Bonum Certa Men Certa

Corruption at the EPO Should be a Subject Anybody Can Speak About, Even Insiders

Certainly the independent (in principle) judges at the Boards of Appeal

Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan at EPO



Summary: The latest ILO-AT rulings, which included the cases of at least three staff representatives, as analysed/interpreted by longtime EPO observers

RECENTLY, in light of some truly dodgy moves from EPO management, we became a lot less reluctant to refer to the EPO and Battistelli as "corrupt". That's just what it has come to. We're not even talking about merely ethical problems, such as abject lack of 'diversity' at the Office, with French Presidents for almost 17 years in a period of just two decades (yes, António Campinos is French).



Here's a reminder (visual):

French EPO



SUEPO spoke about these issues several times over the years. It's a lot worse when one looks at the top-level management (beyond Presidents), not just based on nationality but past employment and sometimes family connections.

"The SUEPO Web site (including the former "forums") is publicly-accessible and SUEPO officials are well known to EPO management (the structure of SUEPO and the underlying functions)."This kind of entryism at the Office is a real issue; it's not an entirely unique issue, as it appears to have happened (to a lesser degree) in the US. There's one anonymous account writing about USPTO appointments by nepotism -- a subject many USPTO insiders are well aware of. Yesterday this account said: "Rumors are flying that Pam Isom, an infamous hire of John Ownes and Tony Chiles, is leaving. Reportedly going to DOE, we give her 6 months. No news of the new CIO but we are expecting an announcement any day now. CIO staff seems to be embracing the arrival of Debbie Stephens. GL [...] Confirmed: Pam Isom is leaving PTO. Now to get rid of some of the idiots she promoted or hired. Hopefully Debbie Stephens can help with this duty. We are pretty sure David Chiles will keep everything in place if selected as CIO."

"Thankfully, however, assuming Campinos obeys ILO-AT rulings (the EPO did not do this for Judge Corcoran), SUEPO will get a shot of adrenaline; not only will it get some representation back but the record will show that SUEPO was right..."Perhaps SUEPO's mistake isn't that it said something wrong (it didn't!) but that it wasn't anonymous or 'undercover' enough. The SUEPO Web site (including the former "forums") is publicly-accessible and SUEPO officials are well known to EPO management (the structure of SUEPO and the underlying functions).

So Battistelli, seeing that people were talking about his nepotists and his corrupt hires, decided to destroy SUEPO. Over the past few months SUEPO has barely been active and recent reports say that SUEPO officials nowadays operate in a rather clandestine fashion/nature (for fear of reprisals/retributions).

Thankfully, however, assuming Campinos obeys ILO-AT rulings (the EPO did not do this for Judge Corcoran), SUEPO will get a shot of adrenaline; not only will it get some representation back but the record will show that SUEPO was right (as Techrights covered last night, with an update about the staff representation added later).

This morning Kluwer Patent Blog wrote the following:

In the last week of his term as president of the European Patent Office and a day before the official opening of the new EPO building in The Netherlands, president Benoit Battistelli lost three high-profile cases at the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation (ILOAT). The tribunal said Battistelli’s decisions to dismiss SUEPO leaders Elizabeth Hardon and Ion Brumme and to downgrade their colleague Malika Weaver were wrong and must be set aside.

The ILOAT ordered the reinstatement of Brumme ‘to the position he held immediately before his dismissal’ and the restoration of Weaver ‘with retroactive effect to the grade and step she would have held but for the imposition of the disciplinary sanction’, payment of interest on the resulting remuneration arrears ‘at the rate of 5 per cent per annum from due dates until the date of payment’, payment of moral damages in the sum of 30.000 (Brumme) and 25.000 (Weaver) euros and the payment of costs in the sum of 8.000 euros (cases 4042 and 4043, published on 26 June 2018).

Both SUEPO leaders had been charged with breaching their duties under the Service Regulations – in the case of Ion Brumme inciting Malika Weaver to do so – by unduly pressuring an EPO employee to continue litigation against the EPO and by disclosing confidential information. But the ILOAT concluded they did nothing wrong.


Märpel too posted some quick remarks:

Märpel is delighted to hear that Mr Ion Brumme, former SUEPO Munich chairperson, has been fully reinstated by ILOAT...


And of course IP Kat (or Merpel) has said absolutely nothing about it. It's nowadays on the same side as Battistelli; its people even do photo ops with him. How things have changed since the blog's founder left...

Here's one reader's personal analysis, which was shared with it today:

Malika, Ion and Elizabeth have won their cases.

The Tribunal pointed out that Malika's and Ion's actions were appropriate and irreproachable. Ion is to be reinstated and Malika's downgrading to be reversed.

The disciplinary committee and the president have not handled the case of Elizabeth correctly. They have not established any of the alleged wrongdoings beyond any reasonable doubt, the required standard for disciplinary proceedings. Since the proceedings were flawed, the case is sent back to the Organisation. If the Office wants to pursue the matter further, the entire disciplinary procedure will need to be repeated - by a new disciplinary committee while taking account of the Council's March 2016 Resolution. Since Elizabeth retired in the meantime, as mentioned in the judgment, it is rather speculative whether the new administration has interest in pursuing her case further.

