Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO All-Time Low: Memorandum From the Praesidium (of the Boards of Appeal) Complains to the Administrative Council About Latest Questionable Moves

The Napoleonic President -- not the boards -- should be sent to exile

Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte surrounded by members of the Council of Five Hundred during the Coup of 18 Brumaire, by François Bouchot (drawing edited by us)



Summary: Tensions inside the European Patent Office (EPO) have increased to the point where the Administrative Council (AC) is directly contacted by the Praesidium regarding Battistelli's outrageous plan to effectively send 'unwanted' (to him) people to 'exile'

THE EPO's massive new propaganda budget (€880,000 in a year) is rather revealing (we included it in the image above). The EPO's management has managed to convince itself that perception -- not its behaviour -- is the real problem. This helps explain the war on information itself and the war on people who 'dare' to speak out. It's a war of occupation and forceful silencing of dissent thereafter.



Strolling around IP Kat, we often find interesting statements from EPO staff, enjoying the cover of anonymity. Patent "applicants in their droves are choosing to file their applications at the national offices," wrote one person yesterday. "EPO management [is] monitoring telephone traffic at the desks of Examiners," wrote another person, wondering if the management "intimidates its Examiners so much that such speed and efficiency is frustrated?"

"The EPO's management has managed to convince itself that perception -- not its behaviour -- is the real problem."A new article about judicial independence at the EPO was posted yesterday by Merpel. It speaks of the Praesidium of the Boards of Appeal. As Merpel put it: "The Boards take a very different view. Their Praesidium (overseeing body) has written to the AC members in frustration, disputing that they were properly consulted, and asking for their voices to be heard. Not unreasonable, given that it is they whose careers are on the line, and it’s their children who will have to move schools if they are relocated to Vienna, Berlin or anywhere else.

“...applicants in their droves are choosing to file their applications at the national offices...”
      --Anonymous
"Merpel reproduces the memorandum from the Praesidium below, which addresses the current proposal in depth, questions why their views have been largely ignored until now, and asks the AC to let the Boards present their views directly to the Council."

One can find the full text in there, but here is the summary: "The Presidium is of the opinion that the proposed measures do not achieve the declared aims of increasing the Board's autonomy and improving the perception of independence. What's more, certain elements even cast further doubt on their independence and make them less independent than before. The most important legal question has not been answered yet - that of whether the proposed delegation of powers from the President of the Office to the President of the BoA can take place under the EPC. Further crucial aspects such as autonomy in budgetary and communication matters are not addressed."

“...will the members of the Praesidium now be subjected to sessions with the Investigating Unit and subsequent disciplinary proceedings?”
      --Anonymous
This article raises all sorts of interesting questions and attracts interesting comments too.

Citing Battistelli's crazy rules that deny access to his potential overseer (those who can sack him), one person asks, "will the members of the Praesidium now be subjected to sessions with the Investigating Unit and subsequent disciplinary proceedings?"

Here is a good comment:

Clearly, El Presidente is going for the big one: while he still can (before the political shit really hits the fan) he would like to 'reform' the BoAs in a 'reasonable' way which will 'extend their independence' by putting them at a physical distance from the rest of the administration.

This is, of course, the purest cant: as the assembled staff of DG3 point out, in common with his treatment of the rest of the EPO staff, Battistelli is at present deliberately trying to intimidate DG3 by:

1. Deliberately not filling vacant posts in DG3, which not only makes the allocation of work more difficult, but raises the question of who will be retained in post of those already in post;

2. threatening to move them to a new site (which, for reasons of service, they may not be able to oppose - see ServRegs, if you can find the relevant passages) - which may (will) ultimately lead to the resignation of many of these 'turbulent priests' (look it up).

Despite the apparent enshrinement in EPC of the independence of the boards, we see that there are, nevertheless, ways in which the president can apply pressure to DG3, even if this is not a direct pressure to individual members or chairman.

Is this really what the framers of the EPC intended? If not, Quo Vadis DG3?


Someone wrote in response to that: "The President€´s paper is a perfect illustration of the way the Office is managed in general: profound disrespect for the staff concerned, shameless misrepresentation of facts, abysmal ignorance of elementary principles of law.

"Almost two years lost now, the AC desperately passive. The Boards of Appeal will never fit into the Unitary Patent system."

Yes, here we have another reason why the Unitary Patent (or UPC) isn't all that people imagine it would be. There are false promises, disseminated in irresponsible media (or media 'for sale') with the intention of manufacturing consent inside the EPO and outside it.

"I have been following this EPO story for some time," another person writes, "and I agree with Merpel and the Presidium of the Boards. The only conclusion I can draw from the President's paper for the Council is unfortunate: it looks like the President intends to mislead and deceive the Council, his supervisory authority. If that is correct, I personally believe the Council should dismiss the President.

“...it looks like the President intends to mislead and deceive the Council, his supervisory authority. If that is correct, I personally believe the Council should dismiss the President.”
      --Anonymous
"Unfortunately, the chances that the Council will do their job are slim. Some delegations will voice concerns, but in the end, the Council will very likely rubberstamp whatever the President has sent in. They have done it in the past, they will do it in the future. The only exception was the desired dismissal of the Board of Appeal member where they had obtained independent external advice.

"I will appreciate to be proven wrong, both on the President's intention and the Council's behaviour."

It will be interesting to see if, as some people have warned me, the EPO will soon attempt to buy opponents (there's a huge new budget for reputation laundering), which can in turn flip-flop on EPO coverage, either in expectation of monetary compensation or because a payment was quietly made. Watch out.

What looks like patent examiners or friends of some examiners are not exactly happy. "The story about a director effectively deciding a case looks quite incredible," one of them wrote. Another one wrote: "This is how their management understands quality. #EPC trampled and spat upon. Oh but to serve the citizen of course."

Congratulations to Sun King (Battistelli) for totally demolishing the EPO after Alison Brimelow left something which was at least working.

Protests by staff need to go on. There is at least one more next week.

"Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent."

--Napoleon Bonaparte

Recent Techrights' Posts

How Many Women Has Microsoft's Alex Balabhadra Graveley Already Strangled and Where Does That End?
If you too are a victim of this man and wish to share information, contact us
"We Might Save Somebody's Life"
I follow the example of my father
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: Tmux and OCC25 Working TLS
Links for the day
Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
 
Revolving Doors: One Day You're a Judge, the Next Day You're an Attorney Paying Public Officials and Working for Violent and Dangerous Microsoft Employees
how the US justice system works
Sharing Code and Recipes
It helps explain the triviality of software freedom
Slopwatch: Noise, Plagiarism and Even Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt/Fear-mongering/Dramatisation
What are we meant to do to prevent a false association or misleading connotations? Game the LLMs? No. Boycott slopfarms.
Gemini Links 16/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and Simple Web Browsing with TLS
Links for the day
Links 16/07/2025: Fascist Slop Takes "Intelligence" Clothing, New Criminal Case Against MElon
Links for the day
Why I am Suing the Serial Strangler From Microsoft, Alex Balabhadra Graveley, in the UK High Court This Week
Out of respect to the process and to the Court, I shall not share any pertinent details about the case
Links 16/07/2025: China’s Economy Grows Steadily, France Takes Action Regarding Harm to Children by GAFAM and Fentanylware (TikTok)
Links for the day
It is Not About Politics
Beware the people who try to make this about politics
Good Journalism Saves Lives
a shocking number of women die or get seriously hurt every day due to violence from a partner
Recognition of Women's Contributions to Free Software
Being passive is not an option when bad things are happening
Slopfarms Are Going to Perish Because Public Opinion is Changing
Many slopfarms will simply go offline
19 Years of Standing Up for Justice, Equality, and Truth
This week we shall take it up a notch
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 15, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 15, 2025
Links 15/07/2025: LLM Pollution and Pushback in Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: xkcd, New Cert, and Alhena Gemlog
Links for the day
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day