Bonum Certa Men Certa

Haar Mentioned as Likely Site of Appeal Boards as Their Eradication or Marginalisation Envisioned by UPC Proponent Benoît Battistelli

Wouldn't that be metaphorical given Battistelli's plan (all along) for the boards and mistreatment of ill staff?

Haar hospital
Reference: The Killing of Psychiatric Patients in Nazi-Germany between 1939 – 1945 [PDF]



Summary: Not only the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) is under severe attack and possibly in mortal danger; the increasingly understaffed Boards of Appeal too are coming under attack and may (according to rumours) be sent to Haar, a good distance away from Munich and the airport (half an hour drive), not to mention lack of facilities for visitors from overseas

SUEPO (the only dominant EPO trade/staff union) leaders must be busy with their legal cases against EPO management (one to start/resume upon appeal later this year in the Supreme Court at The Hague, the other one having just started exactly a week ago), so it is not saying much about the monumental injustices at the EPO, at least not publicly. Having said that, anonymous voices continue to appear at IP Kat's comments, in spite of lack of coverage there about the EPO's situation (nothing for weeks now).



A few comments there are floating new rumours about the fate of the appeal boards after they got punished for disloyalty (to Battistelli, not to the Office or the Organisation). Much of this began with a discussion about the UPC, which all along threatened to make the appeal boards obsolete, in due time. The UPC was first brought up in light of the decline/demise of justice at patent courts, as we noted a couple of hours ago (tackling patent examination justice). To quote the whole comment:



What good will it be to them to have good patents if their competitors can shut them down with vague and broad patents at the UPC?

A very important fact has been forgotten in Merpel's article: the president of the council did not distanciate himself from the interference from Battistelli. Look at the text of the decision. Basically, what this means is that both the council and Battistelli view the enlarged board of appeal as subordinate to them and not as independent. The council did not object in their latest session.

In plain words: the enlarged board of appeal was expected to simply rubber-stamp a decision already taken. Even if the investigation was fraught with problems as some of the earliest comments in this thread noted.

These are the standards of justice of Battistelli and, we now understand, from the council. That is basically what the decision says.

Now, the all new UPC is created behind closed doors by the very same persons. How high do you expect the judicial standards of the new court to be?

Bonus question: how do you expect your clients to protect themselves against future decisions of the UPC?


There is a direct response to the above concerns about the UPC. "The danger comes when a court (UPC or any other) starts with a presumption of validity, just because it's a European patent," the following comment notes, reminding us of what happens in the USPTO and US courts, especially the ones in Texas:



Not sure I follow the logic here. I'm not saying that the national route produces stronger patents. I'm saying that, whereas the EPO previously provided a useful due diligence service (search and examination), this has now been diluted to the point where the national offices offer a competitive and lower-risk alternative.

Crap patents are fine, just as long as everyone recognises that they're crap. The danger comes when a court (UPC or any other) starts with a presumption of validity, just because it's a European patent.


An anonymous response to this said:

Crap patents are not fine, even the USPTO is getting convinced. And if the UPC independence is of the same kind as the enlarged board of appeal indepence, that is not fine either.

The article above describes a very serious problem. In most countries, interfering with the independence of justice would trigger a constitutional crisis.


In response to that, once again, the Turkey analogies came up:

The article above describes a very serious problem. In most countries, interfering with the independence of justice would trigger a constitutional crisis.

Apart from Turkey where a constitutional crisis triggers an interference with the independence of justice ... :-)


"The Boards of Appeal are now paying a very high price for asserting their independence," noted the following commenter, correctly insinuating that this 'exile' (not as far as Vienna as feared last year) is a sort of punishment:

The Boards of Appeal are now paying a very high price for asserting their independence. Following the approval by the Administrative Council of the reform proposed by Mr Battistelli, they will firstly be exiled to a corner of the Munich area, viz. Haar, which is very well known for its psychiatric hospital, possibly a humorous touch introduced by the president.

Secondly, renewal of the members' appointment every five years, which used to be the default (in fact, it has never happened that a member was not re-appointed) is now subject to, among other, a performance evaluation. Coupled with another element of the proposal, i.e. to increase the cost coverage for appeals from 6,3% to 20-25%, firstly by increasing the members' productivity, there will now be a high pressure on members to focus on production if they don't want to lose their job. And if they lose their job, taking up another job will now only be possible after approval by the Administrative Council.

