Bonum Certa Men Certa

Battistelli Trashed 223 Millions (of Stakeholders' Euros) on a System That Destroyed the European Patent Office and Made Few Private Corporations a Lot Richer

...Before, on his final weeks on the job, passing millions of euros to his other employer

EPO’s IT - Yet another crack in Battistelli’s “excellence” bubble



Summary: A quarter of a billion euros later the EPO finally admits in private that this was a massive failure

READERS can find above "EPO’s IT - Yet another crack in Battistelli’s “excellence” bubble"." Sources tell us this appeared in SUEPO's site (non-public), having been published a fortnight ago, on 05/02/2019. As we showed yesterday, there's less than a fortnight left before key components of this system get abandoned. What a waste of money.



As SUEPO put it: "Will Mr Campinos hold the managers, appointed by Mr Battistelli, accountable for these disasters?"

Of course not. From the above:

The eDossier programme has not been fully realised and is largely delayed. This seems to be amongst others due to the fact that the two releases, stock management/annotation and search workflow, are developed in parallel, but are based on different architecture and technology stack. The parallel development of the two releases turns out to be highly inefficient and not long-term sustainable. The audit recommends an immediate stop of all effort on one release and the work on the other release should be temporarily suspended. As in all previous staff surveys, and the only positive statement in the audit, a strong individual commitment and team spirit among the IT staff is shown. Nevertheless, overall staff engagement is rather low. In particular, the pride, satisfaction and sense of purpose are relatively weak in comparison to benchmarks. Furthermore, the management style is perceived as too top-down and non-collaborative while appreciation of individual opinions is considered to be relatively low.

Conclusions:

- The audit clearly reveals that Mr Battistelli either lied to all the EPO stakeholders or was completely misinformed by his management about the state of affairs of the EPO’s IT. - Fact is that 223 million Euros are spent on an IT project and there seems to be no tangible results coming from it. Mr Campinos and Ms Simon await an enormous task to repair the EPO’s IT organisation, infrastructure and IT staff motivation. - The production rise of the last years can only be the result of the extreme hard work of the EPO staff and certainly not by the badly designed, wrongly developed or incomplete applications. - Losing 223 million Euros is clearly not in line with the sustainability mantra of the EPO administration. Sustainability is an “approach aiming to create long-term stakeholder value through the implementation of a business strategy that focuses on the ethical, social, environmental, cultural, and economic dimensions of doing business. The strategies created are intended to foster longevity, transparency and proper employee development within business organizations”. It definitely does not mean for EPO employees to produce more and work harder in order to cover losses made by EPO managers.

Are the next cracks in Battistelli’s “excellence” bubble going to be: the patent quality, the reformed EPO legal system, the reformed social democracy and/or the ill conceived HR policies ?

How will Mr Campinos deal with the fact that the EPO is not the “excellent” model organisation his predecessor always claimed it to be?

Will Mr Campinos hold the managers, appointed by Mr Battistelli, accountable for these disasters?

SUEPO


We now live in a Europe with lots of dubious European Patents. In Lexology, for instance, Weickmann & Weickmann's Stephan Jellbauer has just written about those fruity EPO patents that are laughable satires. See how Battistelli attempted to justify these. FRKelly has meanwhile written in the same site on "Patent enforcement through the courts in the European Union"; it should increasingly be accepted and broadly realised that many courts do not (not often anyway) tolerate patents granted by EPO. In order to fake numbers Battistelli allowed a lot of bogus patents to be granted; it may take decades before these go away (expiry). Who pays? The public.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsofters Issuing Threats to Microsoft Critics Who Blog About Microsoft
So far we see that their "legal strategy" revolves around trying to discredit people like Theodore Ts'o
There Are Days or Occasions Where gemini:// Requests Almost Exceed http(s):// and Gemini Protocol Isn't Even 6 Yet
Gemini Protocol turns 6 one month from now
 
How We Defeated DDoS Attacks
One of the best things one can do is migrate to an SSG
Links 19/05/2025: Political Catchup and CISA Advisories
Links for the day
TheLayoff.com Has Begun Deleting Trolls/AstroTurfers Infesting the IBM Section to Discourage On-Topic Discussion About Culls and Maladministration (Bad Strategy)
Moderators have realised there's a problem
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 18, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 18, 2025
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Five Years on Gemini and Atom Feeds over Gopher
Links for the day
Links 18/05/2025: F.D.A. More Sceptical of COVID-19 Vaccines, UK Charges 3 Iranian Nationals In Alleged Attack Plot Against Journalists
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: "Finally Upgraded" and "Rebooting"
Links for the day
Abundance of Good Code, "Just Like Air."
Richard Stallman's seminal manifesto and foundational (practical) work on GNU gave us a very solid system that facilitates productive work without concerns over spyware
Messages in TheLayoff.com Drowned Out by LLM Slop (Comments Focused on Replying to Bot-Generated Provocation)
apparently shaking hands with nazis isn't as bad as calling your git repository's main branch "master"
The Importance of Full Disclosure and Transparency Online
there will be full transparency, as always
Slopwatch: Slopfarms and Serial Sloppers Still at It
Apparently Google is too understaffed to figure that out
Links 18/05/2025: Decreased Prospects of Science Careers, Disappearance of Journalists
Links for the day
Microsofters Have a Long History Trying to Take Down Techrights by Sending Threats to Webhosts
picking on women
Links 18/05/2025: Science, Censorship and European Commission Taking on Monopoly Abuse by Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/05/2025: Šibenik and SFJAZZ Historical Archive
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 17, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 17, 2025
Links 17/05/2025: Microsoft Kills "Surface Laptop Studio" (More Canceled Products/Units), Groups Caution About Harms of Social Control Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/05/2025: Sympathy Algorithm and SSH on Alternative Ports
Links for the day
Inviting the Founder of GNU/Linux to Events (It Only Costs His Travel Expenses) and Recalling the True Origins
It's reassuring to see belated recognition
Slopwatch: Microsoft's Anti-Linux Propaganda and Cover-up, Slopfarms Clogging Up Google News
slop-tracking activities that observe googlebombing of "Linux"
AstroTurfing by IBM in thelayoff.com is Highly Risky (and Likely Outsourced)
Microsoft did this in Reddit (and got caught), so why won't IBM too?
Links 17/05/2025: Stabber of Salman Rushdie Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison
Links for the day
The Microsofters Have Just Shared Privileged Trial Data With Microsoft
There are serious ramifications for liability accountability as Microsoft salaries sponsor these SLAPPs
Trolls With LLM Slop Are Disrupting Communications About Mass Layoffs at IBM
LLM slop to drown out the signal
Gemini Links 17/05/2025: Happier on Gemini and Manipulating Reddit
Links for the day
ComEd and Microsoft: A Mess of Spaghetti Held Together By Circus Clowns
Reprinted with permission from Ryan Farmer
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 16, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 16, 2025