02.18.16
Posted in Europe, Patents at 12:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
As if this patent institute is totally unchallengeable, like immigration law in Merkel’s Germany
Summary: The latest information from and about the European Patent Office/Organisation, where there has just been a major protest (in Munich), albeit nobody would know it based on or due to the silence of the media
THE Administrative Council (AC) of the European Patent Organisation (EPO) is led by a Dane and some rumours suggest that it may be pursuing (or at least exploring) removal of Battistelli and his team, who have become a disgrace and source of great shame to the Organisation. Karen Melchior, a rather popular (on the Web) Danish diplomat/lawyer*, has just said “Shame on @EPOorg” (European Patent Organisation, led by a Dane), the context being software patents in Europe (context about the EPO in general can be found in our corresponding Wiki).
“Willy Minnoye, as head of internal services was in fact promoted after being found guilty of breaching fundamental rights several years ago when he confiscated private union mail (see ILO judgment 1547).”
–AnonymousThankfully we have many sources (more than before, especially after the EPO foolishly chose to censor and threaten us), both outside and inside the EPO. “Willy Minnoye,” told us a source privately, “as head of internal services was in fact promoted after being found guilty of breaching fundamental rights several years ago when he confiscated private union mail (see ILO judgment 1547).” It sure looks like Battistelli and his team have quickly become a massive liability for the Organisation as a whole. “Dear Roy,” wrote to us a person, “thanks for the great work.” But it’s becoming harder to do such work without further input from readers. A partial media blackout in the whole of Europe prevents people from finding out what really goes on inside the EPO. EPO members of staff find themselves fearing communication even with their colleagues and German media might not want to remark negatively about the EPO for reasons we explained here before [1, 2]. All we know so far about the protest and surrounding developments comes from this comment:
Latest news from The Staff Committee is that they have informed the AC that they no longer support the planned Social Survey. Their version is that while BB invited them to nominate an observer for the organising committee, the nominee then wasn’t invited to any meetings and was given the results at the last minute as a fait accompli. The SC consider that their nominee is just a fig leaf to show that BB had dealt with them but that this was not bona fide consultation. Also it seems that no AC members are part of this either so that it is all being organised by BB. Quelle surprise!
In his 4th Feb speech to staff, BB gave the impression that his door was open but that the SC kept refusing to come on in! I wonder how he’ll organise an independent study if no staff will speak to the survey.
Meanwhile, SUEPO is organising a follow-up to a survey from a couple of years ago. Should be revealing but I presume BB’s PR gurus are already writing their rebuttals…
If anyone can please send us material which is related to the protest or the second Board 28 meeting of this year, that will help a great deal and enable dissemination of information. This is the worst nightmare of the abusers: a flow of reliable information, not Battistelli-led propaganda. The pressure on Mr. Kongstad has grown over the years because of letters (including from Transparency International), protests, and so on. Will he listen more carefully if fellow Danes speak speak out?
“Danish is not an official EPO language,” Benjamin Henrion pointed out yesterday. “And DK companies won’t get a legally binding translation.”
“Only about 10% of European patents get validated in DK [Denmark] currently. Polish gov’t report made similar observation.”
–Jesper LundThere’s a reason why some of last year’s protests targeted the Danish Consulate (this actually received press coverage from several Danish newspapers), and it’s not just Mr. Kongstad’s complicity by silence (letting Battistelli totally off the hook and helping Battistelli hide his salary from the European public).
Jesper Lund, who is Danish, responded to Henrion by saying “we happily swallowed the EPO pill in 2014 and accepted a 10-fold increase in patents valid in DK 
[...] That’s “over time”. Only about 10% of European patents get validated in DK [Denmark] currently. Polish gov’t report made similar observation.”
“The 10x increase is not there yet? With the UPC many countries will see drastic patent warming,” Henrion added.
In order to keep this concise, we shall cover these matters in a separate post about the UPC.
