Stephen Rowan's and Nellie Simon's Letter to EPO Staff: eDossier Has “Not Reached the Required Quality Levels.”
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2019-02-19 08:42:11 UTC
- Modified: 2019-02-19 08:42:11 UTC
Summary: We've just commented on it; here is the raw letter in full, explaining that eDossier and related frameworks will be abandoned entirely and indefinitely within less than a fortnight
The EPO management team has taken the decision to stop the eDossier project in its entirety.
After three years of intense efforts to design and deliver eDossier, the implemented solution is unfortunately neither performant nor scalable enough to create a paperless, electronic workflow. In addition, after two rounds of corrective testing, the latest release has not reached the required quality levels. This was independently confirmed by the recent IT Audit performed by Boston Consulting Group. The Audit also highlighted that the planned benefits have not materialised and expressed concerns over the expected benefits and feasibility of the programme, as currently defined.
In light of these findings, the management team has followed the recommendation of the IT Audit and stopped the eDossier project, including the Cellule de Suivi. The three directorates currently using it for Stock Management will now accept and allocate files in the same way as all other directorates.
Stopping a project of this magnitude is never easy and the decision has not been taken lightly. The Office invested greatly in this project with the aim of delivering significant benefits to the organisation, through the introduction of an electronic dossier and workflow. We also appreciate that this has been one of a number of efforts over time to introduce a more electronic workflow. However, it is a reality of innovative organisations that not all projects work out exactly as we had hoped, no matter how great the effort from those involved.
We will now draw lessons from eDossier to better prepare us for other projects in the future. With a more agile BIT structure that is being proposed, and the overall maturation of technologies, we are also better equipped to achieve our aims in the future. As part of the Office's Strategic Plan, the Office will now make proposals for a new back-office to support the patent grant process using an improved platform, which will deliver both performance and scalability.
We fully realise that many of you have invested great energy in this project to make it a success. We would therefore like to express our sincere gratitude to all of you, whether examiner, para-technical, formalities officer, team manager or director, who has used eDossier Stock Management, as well as all the IM, PD13 and PD14 staff who worked on the project and supported the cellule during the past two years.
eDossier Stock Management will stop on Friday 1 March 2019 at 16:00. All those using eDossier will receive information later today on how the transition will be managed and what you can expect and when.
Stephen Rowan
Vice-President DG1
Nellie Simon
Vice-President DG4
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Representing and Speaking for Animals
- If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
- The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
-
- Financiers and Sponsors of the Slop Hype (Pyramid Scheme Waiting to End, Bubble That Will Inevitably Implode)
- It's also burning the planet
- Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Google Helps Ponzi Schemes and Slopfarms in Google News
- Slopfarms are a real pain
- Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Retiring at 62 and URL Filtering HTTP(S) Proxy on Qubes OS
- Links for the day
- Links 29/08/2025: Lisa Cook Sues Convicted Felon and Backdoor Mandate in UK Resisted
- Links for the day
- Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
- Links for the day
- No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
- Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
- Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
- we won't publish much whilst on holiday
- In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
- In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
- More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
- Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
- IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
- Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
- Links for the day
- Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
- Links for the day
- Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
- This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
- The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
- The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
- Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
- Links for the day
- A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
- There are several lessons in there
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
- In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
- Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
- The OSI is compromised
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
- Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
- Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
- Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
- Links for the day
- Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
- Links for the day
- Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
- Vista 11 is going down rather than up
- Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
- Links for the day
- 12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
- There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
- More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
- Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
- Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
- Links for the day
- Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
- The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
- GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
- Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025