10.26.21
Gemini version available ♊︎Romania’s Patent Office (OSIM): Nine Different Chiefs in Just Eight Years
Video download link | md5sum 64c6fe24e7639654707f93b83b19ef5a
Summary: The Romanian State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM), being the equivalent of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in the sense that it covers both patents and trademarks, is a very flaky institution with no shortage of scandals; for our English-reading audiences we now have a summary of a decade’s worth of blunders and leadership changes
MOMENTS ago, a lot earlier than usual (around midday, not midnight like previous parts), we published the long part which concerns Romania's OSIM. We took stock of the people who were in charge between June 2013 and May 2021 (5 months ago). Judging by how long these people last, on average, Marian Cătălin Burcescu might have only a few months left. The video above focuses on some of the PDFs and background information about Romania (we wrote a lot about this country over the past 15 years). The people in charge of OSIM over the years are:
• Gábor Varga (until June 2013)
• Alexandru Cristian Ştrenc (ad interim);
• Ionel Muscalu (September 2013 to October 2014);
• Alexandru-Ioan Andrei (October 2014 to April 2016);
• Bucura Ionescu (May 2016 to March 2017);
• Adriana Aldescu (ad interim);
• Ionuţ Barbu (December 2017 to December 2019);
• Mitrita Hahue (ad interim); and,
• Marian Cătălin Burcescu (appointed May 2021).
“Tomorrow we’ll take stock and then proceed to other EPO member states, starting with Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey.”As I note repeatedly in the video, Romania has paradoxically low wages considering the number of talented engineers (especially in the field of software). This discrepancy between value proposition and reward causes ‘brain drain’ in the whole region (also Bulgaria and Hungary); there’s a disproportionate salary expectation. We saw the same thing in Baltic states, not just in the Balkan region. This generally makes countries in these regions easier to control (e.g. bribe) and manipulate as "voting fodder". Tomorrow we’ll take stock and then proceed to other EPO member states, starting with Greece, Cyprus, and Turkey. EPO governance is really messy; to better understand the reasons we must investigate who’s part of this governance. █
ᶃ Gemini Space
This post is also available in 
Content is available under CC-BY-SA