Related: EPO and Microsoft Collude to Break the Law -- Summing Up: EPO Administrative Council Still Asleep at the Wheel

The EPO's corruption is the norm now

Summary: Corrupt officials and officials who actively enable the crimes still control the Office and also the body which was supposed to oversee it; it's pretty evident and clear judging by this week's press statements at the EPO's official Web site

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME. PUTTING aside the latest misleading noise from Team UPC (we can dispute the lies with a bunch of funny memes alone; more in Daily Links later tonight), over the past couple of days the EPO's "Mafia" showed that nothing is going to change; they want us to think that swapping/replacing Benoît Battistelli with his French friend António Campinos magically solved all the problems; nothing could be further from the truth and it's not "business as usual".

As a gesture akin to slaps across the face of EPO staff, the EPO proudly heralded (warning: epo.org link) that "[t]he Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation convened for its 168th meeting on Wednesday 13 October 2021. At the meeting the Council members re-elected Josef Kratochvìl (CZ) as its Chairperson for another three-year term in office commencing in January 2022. They also re-elected Johannes Karcher (DE) as the Deputy Chairperson to the Committee on Patent Law, as well as appointing a new Boards of Appeal Committee member."

They also entertained the person they're supposed to supervise: "The meeting agenda included an activities report by the President of the European Patent Office, highlighting the Office's substantial progress with SP2023 to date, despite the unprecedented challenges of the past two years. Praising strong teamwork by staff, the President underlined the continued success of internal job mobility, lively discussions on quality – both among staff and with stakeholders – and positive developments in European and international co-operation activities. An update was also provided on the progress of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court, which was welcomed by member states and user representatives present."

What "progress of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court"? The faked progress? The fabrications? The false media coverage?

A new greenwashing campaign has also just been announced (warning: epo.org link), saying that "Europe and the US are leading innovation in plastic recycling and alternative plastics technologies, a new study published today by the European Patent Office (EPO) shows. Europe and the US each accounted for 30% of patenting activity worldwide in these sectors between 2010 and 2019, or 60% combined. Within Europe, Germany posted the highest share of patent activity in both plastic recycling and bioplastic technologies (8% of global total), while France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium stand out for their higher specialisation in these fields."

What does that have to do with patents? They want us to think that a patent monopoly helps the planet, as if monopolies will somehow increase adoption of solutions... that's false, but they have already planted this propaganda in mainstream German media, even in English. In other words, the EPO likely pays already-compromised German media to produce propaganda and lies about patents. That same media can then not criticise the EPO; it's like an implicit non-disparagement agreement.

Finally -- and perhaps most shameful of it all -- the EPO's autocrats now use buzzwords like "digitalisation" (they also use that to promote European software patents, incidentally) to cover up (warning: epo.org link) severe privacy violations and outsourcing of EPO data to Microsoft in the United States. Notice how EPO management is looking to distract, yet again, from its gross privacy violations by throwing money at the problem and writing misleading press releases. Josef Kratochvìl played a major role in this cover-up and it's framed like North Korean propaganda with yet another one of those "Working Parties"; to quote:

The SACEPO Working Party on Rules met on 14 October 2021 via videoconference to discuss legal changes that will further enable the digitalisation of the patent grant process and enhance data protection.

Stakeholders from the patent profession and user communities were consulted on the Office's plans for amending the EPC Implementing Regulations, so as to bring a variety of rules into line with the new digital environment. EPO representatives reported on the implementation of the order of the Enlarged Board of Appeal in referral G1/21, as well as the ongoing evaluation of the pilot project for the conduct of oral proceedings by videoconference (on which a full analysis will be published in the coming weeks).

G1/21 was an absolute catastrophe for the EPO's credibility, but notice how they're framing it. The EPO is a failed institution, run by people who actively participate in corruption, law-breaking, and cover-up. Team UPC has found its match. ⬆