Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Attacks Staff Representatives' Right to Work Just One Week Before Christmas

Summary: Reports from the ground in Berlin, mostly those relating to the suspension of staff representatives from SUEPO, the most popular union whose existence predates even the EPO itself

Last month we showed how the EPO had made sadistic threats to take Christmas away from slower workers. This is clearly inappropriate given the laws in Europe, let alone the stress that examiners are already subjected to. We've come to expect this kind of behaviour from management at the EPO, having already seen what it did a year ago just ahead of Christmas.



"Last month we showed how the EPO had made sadistic threats to take Christmas away from slower workers."Yesterday we learned that "Ms Hardon, Ms. Weaver and Mr. Brumme’s disciplinary hearings took place respectively last Thursday, Yesterday and TODAY" (that's the day before yesterday and yesterday).

As we noted two nights ago, EPO protests had spread to Berlin where there were "provenly over 120 [people who] were counted (at one specific time of the demonstration)," according to one source. Here are some banners used during this demonstration:

EPA



SUEPO reps



Maas



There was also a banner saying "SUEPO", which can be seen in the photo that we published the other night.

One person asked: "Are patent attorneys slowly “waking up and smelling the coffee?”"

This was said in reference to the AIPPI and EPI letters. There are some patent law firms (at least two prominent ones) that wrote critically about the EPO in recent days. Are we seeing the final shift or defection away from the EPO's management? Perhaps a defection to the likes of SUEPO? The number of people joining SUEPO is said to have soared recently, so the EPO's goons are now bullying (with lawyers) those who sign up new members while the goon in chief (with history), Željko Topić, threats staff that 'dares' to join (deterrence tactics). If this isn't union-busting action, what is?

"There are some patent law firms (at least two prominent ones) that wrote critically about the EPO in recent days."The Berlin protest was the fifth EPO protest (Office-wide) in just 4 weeks and "after the demo in Berlin," one person wrote, a "lawyer met high-ranked delegation of the German Ministry of Justice." Communication about these issues appears to be improving, despite character assassination attempts.

"This event was organised," we've learned, "as a follow up of Munich demonstration that took place last Thursday. On the 17.11, 2000 colleagues showed up despite the very short notice (about 2h advance warning). Another demonstration took place on the 4th of December, again in front of the Isar building. According to the police even more people turned up than the week before. On last Thursday’s March, an estimated 1500 people marched over the Hacker Brücke and finished in front of the Bavarian Ministry of Justice.

"As a fifth demonstration on the streets in 4 weeks (three above in Munich and one on the 1.12 in The Hague), in Berlin an estimated 130 staff gathered peacefully in front of the EPO entrance: while these figures may seem modest in absolute terms, this represents by far more than half of the 260 employees present on the day in this small duty station, let alone considering the fact that line managers and several services have explicit Vice-Presidential instructions that it is a “requirement of management not to a end demonstrations”."

"Are we seeing the final shift or defection away from the EPO's management? Perhaps a defection to the likes of SUEPO?"This is also true when it comes to the petition circulated in support of SUEPO representatives.

'In presence of SUEPO Central Lawyer," we've learned, "and protected by two (slightly amused) police officers, the participants held during one hour large banners calling upon the German Ministry of Justice and the German institutions to intervene in the matter and protect EU citizens on German (and EU) Soil.

"If this isn't union-busting action, what is?""At the German Ministry of Justice in Berlin, despite the short 1 week notice," the SUEPO Central Lawyer "was subsequently received by a high ranked delegation of the Ministry of justice.

"During the 30 minutes meeting, the SUEPO Lawyer had ample opportunity to hand out the letter drafted on behalf of SUEPO and expose to the small German team the key issues regarding the breach of fundamental rights, in essence reiterating calls made in the past (like in the public letter dated 20.06.15 by William Bourdon, Prof. Liesbeth Zegveld, Javier Ledesma and Alexander Holtz)."

Later today we want to share with readers some more details that we've got regarding these overt union-busting actions. We hope that more people will be able to see what is really going on inside the EPO. We generally find that there is too little (if any) information about it anywhere on the Web and this kind of information scarcity (induced by threats by the EPO's goons) is intended to prevent justice. Only in transparency and under public scrutiny can true justice be served.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Register Bill
The Register MS - putting the "MS" in your centre of the universe
Analogies for "Memory Safety" in Rust
Don't worry, it's Rust! It can do anything!
 
