THERE is no intention to publish much today, but last night we published a couple of articles, the primary of which concerned Italy's relationship with the EPO, whose notorious dictator had an Italian name (despite the French nationality) and his French successor had a Portuguese name because of his father, who had died decades ago under tragic circumstances.

"Internally, the EPO has long been characterised as a "Mafia" (by people who work there!), so maybe a country like Italy should not be expected to tackle the problem as much as perpetuate it."This sort of Mediterranean era of the EPO has been an epic failure; patent quality was abandoned in order to turn the EPO into some kind of a bank and a banker represented Italy at the EPO since 2006 despite lack of a track record in patents. So this kind of kakistocracy jeopardises the legitimacy of the patent system not just in Europe but internationally; of course, Team UPC doing all sorts of illegal and unconstitutional things won't help either. Internally, the EPO has long been characterised as a "Mafia" (by people who work there!), so maybe a country like Italy should not be expected to tackle the problem as much as perpetuate it. ⬆