Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Press Spokesperson and Director External Communications Busy Creating Distractions From EPO Controversies

Distraction by media Reference: Distraction by media



Summary: Distractions from Battistelli's very serious abuses and his portrayal (in paid media and press releases) as some kind of science celebrity come only a short time before he can (and should) be sacked by the Administrative Council

THIS weekend we shall focus on software patents and patent trolls, but the EPO simply cannot be overlooked. Below are various new observations about the EPO's media strategy and how it helps distract from real EPO news.



It seems like the EPO's PR team is spending a lot of money on press releases because apparently spending millions to seed puff pieces in the media is not enough.

Mittermaier et al are mentioned in the latest press releases [1, 2] as follows:

Contact the European Patent Office in Munich, Germany Jana Mittermaier Director External Communications

Rainer Osterwalder Press Spokesperson

European Patent Office Tel. +49-(0)89-2399-1820 Mobile: +49-163-8399527 rosterwalder@epo.org press@epo.org


Some of the puff pieces have spread as far as India and no research/fact-checking is required. Watch the disclaimer in this 'article' from Automotive World. It says: "Automotive World is not responsible for the content of this news release."

How much lower can the EPO management stoop in an effort to drown out the signal (i.e. the real news)? Catarina Holtz, whom we mentioned here before, lashes out at Battistelli's regime today. Earlier on she wrote: "Has nobody read the ECHR? What is the problem? At an international organisation no employee lives in a complete national legal system, with the protection offered by it. Many employees of the EPO have tried to complain before the ECTHR about violated rights. They were all dismissed as inadmissible. Why? Because the States which create an international organisation simultaneously transfer their governmental powers to it. So the victim employee has encountered a catch 22.If he tries to sue a national state, it is immune because of the transfer, if he tries to sue the EPO it is immune because it is not a contracting state of the ECHR. President Battistelli was right when he said that he was totally free and did not have to listen to anybody.

"Battistelli ought to be sacked, but he spent millions of the EPO's budget interjecting himself into this month’s media as though he’s some kind of science champion or the next Nobel.""This is a disgrace."

An anonymous comment then wrote: "Let us not forget the essential here. The question is not whether 2 years [sanctions on post-EPO employment] is reasonable or not. The question is that Battistelli was explicitly instructed to negotiate and he is doing exactly the opposite of what the council asked. How can that be? Where will this systematic power grab lead the Office?"

Battistelli ought to be sacked, but he spent millions of the EPO's budget interjecting himself into this month's media as though he's some kind of science champion or the next Nobel.

In the coming week we shall do our best to focus on real EPO news, not the nonsense from Battistelli and the liars whom he surrounds himself with. We will also do our best to ignore an element of trolling and troll-/bottom-feeding, which does a disservice to the IP Kat discussion as a whole and wastes many people's time. Will commenters please stop feeding “PB” for example? She or he is clearly there to interfere/undermine constructive discussion and portray EPO staff representatives as a bunch of whiners. One has to wonder if that's a genuinely concerned reader or just a reputation laundering Plan B (after trying and failing to block IP Kat as a whole).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete