Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part II – Old Wine in New Bottles...

Series index:

  1. EPO Exposé: The Besieged Baltic States – Part I – More Captured Delegates?
  2. You are here ☞ Old Wine in New Bottles...


Summary: "The main focus of the present series is the relationship between the Baltic States and the European Patent Organisation."

After regaining their independence in 1991, the Baltic States proceeded to re-establish various state institutions which had been abolished under Soviet rule, including their national patent offices.



The first directors of these offices were old-school technocrats who had learnt their "trade" under the Soviet regime:

- Estonia: Matti Päts (d.o.b. 10 April 1933)

- Lithuania: Rimvydas Naujokas (d.o.b. 21 April 1950)

- Latvia: Zigrīds Aumeisters (d.o.b. 28 March 1930)

These gerontocrats remained in charge of their respective national patent offices for at least two decades - in the case of Matti Päts in Estonia, for almost a quarter of a century.

baltin-cold-guard
The old guard in charge of the national patent offices of the Baltic States after independence in 1991.
From left to right: Rimvydas Naujokas (Lithuania), Matti Päts (Estonia), Zigrīds Aumeisters (Latvia)



The first to go was Aumeisters who retired as head of the Latvian office in June 2010. Naujokas retired as head of the Lithuanian office in June 2014 and Päts was finally put out to pasture in Estonia in March 2015.

Päts was already pushing 60 when he took up his position as director of the newly established Estonian Patent Office and he was over 80 when he retired in 2015.

Aumeisters was in his early sixties when he took up his position in Latvia and he had just passed the 80 mark when he departed in 2010.

"Aumeisters was in his early sixties when he took up his position in Latvia and he had just passed the 80 mark when he departed in 2010."The youngest of the bunch was the Rimvydas Naujokas who was in his early forties when he took over at the Lithuanian Patent Office and was "only" 64 when he stepped down as director in June 2014. But even then he stayed around for another year and a half as a "chief advisor".

The main focus of the present series is the relationship between the Baltic States and the European Patent Organisation.

The first thing to be noted here is that all of these countries were accepted as members of the EPO within a decade and a half after independence.

Estonia was the first through the door on 1 July 2002 [PDF], followed by Lithuania some time afterwards on 1 December 2004 [PDF] and joined by Latvia six months later on 1 July 2005. [PDF]

"The main focus of the present series is the relationship between the Baltic States and the European Patent Organisation."At around the same time, all three Baltic States became NATO members (29 March 2004) and also joined the EU (1 May 2004).

On the Administrative Council of the EPO, Benoît Battistelli seems to have got on like a house on fire with the representatives of the Baltic States, Päts, Naujokas and Aumeisters.

These were old-school autocrats who seem to have viewed "democracy" and "fundamental rights" as some kind of abstract academic nonsense that shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of the practical business of "administration".

"These were old-school autocrats who seem to have viewed "democracy" and "fundamental rights" as some kind of abstract academic nonsense that shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of the practical business of "administration"."When Battistelli put his name forward as candidate for the position of EPO President in 2009, all three Baltic patent bosses are reputed to have been enthusiastic supporters of his efforts to crown himself as the "Sun-King" of EPOnia.

Once he had been elected they continued to support him with unwavering loyalty for the duration of his eight-year term of office.

One of the best kept secrets of Battistelli's relationship with the Baltic triumvirate is the role played by the then head of the Finnish Patents and Registration Office, Martti Enäjärvi.

"One of the best kept secrets of Battistelli's relationship with the Baltic triumvirate is the role played by the then head of the Finnish Patents and Registration Office, Martti Enäjärvi."Enäjärvi is reputed to have acted as the intermediary or "facilitator" who helped to open doors for Battistelli in the Baltic region.

In the following parts, we will take a closer look at this little known elder statesman of the the "European IP network" and his controversial career as head of the Finnish Patents and Registration Office which spanned almost a quarter of a century between 1986 and 2010.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Datamation, Where I Used to Publish Articles, Appears to Have Been Sold to TechnologyAdvice Only to Become a Slopfarm
I'd prefer to not associate with that site anymore
 
How Software Patents Were Viewed or Their General Status Changed Over Time
A rough summary
We Are Turning 19 in One Month, FSF Turns 40 in 3 Hours (CET)
For our anniversary next month we still have no concrete plans
Patent Docs (or PatentDocs) Learned the Wrong Lessons From the Death of TypePad
Had they gone ahead with an SSG, they'd become a lot more future-proof
USPTO Patent Bubble Already Imploding, After Decades of Artificial Inflation, Entire Offices Close for Good
we can deduce that financial pressures (lack of "demand" for monopolies) play a role
TikTok is Not Harmless (Being CheeTok in the US Will Advance Orange Agenda)
Social control media isn't "fun and games"; it's a digital weapon that lets hostile groups or nations infiltrate others, then turn them against themselves
Andy Farnell and Helen Plews Explain What "Modern" Tech Does to Old People
Imposing terrible tech "religion" on people is not helping them
Tomorrow the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Turns 40 and Its Web Site is Still Slow Due to DDoS by LLM Slop Bots
For an advocacy group, uptime is important (for its message to remain accessible)
Slopwatch: Google News as a Firehose of LLM Slop About "Linux"
Google News is really bad
Links 03/10/2025: "NPR’s Economics Lessons Come With Neoliberal Spin" and Canada Post at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/10/2025: Panic Attacks and Food Adulteration
Links for the day
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October