Summary: Dr. Christoph Ernst is claimed to be the successor (interim or permanent) of the notorious Battistelli, but these claims have little or no evidence to support them

THE EPO's President should get sacked this week, but he attacks anyone who gets close to even suggesting so. For quite some time now people have hypothesised that Christoph Ernst would replace Battistelli and Tilman Müller-Stoy's letter to Ernst a few days ago brought these hypotheses back to life.

Some rumours today (coinciding with the meeting of the Administrative Council and the protest in Munich) suggest that Battistelli effectively got fired. We heard those rumours and there is even a comment about it. As it is just a rumour for now we have said nothing about it and fast-checked instead. "Latest rumour from the EPO," as one person put it, is that in order "to avoid any further harm to the institution the CA envisages to discharge BB [Battistelli] of his duties in respect of the boards, with immediate effect. M. Ernst the German representative will act ad interim. Too smart to be true?"

"Some rumours today (coinciding with the meeting of the Administrative Council and the protest in Munich) suggest that Battistelli effectively got fired."It would be smart, yes, but it sounds unlikely to be true and all the responses to this comment are jokes, e.g. one about Battistelli being interim replacement for Ernst and this one which says: "An ad libitum [Latin for "at one's pleasure"] President replaced by an ad interim President?"

Another said "You mean: A partial dismissal? (Is that like a partial pregnancy?) A president for the EPO, and a separate president for the BoA? The separation achieved by a mere vote of the AC?"

That can never happen of course. Here is a hypothetical humorous scenario:

Too smart to be true? Really?

[Enter two delegates of the AC]

[First delegate] Let's stop the kid from entering the glass department - he can still play wrecking ball in the other departments ...

[Second delegate] You are right, this way we don't have to deal with his temper tantrums ...

[Exit delegates]

Whatever happened today at the meeting will probably become public knowledge pretty soon. The rumour about Battistelli getting (in effect) fired may be baseless, based on private sources and also this comment which not too long ago said: "According to discreet contacts, the rumour is now that the above rumour on stripping BB of his powers over the BoA is nothing but a canard."

"Well, with one day remaining for the meetings/sessions there is still time to contact the national delegates (they can read E-mail whilst away) and tell them why dismissal of Battistelli is crucial for saving the entire Organisation."Rather than celebrate something that has not happened (at least not yet) let us look at new reports like this one ("Russian IP Industry At Center Of Massive Scandal" from IP Watch). This sounds eerily similar to things we heard about DZIV and SIPO under leadership of the EPO Vice-President who now faces many criminal charges in Croatia. The article is behind a paywall, so it's hard to say what exactly the similarities may be...

As another scandal du jour, it seems apparent that some commenters at IP Kat read Techrights and one of them made a joke about the Dutch press report, which we translated before noon. "What a nice image of the European Patent Office," said the commenter, "the Bailiff, a public official of the Netherlands, escorted off the premises of the Office by five guards without even being told where the mailbox is...

"But hey! if it is all fine with the Dutch delegation in the AC, why should everybody else complain, right?"

Well, with one day remaining for the meetings/sessions there is still time to contact the national delegates (they can read E-mail whilst away) and tell them why dismissal of Battistelli is crucial for saving the entire Organisation. Not only the survival of the Office is at stake and delegates certainly don't want to be left out of their job. Some of them would have to -- gasp -- start paying dentists. ⬆