EPO cash reserves are being exploited politically

Source

Summary: People are starting to notice and point out compositional flaws and potentially very serious conflicts of interest inside ILO, which is supposed to ensure justice for EPO workers and is instead stonewalling the vast majority of them (just like Battistelli's kangaroo courts inside the EPO)

CORRUPTION at the EPO is becoming more evident over time and it is rather infectious. It spreads to other institutions, some of which are supposed to guard against corruption. Don't expect António Campinos to tackle any of this because as head of EU-IPO he often participated in this (e.g. commissioning so-called 'studies' together with Battistelli), he is indebted to Battistelli, and they have known each other for many years, never mind the fact that they're both French.

A local professor, who has quite a few European Patents and also patents at the USPTO, recently told me (2 days ago to be exact) that large booze companies (breweries) funded research on the supposed health benefits of alcohol. Quite a few academics decided to cooperate with them (the budget was incredibly large) until it got exposed, whereupon the whole thing (with its massive budget) got immediately dismantled. This, however, never quite happened under Battistelli. He kept scattering money and gifts to so-called 'journalists' (willing participants in the PR charades of Team Battistelli); he also relied on academics/scholars with 'studies' about patent trolls (denying the issue), UPC prospects (paying universities in the US as well -- not just in the UK -- for it!) and there's no paperwork or paper trail by which to assess how much money was wasted on these lies, putting aside the massive toll in terms of trust, reputation and integrity of press, academia, etc. Put bluntly, money influx from patent applications was misused to corrupt academic institutions and European media. We hope that EPO stakeholders (e.g. applicants) are well aware of it by now. Some of that money also landed (by the millions) on Battistelli's other employer.

"Is Team Battistelli doing to ILO what it did to the Boards of Appeal, basically removing the independence of courts by means of entryism and terrorism?"The EPO, or Team Battistelli to put it another way, is corrupting everything in touches, even politicians who help the UPCA move forward (it has made Germany look like a third-world country). Bayer/Monsanto have done similar things at all levels (academia, media, politicians, regulators), so maybe herein lies the best analogy. But has the EPO poisoned the courts too? Even those outside the EPO? Has that 'cancer' spread to ILO? Well, some comments in blogs certainly suggest so. We've decided to assemble them all in one place as these were posted in several separate places/posts. It's related to this morning's ILO article, which was maybe inspired by some of these 'leads'.

Is Team Battistelli doing to ILO what it did to the Boards of Appeal, basically removing the independence of courts by means of entryism and terrorism? They terrorise even judges and as Kluwer Patent Blog put it last week, "it seems Mr. Corcoran’s health has suffered severely from the situation and he has recently been admitted to a psychiatric hospital."

Well, what sort of 'court' would the UPC be (apparently, rumours persist that corrupt Battistelli wants to be its chief)? Among the interesting comments that speak about it we have this:

It is easy to guess, I think it is clear to everyone that ILO is little more than a kangaroo court. I hope that Märpel is right and that Karlsruhe will notice that there is no judicial independence and stall the UPC until reforms are decided.

In another thread someone said: "Karlsruhe is watching you, dear Administrative Council members."

As Kluwer Patent Blog put it last week, "Dear Mr. Chairman and Members of the Administrative Council, you have a high responsibility for what is going on at the EPO. Rest assured that both the public and the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe will be closely watching you."

We expect the UPC to die, but confirmation of this death may take months if not years. We've always been told (for 3-4 years) that UPC was "just about to start" ("real soon now!") but it never happened. These were unethical marketing stunts from patent law firms, notably Team UPC (which had drafted and lobbied for the UPCA to be ratified).

A few days ago Vincenz Weber wrote about his concerns for the EPO's future:

Do not forget that the only asset the EPO has lies in its staff. It is a purely intellectual job, the EPO does not own factories or produce tangible assets. The EPO has also investment in his prior art collection, but that is an asset that every patent office and google can also offer. The real value lies solely in the brains and training of its staff.

That asset has been systematically erased under Battistelli. The EPO lost their best and more experienced staff either to early retirement or to seek other jobs or both. They also severely reduced their appeal on the job market and could not fulfill their recruitment targets, even when lowering their criteria considerably. I am sorry to say this, most of our young colleagues are charming, some are quite competent but a worrying percentage came because nobody else could possibly use them.

Battistelli also seem to want the staff not to feel part of a great project. Every other firm on the planet would have killed to get the spirit we used to have: people believed in the EPC, people grew a circle of friends at work and many retirees continued to visit regularly, because that is where their life was. Nowadays, retirees aren’t even allowed on the premises and staff is expected to rat on their colleagues if they want a non-pensionable bonus.

The lasting effects of this policy will haunt the EPO for a long time. It took 40 years to get the staff we had.

Here's a similar view:

We stop industry visits, reorganisation in classification, training. Coaches for newcomers are more and more selected among the highly productive colleagues, those that cut many corners ; newcomers in a few years' time will be on their own with little knowledge. at the moment examiners don't have time to examine but at some point, the majority of examiners will not be able to properly examine. EPO will then be dead.