Despite the fact that we are now better equipped to quickly capture any morsel of information about the EPO, we are still not seeing anything about yesterday’s protest, so input from readers is sorely needed right now. Here is how to get in touch. █
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* Melchior prefers “Danish radikale politician.” According to her Web site, she is “a foreign policy professional with an academic background in law [who] worked more than 7 years in the political systems of the EU, Denmark, UK and France.” She attended “Transparency International Summer School on Integrity 2014,” which brings back memories of the EPO’s relation (good and bad, implicating the Danish AC Chairman and Control Risks Group) to Transparency International.
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02.17.16
Posted in Patents at 9:16 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
When your income comes from (in)famous patent trolls
Summary: Critique of the ‘content’ and angle from sites for (and by) patent maximalists, notably IAM ‘magazine’
THE EPO and EPO-funded media are not a source of information but they are often the target of criticism or ridicule. Now that the EPO promotes monopolies on plants (to increase the number of granted patents, irrespective of the overall impact on society) we wish to highlight CEVA et al with their pro-GMO (i.e. patent monopoly) agenda, as covered in IP Watch the other day [1]. This is a fantastic example of the harms of patent maximalism — something that EPO-funded sites sure love and even take pride in. Let’s look at IAM ‘magazine’, based on the past few days’ articles.
“It glorifies what the site profits from, but at whose expense?”“IP Hall of Fame” is a term like that’s being used by IAM right now. Like “Monopoly of fame” or “Protectionism of the year”, one has to be pretty brainwashed to really ‘dig’ into that. Then again, what can be expected from a site which targets ‘IP’ lawyers? It glorifies what the site profits from, but at whose expense?
According to this article, the patent troll of Ericsson still attacks Android OEMs (impacting Linux, by extension). To quote: “The IPKat has been aware for some time that the Patents Court, in the person of Mr Justice Birss, has been devoting considerable time to a series of cases concerning mobile phone technology (Unwired Planet v Huawei and Samsung).”
“BlackBerry, despite its embrace of Android, will quite likely troll other Android OEMs with patents.”According to IAM, BlackBerry is now acting somewhat like a troll, much as we foresaw and predicted. But IAM uses terms like “monetisation”, which are effectively euphemisms (how about “corporate foodchain” as a euphemism?). To quote: “When BlackBerry concluded a cross-licensing agreement with Cisco last June, with a provision for the Californian company to pay an on-going royalty, this blog stated that the deal could mark the start of the Canadian telecoms and wireless business becoming a major player in the patent monetisation space.”
BlackBerry, despite its embrace of Android, will quite likely troll other Android OEMs with patents. Microsoft, according to this IAM report, is hoarding LG patents that it can later use to extort (or tax) Android devices more than it already does. To quote IAM, “20 US assets covering mobile telecoms assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC; also 44 assets on 9th April.”
“…there is already patent trolling in China, but the opaque court system changes all the risk equations…”
– James SalsmanThe euphemism “monetisation” again appeared in IAM around the same time, in relation to China’s SIPO. The lenient patent system in China (like USPTO in the US) could bring in the trolls; maybe that’s what what “monetisation” now means in IAM (if not NPE). As Jack Ellis put it, in order to sell the “monetisation” (trolls) agenda in China (shaming tactics): “Protectionist, biased, anti-foreigner: those are kinds of labels that are often attached to China’s IP enforcement system by rights holders from outside of the country.”
As James Salsman put it when asked, “there is already patent trolling in China, but the opaque court system changes all the risk equations [...] I lived in Shanghai working at @EFLabs where patents prevented pronunciation intelligibility remediation software improvements” (the latter, with context, can be found here).
The bottom line is, the Web continues to be saturated with coverage about patent matters composed by people who profit from it. Some even receive money from patent offices. Therein exists a real, profound problem. Public interests are ignored at best and habitually trampled. It’s everyone’s ethical imperative to change that, or else very few people will hoard all the wealth and many productive human activities (such as sharing, trade, invention and manufacturing) will effectively be banned except when permitted by those few wealth hoarders. █
Related/contextual items from the news:
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At issue, according to a joint press release (Via Campesina, Grain, and ETC Group), is the agenda, which they find unbalanced as it includes speakers from industry such as, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, CropLife International, and CEVA among others, which they say are promoting GMOs, while they found only one speaker openly critical of GMOs.
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Posted in America, Patents at 8:37 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
See original article
Summary: A review of press coverage regarding the Lexmark patent case, where gross overpricing of ink was defended by the Federal Circuit
THE news has been dominated, to some degree, by reports about the Federal Circuit doing a disservice to society (yet again).
As the EFF put it this week: “The Federal Circuit’s rule privileges patent owners over consumers, and helps ensure even less competition in the resale market. We hope the Supreme Court takes a hard look at this case, and restores consumers’ rights in products they purchase.”
“The Federal Circuit’s rule privileges patent owners over consumers, and helps ensure even less competition in the resale market.”
–EFFWithout a doubt, many lawyers’ firms and lawyers’ sites are writing about it right now, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14].
Worth noting is the fact that legal sites wrote like 10 times more articles than general news sites (or technology sites) about this case, e.g. [1, 2]. A lot of people don’t ‘get’ patents; neither do journalists. They’d use silly phrases like “invent patents” or “make patents”. The propaganda worked on them.
“Here, the court held that this type of restriction is enforceable for Lexmark, but only because Lexmark’s product is covered by patent rights.”
–Dennis CrouchHere is the best report we’ve found on this subject (so far). TechDirt, which has covered this subject for over a decade (going back to 2004 if not earlier), wrote: “if you fail to block competition with one kind, apparently you can try, try again with another kind — and eventually you’ll end up in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, who will mess everything up and kill off the competition. Printer company Lexmark has been at war with alternative suppliers of ink for well over a decade. As you may be aware, printer ink is sold at a ridiculously high markup, such that one estimate (from over a decade ago) noted that in order to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool with printer ink, it would cost you $5.9 billion (yes, with a “b”) at the checkout counter of your local office-supply retailer. The printer makers have notably taken a “give away cheap crappy printers at a low cost, and make it up in seriously overpricing the ink” strategy to their businesses. This kind of thing works great until someone tries to step in and sell competing ink.”
Suffice to say, this case is about keeping the prices artificially high (higher by several orders of magnitude than the production cost). A response posted by Dennis Crouch said: “I was surprised at the en banc Federal Circuit’s decision in Lexmark to re-affirm Mallinckrodt — giving a seller power to block future resale and reuse of a patented product. My surprise is grounded in the longstanding tradition in American property law of promoting the free-flow of commerce by refusing to enforce servitudes that limit the alienation or use of goods. To be clear, courts have often enforced contracts between willing parties to this end, but those same courts have refused to allow restrictive covenants to cling to the good and bind any subsequent purchaser. Here, the court held that this type of restriction is enforceable for Lexmark, but only because Lexmark’s product is covered by patent rights.”
“Remember that CAFC is responsible for many other equally tactless decisions.”It was not the first time that Crouch’s blog covered this case in recent days (we mentioned this a few times in last week’s posts). Basically, Lexmark twists and bends the law for price-fixing/price hikes. Other companies, such as HP, would no doubt benefit from this, at the expense of the public. To quote Crouch’s blog: “The presumptions are of some importance for those operating on the ground. Here, the US court will presume that foreign sales of a product do not exhaust the US patent right. Thus, an importer must obtain a release/license of those rights to avoid liability (assuming a valid and otherwise infringed patent). Of course, that license right may be implied based upon providing notice of the importation intent. In addition, depending upon the location of sale, UCC 2-312 (or its foreign equivalent) may create a presumption of license depending upon the situation.”
