Bonum Certa Men Certa

Article Highlights Madness When It Comes to Overstressing EPO Staff and Pushing Towards Overpatenting (Even Life!) in Pursuit of Profits

Patent maximalism too an important angle in the German media

Cash boxing
Knocking workers out to the benefit of foreign corporations: Benoît Battistelli, whose only notable qualification seems to come from a business school, turned the EPO into a private, non-European, unaccountable business (complete with outside contractors, not just Questel but also Control Risks and FTI Consulting from the US)



Summary: The greed of the European Patent Office (EPO), or the insatiable aspiration to compromise examination quality and expand patent scope (software included), noted alongside the human rights abuses at the EPO

THERE are many articles about the EPO in Dutch and German media right now.



Translation is still desirable/needed for these two new articles in German (published today) [1, 2]. The article from Christian Kirsch at Heise looks particularly interesting. Well, citing the TV program which scares EPO management, this new article now has an English translation (as requested by us) and it's quite interesting because there are new/unique elements in it, as highlighted below:

Patents

Climate of fear at the EPO: Anyone who dares to voice criticism faces dismissal



15 March 2016 by Lara Dovifat

Fear is spreading among the employees in the European Patent Office: house arrest in the case of illness, prohibition on speaking to the press and internal investigations. On top of that, the pressure to grant more and more patents more and more quickly. There have already been a number of strikes at the Munich headquarters. This documentary explains why this is so and what consequences it has for patents on life - and how this could change soon.

Click here for the complete report about the European Patent Office.

For some time now in Munich at regular intervals the staff of the European Patent Office can be found out on the streets instead of sitting behind their desks. They are demonstrating because of the dismal atmosphere at the Office. Intense pressure and a President who instills fear in everybody. The Office is a supra-national institution and, consequently, German labour law does not apply here.

The Office lives on the horrendously expensive patent application fees of corporations and naturally has an interest in the rapid and voluminous granting of patents. As we have already reported in the context of our campaign "Stop Patents on Life", the structure of the European Patent Office does not foresee any independent judicial oversight or control by international courts.

Profit takes precedence over examination

In particular, the current President Benoît Battistelli is taking this madness to the extreme. He wants to make the Office more efficient and increase its revenues. Labour laws, sickness and representation of the workforce by trade unions are only seen as obstacles in his path. He proudly boasts: "Our productivity increased by ten percent last year, the production by as much as 14 percent." No wonder that the numbers of patented plants, animals and seed are going through the roof. Patent examiners speak of intolerable conditions, internal investigation teams and the summary dismissal of staff union representatives. They also complain that insufficient time is available to examine patent applications properly. This is all the more surprising when one considers the potentially disastrous consequences of patents on life.

The buck stops with Heiko Maas - he has to take action now!

Only the Administrative Council of the EPO can put a stop to this unsustainable state of affairs. The Council is composed of delegates from all of the Member States - including the representatives of the competent [German] Justice Minister, Heiko Maas. The Administrative Council is due to meet on 16 March to discuss the internal conflict and to try to regain control of the Office. This would also be a first step towards restricting the granting of patents on naturally cultivated plants, animals and seed varieties in the future. So don't waste any time in signing our appeal to stop patents on life for once and for all!