What if the "organisation is brought to collapse?" Read the following comment:

I sincerely hope that the political debate will yield fruits. If nothing is done, the situation can only go downwards. Why would the next president or the further next one refrain from abusing power, if he or she can do so with complete impunity / immunity? Battistelli has demonstrated that he could win over whomever was opposing him (internal controlling, suepo and individual members of the council) and get a free pass to put 2 billions Euros in a dubious investment scheme. All passed with flying colours and a personal bonus.

The EPO cannot afford another president like this one, but why would the next ones refrain from doing the same until the organisation is brought to collapse?

The more interesting comments, which contained relatively new information, were about ILO's composition. Here's some analysis of ILO:

I just got a quick look on internet and I found this link: http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---trib/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_546217.pdf

When we look more carefully, only 14 persons did a speech during the celebration.

- The symposium was opened by Claude Rouiller and Drazen Petrovic.

- Intervention from Laurent Germond, Director, Employment Law, European Patent Organisation (EPO): “The general principles applied by the Tribunal”

- Intervention from Jean–Didier Sicault , Attorney, Senior Lecturer in International Civil Service Law at the University of Paris II, France: “Milestones of the Tribunal case law”.

We have to take note that Mr Sicault was the employer of Mr Germond from 1998 to 2005. See https://de.linkedin.com/in/laurent-germond-9b90206a

It seems that Märpel was right when she said: The world of international organisations is tiny, the world of international administrative justice even more so.

It looks to be a very small family where each cat knows very well the other cats. Little mouses have no hope of justice.

The following comment took note of Bosnia-Hercegovina, related to the chief PR person of the EPO, as we noted here before (also enabling the EPO to better control Transparency International which she came from). As noted 3 years ago, "[s]he started her professional career as Democratization Officer heading an OSCE field office in Zenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina..."

Guess who else comes from there. To quote:

More interesting details can be found in Mr Petrovic's official biography: http://legal.un.org/avl/pdf/ls/Petrovic_%20bio.pdf

Best to make a copy before it disappears!

His intial law degree was obtained from Sarajevo University Faculty of Law in 1985. This suggests that Mr. Petrovic comes from Bosnia-Hercegovina which at that time was still part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

He subsequently obtained a postgraduate qualification as "Master of Science in Law" from the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Law in 1990.

By an interesting coincidence a Vice-President of the EPO also comes from Bosnia-Hercegovina. His claimed academic qualifications include a "Master of Science in Economics" from the University of Banja Luka which was allegedly completed in 1989 although the degree certificate was not issued until 2001. There has been some controversy about the authenticity of this degree.

From the available evidence it seems that both Mr Petrovic and the EPO Vice-President hail from Bosnia-Hercegovina and were students at around the same time. It would be interesting to know if they are personally acquainted with each other ?

The term "Team Battistelli" which we coined is then brought up:

It should not be forgotten that the AT-ILO has also been complicit in covering "Team Battistelli" in other ways.

For example it has been sitting for a long time on the files in cases challenging the appointment of a certain member of Battistelli's entourage who was "miraculously" promoted from grade A3 to A6 some time around the beginning of 2013 after she had been at the EPO for less than two years !

It is to be expected that at some point in the future the AT-ILO will get around to dealing with these cases and may even declare the promotion to have been unlawful.

But at that point Battistelli and most of his team will be long departed and it will be cold comfort to EPO staff to receive confirmation that the HR department had been controlled for many years by someone who should never have been appointed to such a position of responsibility.

Another example of how the AT-ILO fails to deliver effective legal protection against egregious abuses of power.

The AT-ILO is no solution - it is part of the problem ...

Here's more:

Mr. President will surely know the 126th session's cases already. The head of the international organisation is informed quickly after the decision. And with the announcement of 22 May, I get the impression, that AT-ILO has a last present for the parting President. They seem to be moving cases to not spoil his farewell bonus. http://www.ilo.org/tribunal/news/WCMS_630007/lang--en/index.htm

OTOH, the postponement can also mean that they find the Corcoran case decision handling by Mr. B. was sub-optimal, and now wait with further decisions for a new president, who might be more willing to implement them according to the intention of the decision. I'd love to know which cases were moved to a later session... This just invites wild sepculation.

Some of this was already summarised succinctly in this morning's post, but the above contains additional links and makes one wonder if the EPO 'infiltrated' ILO. That might help explain the change of tone in recent years.

The same sorts of comments that Merpel used to attract are now landing on Märpel's blog; there are more comments to that effect (regarding ILO) and much more behind/beyond that, we presume from curious EPO insiders who are experts at research (their job requires such skills). What else in Europe and beyond (like US universities and international institutions) is going to be compromised by Team Battistelli? When will authorities initiate an investigation? Battistelli's immunity will have expired in less than a week, so it's never too late to file reports, maybe even lawsuits (if EPO staff -- past and present -- is eligible to file any). ⬆