When laws are being passed to protect the business models or large corporations at the expense of the public, are the laws at all legitimate? Should we not feel free to challenge them or better yet, engage in civil disobedience? Remember that CAFC is responsible for many other equally tactless decisions. It was also CAFC that got software patents started, not just in the US but in the whole world. In the past we showed evidence of institutional corruption inside CAFC. █
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
–Oscar Wilde
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
The UPC is a Trojan horse of patent profiteers
Summary: The Unitary Patent Court (UPC), the latest name of a decade-long effort to increase litigation, damages, injunctions, trolling etc. inside Europe, is being railroaded through the system like a Trojan horse, relying on public apathy (as the public does not know anything about its existence and the harsh reality)
THE UPC, which we wrote about 4 days ago, is a very big deal for the EPO‘s management. It even sponsored a pro-UPC propaganda event in the US, to take place just days from now with help from patent lawyers and patent lawyers' media. This isn’t democracy, it’s a coup d’état which merely serves to discredit European democracy.
Amerikat (Ward) from IP Kat continues her push for UPC as if it’s already a done deal (it’s not) and some “IP & Technology lawyer” promotes this UPC coup which European citizens never got to vote on. It’s not just women doing this, but it’s almost always patent lawyers, which is quite revealing, is it not? “ADR is also part of the new European #patent framework. Draft #UPC mediation rules now published,” the latter wrote.
Benjamin Henrion (FFII) responded by saying: “Rules cannot be written by an administrative committee.”
“…in the worst case, they will just copy/paste the rules and ask parliaments to rubberstamp.”
–Benjamin Henrion (FFII)“Unitary Patent Court rules and laws cannot be made by an administrative committee,” he later added, “only by elected parliaments” (“don’t worry,” I said, “they can always just bribe some politicians to sign off the rules they pass to them for signing”).
A pro-patents account then jumped in to say: “It is supposed to be monitored by EU Council whose members are supposed to be monitored by elected parliaments, monitored by people.”
“When was the UPC ever monitored by people other than patent lawyers [and] other profiteers,” I responded, comparing them to foxes in the hen house. At this stage Henrion said “that’s stealing democracy. There are clear ECHR rulings on this.”
“Well, it’s not like the patent lawyers always honestly cared about law,” I responded, “they game it!” That’s what they do for a living, that is what people pay them a lot of money for.
As Henrion put it, “in the worst case, they will just copy/paste the rules and ask parliaments to rubberstamp.”
Then, “patentlyGerman” (his occupation isn’t hard to guess) said: “The Munich local div of the #UPC will be housed in a boring, but centrally located building” (patent lawyers and propagandists say “will”, not “would”, as if UPC is already unstoppable and inevitable).
“UPC is a Trojan horse that European citizens neither want nor need (at least those who even know it exists and understand what it’s for).”Thankfully, as some people come to realise, Spain is doing the right thing by rejecting the UPC, in spite of political blackmail.
Show us anyone other than patent lawyers (or the EPO) promoting the UPC and we shall award with a prize. All we have here is a coup d’état. UPC is a Trojan horse that European citizens neither want nor need (at least those who even know it exists and understand what it’s for).
UPC is a spit in the face of European democracy. It’s time for more sites (not sites of patent lawyers) to openly talk about it and properly inform the public. █
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02.16.16
Posted in Europe, Patents at 6:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The attacks on staff unions at the EPO are explained with broader context, highlighting the severe abuses which come from above, so to speak, from people who shamelessly disregard the rule of law
TECHRIGHTS has written a great deal about the EPO‘s management, more so as a result of its unprecedented crushing of well-educated (and at times opinionated) staff. Critical or sceptical thinking should be a job requirement at the EPO, but apparently not under Battistelli. People are reduced to obedient peons who work like machines and never fall ill. Standards or procedures typically applicable to examination are out the door, depending on the size of the applicant (or “client”/”customer”). This is just wrong.
