12.21.17
Gemini version available ♊︎EPO Judicial Crisis Has Not Ended, But the Administrative Council Certainly Tries to Sell That Impression
And nothing substantial will change when Campinos takes over the Office
2017 paper: Judicial Crisis in Portugal: The Constitution in relation to the State, Social and Labor Movements
Summary: The latest developments, including the latest lies, which pretend that the Patrick Corcoran affair is passé and that life goes on at the EPO
THE WEEK (and month) is about to end. The year is about to end. Yet the EPO said absolutely nothing about the Boards of Appeal scandal, only the Administrative Council (AC) did and it was a lie. Very cringe-worthy.
As JUVE’s Mathieu Klos has just put it: “According to a communiqué published yesterday, “… the Council expressed its satisfaction at having closed the case. In particular, it underlined its expectation that now – …- legal peace would be restored” The judge might see that differently.”
Obviously. It was a wish or a lie, not reality. It’s almost like adding insult to injury. Where’s ILO in all this? “This is so sick,” one EPO insider wrote, as Battistelli and the “AC are degrading ILOAT! Furthermore, ILOAT has become the laughingstock of the tribunals worldwide! No respect of law anymore…there is nothing left of all that.”
Indeed. The EPO has already damaged a growing number of institutions, not just European ones but international ones too. The EPO has become a reputational cancer. Anything Battistelli touches turns to dirt.
The EPO now writes (warning: epo.org link) about the Enlarged Board of Appeal, which Battistelli is crushing. This is what it wrote yesterday:
On 18 December 2017, the Enlarged Board of Appeal issued a decision on the referral G 1/16.
The Office will now resume the examination and opposition proceedings that were stayed ex officio because the decision depended entirely on the outcome of the pending referral G 1/16.
Still not a word about the Boards of Appeal scandal. The AC alluded to it in vague terms and lied about it.
This morning, citing Klos and others, The Register published a good overview or roundup of recent developments. Among these:
The Administrative Council of the European Patent Office (EPO) has inflamed already heightened tensions within the organization by failing to properly address an important accountability test case.
The ruling body of the international organization – made up of representatives of European governments – was formally criticized earlier this month for not doing its job and questioning the treatment of a patent judge by EPO management. It then considered the case of patent judge Patrick Corcoran at a closed-door meeting, going through two judgments from the International Labor Organisation (ILO) that ordered Corcoran immediately be reinstated from a three-year suspension.
As we reported last week, despite the EPO’s president Benoit Battistelli being explicitly and repeatedly criticized for inappropriately trying to influence Corcoran’s case, it appeared that Battistelli had again interfered by revising documents at the last minute that were then considered by the council.
The end result of that meeting was formally acknowledged in minutes released this week: Corcoran was reinstated but his position on the Boards of Appeal was not renewed.
[...]
Perhaps the most damning response to the EPO’s dysfunction and its seeming complete lack of accountability however came in a speech by former German constitutional court judge Prof Dr Siegfried Bross several weeks ago.
The speech – a translated version of which was published in English this week – tackles a subject that Bross has repeatedly raised this year – whether the planned Unitary Patent Court (UPC) for Europe is actually legal.
The UPC was due to be ratified earlier this year but Brexit and a legal challenge at the German Constitutional Court have stopped it in its tracks. Bross gives a lengthy explanation for why he feels that having a single court decide patent cases across Europe is not legal, most of which boils down to a single concept: the European Patent Office sits outside normal legal jurisdictions.
It’s a good article and the first comment is about Ireland’s indefinitely delayed referendum on UPC:
Ireland has to have a referendum on harmonisation of European patents jurisdiction as it involves a court that is not described in our constitution.
In different circumstances, I might agree with the concept as it would streamlines development processes and opens up an easier path to market, but with this joke shop in charge, I will be putting my X right next to the big box marked NO / NIL !
I’m happy with our own patents process, until there’s something properly organised to replace it. I would have no confidence in this body at all based on what I’ve been reading.
The European Commission needs to go back to the drawing board. This simply isn’t good enough.
Without the UK and Ireland in the UPC, what would even be the point of English as an official language? The UPC is dead. But don’t tell Bristows that. They must be on some very strong drugs down there in London, having just brought up France again (the land of corrupt Battistelli, which is already in it all; the UPC is contingent not upon France but Britain and Germany). Then again, we have become used to Bristows’ lies; maybe they profit from this (enticing the gullible into paying for UPC ‘advice’/’consultation’).
Watch the next comment in The Register (there were only two in total when we last checked):
Corruption is worth it, thats the problem.
Having just had experience of corruption in an org I was contracting at, you can fight it (costing money and personal life) or move on. You can’t beat someone who does this day in, day out and has the resources of an organisation.
Whistleblowers or civilians fighting against corruption never come off well.
We worry a great deal that the EPO tarnishes the reputation of Europe in general. This is being utilised by Brexit proponents, even though the EPO is not an EU ‘thing’. Things at the EPO need to be repaired as staff is in despair and there’s no hope over the horizon (no, Campinos won’t fix these issues). █
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