Bonum Certa Men Certa

Association of the Members of the Boards of Appeal Urges EPO Administrative Council to End Battistelli's Coup

Association of the Members of the Boards of Appeal (AMBA)



Summary: A call for the Administrative Council to take swift action and remove Battistelli along with his outrageous plans (risking collapse of the entire organisation) has just grown louder

As of last night, based on the timestamp in the page, the Association of the Members of the Boards of Appeal (AMBA) had this to say as Battistelli's attacks on the boards intensify (they don't mention Battistelli specifically, for the sake pf diplomacy):



Open Letter to all Stakeholders with an Interest in Maintaining the Boards of Appeal of the EPO as an Independent Judicial Body



The Boards of Appeal (BoA) are the body within the organisational structure of the European Patent Office taking final decisions on appeals against decisions refusing patent applications and revoking patents. Thus, they must meet the requirements of TRIPS and national constitutional law “Rechtsweggarantie/Access to justice”.

After two years of work, the European Patent Office has produced a proposal for re-structuring the BoA. The President will put this to a vote by the Administrative Council (AC) at the end of June.

The aim is to increase the BoA’s independence, within the limits imposed by the EPC. However, while some aspects of the proposal have a superficial appeal, even minimal reflection on the principles underlying judicial independence shows that the proposals are very wide of the goal, namely to increase the functional independence of the BoA without changing the EPC.

The issue came to the fore after the Enlarged Board’s decision R 19/12 in which the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) decided that its Chairman, who is simultaneously Vice-President of the BoA, was not independent because of his administrative functions within the Office. That the proposals represent a serious deterioration, as compared to the situation before that decision, is evident from the following.

The status quo before R 19/12

  • The President’s respect for the BoA’s judicial independence meant he did not intervene in their functioning, and de facto delegated his powers to the Vice-President, on the basis of Article 10(2)(i) EPC.
  • The BoA were responsible for selecting members and chairmen, and the President then proposed their appointment by the AC.
  • At the end of a member’s five-year term, re-appointment was the default, in the absence of serious reasons.
  • The Rules of Procedure of the BoA were adopted by the Presidium, subject to the approval of the AC. The President played no part.
  • The Office President shared the responsibility with the AC of selecting and appointing the BoA Vice-President, who is simultaneously the Chairman of the EBA – the highest judicial position in the European patent system.

The proposal

- Delegation

  • The President of the Office’s “act of delegation” aims at clarifying his lack of influence over the BoA, but in fact makes clear that he can and will intervene for any number of reasons, including whenever he considers the “interests of the Office” to be at stake.

- Independence

  • The proposal does not codify any new guarantee of independence.
  • There is a problem of external independence. Apart from being accountable to the AC, the President of the BoA is bound also by the BoAC’s “guidance” and “objectives”, and holds his powers only so long as the President of the Office deems fit.
  • There is a problem of internal independence. Key judicial tasks are placed in the hands of a single person, the BoA President. This is aggravated by the following point.
  • The AC can only appoint a President of the BoA that the President of the Office proposes because the latter retains his power to propose the appointment of the Chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal.
  • Shoehorning the career structure of the BoA members into the performance-based system of the rest of the Office ignores the BoA’s judicial nature. It also produces strange, not to say inexplicable, results: young members start on unusually high grades and experienced members are downgraded.

- Security of tenure

  • There is, de facto, a loss of security of tenure because re-appointment is subject to a positive recommendation in the light of unspecified reporting and performance criteria.

- The advisory body to the AC (BoAC)

  • The BoAC is to “monitor the independence” of the BoA, but has no means of guaranteeing it, or, indeed, clarity as to what such monitoring entails.
  • The BoAC is responsible for “guiding” and “controlling” the President of the BoA regarding general objectives, performance criteria, the annual report, the budget request and its execution, and even criteria for the distribution of cases, an area that currently falls within the power of the Presidium.
  • The President of the Office is entitled to participate in all meetings of the BoAC.
  • The BoAC, rather than the Presidium, adopts the Rules of Procedure of the BoA after consulting the Office President.

Conclusion

In the Boards’ view, if this proposal is adopted in its present form, it will inevitably result in further challenges before constitutional courts and before the Enlarged Board as in R 19/12.

In our view, it would be far better to reject this proposal and accept that the problem underlying R 19/12 has in fact already be resolved by the Vice-President’s withdrawal from management activities.

