Ever wondered why so little is reported in the media? Look at internal documents, only to find there's a suppression campaign worse and more draconian than Battistelli's.

EPO 'soft power' is killing people 'softly'

Summary: Europe's most autocratic institution, the EPO, is still muzzling its staff; Mr. Prunier (above) may have reached a settlement after years of unjust suffering, but that settlement does not correct or serve to eliminate the broader pattern, which prevents staff from reporting corruption and other serious abuses

THE Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) is a lot more competent -- professionally speaking -- than EPO management. The former are scientists, the latter is just a bunch of buddies who loot the organisation and don't even know how to run it. Few of them even understand patents. They just look at the EPO as little but a financial instrument through which to enrich themselves and give themselves an ego boost.

Back in May we wrote about the settlement with Laurent Prunier (later we'd bemoan lack of media coverage about this). Others had beaten us to it and SUEPO circulated a number of publications/updates. "The ordeal is finally over," it said, but so was Mr. Prunier's EPO career. After what he had gone through he no longer wanted to be at the Office. And seeing how bad things still are at the Office, who can blame him? This isn't the patent office he originally joined. Not anymore...

Now, 6 months down the line, we'd like to put in the public record documents related to this settlement. We wrote about Mr. Prunier more than half a dozen times. Benoît Battistelli smeared him in IAM and elsewhere, so Mr. Prunier is quite courageous, taking on this "Mafia" and the Mafia's media partners (which is what IAM is).

First of all, here is the announcement from SUEPO:

28 April 2020 su20021cp

Dear SUEPO Members, Dear colleagues,

As you remember, numerous union officials and staff representatives were harshly targeted under Mr Battistelli’s tenure. Following the mandate received from the Administrative Council, Mr Campinos has taken steps to provide relief to these colleagues.

The latest in the series is Laurent Prunier, former Secretary of SUEPO The Hague and elected member of the Central Staff Committee, who was dismissed in 2016. He has just informed us that an amicable settlement was finally reached with the Office. We are not privy to the settlement details, since strict confidentiality regulates it.

Laurent wholeheartedly thanks all of you who supported him. Without your solidarity, he would never have been able to keep afloat. You can now stop your donations.

The ordeal, which has lasted more than 3 years, has severely impacted Laurent’s life and health. In light of this impact, and in spite of having been a truly committed and valuable EPO colleague, Laurent chose not to return to the Office to be able to properly recover. We sincerely hope he will be able to heal his trauma and rebuild a new future. We wish him the very best.

We take this opportunity to recall that two former Staff Committee experts remain abusively sanctioned: Aurélien Pétiaud in Munich and Michael Lund (now on pension) in The Hague. We hope that the President will finally provide relief to them, too. An amnesty is, as Dr Bausch reminded the IP community in one of his blogposts on Kluwer Patent Blog¹, well within his discretionary power.

SUEPO CENTRAL

________ ¹ Es gibt nichts Gutes. Außer man tut es

"Regrettably," SUEPO added (alluding to the likes of Bergot), "the managers that were instrumental in this witch hunt are still working at the EPO - unpunished and continuing as if nothing ever happened. The President will need to undertake several more actions if he ever wants to start to restore trust in the administration, and taking a careful look at his advisers - still the same team as under Battistelli’s tenure - is an urgently needed first step."

The settlement documents (original) are all in German, but Mr. Prunier issued the following letter in English.

"Laurent’s ordeal, which has lasted for more than 3 years, is over," SUEPO wrote. But health isn't coming back; those take a great toll on one's mental and physical health, so recovery can only ever be partial. I've known people to whom such things happened; the chilling, strong impact of the experience or the shock has a long-lasting cost. Nobody was ever punished for all the unwarranted bollocking against Laurent and his colleagues. Nobody. ⬆