From Techrights

Revision as of 00:25, 5 May 2022

General Introduction

The European Patent Office (EPO) has been granting software patents all across Europe despite the law (as per the EPC) explicitly forbidding it. The profit motive ultimately compromised patent quality; the problem was obscured by publishers like IAM but repeatedly stressed by SUEPO, the Staff Union of the EPO. There were even more mischievous practices going on, especially after the EPO's former head, Alison Brimelow, got replaced by a megalomaniac called Benoît Battistelli (now in CEIPI), who gradually drove away anything or anyone who threatened his undemocratic ambition of total power. He was helped by Jesper Kongstad, Christoph Ernst, Raimund Lutz, and Željko Topić. There was a culture of blatant nepotism (e.g. Elodie Bergot) and disrespect for courts, e.g. Willy (Guillaume) Minnoye stating intent to ignore (disobey) court rulings. He even rejected ILO rulings and sought an unconstitutional court, the UPC, promoted by big litigators such as Bristows LLP. Battistelli chose António Campinos, a French dual national (born in France) from EUIPO, as his successor (soon joined by former colleague Nellie Simon and Stephen Rowan from UKIPO). Both block Techrights at all EPO sites, not just in Germany, in order to prevent staff from accessing facts; IP Kat was also temporarily blocked (until it stopped exposing EPO abuses). EPO problems persist to date, but European media is reluctant to mention these.

Articles Index

We've archived older articles in the following pages: EPO 2021 Archive | EPO 2020 Archive | EPO 2019 Archive | EPO 2018 Archive | EPO 2017 Archive | EPO 2016 Archive | EPO 2015 Archive | EPO 2008-2014 Archive

In recent years Techrights wrote about the EPO in the below long and short posts, organised chronologically, with addition of the following colour coding for improved organisation based on theme:

2022 Articles (Latest First)

For an outline of recent events, see EPO in 2021.

May 2022

• Meme: The Deev Lists
• Management That Harms the Institution It is Governing (SaM and EPO)
• From Belarus With Love — Part XIII: Marat Ebzeev Tries to Defuse the Situation
• Deevgate in a Nutshell (an EPO 'Toxic Asset' in Minsk)
• From Belarus With Love — Part XII: Alexander Deev's “Provocative” Comments
• Financialization of the EPO Will Doom Europe's Largest Patent Office
• Teaser: Burdens of Evidence
• SaM Solutions Controlled -- and Still 'Regulated' -- by Lukashenko's Regime
• From Belarus With Love — Part XI: SaM's Management Remains Suspiciously Silent
• Meme: High-Calibre Patent Office
• Cracking Down on Scientists
• Meme: Belarussian Roulette
• Meme: Cool Strongmen of a “High-Tech Hub” in Minsk
• From Belarus With Love — Part X: From “High-Tech Hub” to “No-Go Zone”
• Teaser: Fortunately Stable
• UPC Fake News Watch (and Tough Reality): Same Familiar Talking Points and Talking Heads
• António: The Antichrist of Jorge Campinos
• IAM: Paid by the EPO’s Nepotism Club (Management) to Glorify Illegal Agenda (and in Turn ‘Legitimise’ It, Imposing That on EPO Examiners)
• If the EPO is a Corporation, Why Can’t I Buy EPO Shares in Wall Street or Take It to Court?
• Aggression, 'White' Lies and Mass Deception Won't Help the EPO Survive
• António Campinos Has Dubbed Himself the “F***ing President”
• From Belarus With Love — Part IX: The End of “Peaceful Coexistence”?