"When will there be a democratic and human end of the present (apparent mis-) leadership of EPO," one person asked Heiko Maas. "Abuse of power, currently." Well, Bavarian politicians are already on the case (at least some of them).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft XBox is Dying as More Retailers Stop Stocking It and Massive Layoffs Planned Again
Microsoft is circling down the drain
Linux and the Freedom Paradox
Linux is losing freedom if some external actors who only use Microsoft tools for development wrest control
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 05, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 05, 2025
Links 06/10/2025: Science, Hardware, and Andrej Babis Making a Comeback
Links for the day
Links 05/10/2025: Slow News Day and Wondering About the Canada Post Walkout
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/10/2025: Telnet Debugging and The Programmer’s Brain
Links for the day
More Than "Just a Rumour": XBox Seems to Have Just Died
At this point, why would any studio out there target or partner with XBox?
How to Tell Your Community, Project or Company is Being Infiltrated by Saboteurs
How to identify nefarious social engineering
The Fortieth Birthday of the FSF Made Us Extremely Happy
It feels like the 'hacker community' is regrouping to discuss things and prepare for the next Big Challenge
Chat Control 2 Them, Not 2 U
Follow the advice of Dr. Patrick Breyer
Mozilla: Throw Away Your "Old" PC and Enable "Digital Rights Management (DRM)"
This is heading in a bad direction
Controlling Our Computing for Another Forty Years
40 years of freedom
Motivational Small Place to Run Large Sites
We deem this scenery motivational and inspiring
Techrights' Text Version (Daily Bulletin) Turns Five This Month
our plain-text bulletins are turning 5 this month
We'll Continue Covering the Moribund OSI and Other Dysfunctional if Not Hostile Institutions
Stefano Maffulli's departure is due to his defection and due to him failing the mission in pursuit of money (his salary)
Links 05/10/2025: Lufthansa Layoffs (4,000) and More Spotify Woes (Aside From Massive Debt)
Links for the day
The Free Software Foundation's Livestream Has Ended, Video/s Might be Online Next
I've asked whether they'll upload video of some of the event; I still wait for an answer
The Register MS Does Not Know the Difference Between Microsoft GitHub and GitLab
At the time of writing (October 5) the article from "Thu 2 Oct 2025" remains uncorrected
"Bullshit Generators" (What RMS Calls LLMs) and Fake Images Already Target the FSF
Why does Google News promote fake articles about the FSF while omitting all the real ones?
Software Patents as a Bubble
Don't invest resources in hype; if you detect a bubble, run away from it
Links 05/10/2025: Political Leftovers, Climate Change, and Security Incidents
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 04, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 04, 2025
Watch the FSF Party Live (via Livestream)
It's in WebM format, which is widely supported by now
Advocacy of Software Freedom Changed, LUGs Became Less Relevant
The way we see it, support groups like LUGs sort of outlived their usefulness when it became easier to install GNU/Linux
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims or says can be trusted
When Microsoft "Integrates" Something With "AI" It Means It's Losing Money and Is Generally Hopeless
how did Bing fare after 36 months of LLM slop being hyped up as "replacement" for search?
Most Certificates Don't Improve Security, They Mostly Increase Downtime (for No Good Reason)
The 'Gemini sites' (capsules) are a growing force
The statCounter Site Has Data Integrity Problems
Maybe we'll get back to statCounter when its data becomes more "stable" again
10 Ways to Combat Software Patents
software patents are loathed also by proprietary software developers
"Just a Little Bit of Meat..."
Free software "absolutism" is not a radical stance, more so if the only "radical" belief the user possesses is that he or she must be in control of his or her software, and by extension his or her computer
Compromised by NVIDIA Proprietary Library
Meanwhile in Boston there are "[r]oundtable talk with FSF volunteers (both in-person and online)"
Red Hat is Ignoring the Free Software Community, It's a "Fortune 1000" Vendor
Red Hat's blog also participates a lot in promoting of Wall Street's latest pump-and-dump "AI" scheme
Free Software Foundation Party Has Begun
We shall be focusing a lot on software patents today
Former Head of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Lina Khan Knows Whatever Microsoft Touches Will Die
Just like Skype (as recently as months ago) [...] When Microsoft grabs things, or when it buys things, it almost never ends well
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About LibreOffice in Austria and Wine 10.16
very short
Links 04/10/2025: "attempted Coup" Noted in Facebook, Russia Kills Journalists via Drones
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Anesthesia and Baudpunk
Links for the day
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
Links 04/10/2025: "Privacy Harm Is Harm", Criticism Outlawed in US
Links for the day
Garmin Uses Linux for Some of the Garmin Products, Now It's Sued by Strava Using Software Patents
Software patents should never have been granted in the first place
Richard Stallman Will Give a Talk in Sweden in 6 Days
Dr. Stallman, despite his battle with cancer is still alive and mentally sharp
FSF Turns 40
We'll be focusing on patent-related topics this weekend
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 03, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 03, 2025
Gemini Links 04/10/2025: Distro Hopping and "Part Time"
Links for the day