Bonum Certa Men Certa

From Bad to Worse: When a Horrible Regime (EPO) Publicly Makes Itself Look Like One

Total surveillance and stop-and-frisk-like regime, even extending to visitors

Battistelli



Summary: EPO becomes another North Korea and depression rates soar to the point where people take their own lives

With potential culpability for deaths of employees, Benoît Battistelli is in hot legal water, but there is nobody to actually enforce the law against him at Eponia. Recognising the agonising working conditions at the EPO, CERN recently weighed in on numerous occasions. These are world-leading scientists who blasted Battistelli and SUEPO has just published yet another letter (this time in French) from CERN.



Will CERN's concern be enough to compel Battistelli to resign before the next death? His regime has already cost many people (and families) their lives and it cannot go on like this. Well, technically it can because Battistelli feels elated and above the law. In fact, judging by this tweet (linking to this "news" item at epo.org), the EPO is now becoming more like North Korea, with Battistelli as its "Dear Leader". Congratulations to Battistelli for turning Europe's finest institution into Europe's shame and the subject of scorn from all across the world. He has killed EPO's reputation, which took almost half a century to earn. Soon there won't be applicants and renewals either. The EPO and its staff now live in borrowed time, exploiting what's left of the inertia and the backlog. Mass layoffs are already a growing concern, hence job insecurity (it's hard for former EPO staff to find a job in their discipline after a long EPO career).

"A range of measures are now being implemented to help ensure our safety," the EPO said the other night. "Additional security measures are now in place for all visitors."

Well, will they add safety (suicide) nets maybe? Just like in China? Would they help mask the issue?

"The safeguarding of staff, visitors and business is of paramount importance to the EPO," the EPO wrote. Is that why EPO management drove people to suicide, having legally bullied them and did them extreme injustice? Words cannot express how disgusting that "news" item from the EPO truly is. What next? Will they build something like a Berlin wall around the Isar facilities, in order to prevent people from getting out?

Remember that the EPO does not obey the law; it doesn't feel like it needs to, especially under Battistelli the arrogant bully with inferiority complex. Here is something which Florian Müller published yesterday, recalling his days as an activist against software patents:

In 2002, the EC proposed a "directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions." It claimed back then and throughout the years of the legislative process (which ended when the bill got thrown out by the European Parliament in 2005, which is exactly what I had been campaigning for) that patents on "computer-implemented inventions" weren't software patents. The examples that the supporters of the proposal gave all the time were about computer-controlled washing machines, automated braking systems, and airplanes. They said that the whole plan was only to ensure that innovations in those fields could be patented but software patents? No, they said that our movement was totally wrong since software "as such" was going to be excluded.

It was nothing but a damn lie. A damn lie propagated by the Commission, by the equally-mendacious national governments of the EU member states, large corporations (also including their industry bodies, of course), the European Patent Office (with respect to its credibility, let me just refer you to Dr. Roy Schestowitz's great work concerning what is going on there), and patent attorneys in private practice.

What frustrated us the most was not even that those who directly or indirectly stood to gain from software patents were dishonest. That was very bad for sure, but the worst part was that news agencies and the general press kept propagating those lies--not merely in the form of quotes but in ways that portrayed the Commission position as the truth and our position as an opposing view by "open source" people. And when we talked to them, they often just referred us to what the European Commission was saying--no matter how much of a lie it was.

[...]

Unitary patent propaganda: first published, then taken down

Last year, the IPKat blog dismantled the Commission's ridiculous propaganda for its unitary patent package (including the Unified Patent Court). Then the Commission pulled its statement, almost certainly due to the IPKat's competent criticism.


The FFII's Benjamin Henrion asked, "was it the FAQ of The EP saying unipat [UPC] is not about swpat [...] https://media.ffii.org/Fosdem2016/ffii-fosdem2016-unitary-software-patents.pdf … slide 9."

"I believe the IPKat article was about a different document but not sure," Müller responded.

We wrote a great deal about the EPO lying regarding the UPC and also doing things that are legally dubious in order to advance the UPC. That's part of the expected behaviour when one deals with a North Korea-inspired regime. Expect a lot of brainwash, lies, and retribution against anyone who dares even politely questioning these lies (as some SUEPO representatives occasionally did).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Professor Eben Moglen on How Social Control Media Metabolises Humans and Constrains Freedom of Thought
Nothing of value would be lost if all these data-harvesting giants (profiling people) vanished overnight
Debian Left Twitter (MElon "X"), We Think the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Should Do the Same
What would the FSF really lose if it stopped posting there?
 
