02.25.16
Dutch Media Reinforces Rumours That Battistelli is on His Way Out, Only a Matter of Money Now
Also: a call for translation by Dutch speakers
Summary: Details that trickle into Dutch media and the growing necessity for English translations, as these serve to reinforce rumours and turn some into facts
FOR reasons we explained or hypothesised here before [1, 2], the German media, which is a lot broader (more than ten times the population of the Netherlands) and more closely connected to the EPO, hardly covers (at least properly) the EPO scandals, unlike the Dutch media. It was the case last year and it’s still the case this year.
“Near the end it quotes Liesbeth Zegveld [SUEPO lawyer] that BB’s [the president's] departure essentially boils down to a question of money.”
–AnonymousToday there were several articles in Dutch about the EPO. NRC has at least two articles about the latest developments/situation. A translation is coming for the first one soon (“Bestuur van octrooibureau wil functioneren topman onderzoeken”), but not the second, so we need volunteers for that (“Octrooibureau wil onderzoek naar bestuursstijl president”).
The above picture shows that other newspapers too are covering these matters and we need a translation of the text below (we have made a copy in case of self-censorship as seen before in British media and EPO-funded French media).
“If BB should decline to step down, then it is probable that he would lose much of his power anyway, as the AC would set up an “independent commission” to scrutinise his management.”
–Anonymous“For your press book,” wrote to us a reader who can understand Dutch, the above “scan of today’s edition of Dutch newspaper “De Volkskrant” is doing the rounds. The title translates to: “The Member States Turn Against Patent Office Top Man”.
“The VK is one of the country’s better quality daily, and has a reputation of being left-leaning.
“The article is a concise summary of the present situation.
“It mentions the surprising change of attitude by AC president Jesper Kongstad, who used to be a loyal Battisbuddy.
“Near the end it quotes Liesbeth Zegveld [SUEPO lawyer] that BB’s [the president's] departure essentially boils down to a question of money.
“All of that is fine, but we should never forget that we could [be] looking at rumours snowballing into rumours which eventually become “facts”.”
–Anonymous“If BB should decline to step down, then it is probable that he would lose much of his power anyway, as the AC would set up an “independent commission” to scrutinise his management.
“The president is reported to be doing much horse-trading backstage in order to shoot down the AC proposal. [Remember, there are 38 member states, and with the FIFA system of one country, one vote, anything is possible]
“All of that is fine, but we should never forget that we could [be] looking at rumours snowballing into rumours which eventually become “facts”.”
To summarise, we have a translation of this article on its way, but we still require translations of this and that article. There are often new, fact-checked claims in articles in all sorts of languages, based on various communications with the EPO's PR team, which occasionally makes flukes or faux pas (meaning, in their case, actually stating the truth for a change). More on that in our next post… █
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