Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part III: Three Missing Votes

Series parts:

  1. The EPO's Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part I: Let the Sunshine In!
  2. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part II: A “Unanimous” Endorsement?
  3. YOU ARE HERE ☞ Three Missing Votes


Hungary's Bendzsel and Ficsor
Hungary's Bendzsel and Ficsor were evidently too busy with other matters to come to Munich in June 2013.



Summary: A look at who declined (or failed) to participate in Benoît Battistelli's attack on workers; or, put another way, who failed to object to unlawful EPO regulations

We begin our "deep dive" investigation into the rubber-stamping of Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" in June 2013 by looking at the three Administrative Council delegations that absented themselves from the vote.



The delegations in question are: Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein.

"The delegations in question are: Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein."In the case of Hungary, the nominated representatives at the time in question were Battistelli's "friends in Budapest", Miklós Bendzsel and his deputy Mihály Ficsor.

However, neither Bendzsel nor Ficsor turned up in Munich for the 136th meeting of the EPO Administrative Council.

According to the records [PDF] of the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO), Ficsor was off attending a diplomatic conference convened by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Marrakech for signing a "Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled".

That sounds impressive but it's rather surprising to learn that to this day Hungary does not appear to be a contracting party to the Marrakech Treaty.

"...the statement in the Hungarian records concerning Bendzsel's participation is contradicted by the minutes of the 136th meeting of the EPO Administrative Council which list the participating Hungarian representatives as Judit Hajdú and Johanna Stadler."So it's a bit of a mystery what exactly Ficsor was up to in Marrakech in June 2013 when the Administrative Council was voting on Battistelli's "Strike Regulations".

As for Bendzsel, the records of the HIPO refer to "Participation by the President of the HIPO and his delegation in the 136th meeting of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation in Munich. Main topics: developments concerning the European patent with unitary effect, cooperation activity with member states and other countries, questions relating to the operation of the European Patent Organisation."

However, the statement in the Hungarian records concerning Bendzsel's participation is contradicted by the minutes of the 136th meeting of the EPO Administrative Council which list the participating Hungarian representatives as Judit Hajdú (pronounced like "Heidi") and Johanna Stadler.

"Bendzsel's absence is a bit of a riddle given the fact that he was the Deputy Chairman of the Administrative Council at the time."From this it would appear that Bendzsel was not in fact present in Munich or at least that he did not attend the Council meeting on the occasion in question.

Bendzsel's absence is a bit of a riddle given the fact that he was the Deputy Chairman of the Administrative Council at the time. But he obviously had some more urgent business to attend to than protecting the fundamental rights of EPO staff.

Judit Hajdú
Judit Hajdú who unfortunately appears to have missed the vote on Battistelli's "Strike Regulations"!



If the EPO records are to be believed, the acting head of delegation for Hungary at the 136th meeting of the Administrative Council was Judit Hajdú, an electrical engineer and head of the HIPO's Patent Department.

A hymn of praise to Ms Hajdú can be found on the HIPO website:

Judit Hajdú is an outstanding personality in the field of patent law. Her leadership and professional guidance have contributed greatly to the development of a uniform, high quality and modern patent examination practice and to the establishment of legality. Her focus, organisation and humanity have made her a respected and respected figure in her department and throughout the [Hungarian Patent] Office. [...]

In recent years, she has been particularly active in the field of the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, and has shown great professionalism in this field. She is also closely involved in the harmonisation of patent law and the further development of the European patent system. She regularly represents the Office at meetings of the relevant committees of the EU, WIPO and EPO.


"In the case of the Czech Republic, the nominated representatives at the time in question were Josef Kratochvíl and his deputy, SvÄ•tlana Kopecká."By a mysterious stroke of misfortune, when Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" came up on the agenda during the June 2013 meeting, it would appear that Ms Hajdú missed the vote.

In the case of the Czech Republic, the nominated representatives at the time in question were Josef Kratochvíl and his deputy, SvÄ•tlana Kopecká.

In the EPO records, Kratochvíl is listed as an attendee at the meeting but, as in the case of Ms Hajdú from Hungary, he appears to have missed the vote on the "Strike Regulations".

Josef Kratochvíl confused
Josef Kratochvíl is listed as an attendee at the 136th meeting of the AC but it seems that he forgot to vote!



In the case of Liechtenstein, the nominated representatives at the time in question were Isabel Frommelt and Esther Schindler.

According to the EPO records, nobody attended the meeting on behalf of Liechtenstein and it is not clear on what grounds the nominated representatives absented themselves.