Links 07/02/2025: Amazon’s Stock Collapses and US Government Being Dismantled (Still)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/02/2025: Mid-level Details and Simple Code
Links for the day
Links 07/02/2025: US 'Demolition Crew', e-ID Loopholes, and Sanctions
Links for the day
Social Control Media is Narcissism
Nowadays there's a lot more literature and even press coverage explaining the harms of Social Control Media
statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Share Doubling in China Over the Past Year
It'll be interesting to see what data in the coming months shows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 06, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 06, 2025
Richard Stallman (RMS) Confirms Next Week's Talk in Europe
He gave at least 2 talks in Europe last month
Nationalism As A Service (NaaS) by Microsoft Azure, Gutting the US Government for Profit
Will Microsoft be receiving bailouts as a reward for all this?
Rumours of IBM Layoffs Apparently Confirmed Yesterday, IBM Canada Consulting Impacted (as Rumoured)
when IBM has layoffs we must also read it as Red Hat layoffs
Tons of Anti-Linux 'Articles' Published by Bots (LLMs), Maybe Microsoft's
Upon closer inspection, all this FUD turned out to be LLM garbage
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Voicemail Sucks and Night of Lights
Links for the day
Ubuntu Desktop Director of Engineering Has Only One Blog Post. It Promotes Microsoft Windows.
Remember that even 15 years ago (more or less, maybe 16 years ago) Canonical appointed a a 'former' Microsoft manager (Spencer) to lead Ubuntu on the desktop
Links 06/02/2025: YouTube Takedowns Out of Control, 'DOGE' Breaking Laws
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat on "era of cloud computing", pushing "hey hi" (AI) hype in Microsoft Azure
LLM slop might actually be more benign than Microsoft promotion
Corruption and Rule-Breaking Prevail at the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest Institution
The law does not really exist at the EPO; it can be perceived as merely a "recommendation"
statCounter: More Countries Where Windows is Around 1% "Market Share" (People Have Moved to Android/Linux)
in some nations Windows is already 1% or less
404 Media Says "Workers at NASA Told to Drop Everything to Scrub Mentions of Indigenous People, Women from Its Websites" But There's Also Accessibility in the Firing Line
In the case of abandoning accessibility, everyone stands to be hurt and proprietary software can be brought in to replace standards
When BetaNews Writes Real Articles About "Linux" They Promote Windows
The Web is in a bad state. We need to at least try to correct this.
Gemini Links 06/02/2025: Cynicism and "Real Magic on the C64"
Links for the day
Links 06/02/2025: New Sanctions, Layoffs, and Executive Orders
Links for the day
Distros and Desktop Environments, Devices
GNU/Linux focused
New Rumours of IBM Layoffs in 2025, IBM Consulting Still Struggles, Based on Management
"Hey hi" (AI) has been a common excuse for business failure
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 05, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 05, 2025
Links 05/02/2025: Kessler Syndrome and News Online
Links for the day
statCounter: Monaco Now 7% GNU/Linux ("Proper")
GNU/Linux, not counting Chromebooks, is on the rise
Many Parts of Google Lose Money
It's quite apparent that many parts of Google - even some that rely on ad revenue or push ads - aren't profiting
European Internet Forum (EIF) is Dominated by American Corporations and Microsoft Lobbyists, Staff Take the Lead
Should the officials over here or the European Parliament pay attention to these people?
Links 05/02/2025: Connection without Connectivity and Unionised Grocery Workers
Links for the day
Just Because People on Top of the Microsoft Pyramid Made a Lot of Money Doesn't Mean Microsoft is Wealthy
The bigger they are the harder they fall
Gemini Links 05/02/2025: Learning, Madman Ruling a Mad Country, Back in Geminispace
Links for the day
statCounter Shows "WIntel" Chasing a Dying Market
Microsoft acts as if it's running out of money
Free Software Foundation, Inc. (FSF) Still Raising Money, Richard Stallman Contributes
total exceeding $430k
A Lot of Stuff About "Linux" in Google News is LLM Slop, Fake 'Articles'
It seems to be getting worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, February 04, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, February 04, 2025