Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO in the Hands of Politicians Who Serve Their Towns Rather Than Users of the EPO

SIPO and Battistelli Reference: Loose Patent Scope Becoming a Publicity Nightmare for the EPO and Battistelli Does a China Outreach (Worst/Most Notorious on Patent Quality)



Summary: The utterly absurd situation in which Battistelli has put the EPO; conflicts of interest have become abundantly clear and they are exploited to their fullest

EARLIER today (around morning/noon to be more precise) SUEPO, the staff union of the EPO, published this polite response to Union Syndicale Fédérale from Mr. Campinos. It sounds promising, but that does not change the fact that Mr. Battistelli helped him get 'elected' (it seemed like a process as rigged as the DNC nominations in 2016). Don't forget that Campinos has French nationality even though he -- like Battistelli -- has some other 'pedigree' (Italian name, Portuguese father or whatever).



People inside the EPO already learned the hard way what happens when politicians are put in charge. Battistelli comes from politics (still embroiled/involved in it) and Campinos comes from a political family. As it turns out, based on a message we've received, there's much to be said about Battistelli's political life in France. To quote:

Saint Germain en Laye / Inventor award: The inventor awards comedy has always been a shame and I fail to understand that applicants play the game. With this show held in St Germain en Laye, the culmination of indecency is reached. Is it acceptable that millions of euros are spent in the town where Benet Battistelli is deputy mayor, a week before his departure to grease the local "players" while epo staff are squeezed to death even on public holidays? No it isn't and it is our duty to denounce it and to take all measures to stop this offending show.
A few things have changed recently in St Germain en Laye and it is important that the public becomes aware of them. The previous mayor, M. Emmnuel Lamy (69 y.o) passed away on May the 24th, this year leaving the place to his deputy M. Arnaud Péricard. Deputy that M.Lamy didn't like very much. This wouldn't be worth noting if M. Lamy, member of the same party as Mr. Battistelli, hadn't had a very similar curriculum to M.Battistelli (Institut d'études politiques IEP, Ecole nationale supérieure d'administration ENA). M. Lamy being 2 years older than Battistelli (67 y.o.), they therefore met during their studies more than 40 years ago. They were "old friends". What a coincidence! But the similarities go further that that.
Look this page: http://pssaintgermain.fr/2011/10/
M. Lamy used to edit a publication for his town "le Journal de Saint-Germain, also called "pravda locale". It reminds of the EPO Gazette. If you further read the quoted article you will find this "pearl" about the degree of satisfaction of the tax payers in St Germain:
"En matière de culture et de loisirs, le bilan n’est pas bon. Si les bibliothèques, les musées, les évènements culturels et les activités sportives attirent une majorité de satisfaction, la programmation culturelle du théâtre Alexandre Dumas est fortement critiquée." (in matters of culture and leisures, the balance isn't good. Even if libraries, museums, cultural events and sport activities give satisfaction to a majority of users, the program of the theatre Alexandre Dumas is highly criticised). M.Battistelli was in charge of the theatre Alexandre Dumas at that time.....
I also suggest the reader to have a look at :
http://pssaintgermain.fr/l-express-epingle-le-systeme-lamy-a-saint-germain-en-laye/
referring to one of the major French information magazines, l'Express tackles the "système Lamy" (!) with these words.
Further reading: http://pssaintgermain.fr/conseil-municipal-du-10-juillet-nouvelle-attitude-meprisante-du-maire/ about the disdaining behaviour of the Mayor toward the political opposition. This article shows how opponents are insulted, how truth is disguised. All this is familiar to the EPO staff. Did M.Lamy learn from M. Battistelli or vice versa?
I firmly believe that the new Mayor, M. Arnaud Péricard, having M. Battistelli as deputy mayor is in a dangerous position and should be extremely cautious. I don't think that M. Battistelli, the autocrat, will accept a subordinate position for a long time. If something happens to M. Péricard, what we of course don't wish, M. Battistelli would be the new Sun King in St Germain en Laye.