April 2022

• EPO: Pyongyang in the Centre of Seoul or EPOnia's Dictatorship (With Crimes and Impunity) Right in the Middle of Bavaria
• Lies Are Catching Up With UPC/Unitary Patent Boosters (And Mr. 'F Word' Campinos Misuses the EPO.Org Site to Spread Lies, Shamelessly Promote Illegal Agenda)
• Meme: Clash of Heads
• From Belarus With Love — Part VIII: “Seoul in the Centre of Pyongyang”
• Meme: Peace in Europe
• Russian Gaspinos
• What the F Did António Campinos Just Say???
• When the EPO's Manager or Fake 'Daddy' Gets the 'Hammer' Out
• Meme: No More Mr. Nice Guy?
• From Belarus With Love — Part VII: The Post-Election Crackdown
• Shadow of the EPO or EPOnia Nationalised?
• From Belarus With Love — Part VI: “Big Daddy” Hammers the Opposition...
• Belarus Versus EPO
• History of Software From Minsk (SaM), Belarus by Proxy
• From Belarus With Love — Part V: From Start-Up to Success Story...
• Meme: EPO Data for Uncle SaM
• EPO ’IT’ Systems: “Software from Minsk” or “Spyware from Microsoft”?
• Meme: Lukashenko’s Clown Computing Plan
• From Belarus With Love — Part IV: “Software from Minsk” via Gilching and Rijswijk
• EPO: All Together in “One Office” or All Together in “One Prison”?
• It’s Not a War, It’s “Special Military Operation”
• An Ode to Lukampinos
• Meme: Putin and Lukashenko Discuss the Situation at the EPO
• Teaser: Microsofters by Proxy
• Makers of Dictatorware
• Meme: Munich Is in Minsk
• From Belarus With Love — Part III: Apps From the Dictatorship
• Meme: UPC's 'Sunrise' Period
• EPO Funds Lukashenko's Techwashing PR Stunts
• From Belarus With Love — Part II: “Techwashing” an Autocratic Regime?
• Meme: Lukampinos
• Meme: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
• Debunking the Latest Lies From Team UPC About the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement (UPCA)
• Unified Patent Court/UPC/Unitary Patent: Our Latest Fake News Watch (and Some Occasional Reminders That This is in Fact Faked, But Team UPC Does Not Care What's Legal and What's True)
• Regardless of What JUVE Used to be (or Do to Uncover EPO Abuses), It Has Become a Propaganda Arm for EPO Management and Team UPC
• EPO and Belarus: Why It Matters
• From Belarus With Love — Part I: Schizophrenic EPO Policy
• Meme: The Eastern Front (of Industrial Espionage)
• New EPO Series: From Belarus With Love - Teaser
• Meme: EPO's Ombuds Service is Like a 'Yellow Union' (Following Disbandment of the Audit Committee)
• A Month After the Massive Strike Across Europe the Union of EPO Workers Proceeds Against Salary Adjustment Procedure (Reduction), Based on Managers' “Hoax”
• Meme: António de Cutter
• EPO in 2021: Less About Europe, Less About Science, Less About Quality (or Compliance), and More About Weapons or Monopolies on Vaccines
• How We Cover Patents and How Techrights Reduces Technical Debt (Gemini and Single-File Web Pages)
• Meme: Godly Oversight at the EPO
• The Collapse of the Media Has Left a Vacuum for Fake News From Team UPC (Scheming to Bury Laws and Constitutions)
• Meme: The Boy (or Bristows) Who Cried Wolf
• Meme: Nobody Hates the EPO's Patent Examination More Than Team UPC (Shoehorning Fake Patents, Then Fake Courts)
• Team UPC and Corrupt EPO Management Have Fast Become a Severe Crisis of Legitimacy for the European Union
• The EPO Bunnies, Stationed at EPO Corp. (NYSE:EPO)
• Techrights Plans for Easter and Beyond (Plus Updates About the FSF and the EPO)
• Tackling EPO Propaganda and Lawlessness: Part 2
• Meme: Kangaroos in Ukraine
• Tackling EPO Propaganda and Lawlessness: Part 1
• Effectively Responding to Fake News in the Age of Corrupt EPO Management, Controlled by Team UPC/Litigation Lobby
• Deja Vu: Published 4 Days Ago, Battistelli Celebrating UPCA Signed Almost 10 Years Ago!
• How Media Helped the EPO Cover Up the EPO Crisis (Including Severe Escalations and Plunge in Patent Grants)
• State of the EPO and State of 'Journalism' About Patents
• Conflict of Interest: Battistelli/CEIPI/EPO and AstraZeneca
• New Approach to Tackling Misinformation and Disinformation
• Meme: EPO Moving Backwards
• For EPO Staff on Dutch Territories Purachasing Power Fell 12% in Just One Year While EPO Increased Its Fees
• Meme: The Hard-Working Madame Simon
• The EPO’s Staff Union Calls for Continued Industrial Actions as Some Media Belatedly Catches Up With EPO Strikes
• When Most Granted Patents (and Fake ‘Growth’) Are Just Software Patents and EPO ‘Joins the Club’
• EPO.org is a Fake News Site Which Promotes and Glorifies Illegal Behaviour and Unlawful Policies
• Meme: Meanwhile at IP Kat
• The EPO is Granting Loads of Software Patents in Order to Fake 'Growth'
• EPO Continues to Violate Laws and Fundamental Rights of EPO Staff (Which an International Court Recently Told It Was Violating)
• Meme: Operation CampinoZ
• The Patent Distortion: The Media Has Failed Us, Patent Extremism Has Replaced It
• One Month Passes, Only Comments in a Blog Post Actually Contain Accurate Information About EPO and UPC

