Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Staff Representation: “We Believe That the EPO Should... Invest in Staff and in Quality” (Not Cuts and Worse)

A dangerous cocktail
The current strategy involves a “dangerous cocktail” of low-quality patents (in large quantities) and low-qualified staff being recruited as examiners, equipped with examination guidelines that violate the EPC



Summary: The EPO's attack on its very own staff and on the quality/validity of European Patents is an issue that Office leadership has long been warned about (but it chose to ignore the warnings)

2022 is just around the corner or right around the edge, but it's never too late to glance back at warnings from patent examiners, who repeatedly cautioned António Campinos about his destruction of patent quality -- an endeavour started years earlier by his 'appointing authority', fellow Frenchman Benoît Battistelli.



Today we reproduce, herein, an old document, two years old as a matter of fact, as it very much relates to the present; it speaks about the erosion of patent quality and staff being crushed as if examiners are just some people to be used as "rubber stamp operators" (helping to print money for the 'bank').

06.11.2019 su19021mp – 0.2.1/1.3.1

The Financial Survey: A divisive exercise

Dear colleagues,

[Mr Campinos has asked you] to inform your team managers which of the “measures 1 to 10” have your support. This question is wrong at many levels.

- these "10 measures" presume that huge (5.8 billion) savings are necessary. We do not believe this to be true.

- these savings are to be obtained by cutting staff benefits and a further high (25-30%) increase in productivity. We believe that the EPO should, on the contrary, invest in staff and in quality.

- asking individual staff members which of the "10 measures" they prefer is divisive since many of the measures affect one category of staff more than another.

- only giving staff the choice between measures that target them excludes other options and a wider discussion about the future direction of the Office.

- the proposed consultation procedure is intransparent and open to manipulation. The alleged outcome cannot be verified.

- be aware that replying by selecting a measure may render an appeal against such a measure a certain loser.

At the moment the only measure directly affecting staff that SUEPO supports is the increase in the pension contributions as recommended by the actuaries (CA/56/19) who regularly review the performance of the RFPPS.

All the other measures proposed need further analysis and discussion. Alternatives that have not been proposed (adopting fees to follow inflation, asking a contribution of the Member States, less ambitious building plans) must also be considered.

We kindly ask that you keep the above considerations in mind if you wish to discuss the "10 measures" with your team managers or directors.

SUEPO and the staff representation are currently in deliberations of what is the best way forward for staff. We will publish soon information on each and every measure and the impact these will have upon you.

SUEPO Munich


Earlier today in Daily Links we gave not one but several examples of European Patents being crushed in courts or invalidated upon demand, which is neither simple nor cheap. The long-term costs of granting by default (to enrich oneself) could very well be seen in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) about a decade ago. This is why the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) was established over 10 years ago (AIA), and inter partes reviews (IPRs) have since then eliminated many thousands of fake patents, sometimes using 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 and Alice (SCOTUS, 2014).

Publishers like JUVE, Managing IP, and IAM don't want us to mind the externalities; look who funds those publications, which are also part-time propaganda mills (lobbyists) for Team UPC, i.e. those who 'mentor' Campinos.

The avalanche of fake European Patents will rattle the European economy and meanwhile those who conspired to destroy the EPO are trying to do the same thing to European patent courts, in effect crushing the law and numerous constitution with their falsely-advertised UPC. Earlier today in Daily Links we gave several examples of classic "fake news" about the UPC.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Live as You Preach
technology is fast becoming dysphoric
Computers Got Smaller, So GNU/Linux Got Bigger
Many people here recognise the lack of urgency (or need) to get expensive new laptops
GNU/Linux Grows at Windows' Expense and Microsoft Trolls Infest and Maliciously Target Articles About It
Microsoft is - and has long been - organised crime
They Say I'm Mr. Bombastic
They didn't take good lawyers
 
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VII: Washing Their Hands After Corruption and Abuse
"Tragedy or comedy?"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 09, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, June 09, 2025
Gemini Protocol Turns Six in 10 Days From Now
If you haven't tried it yet, then give it a go today
Culling Bad RSS Feeds of Bad Sites
Not throwing out the baby with the bathwater
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Addition Addiction and Nitride
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Science, Hardware Projects, and Democracy Receding
Links for the day
BetaNews is a Plagiarism and LLM Slop Hub, the Chief Editor Isn't Addressing This Problem Anymore
SS Fagioli is basically a parasite leeching off or exploiting other people's work
Links 09/06/2025: Chaos in Los Angeles and Hurricane Season
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2025: Windows TCO and Many Data Breaches
Links for the day
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part VI: Political Stunts by Former President Edyta Demby-Siwek and the Connection to Profound Corruption at EUIPO
it's like a money-laundering operation where one politician rewards another at taxpayers' expense
Gemini Links 09/06/2025: Pipelines and Splitgate
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 08, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, June 08, 2025
Links 08/06/2025: Tiananmen Carnage Censorship Persists, North Korean Goes Offline
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2025: Love as an Ethnographic Method and Monitorix Gemini-Frontend v0.1
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2025: Exposure of More GAFAM Surveillance and Social Security Records Compromised
Links for the day
Linux Foundation is a Mediator for Microsoft et al, Not for Small Companies That Support Rather Than Attack the GPL
Many people still wrongly assume that because it is called "Linux Foundation", then it is pro-Linux and represents the same mindset
This Past Friday, Confirming What We Said All Along About Brett Wilson LLP: It's Shrinking, Has Considerable Debt, Loss of Net Assets Despite the Microsoft SLAPP Money
The documents only became publicly available less than 2 days ago
Some of the Many Reasons We Sued Microsofters for Harassment
perpetrators of harassment
For 20 Years Many People Were Sharecropping for Canonical's Oligarch, Now He's Deleting All Their Contributions
"Ubuntu has erased instead of archiving the trove of material at Ubuntu Forums"
There Was Always Too Much 'Crazy Stuff' Going on Around Freenode
What many IRC users lost sight of
Exposing Crime is Not a Crime (It Never Was)
In the eyes of rich and powerful people, those who speak about their crimes are the "criminals"
GNU/Linux Distros Abandoning Microsoft GitHub
Will curl be next to leave Microsoft GitHub?
Expect More XBox Mass Layoffs Soon If the Rumours Are True
From a Microsoft media operative
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 07, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, June 07, 2025
Europe Needs to Move Away From GAFAM; The Sooner, the Better
Europe - not just the EU - must abandon GAFAM as soon as possible
The Issue Isn't GNOME's Promotion of Diversity But GNOME Corruption, Abuse, Censorship, and Worse
So-called "Conservative" (republican, pro-Trump, bigoted) people want you to think the problem with GNOME is politics
When the News Sources Become Scarce and Increasingly Full of Polluted/Contaminated 'Content' (With LLM Slop and Slop Images)
Integrity matters
"Linux" Sites That Spew Out LLM Slop
We're lacking enough material for another "Slopwatch"
Abuse Inside the Polish Patent Office (UPRP) - Part V: Breaking the Law, Just Like EPO
We'll hopefully cover some of the pertinent details later this year