Bonum Certa Men Certa

Hot Summer: EPO Management on Trial This Week

Supreme Court will keep Battistelli at bay

Chair at beach



Summary: The cases against EPO management (collective, not just Benoît Battistelli) and against Željko Topić (as an individual) are guaranteed to make it a hot sweaty summer at the higher floors of EPO buildings

AFTER the latest big meeting at the end of June the EPO may seem to have fallen off the headlines. It’s definitely busy behind the scenes (trial this week, so preparations are made), but the media is mostly quiet, with few exceptions. We still require translations from German [1, 2] and we have some articles in the making with exclusive information in them.



Remember that EPO management will be on trial this week (for its extraordinary abuses, for which it was found guilty previously). The EPO's Vice-President, or Battistelli's bulldog, is personally (not collectively) in trouble as a verdict is imminent (decision should be made soon) in Croatia. If these people wonder why Brits voted in favour of leaving the EU, well... this is why. It's mischief and criminality.

"If these people wonder why Brits voted in favour of leaving the EU, well... this is why. It's mischief and criminality."The EPO management isn't quite so accustomed to fair trials and it tends to ignore these, not show up, not obey rulings etc. That's just how bad things have become. At the "European Patent Office," said or implied one new comment, "secret trials on bogus charges [are brought] against anyone who disagrees with the President" and here is the timely analogy: "On July 12, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) in the Hague is expected to deliver its final award on the arbitration case between the Republic of the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China. Mmh ... a country, run by a cabal of people forming a Central Committee, that considers itself above the law and has pledged to ignore any decision a Tribunal in the Hague may take ... does that remind you of anyone else?"

Battistelli's regime is somewhat like China's or North Korea's; state propaganda is the standard, lying to the citizens is routine, and Team Battistelli refuses to obey orders from The Hague. Battistelli goes further than China by also undermining internal 'courts' inside the EPO. As another comment put it: "And the result went against the cabal - who immediately declared the decision and the court wrong and insisted that they would do whatever they had to do to protect their interests while ignoring the decision?"

“...a country, run by a cabal of people forming a Central Committee, that considers itself above the law and has pledged to ignore any decision a Tribunal in the Hague may take...”
      --Anonymous
That's just like Battistelli's minion, Willy Minnoye (EPO), who proudly said that he would ignore the highest court in the Netherlands. These trials serve to expose the vanity or arrogance of horrible regimes. This, in turn, can lead to alienation, boycotts, etc. Battistelli's lobbying event was promoted today by EPO in Twitter, but not the trials. They would rather totally hide all this from stakeholders and pretend that everything is going very well, based on EPO propagandists.

Meanwhile we see that SUEPO, which leads the action against EPO lawlessness, has translated into English this recent article from the Dutch media:

Trade union wants Battistelli’s immunity removed



EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE trade union SUEPO has issued a summons against the patent office. The union is calling on the member states to take action against Battistelli.

Eppo König

29 June 2016

The immunity of President Benoît Battistelli of the European Patent Office must be lifted. This call was made by trade union SUEPO on Tuesday to the 38 member states of the office, through lawyer Liesbeth Zegveld.

The call was prompted by further escalation of the industrial dispute between the union and Frenchman Battistelli. The union, which represents half the 7000 employees, has now brought the patent office to court because of sanctions against trade union officials.

The office grants European patents and has branches in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium. As an international organisation, the patent office says it is not bound by national labour laws and enjoys immunity. The Court of Justice in The Hague did not agree, but Battistelli ignored the ruling. The case has now been brought before the Supreme Court.

The management crisis will be central when the Administrative Council, the highest body with representatives from the 38 member countries, meets in Munich on Wednesday and Thursday. The patent office does not wish to speculate on the agenda of the management board, says a spokesman.

In March, the council instructed Battistelli to normalise the relationship with the council. Instead of this, the secretary of SUEPO, Laurent Prunier, was recently suspended for alleged misconduct. There are ‘disciplinary investigations’ into seven union leaders, around a third of the total, says lawyer Zegveld. The procedures could result in dismissal or reduction of the salary or pension.

The union brought a preliminary injunction at the Court of Justice in The Hague, for an independent ruling on the disciplinary investigations. The patent office allowed the officer delivering the summons to leave the site with five guards. They also would not tell him where the post box was. A number of important member states, such as Germany, France and Switzerland are very critical of Battistelli. He recently increased the irritation by applying personal pressure in dismissal proceedings against an Irish patent judge. Battistelli demanded in a letter that the judge should not be given a public hearing by a board of appeal. The commission stated that its independence was being brought into question and did not accept the dismissal.

The office does not comment on individual cases, according to the spokesperson.


In the coming days or weeks we might know not just the outcome of this trial but also the trial/s against the EPO Vice-President, whose abuses are so unspeakable that one gets sued for the offense (of merely speaking about them).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
 
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
Links for the day
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025