Bonum Certa Men Certa

Corruption at the European Patent Office and Systematic Bullying That Leads People to Suicide/Bankruptcy

The EPO, quite unsurprisingly, likes to legally bully (and potentially bankrupt) its critics

Gawker bullied
When multi-billion dollar operations/individuals simply litigate their critics into oblivion



Summary: A look back at 3 years of intensive EPO coverage and what's coming up next (suppression of truth behind closed doors in the courtrooms)

TECHRIGHTS started its special EPO coverage almost exactly 3 years ago and is now in the process of preparing another EPO series, this time coming from Croatia. As readers may have already noticed, earlier this month we felt more liberated/comfortable to simply label the EPO corrupt and openly accuse it of corruption. The evidence is simply overwhelming.



We are also exploring, more so at the moment, some Dutch affairs which would leave the EPO red-faced once made public. Both the story from Croatia and the story from Holland require access to court documents. This is why they take a long time to write about. We also haven't forgotten about ILO, whose latest judgments require careful analysis of courts' (or tribunals') decisions.

SUEPO is on the right side of history. EPO management is rather lucky that nobody among it (at least not yet) is in prison. The chief of the Organisation is leaving at the end of next month and the chief of the Office has only 10 months left. They will probably never be held accountable for anything. Immunity goes a long way...

"SUEPO doesn't care about [patent] quality," said this comment from yesterday, "it cares about the social and financial benefits of the workers..."

This comment overlooks the fact that those two things can be inherently connected/correlated. SUEPO probably recognises that examiners wish to be intellectually challenged (like whenever examining papers or doing peer review) and don't want to be reduced to assembly line workers who issue invalid (to later be invalidated) patents -- patents that are soon to be used for frivolous litigation that's against the public interest.

Here is the full comment: "The elite of very well paid and full of benefits public servants is discontent, but now interestingly they seem worried about "quality" of their job. If they do the job, they are fully responsible for such quality. SUEPO doesn't care about quality, it cares about the social and financial benefits of the workers, and that's legitimate. My question: who cares about the public interest in this "war"? Answer: as always, no-one!"

Actually, as a programmer myself, for me it was always about software patents and the interests of software developers, who want none of these software patents in Europe. It's universally true that programmers reject software patents and there are good reasons for that.

It's no secret that over the years we heard from many patent examiners. A lot of what we heard we never published (for risk of exposing the messenger). But we keep record of everything and shall the need or relevance arise, these issues will be aired responsibly.

Years ago we learned about some truly appalling stories which involve not only examiners but also staff representatives at the EPO. One particular story remained in our minds. We had begun working on a story which we still believe can be broken down as follows:

  1. EPO fires SUEPO person, without even notifying the person, and without telling the public


  2. EPO took advantage of illness in the family


  3. EPO showed hypocrisy on cancer


A lot of EPO workers are aware of this story. There are quite a few famous cases and this is probably one of them. A lot of these cases involve the exploitation of illness/injury, in the same way some farms in Florida are right now (as per today's news) getting rid of staff. It's not only illegal; it's morally corrupt. But that's what the EPO has become and since it's immune to lawsuits it does not fear accountability.

From our understanding, there are various people who are notorious for their mistreatment of ill staff. Yann Chabod, chief of HR directly under Elodie Bergot, is one of these people. There is much to be said also about the things done by Bergot and Željko Topić in relation to this. We never heard of anything even remotely like it at the USPTO.

How can anyone get away with it? Threats to cut pensions? Exploiting people's illnesses?

Off the record we often discuss why people are committing suicide at the EPO and what EPO management has done to these people. People out there wrongly assume that staff can simply choose the leave the EPO and go somewhere else, but it's not that simple. As one person once put it, "the Office might still be tempted to retaliate, maybe cutting my pension or similar."

This can be like a death knell to older employees, who will be able to sustain themselves financially without a pension (and often exhaust their savings on legal cases).

As someone once explained it to us, There are "cases that so far have afflicted the staff, some unknown to most, some others already known to public, including the suicide cases."

We would not be surprised if there are more suicides on the way. How many more people need to lose their lives due to legal bullying and systematic harassment by the EPO?

Recent Techrights' Posts

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