (depression weakens the immune system) and are thus incapable of working. In the future we'll show how the EPO even takes advantage of cancer in the family. People's jaws should drop to the floor; this isn't even close to being compatible with European human rights standards. Even China is probably better.

SUEPO alludes to the Politico article "Labor relations turn toxic in the European Patent Office", which says a lot about suicides and even calls for an investigation into the cause of such an irregular frequency of suicides. "The political journalism organization Politico," SUEPO wrote today, "comments here (article of 08 December 2015) on the labor relations at the European Patent Office, in particular on the spike of suicides and staff unhappiness."

The EPO's management is trying to simply ignore all the bad publicity. The EPO's Web site and Twitter feed say nothing about it (lies by omission). Well, just watch the EPO's Twitter feed this week, it's a never-ending PR campaign. WIPR too falls for the 'green'-themed campaign from the EPO (just a senseless greenwashing campaign).

The EPO's management started an information war. Unless writers are brave enough to challenge these thugs, it's possible that the thugs will prevail, which means that the EPO will collapse (jeopardizing the jobs of all EPO employees, not just the thugs).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We Still Love Gemini Protocol
Gemini Protocol may seem like something "old" (it's actually very new) and something "nobody would use", but many people use it
This is the Man Who's Attacking Linus Torvalds et al in "a Disease" (Social Control Media)
One thing that Richard M. Stallman and Torvalds can agree on is that Social Control Media should be avoided
Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)
Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"?
When It Comes to Social Control Media, Linus Torvalds is Channeling Techrights
GAFAM workers know exactly who to aim at
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
 
Richard Stallman (RMS) Does Not Have Media Companies and Lobbyists on His Side, But His Message Spreads Regardless
The message of RMS is spreading in spite of all the smears
GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time High in Chile
sharp rise for GNU/Linux in Chile
Links 09/02/2025: Hottest January on Record, Panama Blackmailed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/02/2025: "Died as a Mineral" and Game Interface for a Non-Game
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 08, 2025
Links 08/02/2025: UK Back Doors and Religious Fundamentalists in Positions of Higher Power
Links for the day
Today's IBM (Red Hat) Isn't the Company That Fought a Microsoft-Sponsored SCO in Court
IBM is nowadays in a state of rapid disintegration
When You Simply Rebrand Almost Everything as "Hey Hi" ("AI"), "Hey Hi Workloads", "Hey Hi Datacentres" and Whatnot
The "growth" has been a growing lie for years if not decades
Microsoft Windows Falls to 12% in Myanmar
Remember that Microsoft is virtually 0% in mobile
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: "Thought Leaders" and Returns to Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Links 08/02/2025: MElon Coup, Mass Layoffs at Facebook, and PlayStation Network Down
Links for the day
On Wars Against Founders
We need to insist that founders remain
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs