New EPO Paper: Promoting (Rewarding) People Who Grant Many Illegal European Patents to Make More Money (at Europeans' Expense) While Patent Courts in the EU Are Themselves Illegal
THERE is a lot of highly heated discussion this month about corrupt, bigoted, uncaring-for-laws people taking over the US Government and its pertinent government agencies, primarily piece-wise (unit by unit) albeit at a rapid pace. The speed matters. There's an international debate about this, hardly a dialogue with the perpetrators, who race against courts that try to uphold laws/constitution/s (and are being ignored regardless; as if they merely give advice/recommendations, not orders). Some call it "DOGE" (infantile name inspired by a joke of an actual Ponzi scheme), but it's even bigger than this and the implementers - not just the implementations - are manifestly illegal. Nobody voted for this. Nobody nominated these people or confirmed them. If this was some third-world country (the term the West likes to use because it's loaded), it would be dubbed "junta" or similar (like Team UPC, which we'll get to later). In the EPO under Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos there has also been a kind of "DOGE", including a Ponzi scheme. The EPO is being robbed by white-collar criminals. They try to enrich themselves by undoing the Office and the Organisation, churning out illegal patents or misusing abilities/authorities while dismantling (or bribing) controls, oversight etc. To avoid boiling down to or "taking sides" in politics we'll leave some analogies aside and keep politics in Daily Links. This isn't about "left" or "right" but about right or wrong (or legal versus crime).
The latest publication from the Central Staff Committee (CSC) alludes to people who intentionally allow illegal patents. It says they get promoted for it and are put in positions of greater control. And yes, that includes European software patents (in simpler terms it means also patents or monopolies on maths) - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable. In other words, they're attacking the institution of Europe (by extension its population) for personal gain and they couldn't care any less about legality.
Quoting the CSC's message to staff: (lots in there; It confirms Razik Menidjel is no longer Chief Operating Officer Operations at the EPO)
BIT takeover and inflation of advisors in the cupboards
Dear Colleagues,
In his New Year greetings sent by mass-email of 2 January 2025, the newly nominated DG1 Chief Operating Officer (COO) announced a new organisation structure to take effect on 1 April 2025 with “a period of transformation [which] will require all of us to come together” and counted on staff’s “active support in making the transition as smooth and successful as possible”.
The staff representation already commented on Stream 1 of the DG1 reorganisation in its GCC opinion. Mr Campinos and his Vice-Presidents have now provided details in the Communiqué of 3 February 2025.
The reorganisation pursues the long-term policy of downgrading the careers in DG1, amounts to a takeover by BIT and further inflates the cupboards with advisors.
Here's the longer version:
Zentraler Personalausschuss
Central Staff Committee
Le Comité Central du PersonnelMunich, 06-02-2025
sc25011cpDG1 Reorganisation 2025
BIT takeover and inflation of advisors in the cupboards
In his New Year greetings sent by mass-email of 2 January 2025, the newly nominated DG1 Chief Operating Officer (COO) announced a new organisation structure to take effect on 1 April 2025 with “a period of transformation [which] will require all of us to come together” and counted on staff’s “active support in making the transition as smooth and successful as possible”.The staff representation already commented on Stream 1 of the DG1 reorganisation1 in its GCC opinion2. Mr Campinos and his Vice-Presidents have now provided details in the Communiqué of 3 February 2025. The reorganisation pursues the long-term policy of downgrading the careers in DG1, amounts to a takeover by BIT and further inflates the cupboards.
DG1 taken over by BIT
Directorate General 1 (DG1) is being taken over by Business Information Technology (BIT)• The Chief Operating Officer of DG1 is also the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in BIT (see Communiqué of 25 October 2024),
• “Customer Journey and Key Account Management” moves from DG1 to the CTO area in BIT,
• “Customer Intelligence and Enquiries” moves from DG1 to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) area in BIT
Directorates are the Clusters (but cheaper)
The number of Principal Directors (PD)s reporting to Vice-President 1 (VP1) is reduced from 4 to 2. The role of Principal Director Operations ceases to exist. Directorates are reduced from 22 to 18, thereby creating huge directorates. Directorates are now as large as Principal Directorates (aka. Clusters) were in the past. Opposition directorates are reduced from 4 to 2.The number of operational Formalities Officers (FO) teams is brought into line with the number of operational directorates. In this Stream 1, the number of FO Team Managers is hence further reduced. We hear that Stream 2 foresees a reduction of the number of team managers among examiners.
No career prospects for Team Managers
The Office is breaking its promise. When the Office created the position of Team Managers in DG1, it advertised it as a way to assess those who could be the Directors of the future._____
1 GCC/DOC 28/2024
2 “Report on the GCC meeting of 13 December 2024”, CSC paper of 14-01-2025 (sc25001cp)
Now, career possibilities in operations are vanishing and the Office continues the policy of downgrading the careers in DG1. The Team Manager career will unlikely lead to any advancement in terms of Job Groups.
