In today's news:
Ousted Turkish beauty queen may face jail time over tweet
Summary: The tyranny of the EPO is made abundantly clear for all to see -- ILO included -- but will there be consequences for repeated violations by Team Battistelli?
IN addition to legal bullying, Judge Corcoran now needs to deal with the fact that the EPO operates outside the rule of law. Blatantly, too. Does anyone even wish to work for such an employer? To him, perhaps, it's about principles. Battistelli never had the authority to do what he did, after he had brought friends and highly dubious people to the EPO.
So far today we have written 4 articles on this matter alone. The articles are, in order:
- ILO is 'Forcing' Team Battistelli to Compensate the Banned Judge and Give Him Back His Job
- Meanwhile in Eponia, Tyrant Battistelli Must be Seeking Advice on How to Refuse to Obey Court's Orders (Again)
- ILO Said Give the Judge His Job Back, But Christoph Ernst's Administrative Council Will Likely Let Him Go (Unemployed)
- Less Than 24 Hours Later the EPO Already Refuses to Obey Court Orders From ILO (Updated)
One person
asked today: "Do I read correctly that his term ends in 2018 anyway?"
One response to that said: "Yes but he's been angling to ensure that he gets renewed."
This is from
The Register, where most of the comments are slightly off-topic and not from insiders (as the site isn't a forum for 'legal' people but mostly for technical folks). Looking at some of the latest comments on an attorney's post (which mostly attracts input from other attorneys), people have begun bringing up immunity, the EPC and so on. People are starting to gather information about the EPO disobeying judges.
There is a famous quote of what a politician (USA, 1950’s perhaps) said when caught out having done something morally indefensible, despicable. I tried to find it on Google because I think it fits BB to a T. It fits very well whenever the perp. is a supra-national entity like FIFA, the IOC or the EPO’s AC, an entity not answerable to the laws of any particular jurisdiction.
It goes something like “I violated no Rule. I broke no law. Therefore I did nothing wrong”.
Those citizens of Europe who sit on the EPO’s AC, those who preside over the EPO; if they lack a moral compass they are not qualified to sit in the seat they occupy, and should slink away, mightily ashamed of themselves for abusing basic human rights and the Rule of Law.
VW’s resident manager in the USA just got sent to prison for 7 years, for dissembling on diesel engine emissions. And all the other involved, the string-pullers back at HQ in Wolfsburg? What of them?
Come on Europe. For F’s sake. Set a good example to the rest of the world.
"If one thing is certain," the next comment said, "it is that none of the AC members will ever voluntarily vacate their seats out of such mundane motivation like respect for democracy, the rule of law or human rights. As history teaches, this will only happen once decent citizens knock on their doors, with the fork in their hand. And this is what is going to happen, some way or the other. Sooner or later."
At the EPO, without a shadow of a doubt, things have gone totally out of control and it's almost as if judges exist only for opinions (an advisory role) and 'king' Battistelli is the undisputed emperor. "Battistelli might benefit from a free crash course on the elementary principles of law," said the next comment, alluding to the news about CEIPI:
In his brand new position of President of the Administrative Board of the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) Mr Battistelli might benefit from a free crash course on the elementary principles of law, including the issues of separation of powers.
Perhaps will he then start to slowly understand why exerting a leading position at the same time in a patent office which examines patents and in an accademic institution which teaches trainees the basics of the examination procedure before the same patent office is just another form of intolerable conflict of interests.
And if he does not understand by himself, the Administrative Council of the EPO will no doubt explain it to him again. No doubt, really?
We wrote a great deal about the CEIPI debacle, namely:
Here's some insight about Corcoran's experience today:
IP-Watch has also an article about the decision of the ILO:
https://www.ip-watch.org/2017/12/06/international-labour-organisation-orders-reinstatement-epo-appeals-judge/
Additionally, they cite the response of the EPO . It begins with:
“The EPO respects the ruling of the ILOAT,” […]
Of course it does … just ask the head of EPO security.
"While the ILOAT has no divisions," the latest comment said, "its supremacy is enshrined in Article 13 EPC. The EPO president ignoring a direct order from the ILOAT (lifting of house ban) would be a violation of the EPC. It is difficult to imagine that this could be tolerated by the AC but of course many things have been difficult to imagine in the past."
This would not be the first time that Battistelli stomps on the EPC and gets away with it without any consequences. We covered several examples in the past.
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