Be sure that Battistelli will be back at the EPO routinely; he didn't just blow money intended for a Dutch contractor in another country (for a different project) because a private pub is a priority for the Office (Battistelli appears to have developed an 'addiction' to wine)
"The next meeting of the Administrative Council will take place on 27 and 28 June in The Hague," the staff union of the EPO (SUEPO) reminded staff this morning. "So unless you want to travel to The Hague, today may be your last chance to demonstrate against the seriously flawed reforms that Mr Battistelli has imposed and continues to impose (CA/3/18 – contracts instead of permanent employment for all new recruits) on the EPO."
"They try to sort of ‘borrow’ from the future."What has happened at the EPO under Battistelli is rather horrific, with a sharp decline in human decency around 2014. If one looks at the underlying numbers, that is also around the time the Office lost technical edge and lost control. About an hour ago the EPO's PR people were alluding to something we wrote about several days ago. It's just another way for EPO management to stuff the numbers as revenue is down probably for (at least) the second year in a row. They try to sort of 'borrow' from the future. We already wrote a great deal about the so-called 'results', even as recently as yesterday.
Dr. Thorsten Bausch, bearing in mind that the EPO’s Administrative Council is meeting in the west, wrote about judicial independence yesterday. The EPO has no such thing anymore. It's out of control. Since 2014 judges have been attacked by Battistelli even more directly and more bluntly. "I know that this is a patent blog," Bausch wrote. "But something – I don’t know what, maybe it’s the upcoming meeting of the EPO’s Administrative Council – drives me to refer very briefly to a new CJEU ruling. Here is what the Court of Justice had to say about judicial independence in Case C-64/16."
The one notable outcome of Battistelli's attacks on jurors is the death of the UPC. The Boards will remain relevant because the UPC won't happen (probably never). Whether the Boards can function independently again may partly depend on Campinos (who is himself dependent on Battistelli, for he gave him the job). Yesterday we saw this new press release about "Issuance of European Patent" and nowadays when we see grants of European Patents we generally assume that they're of questionable legitimacy; even EPO examiners complain about a sharp decline in the quality of European Patents.
Funnily enough, the EPO wrote yesterday that Battistelli spoke of "growth, [in what?] which is set to be boosted by the Unitary Patent."
Well, first of all, the UPC (Unitary Patent) is dead. And it was a threat of destruction to Europe, a growth opportunity mainly for the lawsuits 'industry'.
Benoît Battistelli has only about 3 months left at the job and he is just as delusional as always. Here's an outline of this nonsense of his: (warning: epo.org link) [via]
EPO President Benoît Battistelli outlined recent developments in the European patent system and the importance of patents in supporting innovation and economic growth, which is set to be boosted by the Unitary Patent.