Empowering the most uncompromising
The most uncompromising Directors seem to be the ones who survive the continuous reduction of managerial posts in DG1, namely:• Director(s) who are instrumental in the arbitrary reallocations of patent applications and interference in the patent grant process towards less refusals,3
• Director(s) who refuse new requests for part-time and force part-timers to come back full-time,
• Director(s) who exclude part-timers and sick staff from the reward exercise,
• Director(s) who discourage staff from taking parental leave or impose implicit expectations of increased productivity in exchange,
• Directors(s) who subject staff they deem as “underperforming” to excessive monitoring, requiring detailed daily reports on every task they complete.
Inflation of new advisors
Other Directors are horizontally promoted to Senior Advisor posts in the cupboards.• The DG1 COO is assisted by 1 Principal Advisor (PD), and at least 6 Senior Advisors.
In addition,
• at least 3 Senior Advisors are affected to PD Operations Planning and Performance,
• 4 Senior Advisors are affected to PD Quality and Practice Harmonisation
DG0 is now staffed with what used to be “PD Customer Journey and Account Management” in DG1 and is now called “PD User Engagement and SMEs”:
• The Principal Director User Engagement and SMEs is assisted by 1 Principal Advisor (PD) and 3 Senior Advisors
For DG1 alone, the total amounts to 1 Principal Advisor and at least 13 Senior Advisors leading to a budget of around 4 million EUR per year.
We wonder why upper management considers that so much “advice” is needed and sees it adequate to invest in so many “Senior Advisor” posts without managerial responsibilities. What we hear is that upper management is acting without feedback or advice from anyone and with little to no wisdom.
Instead, upper management should allocate managers to substantial tasks.
Sincerely yours,
The Central Staff Committee
____
3 “Arbitrary reallocation of patent applications and cancellation of oral proceedings”, CSC paper of 12- 09-2024, (sc24056cp),
”Harmonising” towards 0% refusals?”, CSC paper of 26-09-2024 (sc24058cp), Siemens letter of 06-12-2024 on EP1590857
The above in a nutshell (naming some divisions and teams being shuffled, grown, or shrunk): people who help the regime break the rules are moving up; safeguards or honest people are driven out, as they are seen as an 'obstruction' to the illegal agenda.
They speak of "arbitrary reallocations of patent applications and interference in the patent grant process towards less refusals" and cite ”Harmonising” towards 0% refusals?”
This lenience (discarding the EPC altogether) is obviously illegal, just like the fake 'court' (Unified Patent Court or UPC) entrusted to handle these illegal patents whilst in bed with industry and with the EPO. Take note of this new comment alongside many others:
The present decision has been commented on my blog.
This decision shows that EPO boards of appeal can decide swiftly when necessity arises.
In its famous decision UPC_CoA_22/2024, also commented on my blog, the CoA UPC held that the mere fact that the revocation proceedings before the UPC relate to a patent monopoly which is also the subject of opposition proceedings before the EPO is not sufficient to allow an exception to the principle that the UPC will not stay proceedings. The BA applied exactly what the CoA UPC suggested.
The CoA UPC added that, in the interests of harmonising decisions on the validity of a European patent monopoly can be promoted by ensuring that the body that decides last can take the decision of the body that decides first into account in its decision. Let’s see whether the UPC will follow the decision of the BA.
As the patent monopoly has been revoked by the EPO for added matter, I am inclined to consider that the patent monopoly is dead as dead can be. The patent monopoly has never existed in any contracting state of the EPC, thus as well in contracting states of the UPC in which it had been validated. What can the UPC then decide?
UPC was always a illegal, even before Brexit happened.
But now, very late (years late; they'd now need to dismantle an existing illegal institution, sans the EU as a whole collapsing) some people with a big stake in the outcome are 'waking up' and start asking stuff like, "how is this legal?"
Where were you years ago?
Maybe those people ought to have paid closer attention years ago because back then they could respond accordingly in a timely fashion, based on obvious facts from that time. We published some leaks from whistleblowers. It was very obvious that what went on several years ago was illegal, yet actively facilitated by high-level EU and German officials. We named the culprits. Some have vanished since, evading punishment.
Some of the media, which we routinely named, was bribed or paid some other way to actively promote the illegality, so now the coup is sort of complete and even the "courts" are part of the corruption*. This has long been the goal, even predating Battistelli. It's a takeover, a regulatory capture by monopolists and people who profit from litigation (assertion, enforcement, blackmail) on behalf of these monopolists while also profiting by "defending" the "other side".
Patents have always been about monopolists. They're not from any particular nation, they just buy the politicians and do whatever they want. It's the end not only of democracy but also proper capitalism. It's a corporate dictatorship. █
_____
* Someone said that "the assertion that the "courts" being part of the corruption needs expansion, especially the reason why the word is in quotes" (not scare quotes). Technically they do exist and are called "courts", but legally they have no legitimacy, as they exist in violation of constitutions and even international conventions. The above-mentioned remark about oligarchy controlling the politicians is the sole reason those "courts" exist. Now it's down to us... to dismantle them and uphold the real law, not what oligarchs claim the "law" should say (while passing bribes under the table or via pressure groups).
