Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Golden Cage of the EPO is No Longer Golden and It Increasingly Looks Like It's Shutting Down, However Gradually

Recent: Reader's Post: How the EPO Silently Halves Salaries of Senior EPO Staff (or Gets Rid of Them)

Jailed monkey
Reference: The Golden Cage



Summary: As the EPO runs out of work questions remain about what will happen to working conditions (if any workers are left who are satisfied at all)

THE OUTSOURCER in chief António Campinos starts his fifth week on the job tomorrow. We are still hearing rumours and speculations about layoffs. In the meantime senior staff is being driven out and/or forced to take cuts. This would be unthinkable somewhere like the USPTO, let alone anywhere in Europe, but the EPO is above the law.

"We're not sure that the EPO is even recruiting anymore."The occasional commentary by Märpel, which/who typically writes in the weekends (we're guessing it's an EPO insider), now tackles glassdoor.com reviews (recall our article "Job Applicants at the EPO Disappointed, Reference Made in Interview to Slavery"). "Therefore," Märpel wrote a few hours ago, "as could be expected, the EPO experiences great difficulties in finding candidates when recruiting."

We're not sure that the EPO is even recruiting anymore. It's mostly pretending to. We have heard it from several directions/sources and we have not seen the EPO openly advertising jobs for a number of months. That's not the usual thing. In Märpel's words:

In a comment posted on the last article, "Seeking job" noted that the reviews about the EPO on glassdoor.com criticised that the EPO did not respect the rule of law. Glassdoor is only the tip of the iceberg. Märpel asked around. University graduates are organised in trade associations and these are not publicly accessible on the Internet. But they help spread the word.

It normally works as follows: -trade associations keep lists of their members -if you are a member and seek a job at the EPO, you look on the list for somebody already working at the EPO and contact them -that person tells you his or her opinion of the place.


Dear readers who know what goes on recruitment-wise, please get in touch with us securely; we need to know what Campinos plans to do when impending patents/applications backlog runs out. It won't be long before that happens. What will happen then?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
The Myth of an Aging (or Dying) GNU/Linux Leadership
Self-fulfilling prophecies as a tactic?
 
Links 07/12/2023: More EPO Patents Squashed, More Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine "Glitches" Found
Links for the day
Still Not 'Canceled'
Ted Ts'o, Jan Kara, Linus Torvalds last month
Google is Googlebombing the Term "Gemini"
Could Google not pick a name that's already "taken"?
Links 06/12/2023: Bitcoin Rebound, China Downgraded by American Firm, Yahoo! Layoffs Again
Links for the day
Shooting the Messenger Using Bribes and Secrecy Bonds
We seem to live in a world where accountability for the rich and well-connected barely exists anymore
Links 06/12/2023: Many More December Layoffs
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, December 05, 2023
IRC logs for Tuesday, December 05, 2023
PipeWire 1.0: Linux audio comes of age
Once upon a time, serious audio users like musicians and audio engineers had real trouble with Linux
This is How 'Linux' Foundation Presents Linux to the World
Right now it even picks Windows over Linux in some cases
Links 05/12/2023: Microsoft's Chatbot as Health Hazard
Links for the day
There's Nothing "Funny" About Attacking Free Speech and Software Freedom
persistent focus on the principal issues is very important
Professor Eben Moglen Explained How Software Patent Threats Had Changed Around 2014 (Alice Case) and What Would Happen Till 2025
clip aged reasonably well
GNU/Linux Adoption in Africa, a Passageway Towards Freedom From Neo-Colonialism
Digi(tal)-Colonialism and/or Techolonialism are a thing. Can Africa flee the trap?
CNN Contributes to Demolition of the Open Web
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Eben Moglen on Encryption and Anonymity
The alternate net we need, and how we can build it ourselves
Yet More Microsofters Inside the Board of Mozilla (Which Has Just Outsourced Firefox Development to Microsoft's Proprietary Prison)
Do you want a browser controlled (and spied on) by such a company?
IRC Proceedings: Monday, December 04, 2023
IRC logs for Monday, December 04, 2023
GNU/Linux Now Exceeds 3.6% Market Share on Desktops/Laptops, According to statCounter
things have changed for Windows in China
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 05/12/2023: Debt Brake in Germany and Layoffs at Condé Nast (Reddit, Wired, Ars Technica and More)
Links for the day