Instead of going after truly dangerous people such as Željko Topić (see our latest report about him), the EPO’s managers, who hired this incredible liability, is stubbornly fighting more aggressively, convinced that it should only be going after — ever more relentlessly and at growing doses — those whom management believes can lead to a revolt and perhaps a mass exodus, mass resignation/dismissal at the management level, or European raids at the Office (some members there, Topić included, already face many criminal charges). The last thing Battistelli et al want right now is Europol or Interpol showing up at the gate (Munich).
“I still have some hope for tomorrow,” wrote one particular reader to us regarding the Board 28 meeting (tomorrow in Germany). SUEPO said that “The Board 28 is the ultra-secretive think-tank of the Administrative Council.”
“You probably know about the rumours,” added this reader, “that they are negotiating his [Battistelli's] departure; but the rumour is not confirmed.”
While we generally have a good understanding of what happened, how, when and so on (too early to take all of this public), we cannot ever sympathise with what Battistelli and his goons have been doing. It’s them who should be facing a trial/s (or face the music as the saying goes), not mere messengers (the voice of the staff) like SUEPO. Topić is himself already embroiled in legal battles, but Battistelli and his clique try pretty hard to hide this from the staff. They even actively mislead the staff regarding the status of Topić’s court battles.
Ahead of tomorrow’s protest in Munich let’s just remind readers or explain once again (with additional details) what has been going on at the EPO.
“Read about cleansing of staff representatives and union leaders at EPO,” urged one person in a message to us. We have a lot of this documented with an index of articles in the Wiki. They not only went after staff representatives and union leaders. They even went after a judge. His alleged ‘crime’ is that he anonymously (for his own safety) spoke about the behaviour of Željko Topić. People who cannot understand the importance of such an (alleged) act surely don’t know what Željko Topić has done. There’s a reason why people in Croatia hate Topić so much. They’re up in arm and they cannot quite grasp the EPO’s decision to recruit him. Maybe a language barrier prevented the H.R. folks from doing their homework.
“There’s a reason why people in Croatia hate Topić so much. They’re up in arm and they cannot quite grasp the EPO’s decision to recruit him.”“The EPO conducts secretive investigations against them [staff representatives],” told us a person, “in which they cannot bring a lawyer, do not know the charges in advance, lack the right to remain silent, and cannot even disclose that they are being investigated. During the investigations, they are bullied into confessions about themselves and others. If they are not cooperative, charges are trumped up against them, followed by mock trials in a disciplinary committee. EPO confiscates their personal belongings like cell phones and PCs, so that evidence can later be “found” on them, in the absence of the accused.”
Go ahead and hypothesise/theorise about what may be on a USB drive (or stick) of someone who wants to access the Web anonymously. Such drives swap/change hands (different people sharing the same media). They may, among other things, include anonymity software, and some people who desperately require such software may wish to disseminate material which the State deems hateful. All we are trying to say is, when you seize vast troves of data (like complete PCs) you can spend months constructing a false story about a person (or scapegoat). The same goes for mass surveillance in general and as Edward Snowden once put it (to paraphrase from memory), given enough data one can frame it (by omission or ambiguity) to support some imaginary story about one’s life. It wouldn’t be hard, in retrospect (with access to extensive piles of personal data), to smear a person or even justify a lethal drone strike against a person. This is one of the many known dangers (to a democratic society) that mass surveillance poses. Just look what the Stasi did in Germany.
“If they are not cooperative, charges are trumped up against them, followed by mock trials in a disciplinary committee. EPO confiscates their personal belongings like cell phones and PCs, so that evidence can later be “found” on them, in the absence of the accused.”
–Anonymous“No wonder they get ill,” wrote a person to us, alluding to staff representatives. “Find below some staff representatives who got punished recently. This list is not complete.”
- Annete K exposed human right breaches of EPO. She is a lawyer. As soon as she left the staff committee, and thus lost protection, she was expelled into early retirement against her will.
- Also Aurélien P and Mikael L got suspended and downgraded as their mandate with the appeals committee ended. This happened after years of loyal service in the appeals committee.
