A mega-corporations' patent regime pretends to be for the 'small guy/gal'

Summary: Benoît Battistelli keeps parading in small nations that have Administrative Council (AC) delegates and exploiting these for cheap PR, not just for support in AC meetings

THE EPO is in disarray as talented workers are leaving (brain drain) and based on what we have been hearing (privately) demand for the services too is declining. More businesses now realise that the quality of examination at the EPO is subpar, ignoring the EPO's own mouthpieces.

How can Battistelli still keep his job? People are rather shocked by his ability to survive amid a crisis of his own creation.

"It would help those of us watching aghast at developments to understand whether the representatives to the AC are spineless, or have simply been outmanoeuvred," one person noted today, having said that "it would still be helpful if someone with personal experience of AC meetings could comment upon the other question that I posed (regarding the setting of the agenda for AC meetings)."

"Under Battistelli and his 'baby', the UPC, SMEs are being marginalised further."Well, remember what the AC (Administrative Council) is and how it functions. Small countries count as much as large ones and here is why this matters; Battistelli can just lobby or distribute money in small countries in order to 'buy' their votes, or repel delegates who are not perfectly loyal to him. Based on today's nonsense ("news") from the EPO (warning: epo.org link), Battistelli is lobbying small countries again, this time Latvia and Malta. To quote the nonsense: "The EPO signed two agreements at the end of June with the national patent offices of Latvia and Malta to improve conditions for small businesses from these countries seeking to protect their inventions through patents."

There are even photo ops in there, the hallmark of Battistelli. It's all about him. He must be viewing himself as some kind of majestic ruler, attracting attention from some of the world's most notorious regimes and never from respected politicians in large European nations. They know better than to associate themselves with this psychopath.

To tackle the nonsense from the EPO very briefly, the EPO is definitely not a friend of SMEs but an enemy of SMEs. Under Battistelli and his 'baby', the UPC, SMEs are being marginalised further [1, 2, 3]. As one person put it today (to me and to the EPO [1, 2): "Disallowed access to public services in EU is loss of personal & software freedom when Govt panders to big $$ companies [...] As modern computing increasingly connected to our lives, patent trolls/bullies are the new barbaric oppressors of our humanity" (and UPC helps them even further).

Perhaps we should do a long post about the UPC some time soon. Today was a politically nauseating day in the UK and it looks like Brexit negotiations will leave UPC negotiations in the dust. Poor Lucy won't have any more reasons to do photo ops with Benoît. ⬆