Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Patent Office (EPO) Whistleblowing Guidelines: Motivation and Impact of Leaks

Previous in this series: European Patent Office (EPO) Whistleblowing Guidelines

Snowden leaks



Summary: Advice on when to leak and what to leak for the desired effect, which is reformatory (though transparency and accountability)

THIS series, which deals with "Whistleblowing Guidelines" for the EPO, will come in four parts. Today, in the second part, we deal with motivation and impact. Think carefully what to leak before leaking, irrespective of the safety of the act of leaking. The goal is to repair the Office (the employer), not to destroy it, after all...





Unofficial EPO Circular no. 002



Whistleblowing Guidelines


for the staff of the European Patent Office



- part 2 -



Your Motivation

Whistleblowers have many different reasons for reporting misdeeds or leaking secret documents. Your personal reasons may include, for example, a general sense of justice, concern about the future of the Organisation, disgust of some appalling behaviour you witnessed, or even a wish for revenge.

Whatever your personal motivation is, please be honest to yourself. Don't be self-righteous, don't confound base motives with heroism. Once you are certain about your feelings and your goals, and that your motivation is a valid one, you can proceed.

The potential impact of the leak

Consider carefully what the impact of the leaked document will be. If individuals exposed would be humiliated without any perspective of improvement of the situation, your action might rather do harm than good. But if a revelation could trigger National criminal investigations, even with delay, or if it could justify an internal prosecution, you would have a valid reason to take action.

Also consider how the leak will affect the organisation as a whole. The public image of the European Patent Organisation is likely to suffer - but it should be the wrong-doing exposed that causes the damage, not the exposure. Exposing wrong-doing should be done in the hope of putting an end to it. Will the public's trust in the functioning of the Office, i.e. in the integrity and competence of its staff be shattered, or will misconduct of certain EPO top managers or delegates to the AC exposed, in the hope to put an end to it? Is the significance of the leaked documents obvious to an outsider, or can they be misinterpreted?

A leak could also cause internal damage, e.g. by destroying the trust among colleagues within a unit exposed in the leak.

Choose the recipient of your leak with care. Online media, newspapers, TV channels, weblogs, and politicians have in many cases acted upon EPO leaks. Certain blogs attract a high number of readers but may be perceived as little credible by some. Some classical media may refuse to act, others will investigate carefully first before reporting. If you contact politicians of your host or home country, it is usually best to contact members of parliament, or possibly embassadors, as ministers are generally too occupied to take note, and local or regional governments do not have enough influence to tackle an international organisation.

If the documents are likely not to have an impact at all, there is no reason to leak them. And never leak false information! Credibility is a whistleblower's most valuable asset.



As a word of caution, never leak anything to (or even speak to) IAM. They burn sources.

The next part is already in preparation. Part 4 will take more time to produce as it's be more technical.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
 
More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.