01.27.17
Gemini version available ♊︎Gurry and Battistelli: When Alternative Facts and Oppression Are Becoming Business as Usual
Summary: A lot of the latest calls for action are culminating in more press coverage, but at WIPO — like at the EPO — any attempts at self-investigation are nothing but cover-up and jaw-dropping lies
THE calamity of abuses by EPO management against workers is not entirely unique, even if it’s the worst (or most severe) in the world. The suicides at the EPO are not unique either, as it already happened at Gurry's WIPO (Gurry and Battistelli actually competed for the same position).
According to this week’s report from The Register, “UN staff demand ouster of controversial WIPO boss Francis Gurry,” mirroring what we have been seeing at the EPO. To quote:
United Nations staff are demonstrating in Geneva this afternoon to demand the ousting of Francis Gurry, the controversial boss of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
The collective action of staff associations in calling for the removal of a UN agency head is certainly irregular, but Gurry’s reign at WIPO has been peppered by irregularities.
The director general has been embroiled in controversy ever since he sacked the previous head of WIPO’s staff council, Moncef Kateb, after Kateb blew the whistle on the bizarre behaviour of the patent boss and his transfer of computer equipment to Iran and North Korea in apparent breach of UN Security Council sanctions.
We previously received some legal documents from an anonymous UN insider, but these were in French (Switzerland/Geneva) and thus hard for us to cover. We still welcome any leaks WIPO insiders may have. We can be reached anonymously.
A few weeks ago we noticed that coverage of the EPO had dried up and EPO management is unable to attract any positive press coverage even when it tries to. The only thing we found this week, other than a Cambodian puff piece (mentioned yesterday) is another puff piece from Cambodia, this time from Hang Sokunthea. After lying to journalists, repeatedly in fact, it seems like the only ones the EPO can bamboozle are based in a former French colony, where Benoit Battistelli gets quoted as though he is credible. Cambodia has zero European patents, so there is little reason for anyone there to care. The only relation between France and Cambodia is colonialism and between the EPO and Cambodia it’s Battistelli and Pol Pot (as his fashion of running the Office is being compared to the North Korean regime).
“The only relation between France and Cambodia is colonialism and between the EPO and Cambodia it’s Battistelli and Pol Pot (as his fashion of running the Office is being compared to the North Korean regime).”The persistent habit of lying through Battistelli and his confidants bears some similarity to the past week’s politics in the US. Battistelli relies on so-called “alternative facts” or a parallel (non-existent) reality where the UPC is just about to happen (even when it's not) and human rights abuse are just “reform”; lying about the UPC has become so routinely that those desperate to believe such “alternative facts” (Bastian Best and Mark Richardson for example) already draw a hypothetical “Timetable” for the UPC. These self-fulfilling fantasies of theirs wish to induce defeatism among resistant politicians, convincing them that the UPC is imminent and inevitable. Here is what Richardson wrote:
Following the Brexit vote last June progress on bringing the unitary patent system into operation ground to a halt. The last few weeks however have seen a resumption of activities which was confirmed last week when the Unfied Patent Court Preparatory Committee website posted a new timetable for the UPC Agreement to come into force and the Court to open.
All things being equal the Preparatory Committee sees the Court becoming operational in December 2017. Keeping its end of the bargain, for now, the UK also took the next step in its own ratification process.
The graphic below shows the new timeline. The UPC Prep Committee notes that this timeline is conditional and subject to a number of outside factors that could change things.
The Unfied Patent Court Preparatory Committee Web site is pure propaganda, controlled and owned by Team UPC and all those looking to gain (financially) from it.
We’re dissatisfied to see this continued dissemination of “fake news” about the UPC; basically it’s lobbying framed as “information”. █
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