As a reminder, political involvement is not allowed for Battistelli, but he was put in charge of the EPO in spite of that. As insiders very well know, Battistelli is allowed the break any rules without any consequences. Staff that's ordinary (i.e. not Battistelli's cronies), however, is barely even allowed to volunteer anywhere.

Recent Techrights' Posts

"systemd is essentially a corporate IBM/Redhat project and corporations of course will comply"
Microsoft and IBM care about users' freedom like Cheeto Lump cares about the US Constitution
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Digital Identity Bifurcation and a "Return to Gemini"
Links for the day
 
Gemini Links 20/03/2026: Depictions of Culture and The Social Smolnet
Links for the day
SimilarWeb Was Never a Reliable Yardstick for Traffic
5RB may need some "house-cleaning"
Strangulation, suffocation, Jonathan Carter & Debian toxic culture confirmed
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Reports or Hearsay Suggest Ogilvy Broke Up With IBM and Insiders Report Mass Layoffs in "Infrastructure" (Might Impact Red Hat Entrants)
hearsay in Social Control Media
Scheduled Server Maintenance Tomorrow Night
Starting 9PM
None of the Above (NotA) & Debian snubbing Sruthi Chandran
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/03/2026: Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award and BMG Sues Anthropic for Copyright Infringement
Links for the day
Even Uganda Understands That Journalists Never Belong in Prison
"Ugandan authorities must respect the spirit of this ruling and abandon any measures that seek to jail Ugandans for the free flow of ideas."
Inaction Helps Your Enemies
Without freedom, there's nothing else left
Windows Down From 99% to ~50% in Republic of Seychelles (République des Seychelles)
Windows fell by a lot
Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Over Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
The Layoffs at IBM Carry on (Shades of Enron)
Is IBM another Enron?
"IBM boss Arvind Krishna... financial package valued at $38 million in calendar 2025 - equivalent to the average collective pay of 765 Big Blue workers."
continues to ruin the company to enrich himself while pretending he has a strategy
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 19, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, March 19, 2026
SLAPP Censorship - Part 16 Out of 200: Detailing the Actors and Explaining Techrights' Own Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Network
For those who have not followed our story
Microsoft "hiding behind bigger news of war, Epstein, other companies' layoffs"
They know what's coming, they just don't know when
Joerg Jaspert (Debian Account Manager/DAM) personally approved Raphael Hertzog's wife Sophie Brun
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Letter 'A' prohibited by Code of Conduct extremism
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Spoiler: Diversity & Debian means different things to different people
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Admits Failures and Criticism of Inaction on SLAPPs
many if not all solicitors and solicitor firms in the UK are in effect unregulated
Archiving or Preserving Pages About IBM Layoffs
Layoffs at IBM and the media does not talk about these
ABC, the American National Broadcaster, "Now Publishes Slop"
If the "big media" absorbs slop, it'll no longer be trusted and therefore not read/watched by the public
Links 19/03/2026: Culling Deepfakes of Artists’ Music and "Age Verification Isn’t the Answer"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/03/2026: "Aktion GPT-4" and "Kill All Descendants"
Links for the day
"AI" 15 Times in Short 'Article' From The Register MS. And The Register MS Got Paid to Publish It.
gets paid to do this
People Who Decided to Boycott Novell Over Its Microsoft Alliance Should Also Boycott Canonical
As an associate put it, "selling out further, due to Microsoft moles inside Canonical"
Links 19/03/2026: "AI Glasses" as Euphemism for Mass Surveillance and ABC (US) Has Begun Publishing Slop as 'News'
Links for the day
The European Patent Office, Europe's Second-Largest Institution, is on Strike Today
Lots more to come
What People Impacted by the Bluewashing Layoffs at IBM Confluent Say (While the Media Says Nothing at All, in Effect Burying the News)
Worse yet, the mainstream media spreads lies about it right now