Additional considerations

This reform has not proceeded in a way commensurate with the importance or status of the BoA and the user and public interest. There has been a lack of transparency and any meaningful consultation, as can be deduced from the following:

  • The ideas in the project have essentially not changed since the original paper CA/16/15, which was criticised by the Boards, users and some delegates of the Administrative Council.
  • The “consultation” with the BoA amounted to no more than discussing our proposals, no aspect of which was incorporated, and last minute discussion of finished drafts, which were not changed at all.
  • No meaningful consultation took place with any stakeholder. The on-line user consultation invited users to give answers to leading questions about invented problems, and the responses were then misrepresented.
  • The proposal contains several aspects that the AC had regarded as secondary (efficiency, location) or had not been aware of at all (fees).
  • A new location is being pursued without any contact with the BoA.
  • An efficiency study of the BoA was commissioned without informing either the BoA or the AC.

Further information can be found on the AMBA website and in particular in an information pack that formed the basis of a recent panel discussion event in Munich where distinguished judges debated the principles of judicial independence and their application to the BoA.

We encourage any stakeholder with an interest in this matter to make their views known to their national delegations in the AC, who already have access to the proposal.

Yours faithfully,

The Association of Members of the Boards of Appeal





Board 28 has already warned about a "crisis" and the Administrative Council should sack Battistelli for his failure to even listen to the Administrative Council. It's long overdue. Here are contact details for delegates to the Administrative Council.

Our next post will shed more light on why Boards of Appeal and Battistelli cannot get along and also shed light on the timing of the above letter.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Apple is the Company of Dictators and Worse
Apple is just another greedy corporation in search of sweatshops and even pedophiles (especially the high-profile ones)
Counting Unhatched Eggs Is Not Counting Chickens
Everything here will persist as normal
The "Infinite Bread"
The biblical story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 has software parallels
In Many Cases and in Many Different Ways, Technology Became Less Durable and Less Reliable Over Time
The "modern" things are more complex. And complexity is a foe or reliability and repair-ability.
Microsoft's LinkedIn is Losing Money, Traffic, and Hope; Now It Wants to Sell Its Users' Lifeblood (and Data)
Let this be a reminder of what social control media really is about
Microsoft Lunduke: Freedom of Speech Means Spreading What I Have to Say and Banning People I Disagree With
4Chan is one he aims for and he is siccing 4Chan trolls at people he doesn't like
Richard Stallman Back at the "Rudolf-Diesel" Hörsal "MW 2001" in About 40 Hours
He spoke there before; there's a very high seating capacity there
 