Finally, Board of Appeal members will be excluded from "step advancements", which are open to all other staff at the EPO, i.e. the members' salaries will be frozen.

It was already known that if Mr Battistelli doesn't like you, he will hit hard. He has proven this again with the reform package for the Boards of Appeal.



Here is more about the Haar rumour:



Do you have good reason for believing that the BoA will be moved to Haar?

EPO – CA-43-16 Rev. 1: "As a main precondition, criteria like good traffic links and appropriate accommodation standards were taken into account".

Although I do not know much about it, I doubt that Haar would satisfy this main precondition. For a start, there appear to be very limited hotel and restaurant facilities in the immediate vicinity of the S-Bahn stop, which is itself a significantly longer journey (by S-Bahn) to / from the airport.

Also, is there not going to be any consultation with users about this? If the decision is Haar, then I can envisage the users getting hopping mad about this - especially as they would be paying significantly more in appeal fees for the "privilege" of having an additional journey out of Munich centre to stay in hotels that may be unappealing to some. And all to address what the users have consistently argued was a non-issue, whilst no real progress (in fact, quite the opposite) has been made in addressing the substantive issues relating to the independence of the BoAs.

I know that a proposal for a new BoA location has to be put to the Budget and Finance Committee, but am unsure if the AC needs to take a formal decision upon that proposal. If so, then it looks like users will need to engage in intensive lobbying of AC representatives if the proposal really is for somewhere outside of Munich centre.


And responding to the above one person wrote:



Like someone wrote above, GET REAL.

What consultations were there in the first place regarding the so-called "reform" of the BoA? What was the public's input in that hastily load of garbage pompously called a "plan"?

Were the outcries of the public, judges, etc. heeded when a BoA member was given the virtual sack for what was apparently a crime of lèse-majesté?


The latest comment was posted this morning and said:

If the rumours are true, it looks EPO will be gaining an office that is outside of Munich city centre and that (compared to the Isar building) is more difficult for visitors to Munich to reach and is by far less well supplied with hotel accommodation, restaurants and other facilities that such visitors will need.

If the EPO management were being truly practical about this, then they would decide that such an office really ought to be occupied by the department(s) of the EPO that receive the fewest visitors. Given that pretty much everything that the Boards of Appeal do involves summoning visitors to Munich, I am certain that it makes no sense whatsoever to move them to Haar.

With this in mind, if the EPO president really is determined to physically separate the two current residents of the Isar building, then logic dictates that it really ought to be the other resident (that is, the president himself) who moves to Haar. Anyone up for lobbying the representatives to the AC to vote for this alternative?


Well, "lobbying the representatives to the AC," as the above put it, might be an exercise in futility given their demonstration of (almost) blind loyalty to Battistelli in the last AC meeting. One person earlier on wrote:

The Enlarged Board of appeal did not rubber-stamped the decision that the president and the council asked them. Probably for this reason they are going to be moved, although several suitable buildings are available in Munich, to Haar, a village outside Munich mostly known for its lunatic asylum. Next time they will think twice before taking a decision that does not please BB or the council. So much for the judicial independence.


There is no judicial independence and there is no justice at the EPO anymore. To make matters worse, as one commenter put it:



It seems that some applicants have their offices in the same building complex.

The board members will improve their perceived independence by discussing the inventions directly with the inventors at lunch.


Yes, exactly. What a horrible move that would be. Instead of sending the boards to Haar maybe it's time to send Battistelli to Haar. As one of the above comments noted, Haar "is very well known for its psychiatric hospital," which sounds like something Battistelli could use. They can give him some toys to break rather than let him break people (and lives or even families as per the recent survey) at the EPO.

Recent Techrights' Posts

IBM Culling Workers or Pushing Them Out (So That It's Not Framed as Layoffs), Red Hat Mentioned Repeatedly Only Hours Ago
We all know what "reorg" means in the C-suite
Free Software Foundation Subpoenaed by Serial GPL Infringers
These attacks on software freedom are subsidised by serial GPL infringers
Publicly Posting in Social Control Media About Oneself Makes It Public Information
sheer hypocrisy on privacy is evident in the Debian mailing lists
 