March 2022

• The Union or Elected Leadership of the EPO's Staff Calls the Shots Now
• Meme: IAM
• Meme: Best in the World. At Cheating and Bribing Media.
• Meme: In Just a Few Years António Campinos is Undoing Decades of His Father's Legacy
• EPO in Africa: Microsoft, Corruption, and Colonialism
• The Patent Distortion: Judging by the Media, the EPO Strike Never Happened (and Lots More Lies, Even Promotion of Illegal Agenda)
• Biggest EPO Strike in More Than Half a Decade
• Meme: Diplomatic Immunity
• Meme: EPO Management Treats EPO Staff Like Pests
• Meme: Not Registering for the Oppressor
• With EPO Strike Participation in the Thousands, European Patents Plunge in Number
• Meme: Survey Versus Surveillance
• EPO is Banning and Spying, So the Union (SUEPO) Conducts a Staff Survey Externally
• EPO Staff Explains Why It's Going on Strike
• Meme: EPO to Patent Blogs
• Glorious Day for Rights of European Workers
• Join the EPO Strike
• EPO Industrial Actions Are Already Working
• EPO Management Seems to be Resorting to Illegal Union-Busting Tactics, Suppression/Deterrence by List-Making
• Meme: EPO Even Attacks Its Pensioners
• EPO is 'Hiding' €4.9 Billion and President “Campinos Has Decided to Freeze the Salaries of All Staff and to Deprive at least 40% of Them of Any Career Progression”
• Meme: Join the EPO Strike
• The Patent Distortion: 7 Days of News and Blogs, Not a Single Mention of EPO Affairs
• European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) in Support of the Strike at the European Patent Office (EPO)
• McCoy Smith on What Software Patents Mean to Free Software (2020)
• 2 More Days Until EPO Strike, Examiners Unwilling to Become Another Brick in the Wall
• EPO Staff Representatives Warn Delegates of the Council That Campinos is Now Outsourcing the EPO, Just Like He Did EUIPO, in Very Clear Violation of Fundamental Rules
• EPO Union: “It is Now Time to Make a Political Statement” and “Go on Strike!”
• Meme: The Red EPO (Reminder: EPO Management Hired a Lot of Military Personnel to Run the Office)
• European Readers, Please Contact Your National Delegation to Bemoan EPO Corruption
• EPO Strike Participation Will Help Correct a Corrupt Office Which Harms Science, Weakens Europe's Economy, and Abolishes Human Rights
• Meme: Russia Joins EPO (in Officially Discarding the Rule of Law)
• The EPO's Strike That Not a Single Publisher Wants to Tell You About!
• When Europe's Largest Patent Office is Run by Opportunistic Politicians Who Break the Law and Look for Distractions
• Lowered Quality and Standards at the EPO, Not Only Departure from the European Patent Convention (EPC)
• Meme: The Scabs Patent Office?
• The Patent Distortion: EPO Crimes Completely Overlooked and Totally Unrecognised/Not Covered This Past Week (in News Sites, Blogs, and More)
• Meme: European Commission Part of the EPO's Abuses
• EPO Advertises European Patents and Jobs Based on Deliberate Falsehoods (Lies)
• Meme: EPO Behaving Like a Bank, Not Like a Patent Office
• Meme: When Corrupt Politicians Run Europe’s Largest Patent Office
• The EPO in Violation of the EPC and Nobody Holds Anyone Accountable for Such Violations
• Mr. Breton and EPO Corruption (Propelling an Assault on the Rule of Law and on the Courts Themselves) Endanger the Legitimacy of the EU
• Meme: Standing Together for Peace in Europe
• The Latest EPO Greenwashing Spin is Truly a Hoot
• The Patent Distortion: How So-called ‘News’ Sites About Patents Perished, and Refusal to Honestly Cover the News Played a Role in Their Demise
• Meme: Go Back Home, Team UPC, You Are Drunk
• Meme: When They Want Examiners to Follow Orders, Violate the EPC
• Meme: EPO Examiners, Keep on Fighting (They Can't Fire Y'all)
• How the EPO is Like Putin’s Russia
• A Real President
• Meme: Throwing Stones in a House of Glass
• EPO Breaks Laws Just Like Vladimir Putin, But Then It Has the Audacity to Exploit Ukraine to Pretend the Opposite is True
• Meme: Team UPC: We Break the Law, We Don’t Care How You Feel About It
• Meme: Team UPC: Nothing Can Stop Us!!!

