This is the CSC letter which triggered the threatening letter of Bergot

Summary: The brain drain at the EPO is a serious problem which harms not only staff but also EPO stakeholders (past and present); EPO management now fights a battle it cannot win, namely a war on truth itself

THE management of the EPO has sunk to a level of censorship never seen before.

Last night we wrote about the censorship of the EPO's staff representatives (yet again, this is at least the third time this year and we covered this pattern each time it happened). There's now some press coverage about that, namely:

The European Patent Office (EPO) has stopped the internal publication of a Central Staff Committee (CSC) article that criticises the office for alleged misconduct towards its staff.

In a letter to the chairman of the CSC Joachim Michels, director of human resources at the EPO Elodie Bergot, suggested that the CSC should “review the content of the proposed publication and delete or modify the parts that are offensive to individuals”.

According to the CSC publication: “Colleagues in human resources behaved ethically correctly in the past. Nowadays they are discouraged. Existing competence and constructive criticism are suppressed. Instead, networks of compliant followers are being built to ruthlessly implement policies that take no account of corporate social responsibility.”

The 'offensive' letter can be seen at the top. It's not unreasonable. Truth itself scares Bergot.

Bergot is in denial. She is lying to staff about the brain drain she is responsible for. It's worrying that there may soon be not much of an 'asset' in the Office; the asset was always the staff's experience and knowledge. That's what made the EPO so competitive and the price associated with European Patents a lot higher.

"How to lose your best staff in 5 points," as a reader told us today, seems relevant to all this. It's this article at LinkedIn (Microsoft). "It seems to me that Battistelli thoroughly followed the instructions of this guide on "how to get rid of your best staff"," our reader said.

Stakeholders too would walk away, in due course. Patent quality is slipping. Like we said a few weeks ago, Battistelli now openly promotes software patents and so does the Office, which yesterday wrote this tweet. "That is what EPO calls software patents now," I told them, "knowing that software patents are not permitted" (as if rules matter to Battistelli).

Speaking of LinkedIn (Microsoft), remember that Microsoft and the EPO are promoting software patents and based on this EPO tweet from yesterday, the EPO now uses Microsoft to manage EPO budget (sort of). "We publish all available tenders with the EPO on the following LinkedIn page," they wrote. "Follow us there to stay up to date with business opportunities with the EPO..."

To do so they need to give their personal details to Microsoft. What a sham. As if the EPO does not have its own site in which to advertise such information (rather than some for-profit site from another continent).

But worry not, there's a contigency in another continent. Bergot and Battistelli may be driving away staff and stakeholders, but they will always have Cambodia (with zero patents at the EPO) to fall back on. The latest EPO "news" item is all about Cambodia and last night the Cambodian press said

The validation agreement between the European Patent Organization and Cambodia, a pact envisioned to protect European patents in the kingdom, entered into force yesterday.

To mark the event, the ministry held a ceremony yesterday presided over by Cham Prasidh, the Minister of Industry and Handicraft.

Oum Sotha, spokesman at the ministry, said the accord is meant to protect the interests of EU investors in Cambodia.

Battistelli's sham "pact" in a county with zero European Patents (EPs) is more of a testament to the infamous French connections (Cambodia is a former French colony). How many EPO stakeholders even care about this? Can today's EPO charm anyone other than press and politicians that it is literally paying (at stakeholders' expense)? ⬆