The former Swedish Judge at the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm, now President of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), has disgraced his own court by reaffirming longstanding suspicions; he basically colluded with the Office whose actions he was supposed to objectively assess.



Summary: The crisis has become severe enough or so prominent that a major overhaul is needed to restore basic reputation (for the granting authority and the tribunal overseeing this process); António Campinos needs to resign, as he clearly failed on all levels, including dialogue with staff (no member of staff trusts him anymore, less than 3 years into his term)

"The fall of the EBA" is the name of the commenter, who said about the EPO's EBA a bunch of things that relate to 2014 incidents (Judge PC), then comparing it to the current situation, as covered here yesterday, hours before we heralded that President Campinos is finished. Notice the part about the president: "That on top the EBA is not even aware of its own RP is as such a scandal. That the chair of the BA had to be told by its peers that he should not act in G 1/21 also a scandal. I do not think that its credibility has increased."

He was, in effect, deposed by peers (in his absence). The EPO won't recover from this easily and it's not clear, as we explained last night, how they can rectify the situation in some ad hoc fashion. We're truly back to Benoît Battistelli's 2015 -- a year of endless tensions and an organisational crisis so severe that in 2016 it became so severe that they held secret meetings to debate the matter.

The full comment recalls:

Talking about an USB stick: when the EBA was called in to confirm the sacking of one of its members, the then president gave the EBA a stick with all alleged proof of the misbehaving of the accused member and told the EBA it should take knowledge of its content. At the time the EBA refused to look at it.

Now it is the BA which gives an USB stick to a party and tells it to take knowledge of its content. It is amazing to see how the EBA has evolved! Do not tell me that the EBA is really independent.

OP by video before the EBA do not give the guarantee that the representatives of the president cannot participate in the debate within the EBA. It might be far-fetched, but in view of the manner G 1/21 has been dealt with by the EBA up to now, I would not be surprised. It is clear that the speed with which the chair of the BA called OP was to please the president. Without OP by ViCo no “New Normal”!

That on top the EBA is not even aware of its own RP is as such a scandal. That the chair of the BA had to be told by its peers that he should not act in G 1/21 also a scandal. I do not think that its credibility has increased.

Should all the present “managers” of the EPO and of the BA had been at the helm of the EPO at its beginning, the EPO would never have become a success story!

Our hope isn't for the collapse of the EPO but a major overhaul that likely should involve mass resignations at the top (if not, sacking en masse; the cabal must go). European software patents need to go away, as they were usually approved (all the legal hacks/workarounds/bypasses) by the same panels that are demonstrably not independent (months ago we saw one such case subjected to meddling by Campinos and his agents). ⬆