Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Staff: Mr. Battistelli is Causing Immeasurable Damage to the Office; He is Now Untenable

Summary: A letter of appeal for delegations (of the Administrative Council) to fire Battistelli this week, and to generally put an end to his terrible regime, then undo all the damage caused by him and his friends

THE following letter is currently being disseminated ahead of tomorrow's meeting and tomorrow's staff protest. We decided to publish it because it does a good job at explaining how severe the problem has become.



Open letter - by email to the Heads of Delegation

Copies to: Competent Ministries of the Member States

13 December 2016

EPO-FLIER team epoflier@runbox.com

Request to the Delegations of the Administrative Council to take firm action

Dear Heads and Members of the Delegations to the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation, dear Chairman,

Most EPO staff welcomed the constructive interventions of numerous delegations during the last Administrative Council (AC) meeting1 and their expressed will to apply the Council's March resolution2. Staff also recognises the attempts of some high ranking national politicians of major contracting states3,4 to convince the President to accept the AC's resolution. But the crisis caused by the current Administration has not been resolved:

The dismissal of Laurent Prunier, which violates the resolution, was commented by IAM as follows: “The impression given by recent events is not one of firm, balanced management, but of management by intimidation. That is no way to run a patent office.”5

ILO judgment 3785 confirmed that EPO staff is currently left without a functioning first instance for fair legal redress6,7,8 and, due to several dismissals of and continued attacks on Staff Committee members, without any meaningful staff representation. Staff members under pressure from the HR department or their line manager are left without help. The situation can (again) become untenable for individual staff members (including suicide risk9). We are told that other elected staff representatives (i.e. SUEPO officials) are soon to be sanctioned and possibly fired.

The President's proposal CA/106/16 to revise Article 36(2)(a) Serv Regs in reaction to ILO judgment 3785 shows once more Mr Battistelli's disrespect for the law and the rights of citizens working for the EPO: “Battistelli's response to the ILO's damning decision is to simply change the EPO's rules to formally give him the power to do exactly what he was being criticized over.”10 It is clear, however, that the judgment gives guidance on the principles of an internal appeals committee. Any solution that Mr Battistelli proposes must be true to those principles, and notably, include the nomination of members by the Staff Committee, without which, according to the ILO-AT, “it is not an appeals committee.”

Moving now to DG311, the President's interference with the Boards of Appeal has been commented as follows:

"I am afraid (and very sorry) to say that even among the EPO’s top officials, the principle of the Rule of Law does not seem to be respected very much. Where are you, Administrative Council?"12


The president's disrespect for the rights of others extends to the rights and legitimate expectations of the users of the patent system. As we pointed out earlier, management by intimidation leads to negative effects on the legal validity of granted European patents.13 While, according to the recent PWC study, 80 % of the personnel want to contribute to a successful mission of the EPO, which is to foster innovation, competitiveness and economic growth all over Europe by providing high quality services based on the European Patent Convention, are only 25 % of the opinion that the strategic objectives of the Office support this mission.1 Many of our colleagues share the concerns expressed by the CSC during the last Council meeting: “We want to know where we are going, and whether the EPO is still an employer worth working for.”1

Concerned observers have started realising that it is futile to hope that Mr Battistelli might change his attitude.14 Several national MPs4,15,16,17, senators18,19 and MEPs20 have (repeatedly) reminded (their) governments of their duty of care. Some of them take the view that Mr Battistelli needs to go before the situation can improve.4,14,17 A debate in the Dutch parliament is preparation.15 We urge the Delegations to accept their responsibility for the current situation and to take firm action so that the Office can return to being a place where motivated staff contribute to the success of Europe.

We therefore reiterate the request of our June 2016 open letter13: It is time for the Members of the AC to act: Mr Battistelli is causing immeasurable damage to the Office; he is now untenable.

Trust in the European patent system has been seriously eroded. Before trust can be rebuilt, the architect of the crisis in which the office finds itself needs to be removed, or alternatively, to be suspended until the end of his term.

“Il n'est plus raisonnable d'attendre.”15

With our best regards,

The EPO-FLIER team

a group of concerned staff of the EPO who wish to remain anonymous due to the prevailing harsh social climate and absence of rule of law at the European Patent Office




1 Central Staff Committee (CSC) report about the 149 th meeting of the AC (sc16207cp) http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Minutes-of-October-2016-AC.pdf 2 http://www.epo.org/about-us/organisation/communiques.html#a23 3 https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/03/16/president-europees-octrooibureau-stapt-boos-op-bij-staatssecretaris-van-dam-a1408569 4 Secretary of state Christophe Sirugue's response to Philip Cordéry's question: “Nous continuons bien évidemment à faire pression, avec d’autres, pour que soient entendues les causes que je crois justes des salariés que vous avez évoqués. Je dois reconnaître que nous manquons d’alliés dans ce dossier, mais soyez sûrs de notre détermination à faire respecter les droits des salariés !” http://philipcordery.fr/2016/11/question-gouvernement-situation-sociale-a-loffice-europeen-brevets/ 5 EPO users and staff need the Administrative Council to get a grip on current events http://www.iam-media.com/Blog/Detail.aspx?g=85178c62-24df-403f-990d-f3f5f5c4ce51 6 http://www.ilo.org/dyn/triblex/triblexmain.detail?p_judgment_no=3785 7 http://www.ip-watch.org/2016/12/01/ilo-decisions-said-confirm-epo-staff-lack-fair-legal-system/ 8 http://www.worldipreview.com/news/un-agency-sets-aside-two-epo-decisions-criticises-administrative-council-12687 9 http://www.politico.eu/article/labor-relations-turn-toxic-in-the-european-patent-office/ 10 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/12/08/battistelli_to_fix_epo_by_getting_more_power/ 11 Proposal CA/82/16, concerning the removal of DG3 to Haar, is likely to create problems rather than solving any: https://ipkitten.blogspot.nl/2016/11/time-for-haar-cut-please-do-not.html 12 The Rule of Law (Rechtsstaat) is Endangered and Needs to be Defended! http://kluwerpatentblog.com/2016/11/07/rule-law-rechtsstaat-endangered-needs-defended/ 13 https://regmedia.co.uk/2016/06/22/epo-open-letter.pdf 14 https://ipkitten.blogspot.fr/2016/11/firings-will-continue-until-morale.html 15 Jean-Yves LECONTE, Situation à l’Office Européen des Brevets : il n’est plus raisonnable d’attendre http://www.jyleconte.fr/ (Archives, October 2016) 16 http://kluwerpatentblog.com/2016/11/19/debate-in-dutch-parliament-about-deteriorating-social-climate-at-european-patent-office/ 17 https://susann-biedefeld.de/meldungen/mdl-susann-biedefeld-kritisiert-verhalten-des-europaeischen-patentamts-gegenueber-arbeitnehmerinnnen-und-arbeitnehmern-aufs-schaerfste/ 18 http://claudinelepage.eu/?p=16041 (Archives, November 2016, February 2016), English translations: https://suepo.org/public/ex16124cpe.pdf, https://www.suepo.org/documents/42509/53610.pdf 19 http://www.richardyung.fr/francais-de-l-etranger/questions-au-gouvernement-francais-etranger-cote-circonscription/4149-degradation-du-climat-social-au-sein-de-loffice-europeen-des-brevets.html 20 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-2016-007090+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN


We are happy to receive any more information like the above.

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