IBM Has Turned Red Hat and Fedora Into Slop
This is IBM policy
IBM is Being Robbed, Companies and Jobs Are Destroyed
Companies taken over by IBM will be exploited and destroyed to keep a bubble inflated for a little while longer
In Confluent Layoffs, IBM Vapourises a Quarter of Its Workforce (IBM Buys Something That It Destroys Already)
In the past, such things were typically referred to as "media blackout"; now it's just "the norm".
IBM Effect at Confluent: Mass Layoffs and IBM's Business Conduct Guidelines (BCGs) Said to be Violated
For Confluent employees who survived the layoffs there will be "culture chock"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 18, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Links 19/03/2026: LLM Fatigue (It Doesn't Work as Advertised), "Small Web Feeds"
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 15 Out of 200: Background and Particulars of Truth Regarding Techrights and Tux Machines
the basic facts (this has aged well, except the times/ages/numbers)
A Slopfarms Survey for Today (linuxteck.com, linuxsecurity.com, linuxjournal.com)
Not only did Google news link to a slopfarm; it linked to three run by the same team!
Links 18/03/2026: "Venture Capitalist Warns That It’s All About to Come Crashing Down" Due to Slop Bubble, "Birdwatching for Fun and no Profit"
Links for the day
IBM Red Hat is Still Promoting Restricted Boot Which Restricts Users' Control Over Their Computers
Red Hat under IBM is a total catastrophe
Arvind Says... Something Something "Hey Hi" (the State of Today's Media)
Look for news about IBM and most likely it'll boil down to some sound bites from an executive and nothing else
New Post Has Just Explained How IBM Gets Robbed by the People Who Fail IBM
Their plan for IBM is a personal plan
Slop-Spewing GAFAM LLM That Knows Nothing and Understands Nothing, It's a Stochastic Parrot That Cannot Even Figure Out Tux Machines is a Community That Started in Tennessee 22 Years Ago
RMS rightly calls those things "bullshit generators"
Cusdeb Makes New Presentation About Where GNU Hurd (Still a Possible Linux Replacement) Stands in 2026
coming from a generally RMS-friendly account
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Librarians, Phone Anxiety, Growing 'Small' Net, and Slop Versus Software Engineering
Links for the day
Estimates That IBM to Lay Off Close to 10,000 Workers in 2026 (Not Counting People Pushed Out)
There's still chatter about Confluent mass layoffs
Smug Threat by Garrett to Put My Family and I in Prison Doesn't Prove We Did Anything Wrong, It Only Proves He's Truly Desperate to Stop Further Publications That Embarrass Him
his reputation is poor in the United States
systemd Increasingly Microsoft Project, Controlled by Microsoft and Slopware
Cannot allow choice
What IBM Meant to Red Hat: "Proprietary Bundling, Restricted Source Access"
Anyone or anything that joins IBM likely shortens its lifespan
IBM Thrashing Confluent Upon Arrival, Based on Rumours
We deem it a bigger issue that investigative journalism perished, not that one must rely on hearsay online or mere "rumours"
Slop Is Plagiarism, Not (Vibe) Coding, and It's Not Automated, It Doesn't Save Money
Reject misnomers, explain what's actually happening
UPC is Still Illegal and Unconstitutional (Kangaroo Court for Patents, Manned by Corporate Staff), Federal Court of Justice of Germany Receives Belated Complaint About It
What is happening to Europe???
EPO Demonstration Happening Right Now, Later This Week Things Will Only Escalate Further
The SUEPO The Hague Committee wrote to staff this morning
Sophie Brun, Raphael Hertzog & Debian sexual conflicts of interest
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 18/03/2026: Commodore's Hedley Davis Dies, Apple Not Good Enough, Cheeto "Floats Treason Charges for Iran War Coverage"
Links for the day
A Step Close to Shutting Down the European Patent Office (EPO)
Not going to work all month long
EPO Staff Demonstration Today
The demonstration will be live-streamed for those thousands of colleagues who don't live in Munich
Gemini Links 18/03/2026: Brazilian SYN Attacks and BGP
Links for the day
LibreLocal Also Coming to Jordan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, and Spain
It helps raise awareness of Software Freedom
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 17, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 17, 2026