- Els H is SUEPO’s chairperson. She was first downgraded and then fired based on false charges. Against the advice of the disciplinary committee, her pension was cut by 20%, a pension for which she paid for 30 years.
- Ion B is SUEPO’s former chair. In the same week, also he was fired based on false charges. The disciplinary committee explicitly advised against his dismissal. Ion B has 5 children. His colleagues now support him financially.
- Still in the same week, Malika W got downgraded. Coincidence, huh?
- Laurent P occupies leading positions for staff representation and SUEPO. After being pressurized and summoned by the investigative unit on 13 November 2015, he is on sick leave as certified by his doctor. The EPO refuses to pay his salary, and pressurizes him even while ill. His colleagues now support him financially.
“Other staff representatives are targeted,” we’ve learned, but we already knew that. We named some of them earlier today and we are aware of even more. It’s clearly a witch-hunt. The pattern cannot be mistaken for a “coincidence”. Willy Minnoye was lying on national television.
“This intimidation must stop,” the person told us, “and Battistelli should be told to leave.”
“Just for the record,” I responded, “I am aware of more people who have been targeted. This situation must be addressed as a matter of urgency to prevent more suicides and other irreparable damages.”
Speaking to another person we learned that Battistelli “is creating transparency” not by means of intentional transparency but rather by upsetting everyone and thus creating whistleblowers. By alienating everyone he himself made a lot more enemies. Even Directors now attend protests. The damage is irreversible for Battistelli. His days are probably numbered now. “It seems that you are becoming an expert even for EPO-internal matters,” this one person told us, but that’s probably because the EPO never figured out who we speak to (based on internal documents we saw). They’re clueless. In a sense, Minnoye’s nightmare is becoming a reality. Months ago Minnoye complained that documents had been leaking to blogs (he must have meant Techrights) and now it’s him who’s receiving a lot of unwanted attention. This is a sort of nonviolent blowback that they experience after viciously attacking their staff. They also targeted yours truly, as if suddenly the courts suit them.
By going to the protest tomorrow (or joining the imminent strike) staff will hit Battistelli, Topić, and Minnoye where it hurts. It helps demonstrate how terrible they are as managers, in spite of the high salaries. No doubt EPO management will continue to exercise what’s wrongly perceived as omnipotence, but without standing up to these machinations European society is assured to descend onto further oppressions. A German guy called Adolf once famously said, “demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination.” The suicides epidemic isn’t assassination per se, but it serves a similar role, alongside union decapitation. █
“Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today…”
–Mahatma Gandhi quotes (Indian Philosopher, internationally esteemed for his doctrine of nonviolent protest, 1869-1948)
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 1:33 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Patent maximalism under the Battistelli regime has become a cancer (and it negatively affects even cancer patients)
Summary: The EPO has reached a level of shamelessness so high that openly promoting monopolies on algorithms (software patents) is now generally regarded to be permissible and viewed as acceptable too
THE EPO is a hungry monster totally out of control. It serves large corporations and runs over anything which stands in its way. The EPO is probably the biggest embarrassment of the European Union, but the EPO is neither part of the European Union nor is it European. It often seems more like a conspiracy of large corporations and rich people, misleadingly disguised under the name “European” and a .org domain. The interests of European citizens just don’t matter at all and European SMEs barely count.
“The sheer arrogance of EPO managers seemingly lets them be all shameless about ignoring the rules and expanding patent scope to just about anything, in mindless pursuit of more patents (where quantity matters more than quality or collective economic value).”The EPO is promoting software patents again (the tweet above is only hours old). It doesn’t shock anyone among the campaigners against software patents because the EPO doesn’t mind the law (it blatantly admits this) and it does not follow the rules of the EPC, either.
“Don’t miss our workshop on patentable software in Europe on Wednesday 16 March at CeBIT,” wrote the above person in an official account (thus official statement), alluding to something which we covered here earlier this month.
