LAST week was a very busy week that culminated in televised protest against António Campinos, whose policies have been no better than Battistelli's. No calm will be restored by such liars. They fool nobody!
"Well done to SUEPO; the protests (two of them in two sites and two weeks apart) got some people talking again about these issues."Thanks to SUEPO, both in Munich and in Dutch territories (where Mr. Prunier had been made a scapegoat before Campinos came), it's now perfectly clear to EPO management that the protests are back. The Campinos Delusion didn't last long. Are delegates (Administrative Council) paying attention? Or are they too busy counting the money they've received from the EPO's coffers, where staff is being gradually robbed while 'reassured' by the European Patent Office (EPO)'s Mercer 'study' -- conducted by a Donald Trump associate with notorious reputation for various real reasons other than the Trump connection?
"Nowadays fake news are not only to be seen in politics, just look over the Atlantic, but one can see them creeping up in an international organisation, but here one wonders to the benefit of whom. The new financial study is just a big fake!"
So said "A friend of the EPO" during the weekend, in this new comment which we've annotated with a digital marker below.
It is sad to see the EPO be run into the wall under the “guidance” of pseudo-managers who consider the EPO as the playground of their desire for power by which they try to hide their disgraceful inability.
Nowadays fake news are not only to be seen in politics, just look over the Atlantic, but one can see them creeping up in an international organisation, but here one wonders to the benefit of whom. The new financial study is just a big fake!
By his latest actions, and by keeping in place the most disgraceful minions as well as the staff policy introduced by his predecessor, the actual president has abundantly shown that he has no interest whatsoever in social peace, and he is only there to continue the deconstruction of the EPO started by his predecessor.
It would be interesting to see the contract signed by the past two presidents in order to see how much money they can expect when behaving like an elephant in a porcelain shop.
As our Friend of the EPO recommends, follow the money. We would if we could but we can’t. And why’s that? Because the former President has helped the members of the Administrative Council of the EPO to see how a conspiracy between those Members and the President can deliver a delightful flow of real money, out of the EPO and into the coffers of the AC Members. In a national organisation there would be a level of legal supervision, transparency, the Rule of Law. But in an international organisation there are no such controls.
https://www.programmableweb.com/news/google-cardboard-now-open-source/brief/2019/11/07If the organisation in question operates in the world of sport, there is public interest. So then there are investigative journalists, whistle-blowers, and lurid headlines in newspapers. No such things worry EPO President and his enablers on the AC though. Not enough public interest to make them even mildly nervous.
Even the users of the EPO couldn’t care less. That’s because they are big corporations (who have more important matters on their minds) and their faithful servants the patent attorneys. They, more than anybody, know who butters their parsnips: their clients, not the taxpayer or the EPO. So they remain knowingly complicit in a swindle, an outrage against transparency, employee rights and the Rule of Law.
The outcome of all this? The AC Members, the President, and those within the EPO who serve them continue to be blithely insouciant.
Like Joni Mitchell warned us: You only know what you’ve got when it’s gone. It’s the things that change so slowly (like the climate) that are hardest to see disappearing. I’ve been watching the EPO for more than 40 years. Until recently, it was something to be admired. But under its immediate past President, it lost a lot. Many had high hopes that the coming into office of the current President could arrest the downward path. What is it that explains his failure? Is he powerless against the AC? Is he too blind to see? Or is he yet another with his snout in the money trough, using his term of office to line his own pockets?
In the past, the UK Member on the AC might have helped the cause. But can you expect that these days, under Prime Minister Johnson.
Corruption is like cancer cells if you look for it, you will find some. At EPO follow the money fine but how?
As you know with a yearly budget of two billion euros and no genuine checks and balances the EPO is immune to corruption. Surely to increase independency, Battistelli managed to have the administrative council selecting one of his former employees at INPI Paris as one of the three “external auditors” see http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/epo-people.pdf
This €«independent€» auditor is still active today. Imagine one sec that a whistleblower reports where to look to find malpractice, what do you think would happen?
For instance, technically it is possible today for ex-top managers having left the EPO to cash EPO funds via consultancy companies created – not under their name obviously. To determine if this is the case, you need a truly independent structure allowed to check everywhere in details (the German did such check years ago with the Deutsche Bahn and guess what, they found corruption).
Another interesting study case: the two married principal directors recruited by Battistelli and who under Campinos are running the EPO recently benefited from a change of title. (Wrongly?) informed top managers report in the corridors that this would have been done to allow a discreet increase of their far too low principal directors’ salaries and bring them at the level of what is foreseen for vice presidents.
With Battistelli’s reforms, transparency and safeguards were removed to allow for discretionary decisions by and for those in charge. Before the reforms, a title was linked to a precise grade and the salary scale for this position clearly defined. Now it’s Christmas all year long with for the happy-few double-steps, functional allowances, bonus you name it. This can be of course a naughty rumour but concretely how to ascertain this is not the case?
Battistelli brought to the EPO the absolute worst of french unhealthy practices and unfortunately, Campinos seems happy with it, as are Germany and the Netherlands as host states, as well as all member states which collect millions of euros of EPO money each year.
Study released by the European Patent Office sheds light on the growing sophistication of smaller businesses seeking protection for their inventions.