Last year: Serco's Censorship of Media or EPO's Censorship of Media? Either Way, There's a Profound Media Crisis in Europe. | The Corrupt EPO Apparently Hides Its Serco Outsourcing Deal

Summary: The European Patent Office (EPO) keeps outsourcing its work to outside contractors (for-profit private entities) to the tune of hundreds of millions if not billions -- all this without any oversight

AS noted above (two links preceding the image), when the EPO outsources the work to outside contractors it doesn't want the public to know about it. If the EPO exists for the public, why it is privatised and turned into some sort of for-profit operation? Check where the money goes...

"If the EPO exists for the public, why it is privatised and turned into some sort of for-profit operation?"The latest massive contract went to a French company (of course, like the EPO's Presidents of the past two decades) with mostly French clients. Its new and latest press release states:

Sword Technologies S.A., a Sword Group (Euronext Paris: SWP) company, as member of the I(P)NNOVATE consortium, has signed the Software Development and Maintenance (SDAM) framework contract of the European Patent Office (EPO) with a budget of €300 million.

Sword Technologies S.A., in a consortium with Everis Spain, has competed with worldwide leading IT services providers and has subsequently been awarded a 5-year framework contract worth €300 million for the Software Development and Maintenance (SDAM) of all the European Patent Office (EPO) IT applications and systems. Sword Technologies foresees a revenue of circa €100 million for this 5-year contract.

€300 million for a company with just a few thousands of employees seems absurd. That's over a hundred thousand euros per person ("Sword has 2 300+ IT/Digital & Software specialists," says their press release) and their "Commitment" as a company is citing ILO, which EPO turned into trash (to the point where ILO administrators considered tossing the EPO out!). To quote:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; Principle 2: and make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.

ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work:

Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining; Principle 4: The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour; Principle 5: The effective abolition of child labour; Principle 6: The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.

Little by little the EPO seems to be turning into a private company, typically with financial ties to EPO management. Remember what António Campinos did to EUIPO as a 'departure gift'; he sent the IT work to India (and yes, it's an EU agency). EPO corruption appears to have been normalised and investigative journalism is dead, so don't expect the media to talk about it any more than it talked about the Serco contract (none at all; it even deleted existing articles about it!). ⬆