Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Had a Leakage Problem and Privacy of Stakeholders Was Compromised, Affecting at Least 100 Cases

Revelations from insiders

A coverup



Summary: The confidentiality principle was compromised at the EPO and stakeholders weren't told about it (there was a coverup)

A recent software issue concerning the EPO’s on-line filing services has affected at least 100 cases. On the EPO website it was described as “unexpected behaviour of the Online Filing software”. Internally it was called a “leakage”. While the incident may have affected the privacy of patent attorneys, law firms and applicants, the EPO users were not informed about these risks. Users were simply advised to install a software update as soon as possible.



The public announcements:

On 26 April 2019 users of the EPO’s on-line services were informed about a software issue:

Problems with Online Filing



We are experiencing unexpected behaviour of the Online Filing software. In order to avoid any impact on user operations and data, users are asked to check carefully the acknowledgment of receipt and inform the EPO Customer Services immediately in case of any irregularities. A software patch fixing the issue (epptch5464) has been prepared and is available for download.

We apologise for any inconvenience.



A new on-line filing software was made available later on the same day, together with the following message:

Online Filing software – new update now available



26 April 2019 update

The EPO is pleased to inform users of its Online Filing software that a replacement EP update 5.0.11.174 for Version 5.11 (build 5.0.11.173 or lower) is now available for download. This update replaces, but does not require deinstallation, of the previous updates issued on 1 April 2019 and 15 April 2019 and also resolves issues announced on 26 April 2019.

Users are advised to install this update as soon as possible.

Users who have activated the Live Update function will be notified automatically.

We apologise for any inconvenience.


The internal communication:

The following message was sent to a number of EPO managers and staff at the end of April 2019:

Support: The update of on-line filing (OLF) released on 01.04.2019 caused documents that were not attached by the user to the submissions to be nonetheless included with the submission and loaded into the TOC as INCANNEX. The package has since been withdrawn (Online Services) but it cannot be excluded that users having installed it have continued using it thereafter. D132 [Patent Procedures Management] has informed FOs [Formalities Officers] about the issue, and coordinated with OCFDs [Opposition and Central Formalities Directorates] for dealing with the 100 cases already affected by the leakage; the cases have been pointred [sic!] out by a query run by BIT [Business Information Technologies]. The internal process to deal with this emergency has worked smoothly thanks to the collaborations of all stakeholders (OCFDs, BIT and D132).


The principal issue is that confidential documents which are submitted to the EPO (via on-line filing) by accident are not recognised as confidential matter. There is no check in place for this purpose. It happened that private documents were published on the EPO website by accident. It is not known whether any of the applicants, law firms or patent attorneys was harmed by these incidents. Other incidents may not yet have been discovered. While the bug was discovered in the second half of April 2019, it is not known at what date and with which software version it was introduced.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Google News is Rewarding Slopfarms, Not Journalism
Don't read junk from chatbots
Richard Stallman, Whose Site is Trusted by Greater Manchester, Has Come to the United Kingdom
He doesn't suck up to the Crown, so he'll never be "knighted"
On Desktops/Laptops in Singapore Does a Fifth of Users Run GNU/Linux?
Probably not, but it's growing fast there
Links 21/04/2025: Fake Ceasefire and Software Patents (Fake Patents) Thrown Out
Links for the day
4 Years Ago Freenode Crumbled From Within
there are still hundreds of thousands of users online at any given time
Microsoft Has Tainted GNOME, Which Has Key People Acting as a SLAPP Front Against Techrights (Trying to Censor the Site by Extortion and Many Threats)
One common denominator (other than Microsoft salaries) is GNOME, which was led by an actual professional crank until she quit so suddenly months ago
Homeland of Linux Kernel Turning to GNU/Linux?
Adoption of Vista 11 has been relatively low
 
Microsoft's Debt Grew Over 6 Billion Dollars in the Last Reporting Quarter (Before Inauguration), Expect Worse Next Week When 'Results' Are Disclosed and Mass Layoffs Resume
Microsoft is bleeding. It does not want people to notice.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, April 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, April 21, 2025
Richard Stallman Gives Public Talk in London in 7 Hours (Need to Register as Venue Limited to 150 Seats), Public Announcements Begin to Appear
These are not announced weeks or months in advance
Gemini Links 21/04/2025: Remembering Pope Francis, Crystal Simulation
Links for the day
Doing Microsoft's Job. On IBM's Payroll.
today's Red Hat cannot recognise threats even after a head-on collision
Teaching GAFAM in Schools is Like Teaching Children to Smoke Tobacco
So suggests an FSF presentation
Companies With Fake Values and a Fake Economic/Financial State (Phony Valuations)
It'll all go up in smoke, eventually
Links 21/04/2025: Microsoft LLM Slop (Plagiarism) Going Out of Control, CT Scans' Cancer Problems Was Underrated
Links for the day
GNOME Has a Long History (Over a Decade) Misusing the Code of Conduct (CoC) to Censor (Cull) Legitimate Technical Criticism
This has nothing to do with manners, it's about control (by cover-up)
According to StatCounter, This is What Linux Adoption Looks Like (Based on Web Requests Visible to StatCounter)
How much worse will it get for Microsoft?
Gemini Capsules Still Outsourcing to Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Now Measured at Less Than 10 (or Less Than 0.3%)
In Geminispace, Let's Encrypt is not commonly used
Twisting Microsoft's Failure (Transmitting Malware) as "SSH Backdoors" and a Linux Problem
Somehow we almost always find that those FUD pieces about "Linux" are based on obvious falsehoods
Vista 11 Has Burned OEMs and Some Move to GNU/Linux
When people can finally avoid Windows (there's no reason to attach it to new PCs) there will be a lot more GNU/Linux users out there
Remember That Microsoft Mass Layoffs Are Imminent Because Its 'Empire' is Falling Apart
European politicians take a long, hard look a Free software
Richard Stallman in the UK This Week, Scheduled to Give Two Public Talks (London and Oxford)
Those talks do not cover the same topics
Gemini Links 21/04/2025: April, Autism, and ASN
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 20, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 20, 2025
Links 20/04/2025: Partly Assorted Scientific and Political Leftovers
Links for the day
Links 20/04/2025: Many Data Breaches and Growing Censorship Wave
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Canadian Elections and "Use the Best Tools You Have for the Current Environment"
Links for the day
Deja vu: Hitler's Birthday, Andreas Tille elected Debian Project Leader again
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/04/2025: Bleeding Constitution and ChatGPT Infuriates Users Some More
Links for the day
Chinese OEMs (and World's Largest) Pave a Path Out of Microsoft Windows
So Microsoft now values (or prices) Vista 11 at just $140?
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Contradictions of Mark Carney and Blog Questions Challenge
Links for the day
Microsoft's 'Lawsuit Diplomacy' (SLAPPs Riding UK Libel Law and Piggybacking UK GDPR, Inapplicable!) Will Only Give a Worse Image to Microsofters (and Microsoft), Give Exposure to Even More Suppressed Facts and Scandals
Microsoft came to dominate some sectors because of (or owing to) crimes; Microsoft won't just go away without some more crimes.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 19, 2025
Five (or Three) Years Without Social Control Media
Glyn Moody quit X (Twitter)
Electronics in People's Bedrooms
Modern technology not only blurred the gap between "functions" of rooms
Why GNU/Linux is Growing
There's growing interest in GNU/Linux right now because people do not fancy buying a new PC just to 'upgrade' (more spying) Windows