Bonum Certa Men Certa

The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) Against the European Patent Office (EPO), Lower House to Debate the Issue Today

The House of Representatives in the Netherlands, along with top European courts, to imminently tackle the chronic abuse?

House of Representatives (Netherlands)



Summary: Things are getting hot and heavy at Eponia, as the truly urgent matters escalate upwards and threaten to shake up the entire European Patent Organisation, whose head has just announced that he is stepping down [1, 2]

SOMETHING rather big is happening at the EPO. It's truly a turning point. A few days ago we saw Battistelli's 'boss' walking away and hours ago someone told us that big legal action is coming, apparently involving the Dutch government (not long after all Members of the European Parliament got notified). Maybe not a bad time for people who protected Battistelli to walk away (to avoid deposition and so on)? For background, here is what happened some months ago:



  1. Battistelli is an Autocrat Above the Law and It's OK, Holland's High Council Says
  2. EPO Abuses Now Make the Netherlands Look Like a Facilitator of Human/Labour Rights Abuses
  3. Media Blasts EPO Over Immunity Amid Suicides, Battistelli's Behaviour Compared to Dominique Strauss-Kahn's
  4. Leaked: Team Battistelli, Exploiting a Controversial Decision From the Netherlands, is Trying to Squash SUEPO
  5. The EPO's Freedom to Disregard the Law and Abuse Employees is “Being Taken up by the Council of Europe”
  6. The Netherlands With Its Bizarre Decision to Let the EPO Violate Dutch Law, Now in English
  7. “Team Battistelli Continues With Intimidation Tactics”
  8. The European Patent Office Officially Dishonours Justice, So It's Time for SUEPO to Become Clandestine
  9. Culture of Terror at The European Patent Office Escalates Thanks to Dutch Government's Complicity


The latest development is very major and was covered by Dutch media earlier on. It certainly seems like timing is critical here, as based on a purely automated translation (unedited):

The Lower House talks about the situation at the patent office on Tuesday.


Petra Kramer,a Dutch speaker who is supportive of the cause, kindly produced the following translation of the entire article:

RIJSWIJK (ANP) Are employees of the European Patent Office allowed to resist the repression of their right by taking the case to the Dutch court? (Please note that previous verdicts said their rights were not imposed upon because they could always go to court in Geneva. PK.) The High Council recently ruled that they don't because EPO is granted immunity. But two unions do not agree and are now taking the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The complaint is directed against the Dutch state because it has actively strengthened to maintain the immunity of the EPO, Liesbeth Zegveld, the lawyer of the unions, says. According to her, the government has a diplomatic interest because they want international organizations to settle in the Netherlands.

EPO staff suffers under the leadership of topman Benoît Battistelli, who is accused of terrorizing the office. The government is concerned about it and urged previously to improve the conditions at the organization in Rijswijk, where about 2700 people work.

Lower House

International organizations are granted immunity, but there must be an internal court to solve disputes according to Zegsveld, and that is not the case. (This again contradicts the High Council that basically said go to the court in Geneva. PK.) As a result, the trade unions and employees can not use their right to strike, their right to negotiate or their freedom of expression.

According to the Supreme Court, the Netherlands, according to Zegveld, now violates the right of access to justice, as enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The Lower House will debate the situation at the patent office on Tuesday.



Wow. We didn't know they would really take it this far. Zegveld did mention this as a possibility, but it wasn't clear whether she and her clients would actually pursue this (SUEPO receives outside help here). But they do! This could soon become a very serious issue and a topic in the mainstream media, not just in the Netherlands. It's truly a shame that sites like IP Kat cover none of these developments.

Recent Techrights' Posts

More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
Links 29/03/2024: Fentanylware (TikTok) Fines and UK High Court Makes It Seem OK to Assassinate People Wrongly (Falsely) Associated With "Russia"
Links for the day
Garden Season Starts Today
Outdoor time, officially...
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries