Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XVIII: Helsinki's Accord

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. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part III: Three Missing Votes
  4. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part IV: The Founding States
  5. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part V: Germany Says “Ja”
  6. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part VI: A Distinct Lack of Dutch Courage
  7. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part VII: Luxembourgish Laxity
  8. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part VIII: Perfidious Albion and Pusillanimous Hibernia
  9. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part IX: More Holes Than Swiss Cheese
  10. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part X: Introducing the Controversial Christian Bock
  11. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XI: “General Bock” - Battistelli's Swiss Apprentice?
  12. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XII: The French Connection
  13. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XIII: Battistelli's Iberian Facilitators - Spain
  14. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XIV: Battistelli's Iberian Facilitators - Portugal
  15. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XV: Et Tu Felix Austria…
  16. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XVI: The Demise of the Austrian Double-Dipper
  17. The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XVII: The Non-Monolithic Nordic Bloc
  18. YOU ARE HERE ☞ Helsinki's Accord


Rauni Hagman and Antti Riivari
The Finnish delegation: Rauni Hagman and her deputy Antti Riivari.



Summary: The Finnish outpost has long been strategic to the EPO because it can help control the vote of four or more nations; evidence suggests this has not changed

In this part we turn our attention to the Finnish delegation, one of the three Nordic delegations which voted in favour of Benoît Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" in June 2013.



"The new head of the Finnish delegation, Rauni Hagman, was assisted by her deputy, Antti Riivari, a senior civil servant at the Ministry for Employment and the Economy."At the time in question the Finnish delegation was headed by Rauni Hagman who had been appointed as Director General of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) in 2010.

Hagman had taken over at the helm of the PRH following the departure of Martti Enäjärvi who retired in June 2010 after he had come under suspicion of repeated and persistent misuse of his official credit card following an official audit of the PRH.

Enäjärvi's influence on EPO and OHIM/EUIPO affairs over the last decade or so - including his close connections with both Battistelli and António Campinos - has been dealt with in detail in an earlier series about Battistelli's 2010 "Baltic Crusade".

"Riivari later succeeded Hagman as head of the PRH when she retired in 2016."By June 2013 Enäjärvi was no longer active on the EPO's Administrative Council. Having been put out to grass in Finland, he was enjoying his retirement as a "Special Advisor" to the Chief Executive of the EU trademark agency OHIM/EUIPO, António Campinos.

The new head of the Finnish delegation, Rauni Hagman, was assisted by her deputy, Antti Riivari, a senior civil servant at the Ministry for Employment and the Economy. Riivari later succeeded Hagman as head of the PRH when she retired in 2016.

It's not known what exactly induced the Finnish delegation to vote in favour of Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" in June 2013 but there are rumours that he had obtained their favour by promising a senior management post at the EPO for someone from Finland.

There is only one Finnish person of prominence inside the EPO - Heli Pihlajamaa – who has been languishing at Director level for the past 25 years. So, it's conceivable that Battistelli held out the prospect of promoting her to a Principal Director position in the EPO's Directorate of Legal and International Affairs. But if that's the case, then it turned out to be an empty promise - as with much else in "le système Battistelli"!

"It's not known what exactly induced the Finnish delegation to vote in favour of Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" in June 2013 but there are rumours that he had obtained their favour by promising a senior management post at the EPO for someone from Finland."Nevertheless, some time later in March 2018, Antti Riivari - by now head of the Finnish delegation - was elected to the Board of the Administrative Council, the exclusive "inner circle" which prepares the agenda for the Council's quarterly meetings. Perhaps this little sinecure for Riivari was intended as a reward for his earlier complicity in Battistelli's "reign of terror"?

Finland is a somewhat peripheral country which, at first glance, doesn't seem to be of much significance in the grand scheme of European "IP".

However, mainly due to its influence over the neighbouring Baltic states, Finland has managed to carve out a strategic role in the world of EPO realpolitik which enables it to punch above its weight.

"Finland's influence over its Baltic neighbours in "IP" matters persists following Enäjärvi's departure."These matters have been elaborated in detail in the earlier series referred to above. In particular, it was explained how Battistelli's Finnish "facilitator" Martti Enäjärvi assisted him in implementing his strategic plan to "co-opt" the EPO's Baltic states - Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia - in support of his bid to become EPO President in 2010.

Finland's influence over its Baltic neighbours in "IP" matters persists following Enäjärvi's departure. The Finnish delegation continues to play a prominent role in the annual meetings of the heads of the Nordic and Baltic "IP" offices.

Nordic-Baltic 'IP' office love-in held in Reykjavík, May 2018
Photo-op from the Nordic-Baltic "IP" office love-in held in Reykjavík, May 2018.
Back row (l. to r.): Margus Viher (EE), Per Foss (NO), Sune Stampe Sørensen (DK), Peter Strömbäck (SE).
Front row (l. to r.): Arūnas Želvys (LT), Sandris Laganovskis (LV), Antti Riivari (FI), Borghildur Erlingsdóttir (IS).



Like his mentor Battistelli, Campinos also appreciates the "EPO-political" significance of the Finnish connection and he makes every effort to secure Helsinki's accord for his endeavours.

For example, during his whistle-stop tour of the Nordic region in September 2019 (warning: epo.org link), Campinos made sure that he did not neglect to pay a visit to Helsinki to meet with the current boss of the PRH, Antii Riivari.

Team Campinos in Finland
Team Campinos pays a visit to Finland in 2019



That concludes our look at the role of the Finnish delegation in the adoption of Battistelli's "Strike Regulations" in June 2013.

