Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Stakeholders Want Battistelli and His Goons Ousted, They Can Accomplish This by Working Together (Like a Union)

Just like the staff survey showed, not a single person is of the opinion that the current President does a good job

Battistelli zero confidence Source: King Battistelli tries again to break Euro Patent Office union, 31st of January, 2017. Kieren McCarthy.



Summary: The EPO crisis and the impact it has on the whole European industry does not escape the attention of various firms that protect their own (and clients') interests

THE EPO is anything but a happy home. But there is even growing unrest outside the EPO. Attorneys and their clients, for example, are complaining. It's not some sole/individual's dissent; it is also not a "vocal minority" but a mass movement. Battistelli cannot deny this anymore. As we noted the other day, a Juve survey served to confirm this yet again. Below are some of the findings, which were originally published in German.



"It's not some sole/individual's dissent; it is also not a "vocal minority" but a mass movement."After the initial (paywalled) article had become available some people passed around paper copies and then came this followup article. SUEPO said about the seminal piece: "Summary only, press article requires registration and payment. Those of us who are interested in ordering the article, the edition number is 02/2017."

"Here is a summary of some of the key findings of the JUVE web article," one reader told us, breaking it down as follows:

About 170 heads of patent departments of German industrial groups and SME's, and international technological giants participated in the survey concerning the European Patent system.

UPC

While about 70 % of the survey participants deplore the delay caused by the Brexit, one quarter (25 %) consider the UPC detrimental to the European Patent system.

Boards of Appeal reform

Less than one third of the participants believe that the reform of last year will lead to more independence of the Boards, while more than 80 % want a complete independence.

Patent quality

More than 90 % of the survey participants consider the EPO important for their patent strategy, but less than 50 % of them are happy with the current quality of the patent granting process, and about 50 % of them see a quality problem with BoA decisions.

The president

None of the participants was of the opinion that the current president does a good job (0 % confidence rating). Merely one out of 25 considers his 'efficiency strategy' useful. More than 50 % said that Benoît Battistelli should resign.



"96% said that Battistelli should not interfere with Boards of Appeal matters," told us another reason, or at least "should not interfere any more. Many gave, as an example, the case of the suspended DG3 member as an example of the President transgressing his competencies."

"It's a large study or a broad survey, which shows extremely unsupportive views on Battistelli."More bits of information can be retrieved from the latest article from The Register (screenshot above). A day ago this mainstream British news site wrote about this, and it helped give the gist (succinct/concise) of these findings.

From the article of Juve: ""The situation is alarming, the working conditions are shameful for a European authority". The head of a pharma giant makes no bones about it."

Remember that this cannot be dismissed as a "propaganda mill" or partisan nonsense (like IAM with its notorious, EPO-'approved' surveys), as it's somewhat of a comprehensive if not near-exhaustive census (at least among respondents). It's a large study or a broad survey, which shows extremely unsupportive views on Battistelli. To quote: "At the end of November 2016 JUVE surveyed the heads of 168 selected international technology firms. This included German industrial companies as well as medium-sized enterprises and international technology giants, such as from the Silicon Valley. The firms represent all important branches of technology and file at the European Patent Office."

"If EPO stakeholders (applicants, attorneys etc.) want anything to remain of the EPO and their EPs to be worth anything, they should kick out Battistelli."If Battistelli does not step down, the Chinchilla will need to fire him. Failing to do so means that loyalty to Battistelli is more important to the Chinchilla than the EPO itself, which is a form of betrayal (considering this role of his), thereby disqualifying him too. When departments fail to supervise one another all we're left with is a cult or a monarchy, not a professional institution.

To quote more from the article (translated): "The continuing conflict between President Battistelli's management and some of the staff, in particular the main trade union SUEPO, alarms industry representatives. 79.2% of those asked are disturbed by it. They consider Battistelli to be mainly responsible. An overwhelming 96 percent think that the EPO President should be less confrontational with the unions. Only 4 percent of those asked think that it is necessary."

Here is another gem: "Industry representatives find that an efficiency strategy, as well a demotivated work force, is responsible for the lack of quality".

If EPO stakeholders (applicants, attorneys etc.) want anything to remain of the EPO and their EPs to be worth anything, they should kick out Battistelli. These stakeholders need to organise and get rid of this tyrant (Battistelli and the "swamp" he brought with him to the EPO). We believe that stakeholders should work together now, for their common interests. They're the main source (lion's share) of income of the EPO and if they demand the resignation of Battistelli and his swamp, then it will need to actually happen.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025