Links 20/10/2025: Louvre Museum Reveals Weakness, About 7 Million Protest US Turning Into Oligarchy/Monarchy
Links for the day
They Should Have Listened to Techrights Over a Month Earlier (Xubuntu Site Compromised)
we reported this issue about 40 days earlier and nobody did anything about it
Richard Stallman to Give Another Talk Today in Bavaria (Bavarian Academy of Science)
Tomorrow at 6 PM he speaks in Munich
Barry Kauler Explains That Puppy Linux and EasyOS Exclude Systemd to Keep Things Simple
Barry Kauler's Puppy Linux is in the community's hands. He now focuses on EasyOS and more.
Half a Year After Brian Fagioli Got Kicked Out of BetaNews for Slop He's Still Doing LLM Slop and Slop Images Targeting 'Linux' (Plagiarising Original Works)
If the Web gets polluted or flooded by slopfarms such as these, and Slashdot then sends traffic so these slopfarms (Slashdot probably doesn't do this intentionally), then real writers with real knowledge of GNU/Linux will lose the spark for publishing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 19, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 19, 2025
Campaign of FUD Against Framework Laptops and GNU/Linux (Using Microsoft's Attack on Linux, 'Secure Boot')
Ritual Defamation Cult has turned its attention over to Framework
Liberation From 'The Feed'
They rank things based on the editor's choice/ideology (he or she knows the sponsors, hence the masters)
Microsoft's Killing of Vista 10 Seems to Have Resulted in More Articles About GNU/Linux (But Also FUD)
We not only saw a rise in traffic, we also saw a remarkable rise in the number of articles
Today (a Day Before Richard Stallman Talk at TUM) There's a Patent Propaganda Event at TUM
Perhaps an opportunity for Dr. Stallman to rebut this "invention to patent" nonsense/fantasy (conflating monopolies with innovation)
OpenSource or "Open Source" as a Brand is Dying, Let's Get Back to Talking About Software Freedom
Those of us who actually want to reform the industry and put users in control of their systems/devices will recognise that "Open Source" was selling a lie or got-co-opted by liars
19 Years in Numbers: Techrights' Anniversary Countdown and Retrospective
In 2019 we began improving our workflows and, accordingly/predictably, we became a lot more productive
Slop Turns People Off (LLMs Lack Intelligence, They're Just Plagiarism Powerhouses That Fail to Deliver Any Real, Measurable Value)
"More" (or "MOAR") isn't always better
IBM Red Hat Has Re-calibrated or Adjusted to Bubble Economics, False Promises, and Slop/Plagiarism
This won't end well
Fake Numbers, Fake Claims, Fake Economy, and Media Grifters That Prop Up Fraud
Grifters like The Register MS won't be looked upon kindly after the bubble implodes
For Some, the GNU Web Site is Not Accessible This Week
They seem to have gone into some kind of lock-down mode
Symptoms of Upcoming Microsoft Layoffs in XBox
A crashing franchise
Psychiatrist confession: Germanwings crash & Debian toxic culture recognized before suicides
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: Scentjacking 101, Slop Hype Boosters, and Steam Next Fest
Links for the day
Slopwatch: The Serial Slopper, LinuxSecurity, and Google News
Let's hope slopfarms die as soon as possible
Links 19/10/2025: Cambodia Scam Centres, Slop Hurting Wikipedia Traffic
Links for the day
As Economies Crumble Free as in Beer Will Matter, Not Just Free as in Freedom/Libre (Libertad)
French regions choosing to embrace Software Freedom
25 Years Ago, an Explanation of How Reducing Free Software to 'Apps' Would Interfere With Freedom Goals
there's nothing unreasonable about it
A List of 63 Known Gemini Clients (Software to Browse Geminispace Content With Gemini Protocol)
Not counting browser plugins for Web browsers
Gemini Links 19/10/2025: "Firma Odin Is Transforming" and Bot Attacks While "AFK"
Links for the day
US Government: 6.1% of Site Visitors Use GNU/Linux
GNU/Linux has a considerable share and it is growing
LLM Slop Could Not Rise to Prominence Without Media Complicity and Artificial Hype
Inane garbage disguised as "journalism"
Why the FSF No Longer Recommends Debian, as Explained by Richard Stallman This Month
some weeks ago
All the Latest Half Dozen Articles by Mehedi Hasan (UbuntuPIT) Only Admit at the End That He's Using LLM Slop
Disclosure is OK, but the practice of using slop is not
The 'Modern' Web of Fake Security and Easy Censorship of Whole Domains
Each year it gets worse
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, October 18, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, October 18, 2025
The Term "AI" is Not New and What Today's Media Calls "AI" Isn't Even AI
Only the hype was new... and totally artificial
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: "Planetary Rings", Steam, and PSU Replacement
Links for the day
Defeating LLM Abuse (State-of-the-Art Plagiarism) in the Area of Linux and GNU, Free Software, BSD, Security and So On
The aim is to get them to stop using LLMs to rip off other people's work
Links 18/10/2025: Russell Vought in Charge, US Government Leans to Russia Again
Links for the day
Credit Where It's Due: LinuxConfig.org Quit Doing LLM Slop, Back to Original and Real Articles
We waited for a while to say this, now it seems conclusive
Of Note: UbuntuPIT Aware of Critics of Slop, Adds Disclosure of Use of LLMs
We appreciate the honesty
Links 18/10/2025: Madagascar's President Flees and ICE Arrests Protest Comedian Robby Roadsteamer
Links for the day
Richard Stallman Near the European Patent Office (EPO) in 3 Days From Now
It'll be a good opportunity for patent examiners to listen, ask questions, and maybe greet him in person
From Scholar to Booster of Slop (and Even Slop in His Own Blog)
We're going to keep an eye on future posts of his
End of Vista 10 Also Good News for the BSDs
There are many news sites that recommend trying GNU/Linux this month
What's Wrong With Liking Parrots or Birds as Pets?
They'd demonise people for speaking about freedom, no matter what they say or do
Digital Sanitation Good Practices
leave behind Microsoftism
10 Days Ago Richard Stallman Gave a Long Interview in French (linuxfr.org)
English translation
Science, Not Fast Food/Junk Food
The commercial exploitation of users won't stop until users exercise full control over their software or - more broadly - their computing (including data)
The Free Software Foundation, Which Has Appointed a 43-Year-Old President, is Looking to Add Another Board Member (or Treasurer)
expect the FSF to add more people
Richard Stallman Confirms Next Week's Talk at Technical University of Munich, We Urge EPO Staff to Attend
That's probably late enough for EPO staff to attend after work
Gemini Links 18/10/2025: Notifications and Geminaut
Links for the day
Many Red Hat People Are Leaving, But It'll Be Framed Publicly as Leaving IBM
Similarly, IBM layoffs (or "RAs" as they're called) include Red Hat layoffs
Expect More Waves of Microsoft Layoffs This Month (at Least Two Rounds Confirmed Already)
From what we can gather, assuming the recent rumours about XBox are true, there will be at least 3 waves of Microsoft layoffs this month alone
Security Issues in Cisco and Jenkins Passed Off as "Linux" Problems
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) tactics
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, October 17, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, October 17, 2025