Bonum Certa Men Certa

In the Mainstream Media, the European Patent Office is Already Becoming Another FIFA, Lies Aplenty as Last Remaining 'Damage Control' Strategy

The only thing left for the EPO to do is lie to the media as a media strategy...

EPO FIFA Sepp Blatterstelli



Summary: Parallels or similarities between the FIFA scandal and the EPO scandal are becoming ever more evident as the EPO resorts to fictitious versions of reality, where all the problems basically boil down to some violent vocal minority and management is merely the victim of a smear campaign

THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING media cannot ignore this for much longer (we're not speaking about patents-centric niche sites). The EPO scandals are mainstream news in central Europe and it's not looking good for the management of the EPO, which is consistently being blamed.



“Ms. Hardon’s lawyer, who also represents the unnamed Irish judge, denies the accusations against both, calling them “invented allegations.””
      --Handelsblatt
There are at least 4 articles about it in German (mentioned yesterday), plus several more today in the German media (some behind paywalls) and Dutch media [1, 2] (same here and here). Surely there is a lot more, but we're not able to detect it (instead we see press releases about the EPO in English).

One German newspaper, Handelsblatt, has just published this article in English. "Daggers Drawn at European Patent Office" is a somewhat odd title (article's headline), implying a two-sided battle. Only the EPO's PR team portrays staff as violent and it's a fictitious narrative. The article says that “In some cases people were even threatened with violence.” Battistelli et al uses defamatory innuendo against Hardon, as if she's some violent, aggressive person. They try to ruin her good reputation while at the same time frame themselves as the victims (a rather Orwellian reversal, that's for sure).

"Hardon’s lawyer," according to the article below, "also represents the unnamed Irish judge" and "denies the accusations against both, calling them “invented allegations.”"

"Battistelli et al uses defamatory innuendo against Hardon, as if she's some violent, aggressive person."Battistelli lives in his own fantasy world where whistleblowers and representatives/judges are basically just Nazis and criminals. For those who are baffled by what Battistelli keeps telling the media about EPO, consider the possibility that an alternate reality was chosen and he is now self-deluding, surrounded by an echo chamber that only ever tells him what he wishes to hear, irrespective of the harsh reality. This Napoleonic President of the EPO won't go away without a fight and definitely not without lying to the media (we wrote about this last night). To quote the publicly-accessible text from Handelsblatt:

The European Patent Office is wracked with conflicts, as its tough-minded French chief executive looks to put down union unrest and bizarre plots.

[...]

The European Patent Office, also known as the EPO, is witnessing a power struggle between its tough-minded French president, Benoît Battistelli, and the employee organization SUEPO. The battle of wills is escalating in the run-up to Wednesday’s crisis session of the organization’s administrative council.

In an interview with Handelsblatt, Mr. Battistelli accused a senior SUEPO figure, Elizabeth Hardon, of running a campaign of defamation. “She intimidated elected staff representatives,” he said. “In some cases people were even threatened with violence.”

At the beginning of the year, Ms. Hardon, an EPO patent examiner, was fired at Mr. Battistelli’s insistence. Internal investigations, he said, had revealed severe breaches of EPO staff regulations. As part of the investigations, an Irish patent judge was also suspended from his position after two truncheons were discovered in his office, in addition to Nazi propaganda pamphlets. Ms. Hardon’s lawyer, who also represents the unnamed Irish judge, denies the accusations against both, calling them “invented allegations.”

The administrative council had asked Mr. Battistelli to defuse the conflict at the Patent Office, one of Europe’s most lavishly funded administrative organizations. But the president, who has been restructuring the office to cut runaway costs and speed up patent processing times, has refused to allow the trade union SUEPO to exercise a veto over his decisions. He insisted Ms. Hardon’s dismissal must stand.

SUEPO has responded by calling for a protest demonstration outside Wednesday’s council meeting in Munich.


The rest of this article is behind a paywall. We have some translations on the way, but we need more help with that.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

'Tech' Gimmicks Are for Advertising, Not for Usability
In the case of Microsoft, they latched onto slop
BetaNews Sacked Brian Fagioli and Deleted His Comments, But He Still Tries to Use the "BetaNews" Brand for Self-Affirmation
Fagioli takes the work of other people
[Meme] Hard to Be a Better Person?
Sooner or later they'll realise that for each pound I spend they need to spend about 1,000 times more
New US Editor for The Register is a Microsoft Booster
"Avram Piltch has served as US editor for The Register since July 2025."
Reda Demanded That FSF Removes Its Founder, Now Reda Works Directly for Microsoft
A sellout and a traitor, first working for GAFAM, now Microsoft
PCLinuxOS is Raising Money to Support Development After Fire Incident at the Host
PCLinuxOS has not had announcements lately
Over 3 Months Later Brett Wilson LLP Still Unable to Recruit a Media Lawyer?
"Immediate start", but not found... still unfilled
Microsoft is Trying to "Pull a Nokia" on GNU/Linux as Desktop/Laptop Platform
We all remember that rather well, don't we?
 
Gemini Links 24/07/2025: Forgejo Woes and Smolnet Directory Week
Links for the day
Misinformation is Not Intelligence
It's low-grade plagiarism and it fails to show any signs of intelligence
Links 24/07/2025: Storage Tapes Still Kicking, Windows TCO 'on Steroids' (Microsoft-Induced Catastrophes)
Links for the day
Bobby Borisov (LinuxIac) Has Apparently Begun Experimenting With LLM Slop, So We Cannot Trust LinuxIac Anymore
So did LinuxIac become a slopfarm? Maybe not yet, but it's getting there
Informa TechTarget's ITProToday is Becoming a Slopfarm Generated by Microsoft Chatbots
Busted.
The LLM Con Artists Are Highly Destructive
Who will ever be held accountable for this scam?
Too Bribed by Microsoft to Move to Free Software?
Microsoft lies and Microsoft bribery (in politics)
Microsoft Hiring European Politicians is Another Form of Bribery; There Should be a European Investigation
When Microsoft bribed people in Europe for OOXML (there's no denying this!) a European government delegate said that Microsoft operated like a cult
Speed of the Site Should be Better Now
The "bot attacks" impact the speed of the sister site too
Getting More From AnalogNowhere
Recently we used many images from AnalogNowhere
Microsoft, Microsofters and 'Secure' Boot Shills Already Storming the LWN Report About Expiring Certificate, Shooting the Messenger
LWN has clearly stuck a nerve
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 23, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 23, 2025
Disable "Secure" Boot Today (the Only Better Time to Do So Was Yesterday)
Don't trust anything Red Hat tells you about security
Links 23/07/2025: Windows Killed Company After 150+ Years, US Government Mimics Russia's Attacks on the Media
Links for the day
Freedom Generally Wins at the End, History Shows (But It's Constantly Attacked, Too)
At the moment people realise "Linux" (e.g. Android) isn't enough to guarantee any freedoms
“Inhumane” and “Disgusting” Mass Layoff Execution, According to Microsoft Staff
The workers are looking for other places to work
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Slogan for Its 40th Anniversary
The freedoms are what's most important
LLM Slopfarms gbhackers.com, "Cyber Press" and CyberSecurityNews Are Drowning Google News (and Shame on Google for Feeding and Facilitating Them)
All are run by the same people
Links 23/07/2025: Droplets GUI Patent Monopoly Challenge, Nokia Leverages Illegal Patent Court Against Rivals
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Community in Geminispace and Challenges With Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day