Isabel Frommelt and Esther Schindler
Liechtenstein delegates - Isabel Frommelt (l.) and Esther Schindler (r.) - absent without explanation.



Readers will no doubt be reassured to learn that none of the delegates who were absent for the vote on Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" suffered any prejudice to their subsequent careers as a result of their dereliction of duty to EPO staff back in June 2013.

The former head of the Hungarian delegation, Miklós Bendzsel, sailed off into the sunset of retirement in 2016.

"The former head of the Hungarian delegation, Miklós Bendzsel, sailed off into the sunset of retirement in 2016."As previously reported by Techrights, his deputy Mihály Ficsor the "well connected IP maximalist" from the Hungarian IPO recently became a Principal Director at the EPO in charge of Legal Affairs. According to comments posted on the Kluwer Patent Blog, Ficsor's name is even being touted as a possible successor to António Campinos.

As for Josef Kratochvíl, who to this day remains the head of the Czech delegation, he was elected as Chairman (warning: epo.org link) of the Administrative Council at the end of 2018.

Meanwhile, in Liechtenstein, both Isabel Frommelt and Esther Schindler have continued to pursue successful careers in the diplomatic service of the alpine micro-principality.

"Meanwhile, in Liechtenstein, both Isabel Frommelt and Esther Schindler have continued to pursue successful careers in the diplomatic service of the alpine micro-principality."Frommelt was appointed as Liechtenstein's Ambassador to Germany in August 2017 and Schindler is her deputy. Schindler was also appointed as a "Brexit Coordinator" at the Liechtenstein Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2018.

In the next part we will look at how the majority of the delegations from the EPO's founding states voted in favour of Battistelli's "Strike Regulations".

Recent Techrights' Posts

Tesla's Debt More Than Doubled in 2 Years and the Company Will Operate in the Red (at a Loss) Quite Soon
If your first-quarter net income is $409 million and you borrow billions from banks, plus interest to pay on those loans, then you're not far from returning to losses
Microsoft and Windows Have Many Back Doors, But LLM Slop Keep Claiming That Linux Has "Backdoor"
It's another example of LLM slop as FUD amplifier, via slopfarms as well
 