Embrace, Extend, Replace the Original (Or Just Hijack the Word 'Sudo')
First comment? A Microsoft employee
Gemini Links 02/05/2024: Firewall Rules Etiquette and Self Host All The Things
Links for the day
Red Hat/IBM Crybullies, GNOME Foundation Bankruptcy, and Microsoft Moles (Operatives) Inside Debian
reminder of the dangers of Microsoft moles inside Debian
PsyOps 007: Paul Tagliamonte wanted Debian Press Team to have license to kill
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
IBM Raleigh Layoffs (Home of Red Hat)
The former CEO left the company exactly a month ago
Paul R. Tagliamonte, the Pentagon and backstabbing Jacob Appelbaum, part B
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 01/05/2024: Surveillance and Hadopi, Russia Clones Wikipedia
Links for the day
Links 01/05/2024: FCC Takes on Illegal Data Sharing, Google Layoffs Expand
Links for the day
Links 01/05/2024: Calendaring, Spring Idleness, and Ads
Links for the day
Paul Tagliamonte & Debian: White House, Pentagon, USDS and anti-RMS mob ringleader
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Jacob Appelbaum character assassination was pushed from the White House
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Why We Revisit the Jacob Appelbaum Story (Demonised and Punished Behind the Scenes by Pentagon Contractor Inside Debian)
If people who got raped are reporting to Twitter instead of reporting to cops, then there's something deeply flawed
Red Hat's Official Web Site is Promoting Microsoft
we're seeing similar things at Canonical's Ubuntu.com
Enrico Zini & Debian: falsified harassment claims
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
European Parliament Elections 2024: Daniel Pocock Running as an Independent Candidate
I became aware that Daniel Pocock had decided to enter politics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 30, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 30, 2024
[Meme] Sometimes Torvalds and RMS Agree on Things
hype around chatbots
[Video] Linus Torvalds on 'Hilarious' AI Hype: "I Hate the Hype" and "I Don't Want to be Part of the Hype", "You Need to Be a Bit Cynical About This Whole Hype Cycle"
Linus Torvalds on LLMs
Colin Watson, Steve McIntyre & Debian, Ubuntu cover-up mission after Frans Pop suicide
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 30/04/2024: Wireless Carriers Selling Customer Location Data, Facebook Posts Causing Trouble
Links for the day
Frans Pop suicide and Ubuntu grievances
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Links 30/04/2024: More Google Layoffs (Wide-Ranging)
Links for the day
Fresh Rumours of Impending Mass Layoffs at IBM Red Hat
"IBM filed a W.A.R.N with the state of North Carolina. That only means one thing."
Workers' Right to Disconnect Won't Matter If Such a Right Isn't Properly Enforced
I was always "on-call" and my main role or function was being "on-call" in case of incidents
Mark Shuttleworth's (MS's) Canonical is Promoting Microsoft This Week (Surveillance Slanted as 'Confidential')
Who runs Canonical these days? Why does Canonical help sell Windows?
A Discussion About Suicides in Science and Technology (Including Debian and the European Patent Office)
In Debian, there is a long history of deaths, suicides, and mysterious disappearances
Federal News Network is Corrupt, It Runs Propaganda Pieces for Microsoft
Federal News Network used to be OK some years ago
What Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical Can to Remedy the Damage Done to Frans Pop's Family
Mr. Shuttleworth and Canonical as a company can at the very least apologise for putting undue pressure
Amnesty International & Debian Day suicides comparison
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
[Meme] A Way to Get No Real Work Done
Walter White looking at phone: Your changes could not be saved to device
Modern Measures of 'Productivity' Boil Down to Time Wasting and Misguided Measurements/Yardsticks
People are forgetting the value of nature and other human beings
Countries That Beat the United States at RSF's World Press Freedom Index (After US Plunged Some More)
The United States (US) was 17 when these rankings started in 2002
Record Productivity and Preserving People's Past on the Net
We're very productive these days, partly owing to online news slowing down (less time spent on curating Daily Links)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 29, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, April 29, 2024
Links 30/04/2024: Malaysian and Russian Governments Crack Down on Journalists
Links for the day
Frans Pop Debian Day suicide, Ubuntu, Google and the DEP-5 machine-readable copyright file
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Axel Beckert (ETH Zurich), the mentality of sexual violence on campus
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
[Meme] Russian Reversal
Mark Shuttleworth: In Soviet Russia's spacecraft... Man exploits peasants
Frans Pop & Debian suicide denial
Reprinted with permission from disguised.work
Hard Evidence Reinforces Suspicion That Mark Shuttleworth May Have Worked Volunteers to Death
Today we start re-publishing articles that contain unaltered E-mails