Microsoft Sites Now Talking About September's Mass Layoffs at Microsoft
It's noteworthy that even Microsoft's MSN now covers the latest revelations about mass layoffs
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: SpellBinding Moving and "The Cloud" Ridiculed
Links for the day
Slopwatch: On "the Apology Industry", Chatbots (Punchbag for Customers), and Fake Articles About "Linux"
"news reporting priorities changed"
Links 06/09/2025: "Covid Incidence on the Rise" and Many Attacks on the Press Worldwide
Links for the day
Nobody Denies That SecureBoot Will Cause Problems After September 11
Not even Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/09/2025: Infinite Scrolling and Posting from Emacs
Links for the day
Links 06/09/2025: GitHub Meltdown Over Slop, "U.S. Jury Says Google Should Pay $425 Million in Privacy Lawsuit"
Links for the day
Despite Its Severe Financial Problems Gnome Foundation Inc Paid Rosanna Yuen Over 100,000 Dollars Last Year
maybe relocation should be considered
The "Left" and the Right"
It poisons everything
Mozilla and Rust Are Not Leftists
they're part of the mass consumerism machine
Disposable to Microsoft
There is an extensive set of people who got used by Microsoft, only to be thrown away a month later or a year later or a decade later
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VII - This Coming Week Many PCs Will Refuse to Boot "Linux" (Because of Microsoft's Expired Certificate)
The real solution is, disable "secure boot" or "SecureBoot" while it's still possible. [...] Just like submarine patents, a lot of this problem was "hibernating" for a while
The Thing Nobody in Red Hat Wants to Talk About Openly
There is a real sentiment or worry among Red Hatters, Europeans and Americans in particulars (because of higher salary expectations)
Slopwatch: Small Parade of Fake News About "Linux" and Scams Borrowing the Name (or Word) "Linux"
In practice, LLMs are a risk
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, September 05, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, September 05, 2025
Genini Links 05/09/2025: Community, ROOPHLOCH, and PITkit
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Vaccine Sceptics Poison the Well, Two Exploited Vulnerabilities Patched in Android
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/09/2025: Logitech Lift and DIY Gemini Servers
Links for the day
Links 05/09/2025: Sainsbury's Caught Spying on In-Store Shoppers and Microsoft "OpenAI is Using Legal Threats to Harass its Critics"
Links for the day
BASIC Predates Microsoft by Over a Decade, Microsoft-Controlled Sites Like The Register MS Don't Want You to Know This
The state of the media is really bad when it relies a lot on oligarchs' money and is appointing editors who are working for oligarchs
Brian Kernighan, "Only Third to Dennis Richie and Ken Thompson" (UNIX), Agreed With Someone Who Said Rust Was Just Hype, Should Not Replace C
17 hours ago
Reminder: Microsoft's "Secure Boot" Certificate for "Linux" Will be Expired in One Week
Many PCs won't manage to 'rotate' to another certificate
"Many of the Red Hat Employees Are Still Looking for Work"
Shame on IBM's CEO
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 04, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 04, 2025
Microsoft Started With Code Literally From The Trash, Nothing Has Improved Since
The reality is, there are systems and code that are reliable. But they're not Microsoft's.
Hypothesis That New McKinsey/Microsoft Executive Inside Red Hat Will Outsource Research and Development Operations to India (Like They Do in IBM)
IBM is floundering
Slopwatch: Scams, Fake Articles About "Linux", Plagiarism, and Worse
Perhaps some time soon the LLMs or the "Big LLMs" will run out of money (to borrow) and go offline, leaving those slopfarms in a tough place
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Means of Production and Rusting Out
Links for the day
Links 04/09/2025: Science, Hardware, and Eyes on China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Digital Minimalism and Social Control Media
Links for the day
IBM's GNU/Linux Divestment, Based on Hard But Anecdotal Evidence (IBM Fails to Recognise How Much Money It Made and Can Still Make From "Linux")
Love us or hate us, a lot of what we've been saying about Red Hat under IBM turns out to be rather accurate
Links 04/09/2025: Massive Microsoft Staff Cuts (Barely Reported), "Strange Conspiracy Theory Is Reportedly Spreading Inside OpenAI"
Links for the day
Activists Can Win, But Keep an Eye on the Ball and on the Trophy
GitHub is dying, it was a loss-making trap, not free hosting
Gemini Links 04/09/2025: Katrina Remembered, Distracted Driving, and Virtual Economics
Links for the day
At This Point It's No Longer Matthew Garrett But People Who Fund Matthew Garrett (or Companies That Fund His SLAPPs Against My Wife and I)
The only thing worse than misogynists are misogynists who fail to respect other people's right to go on holiday
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 03, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 03, 2025
The UEFI 9/11 - Part VI - This Serious Harm Was Planned for Over a Decade, Not an Accident or Merely Some Misfortune
The term "Serious Harm" is legally meaningful here
GNOME Unfit for Diversity and Inclusion
GNOME's leadership is using "bad words"
Brodie Robertson Addressing the Recently-Discovered Comments
Most people probably knew nothing about this until he wrote a response
Red Hat QA Team "Had Shrunk by Half Over the Past Year." (After IBM Divestment)
If Red Hat's workforce is being moved to the East, then RHEL can become a national security problem
Slopwatch: "Open Source" and "Linux" News Faked, Made by Bots and Entered Into Google News
Spam combined with slop about "Linux" has entered Google News