February 2022

• Meme: Munich Agreement
• The EPO is Run by Dictators, Elected Staff Representatives Are Left Out of Key Consultations
• The Patent Distortion: Promotion of Illegal Agenda (and Nobody Could Mention Industrial Action/Strikes at EPO, Protesting Illegal Agenda)
• Meme: Patent Invasion
• European Council Complicit in European Patent Office (EPO) Abuses
• Meme: Josef the Spectator
• Better Late Than Never: ILO Subjects the EPO's Management to Some Belated Justice (Sans the Removal of Immunity, so Nobody is Being Held Accountable)
• What EPO Staff Really Thinks
• Meme: We've Been Here Before...
• Meme: Artificial ‘Productivity’
• Meme: IAM’s Patent Benchmark
• António's EPO is Dead, Long Live the EPC?
• Meme: Oversight at the EPO
• EPO — Both the Patent Office and the Patent Organisation — Celebrating Constitutional Violations, Covering Up Human Rights Abuses, and Promoting the Facilitators
• Meme: Military-grade Propaganda in EPO.org This Past Week
• Meme: When Managers Do Not Understand the Staff (or Refuse to Understand It)
• Dear Mr. Rowan
• 'European' Patent Office (EPO) Accelerates Outsourcing of Its Operations to the United States of America, Quite Likely in Defiance of GDPR and Basic Common Sense
• Today Begins a Battle for Rights of Patent Examiners at the EPO
• Meme: EPO “Upskilling”
• EPO Management Still Treats EPO Workers Poorly, Even During Pandemic
• The Patent Distortion: Weekly Series About Failure of the Media to Properly Explain Patents and Generally Cover the News
• Meme: António Campinos Does to Europe What His Country Did to Africa
• There's a Pie in the Face (on Its Way to EPOnia)
• Meme: A 'Social Democracy' Where Every Vote is for Sale
• FFII: In PL Holdings, European Court of Justice Confirms EU Law Cannot be Outsourced to International Courts Like Unified Patent Court (UPC)
• António Campinos Wants to Undo His Father’s Legacy for Several More Years, Spreading Corruption Across Europe and the World
• Meme: Megaphone of António Campinos
• BREAKING NEWS/EXCLUSIVE: António Campinos Confirms That He is Seeking Reappointment
• Meme: Asking the Newsman for Information
• When It Comes to Patents, Lies Have Become the 'Norm'
• A Criminal Legacy (and Present) of the European Patent Office, Europe’s Second-Largest Institution
• Meme: The Man Who Owned Everything
• Meme: Importing Corruption, Voting Fodder, and More
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part L (50, Final): 2010 - 2022: Business as Usual?
• Meme: EPO Governance
• The EPO Crisis
• Meme: Only Yellow Unions Allowed in Red EPOnia?
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XLIX: The Rise and Fall of Battistelli's “Social Democracy”...
• Meme: “Unfounded” Claims of Fundamental Rights at the European Patent Office (EPO)
• Where Sir Paul Mahoney Has Failed to Protect EPO Staff From Injustice and Sheer Abuse
• Meme: Reminder That Battistelli Openly Boasted (in the Media) About the EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XLVIII: The Unkindest Cut of All
• Meme: EUIPO-Styled Labelling for EPO
• EPO Unjustified
• Meme: EPO Courts
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XLVII: Institutionalised Injustice at the EPO?
• Meme: Drunk Driving, Like Son of António Campinos
• Staff Holding Management at the EPO Accountable
• Meme: Team UPC and Team Battistelli Above the Law, Ignore the Law, Break the Law
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XXXXVI: An Erosion of Fundamental Rights Protection?
• Not Even Scabs Can Save EPO Management
• EPO Staff Goes on Strike, Plans Partial Work Stoppage/Slowdown to Condemn Unlawful Meddling Designed to Lower Patent Quality and Patent Legitimacy (No EPC Compliance)
• Meme: EPO Immune System: Nothing Can Touch Us!
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XXXXV: In the Shadow of “Waite and Kennedy”
• The EPO is Bleeding in Courts
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XXXXIV: Immunity = Impunity?
• EPO Pays Out Millions of Euros in Compensation — to Thousands of Workers Who Deserve a Lot More for Moral Damage — for Battistelli’s Illegal Acts (But Battistelli Himself Has Not Been Punished at All, Nor Have His Enablers)
• Meme: Drunk on Power and Diplomatic Immunity
• Nobody Should be Above the Law
• Meme: Almost a Decade for EPO Justice (Delayed, Hence Denied)
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XXXXIII: A Legal No-Man's Land
• Europe Has a Severe Corruption Crisis
• Meme: Wrong People Given Too Much Power
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XXXXII: A Parcel of Rogues?
• Abandoning the EPC in Order to Promote Corporations-Led EPO With Kangaroo Courts (UPC) is Simply Illegal
• Meme: EPC Calling
• The EPO’s Overseer/Overseen Collusion — Part XXXXI: Public Service or Self-Service?
• Meme: EPC 50th Anniversary Whitewash in Preparation...
• Meme: Geneva Convention or Geneva's Suggestion?
• ILO Tribunal Once Again Rules That the European Patent Office (EPO) Violates Fundamental Rights
• Unified Patent Court (UPC) Leak Shows That 'Team UPC' and the EPO's Management Are Knowingly Breaking the Law
• Why the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Cannot Enter Into Force, Based on the UPC Agreement Itself

