Bonum Certa Men Certa

Antonio Campinos in Charge of the EPO Would Mean Greater EUIPO/EPO Overlap

EUIPO EPO logo



Summary: The EUIPO and EPO -- with overlaps notwithstanding (including staff intersections at the very top) -- revisited in light of reports that reinforce the connection and expect Campinos to become Battistelli's successor

FOR a number of years German media looked the other way when EPO scandals went on. Recently, however, things have improved somewhat and in the coming days we intend to publish in English and in German (in tandem). We are going to expose a scandal which quite likely implicates the German government, hence maximal impact (in the media/awareness sense) is paramount. We kindly ask readers to contact German journalists/publishers and make them aware of these things; no need to pressure, just a gentle/polite reminder would do. The Croatian media is already writing about these things and watching us closely. The nature of the scandal involves trademarks and the EPO (even though they may seem unrelated).



"The nature of the scandal involves trademarks and the EPO (even though they may seem unrelated)."Germany has various different reasons to sweep these things under the rug. We have written over a dozen articles listing some of these motivations. One of these motivations is the UPC, which Maas definitely wants. Yesterday, in this comment at IP Kat someone brought up the costs of Britain leaving the EU (and the UPC with it), noting: "I wonder how much the UPC court will be..."

Currently, 12 countries have NOT ratified the UPC, but Bristows (part of Team UPC) prefers to spin it all using tiny economies, arguing that "13 countries that have now ratified." (that's just about half of the total).

Germany and the UK are not ratifying, so that alone is a fatal barrier. A lot of it is due to EPO scandals, not just EU-related woes.

"Will there be greater alignment between EUIPO and EPO?"A couple more comments from yesterday [1, 2] highlighted a report from Stuttgarter-Zeitung.de (we are guessing that SUEPO might produce a translation soon). "The AC is reportedly looking for someone with "social competence" to lead the EPO," one of these comments said. There is another German article about this subject and it names Antonio Campinos (as did other publishers in Germany). Is he the next boss of the Office? Will there be greater alignment between EUIPO and EPO? Some people hypothesise that it's a real possibility. We wrote about that in past years and as recently as last month (more than once). The two 'agencies' already do some joint work (e.g. commissioned reports).

Kieren McCarthy, writing from San Francisco yesterday, revisited the EPO scandals yesterday. Under "Sorry, psycho bosses, it's not OK to keylog your employees" he mentioned Battistelli as follows, in light of the latest legal developments in Germany:

All of which is bad news for psycho bosses. It is, however, unlikely to impact one of the most recent high-profile cases of keylogging software on employees' computers – at the European Patent Office (EPO) in Munich – even though that installation was done secretly by a special investigation force set up by EPO president Benoît Battistelli.

Why? Because the EPO claims it is not beholden to any national laws, given its status as an international organization.


None of that would change under Campinos, whose immunity is already a subject of controversy.

"None of that would change under Campinos, whose immunity is already a subject of controversy."One last comment said that "at least Battistelli still gets to order the most expensive plonk in exclusive restaurants in Brussels ..."

Is Campinos about to get Battistelli's penthouse? Maybe the excessive (waste of money) bodyguards too? We're not too sure, but whoever succeeds Battistelli will inherit one heck of a mess. We'll say more about that in our next post.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Ultimate and Inevitable Fall of OpenAI (Even Brave is 'Bigger' Now)
"When you advertise at the Super Bowl, you’ve reached just about every consumer in America. It’s the last stop. If you’re not profitable yet, you never will be."
GNU/Linux Rises to All-Time High in Chile
sharp rise for GNU/Linux in Chile
 
Links 10/02/2025: Facebook Mass Layoffs, "Meta" Did What Aaron Swartz Had Done But to the Tune of 81.7 Terabytes
Links for the day
Microsoft Tarnishing the Brand of Arch
Of course Arch can do whatever it wants, but being associated with Microsoft is a badge of shame
Adding Slop to Your Blog Only Makes One Assume All the Text is LLM Slop
Simon Coter from Oracle has turned to slop
Macao is Leaving Microsoft Behind
Windows is falling to new all-time lows
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, February 09, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, February 09, 2025
Microsoft's WSL (LSW) Shows That It Can Never Love Linux, Only Windows
that's just how Microsoft rolls
Activism in Times of War and a Coup
'Linux' Foundation works for fascism
What the Silencing of Neatnik Tells Us About Linus Torvalds Inside a Microsoft-Dominated 'Linux' Foundation
Is Linus Torvalds free to express his mind as he wishes about every topic, even just any technical topic?
Windows Down to 11.35% in Senegal, as Measured by statCounter
Another all-time low (Windows was at 99% in 2009)
"Latest Technology News" in BetaNews is LLM Slop Promoting OOXML and Proprietary Software at the Expense of LibreOffice and OpenDocument Format (ODF)
Remember that "open-source" and Open Source aren't the same; the former is fake
Links 09/02/2025: Coffee, Toxic Productivity, and Programming
Links for the day
Debian's Human Rights violations & Swiss women Nazi symbolism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 09/02/2025: Software Patents on MP3 and Another Scam Dressed Up as "Crypto"
Links for the day
Links 09/02/2025: Russian Energy Cut Off, LLM Pushers Show Signs of Desperation
Links for the day
Richard Stallman (RMS) Does Not Have Media Companies and Lobbyists on His Side, But His Message Spreads Regardless
The message of RMS is spreading in spite of all the smears
Links 09/02/2025: Hottest January on Record, Panama Blackmailed
Links for the day
Why We Still Love Gemini Protocol
Gemini Protocol may seem like something "old" (it's actually very new) and something "nobody would use", but many people use it
Gemini Links 09/02/2025: "Died as a Mineral" and Game Interface for a Non-Game
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 08, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 08, 2025
Links 08/02/2025: UK Back Doors and Religious Fundamentalists in Positions of Higher Power
Links for the day
Today's IBM (Red Hat) Isn't the Company That Fought a Microsoft-Sponsored SCO in Court
IBM is nowadays in a state of rapid disintegration
When You Simply Rebrand Almost Everything as "Hey Hi" ("AI"), "Hey Hi Workloads", "Hey Hi Datacentres" and Whatnot
The "growth" has been a growing lie for years if not decades
Microsoft Windows Falls to 12% in Myanmar
Remember that Microsoft is virtually 0% in mobile
This is the Man Who's Attacking Linus Torvalds et al in "a Disease" (Social Control Media)
One thing that Richard M. Stallman and Torvalds can agree on is that Social Control Media should be avoided
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: "Thought Leaders" and Returns to Gemini Protocol
Links for the day
Links 08/02/2025: MElon Coup, Mass Layoffs at Facebook, and PlayStation Network Down
Links for the day
Unlike GAFAM, Free Software Serves You, It Does Not Serve Governments and MElons (Overlapping Forces)
Tired of oligarchy controlling your life through gadgets and "apps"?
On Wars Against Founders
We need to insist that founders remain
When It Comes to Social Control Media, Linus Torvalds is Channeling Techrights
GAFAM workers know exactly who to aim at
New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption
Slopwatch: Carnival of LLM Slop and FUD Spewed by Bots, Pasted in by MaKenna Hensley and Day
Welcome to the Web in 2025. Articles about "Linux", "Security", and the Web (e.g. "Firefox") are fake.
Links 08/02/2025: News Corp Admits Traffic Declines, Wildlife Trafficking Tackled
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/02/2025: Lamp and Notions
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 07, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 07, 2025