In the next part we will look at how the representatives of the "captured" Baltic States played their expected part in the rubber-stamping of these manifestly unlawful regulations.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Google News is Rewarding Slopfarms, Not Journalism
Don't read junk from chatbots
Richard Stallman, Whose Site is Trusted by Greater Manchester, Has Come to the United Kingdom
He doesn't suck up to the Crown, so he'll never be "knighted"
On Desktops/Laptops in Singapore Does a Fifth of Users Run GNU/Linux?
Probably not, but it's growing fast there
Links 21/04/2025: Fake Ceasefire and Software Patents (Fake Patents) Thrown Out
Links for the day
4 Years Ago Freenode Crumbled From Within
there are still hundreds of thousands of users online at any given time
Microsoft Has Tainted GNOME, Which Has Key People Acting as a SLAPP Front Against Techrights (Trying to Censor the Site by Extortion and Many Threats)
One common denominator (other than Microsoft salaries) is GNOME, which was led by an actual professional crank until she quit so suddenly months ago
Homeland of Linux Kernel Turning to GNU/Linux?
Adoption of Vista 11 has been relatively low
 
Gemini Links 21/04/2025: Remembering Pope Francis, Crystal Simulation
Links for the day
Doing Microsoft's Job. On IBM's Payroll.
today's Red Hat cannot recognise threats even after a head-on collision
Teaching GAFAM in Schools is Like Teaching Children to Smoke Tobacco
So suggests an FSF presentation
Companies With Fake Values and a Fake Economic/Financial State (Phony Valuations)
It'll all go up in smoke, eventually
Links 21/04/2025: Microsoft LLM Slop (Plagiarism) Going Out of Control, CT Scans' Cancer Problems Was Underrated
Links for the day
GNOME Has a Long History (Over a Decade) Misusing the Code of Conduct (CoC) to Censor (Cull) Legitimate Technical Criticism
This has nothing to do with manners, it's about control (by cover-up)
According to StatCounter, This is What Linux Adoption Looks Like (Based on Web Requests Visible to StatCounter)
How much worse will it get for Microsoft?
Gemini Capsules Still Outsourcing to Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt Now Measured at Less Than 10 (or Less Than 0.3%)
In Geminispace, Let's Encrypt is not commonly used
Twisting Microsoft's Failure (Transmitting Malware) as "SSH Backdoors" and a Linux Problem
Somehow we almost always find that those FUD pieces about "Linux" are based on obvious falsehoods
Vista 11 Has Burned OEMs and Some Move to GNU/Linux
When people can finally avoid Windows (there's no reason to attach it to new PCs) there will be a lot more GNU/Linux users out there
Remember That Microsoft Mass Layoffs Are Imminent Because Its 'Empire' is Falling Apart
European politicians take a long, hard look a Free software
Richard Stallman in the UK This Week, Scheduled to Give Two Public Talks (London and Oxford)
Those talks do not cover the same topics
Gemini Links 21/04/2025: April, Autism, and ASN
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, April 20, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, April 20, 2025
Links 20/04/2025: Partly Assorted Scientific and Political Leftovers
Links for the day
Links 20/04/2025: Many Data Breaches and Growing Censorship Wave
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Canadian Elections and "Use the Best Tools You Have for the Current Environment"
Links for the day
Deja vu: Hitler's Birthday, Andreas Tille elected Debian Project Leader again
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 20/04/2025: Bleeding Constitution and ChatGPT Infuriates Users Some More
Links for the day
Chinese OEMs (and World's Largest) Pave a Path Out of Microsoft Windows
So Microsoft now values (or prices) Vista 11 at just $140?
Gemini Links 20/04/2025: Contradictions of Mark Carney and Blog Questions Challenge
Links for the day
Microsoft's 'Lawsuit Diplomacy' (SLAPPs Riding UK Libel Law and Piggybacking UK GDPR, Inapplicable!) Will Only Give a Worse Image to Microsofters (and Microsoft), Give Exposure to Even More Suppressed Facts and Scandals
Microsoft came to dominate some sectors because of (or owing to) crimes; Microsoft won't just go away without some more crimes.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, April 19, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, April 19, 2025
Five (or Three) Years Without Social Control Media
Glyn Moody quit X (Twitter)
Electronics in People's Bedrooms
Modern technology not only blurred the gap between "functions" of rooms
Why GNU/Linux is Growing
There's growing interest in GNU/Linux right now because people do not fancy buying a new PC just to 'upgrade' (more spying) Windows
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Contingencies, GTD, and Old Computers
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: Economic Races, Charm Offensives, and USB-C Rants
Links for the day
Links 19/04/2025: "Infantilization at Big Tech" and LLM Slop Abused in Defiance of Workplace Rules/Policies
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/04/2025: Palm Addiction and Real Experts
Links for the day
Egypt is Controlled by Google, Not Microsoft
Moving from Microsoft to Google is not the answer
Microsofters Say They Cannot Find a Job (That They Want) Because of Techrights, But Techrights Merely Reported on Their Behaviour
Quit pointing the finger at people who are recipients of abuse or merely mention the abuse
Free Software and Standards - Not Marketing Blitz - Needed Amid Growing Severity of Dependency on Hostile Suppliers (or Another Country's Sovereignty)
ZenDiS can be described as the "Center for Digital Sovereignty of Public Administration"
When It Comes to the Web, Google is Evil and It Destroys the Web's Integrity With LLM Slop
Even academia, which is meant to keep standards high, is being lured into LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, April 18, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, April 18, 2025