January 2022

• 20-22 Vision: António Campinos Still Pillaging and Plundering EPO Staff
• Meme: To ‘Team UPC’, 2021 is Actually 2023
• EPO Workers' Poll: 9 Out of 10 Employees in Munich Want to Participate or Consider Participating in Strike (or Protest)
• Meme: EPO Management on the Run
• Meme: The Next Stage of Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Unitary Patent
• Classic 'Team UPC': This Year Becomes “Next Year” Yet Again
• Shuffling the EPO Deck to Cover Up Crimes, EPC Violations, Attacks on Judges Etc. While Promoting Illegal and Unconstitutional UPC
• Meme: EPO: Pursuing an Eastern and Western District of Europe (for Patent Trolls and Software Patents)
• Meme: UPC: Many Lies as Headlines, Almost Exclusively in Publishers Sponsored by EPO and Team UPC to Produce Fake News (Lobbying Through Misinformation)
• EPO as the 'Ministry of Truth' of Team UPC and Special Interests
• Why the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is Still Just a Fantasy and the UPC’s Fake News Mill Merely Discredits the Whole Patent ‘Profession’
• Meme: Get Ready for Unified Patent Court (UPC) to be Taken to Court
• The EPO Needs High-Calibre Examiners, Not Politicians Who Pretend to Understand Patents and Science
• Meme: Alexander Ramsay and Team UPC Inciting Politicians to Break the Law and Violate Constitutions, Based on Misinformation, Fake News, and Deliberate Lies Wrapped up as 'Studies'
• Has the Administrative Council Belatedly Realised What Its Job in the European Patent Organisation Really Is?
• Meme: Team UPC is Celebrating a Pyrrhic Victory
• Meme: Team UPC Congratulating Itself
• A Parade of Fake News About the UPC Does Not Change the General Consensus or the Simple Facts
• Welcome to 2022: Intentional Lies Are ‘Benefits’ and ‘Alternative Facts’
• Meme: UPC for CJEU
• Meme: European Patent Office Space
• EPO’s Web Site Constantly Spammed by Lies About Privacy While EPO Breaks the Law and Outsources Data to the United States
• Patrick Breyer, Unlike Most German Politicians, Highlights the Fact That Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Unitary Patent Are Incompatible With EU Law
• 2022 Starts With Censorship of Christmas and Other Greetings at the EPO
• EPO Has Patent Management System (PMS), But You Must be a Microsoft Customer and Run Malicious, Back-Doored Operating System
• Privacy Crimes at Europe's Second-Largest Institution, in Partnership With Microsoft
• EPO Breaking the Law in Collusion With — and to the Benefit of — Microsoft
• New EPO Page Provides Cover-Up for Clear and Severe Privacy Violations With Microsoft
• Meme: Just Another Battistelli
• Fictional Gaps and an Attack on Workers
• Meme: Diferençampinos
• The EPO's Race to the Bottom — Part V — An Assault on Pensioners
• Meme: Waiting for an EPO Pension
• The EPO's Race to the Bottom — Part IV — New Career System (NCS) and New Pension System (NPS)
• The Patent Examiners Will be Last (to Turn the Lights Off)
• Meme: SUEPO is Just Being Defensive (the Attacks Come Only From EPO Management)
• The EPO's Race to the Bottom — Part III — “The King is Naked” (a Fake Financial Shortage and 'Missing' -- or Plundered -- Billions)
• Meme: High on Quantities
• The EPO's Race to the Bottom — Part II — “Playing People Off Against Each Other is Not the Way We Want to Go Forward!”
• The EPO’s Race to the Bottom — Part I — From Bad to Worse
• Meme: Hiring and Retaining Patent Examiners on the Cheap
• When You Replace 10,000 Euros Per Month Patent Examiners With 2,000 Euros Per Month Patent Examiners...

Older articles:

• EPO 2021 Archive
• EPO 2020 Archive
• EPO 2019 Archive
• EPO 2018 Archive
• EPO 2017 Archive
• EPO 2016 Archive
• EPO 2015 Archive
• EPO 2008-2014 Archive