All in all, a clear victory for the staff and a clear defeat for the dictator.


Later today this dictator will inaugurate a construction site! Don't forget to wear your helmets, people.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Rust is Starting to Seem More Like Microsoft-hosted "Digital Maoism", Not a Legitimate Effort to Improve Security
Maybe this is very innocent, but they seem to have taken a solid, stable program from a high-profile Frenchman and looked for ways to marry it with GitHub, i.e. Microsoft/NSA
Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia Fortify Their Digital Border With GNU/Linux
This month's data from statCounter is particularly interesting near the Baltic Sea
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk at Technical University of Liberec, Czech Republic
"For programs that you could run, and for network services that could do your own computing, under what circumstances is it reasonable to trust them?"
Another Wave of Microsoft Layoffs Comes Shortly. Microsoft Propaganda Sites and Slopforms Powered by Microsoft LLMs Already Spew Out Face-Saving Nonsense.
Based on last month's leak, some very extensive layoffs are now imminent [...] Perhaps we can expect a lot of noise, some of it spewed out by bots, to distract from or belittle the impending mass layoffs
Ubuntu Becomes Microsoft GitHub, Based on Decision Made by British Army Officer
You're hopeless, Canonical
 
People Used to Talk
If pets can live a measurably happy life without gadgets and "apps", why can't humans?
Outsourcing GNU/Linux to Microsoft GitHub Promoted by Microsoft LLM Slop and Army Officers
Something doesn't seem right
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part III: No More Media Lawsuits From Brett Wilson LLP This Year, One Can Only Guess Why
People leak a lot of material to Techrights because they know, based on the track record, that the sources will be protected and whatever gets published will stay online, in full, no matter how stubborn an effort (even lawsuits and blackmail) will be sent its way
Gemini Links 07/05/2025: Adopting GrapheneOS, Further Enshittification of Flickr
Links for the day
Links 07/05/2025: CISA Gutted, Debt-Saddled (Likely Insolvent) 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop) Faking Its Financial State Again
Links for the day
The European Patent Office (EPO) Has a Very Profound Corruption Issue, Far More Urgent an Issue Than Pronouns
a rather long document
Today We Turn 18.5
The eighteenth "and a half" anniversary
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 06, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 06, 2025
Microsoft Finally Admits That XBox is ****
In this case, "enshittification" is an understatement
Slopwatch: Microsoft Slop, Anti-Linux Slop, and IBM Marketing Itself as a Slop Company
Microsoft-controlled LLM spewing out garbage about "Linux"
Links 06/05/2025: Microsoft's Assassination of Skype After Years of Failure, Slop Hallucinations Are Getting Worse
Links for the day
Links 06/05/2025: Changing Places and StarGrid for PalmOS
Links for the day
Windows and Microsoft Causing Serious Data Breaches, Media Rushes to Blame That on "Linux" Somehow
While selling us some rusty old propaganda about how moving to Microsoft GitHub (Rust) will improve security
Making Site Archives More Easily Accessible (Approaching 50,000 Blog Posts)
Efforts to censor us have always backfired badly
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part II: Hiding Behind Lawyers and Barristers Who Lack Standards so as to Engage in Classic Corporate Extortion
They're trying to scare people and they misuse their licence to operate
Links 06/05/2025: LLMs/Chatbots Attract More Scrutiny (Getting Worse Over Time), PwC Has Many Layoffs
Links for the day
Thanks for listening. How can this Morse feed be further improved?
Right now any and all feedback on the audio would be helpful
statCounter: Bing's Market Share Lower Right Now Than It Was When LLM Hype Began (With "Bing Chat")
If anybody gains at Google's expense in search, it is BRICS' alternatives such as Yandex
Gemini Links 06/05/2025: Failure and Proxmox Cluster
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 05, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 05, 2025
Weaponisation of For-Profit Dockets - Part I: Hiding Behind Lawyers (or Guns for Hire) After Abusing Many People and Even Strangling Women While Microsoft Paid Salaries
This whole thing is very typical of the Microsoft and Bill Gates mindset
From EPO to "MAGA Regime": A Shift Away From Reality to Fake News and False Metrics
Disbelief in itself isn't a bad thing; but the problem is that people are taught to believe rich people in suits more than they believe others
Skype is Officially Dead Today and This is Why People Should Use Free Software Instead (Goodbye, Microsoft)
It's also a good reminder of why people should move to GNU/Linux
'Simple Articles' in MyGemini Just One of Many New 'Sites' in Geminispace
Geminispace has grown fast lately; it's turning 6 next month
Links 05/05/2025: TikTok Still a Romanian Woe/Foe, Signal Perils Showing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: Debian and GNOME and a "Welcome to Simple Articles"
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: US Economy Shrinks, US Presidency Spreading Deepfakes
Links for the day
Links 05/05/2025: Breaches, Environment, and Conflicts
Links for the day
SUSE the Company Now Uses LLM Slop to 'Write' Its Blog, What Does That Tell Us About SUSE?
There are many giveaways
Richard Stallman is in Alicante Today to Give a Talk, Czech Republic in Two Days (Wednesday)
Of course he can deliver the talk in Spanish
Gemini Links 05/05/2025: XL Bullies and Luddites
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 04, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 04, 2025