What a nerve they have…
Over in the US, contrary to Europe, software patents are dying. Right now patent lawyers try to “Save Software Patents,” to use their own words (see today’s article titled “How Structural Claim Limitations Can Save Software Patents” — albeit it’s behind a paywall).
It’s no secret that Techrights was all along against software patents, but it was never in principle against the EPO until becoming aware of human rights abuses. The sheer arrogance of EPO managers seemingly lets them be all shameless about ignoring the rules and expanding patent scope to just about anything, in mindless pursuit of more patents (where quantity matters more than quality or collective economic value). █
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Posted in Europe, Humour, Patents at 12:23 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Some humour about the man who insists that the European Patent Office will simply refuse to obey orders from the highest court at The Hague
THE caricature below refers to the EPO‘s belief that the law does not apply to it (see context in this recent video).
More articles about the EPO are on their way tonight and tomorrow. █
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Posted in Europe, Patents at 9:07 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Incredible claims face backlash from incredulous staff
Summary: For the English-speaking audience there is finally a video with subtitles about the EPO’s abuses, as covered by Dutch television last month
“NOS Nieuwsuur (NPO 2 TV 28 January 2016 22:00),” which is a sort of BBC of the Netherlands, “stands out for the interview with Vice-President (DG 1) Willy Minnoye, who stated that the fact that only personnel guilty of misconduct is targeted, and that the fact that five (5) of the latest targets are all SUEPO officials is a pure coincidence.”
“His “offense” was to conduct a recurrent survey that would have revealed Battistelli’s lack of popularity with staff.”
–AnonymousThat’s just a straight-faced lie from Minnoye. There are more than 5 people and this is no coincidence; it’s well coordinated, and it’s helped by union-busting experts such as Control Risks. There is also no justification. It’s nothing but a union-busting process by EPO management, which has truly gone off the rails.
Based on information we received, “Battistelli’s private militia evicted José S from his office. He got suspended and interrogated by the investigation unit. His “offense” was to conduct a recurrent survey that would have revealed Battistelli’s lack of popularity with staff.”
“[Minnoye] announced that the EPO does not agree with learned judges of the Dutch Court of Appeal that violations of fundamental rights trump the Organisation’s immunity, and that if in cessation the Dutch Supreme Court (who held a hearing on 29 January 2016) were to agree with the Court of Appeal, the EPO would not obey the Supreme Court, either.”
–SUEPOAs we showed here last year, Battistelli has a happiness propaganda in the making. It’s reality distortion, just like that event which took place 2 weeks ago [1, 2, 3]. José’s work is seen as disruptive to the PR agenda, even if it’s factual and scientific. The EPO doesn’t care about science anymore; the management is all about deception and institutional harassment if not outright violence.
Returning to SUEPO’s disclosure of the videos (posted to YouTube in three languages by SUEPO Munich), the anonymous (for his/her own protection) messenger says about Minnoye that “He also announced that the EPO does not agree with learned judges of the Dutch Court of Appeal that violations of fundamental rights trump the Organisation’s immunity, and that if in cessation the Dutch Supreme Court (who held a hearing on 29 January 2016) were to agree with the Court of Appeal, the EPO would not obey the Supreme Court, either. See the whole reportage on nos.nl by clicking here (from 32’57’’). Subtitles are now provided in English, German and French.”
Here is the version with English subtitles as a locally-hosted WebM video (to reduce surveillance by Google and patent tax on widely-used multimedia formats):
Even if EPO lawyers/management somehow managed to force SUEPO to take down the videos (the EPO did threaten SUEPO before, causing takedowns), we would keep our own copy here. We shall see if the EPO finally got to grips with the Streisand effect. Use of force and mental torture by the EPO does not stop at EPOnia's boundaries, but sooner or later the EPO will lose its immunity and thus the impunity. We seem to be close to that already. █
“Everyone imposes his own system as far as his army can reach.”
–Joseph Stalin
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