Links 05/08/2025: Samsung and Microsoft Layoffs
Links for the day
Rumours of Mass Layoffs at Red Hat Next Week (August 11th, 2025)
The eleventh means next Monday
IBM is Shutting Down (Piecewise)
IBM is basically being liquidated
The Debian Language Police Department (PD)
"there has never been complaints about anyone that was offended by this -off package"
When The Register MS Says "Linux Backdoor" It Actually Talks About Malware
The leading story in The Register US/MS this morning is Microsoft
Microsoft Windows Fell to 19% "Market Share" in Montenegro
Microsoft must be well aware of this trend
Why We Also Include Gopher Links in Our Gemini (Protocol) Links
There are still many people who use Gopher to relay their messages (like blog posts). They're mostly technical people.
Shouting is an Indication of a Lack of Convincing Argument
Beware what they are attempting to distract from
Mongolia: Microsoft Windows at All-Time Low
in 2009 when Windows was at 99.45% in Mongolia the company was "worth" less than 200 billion dollars
About a Quarter of Today's "linux" News in Google News Came From One Domain and It's a Slopfarm
Not kidding!
Gemini Links 05/08/2025: Zombie Threat and Switching to NixOS
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, August 04, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, August 04, 2025
ChatGPT in Trouble
Watch out for the newer buzzwords
The Register MS Links to the Wrong statCounter Page
They link to older data
Dr. Andy Farnell Explains How Google Turned From "Librarian" Into "Oracle", Telling Us What to Think Instead of Where to Look
Google was always a lousy librarian
Microsoft Layoffs Continue in August 2025
If Microsoft is doing so well, how come about 10 rounds of layoffs in about 7 months in 2025?
In Many Countries Vista 11 Adoption Stalled or Became Negative
Not just because people move to GNU/Linux
Microsofters' Lawyers Are Name-calling and Insulting Microsoft Critics, Even Their Spouses
How not to win arguments
Flagging or Tagging Slop That We Find Online
Right now we use ImageMagick
Links 04/08/2025: Very Bad Weather and Travel Restrictions in China
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/08/2025: Misiamisia and Mobile Linux
Links for the day
Microsoft's Stock is Like a Religion, Microsoft Goes Into 'Hiding' (From Shareholders)
like a religious person or devout believer, the media just parrot anything Microsoft says
Links 04/08/2025: 80 Years Since Last Nuclear War, IPv6 in China
Links for the day
Groklaw Static Site Relaunches With New Theme, But Many Pages and All the Comments Are Missing
We suppose that's still a lot better than the site being offline, as it was for several months
"For Five decades; For freedoms; For all users" (Original EMACS Turns 50 Next Year)
Linus Benedict Torvalds was only 6 when EMACS started
In Spain, Microsoft's Search Engine Market Share Fell to 2%
16 years have passed since Bing was introduced
Protecting GNU/Linux-Centric Journalism From Serial Sloppers
Unoriginal slop is taking away traffic from the people who did all the real work
It Looks Like Managers at Oracle Now Use LLM Slop to Write Blog Posts
Did he cheat by prompting LLMs for mindless text "filler"?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, August 03, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, August 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/08/2025: Qubes OS and Curious crypto case of certificates (CCCC)
Links for the day
They Tell Us That "Cloud Storage" is Safe and Robust to Incidents Like Fires
Do you have backups? Where are they and who controls them?
"Allowing SDL to default to Wayland caused a number of customer issues so keep the default at X11 for now"
2025 is another year of Wayland ambitions. It's also a year of self-fulfilling prophecies.
In The United Kingdom (UK), Microsoft Search (Bing) Falls to All-Time Low
Grow? What grow??? It's collapsing.
GNU/Linux Reaches 5% in Oman
Some GNU/Linux distros are made in Oman
Google's "AI Mode" is a Pathetic Joke Prematurely Introduced in the UK (Like "Bard", Which Sank the Company's Shares)
what Google "thinks" about PCLinuxOS
What the Free Software Foundation Started Four Decades Ago is Becoming Mainstream
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users"
Doing a Better Job at Labelling Slop Images
we'll label screenshots that contain slop, typically with red-coloured text overlay
Social Control Media is Out of Style
What's your excuse for wasting time on (or in) it?
Maldives: GNU/Linux at All-Time High, Windows at New Lows
data from statCounter shows a reassuring trend
Efficiency is Good, So Why Won't Governments Cull LLM Companies Using Stronger, Stringent Policies?
Like every bubble that ever existed, including some recent ones, an end will come
The Defunct Site LinuxConfig Has Published a Fake Article About Richard Stallman Using LLM Slop, Which Stallman Calls "Bullshit Generator"
Worse yet, it is writing using a "Bullshit Generator" (the term used by Stallman) about Stallman's health
Microsoft Windows Falls to All-Time Lows in Morocco and Algeria
About 70% or even less
StopGenAI in the Cyber Show (C|S)
covering a theme that we too covered a lot lately
Gemini Links 03/08/2025: Once-a-Decade Couch Shopping and Blessings in Disguise
Links for the day
Links 03/08/2025: Political Catch-up, Global Warming, and Hunger
Links for the day
Brittany Day Entered LLM Slop Into LinuxSecurity.com and Something Hilarious Happened: The Site is "Exploited"
The brainless, effortless copypasta of "slop artists" shows its limits
Links 03/08/2025: Microsoft Exchange 0-day Exploited and Avoidable Nuclear Escalation
Links for the day
Next Month 'New Techrights' Turns Two
Next month, on the fourth week, it'll be 2 years since the migration
Definitely Not a Ponzi Scheme
Bitcoin v Microsoft
Online Safety Act Tries to Accomplish the Impossible
All I can say is, "good luck with that!"
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is a Billionaires' Lobby
Billionaires that control tech companies
Microsoft Borrows 3 Billion Dollars Per Month, a Company Truly Worth Trillions Would Not Do This
if Windows (and Office) "market share" fell from about 90% to barely 30%, how come Microsoft is now "valued" at 20 times more?
It's Even Worse Than Microsoft Lunduke Puts It; GNOME is SLAPPing Journalists
In our experience, GNOME is so malicious - some elements of it in particular - that it would launch multiple simultaneous SLAPP campaigns not only against journalists but also their spouses
GNU/Linux Adoption Reaches All-Time Highs in Chile, statCounter Indicates
This month marks 4 years since Vista 11 came out (as a fake "leak") and some surveys still measure its adoption at less than 40%
Slop Will Not Change the World
Some of us grow up sooner and leave that nonsense behind (or altogether avoid/skip it)
Gemini Links 03/08/2025: Nostalgia and TOFU
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, August 02, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, August 02, 2025