Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Patent Office Illegally Gutting and Outsourcing Its Functions, Acting Like an Above-the-Law Commercial Business (It Won't Stop at Formalities Officers (FOs) and Classification Slop at the EPO)

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Sep 19, 2025,
updated Sep 19, 2025

Displacement of Formalities Officers roles: Open letter to the Chief Operating Officer

Angel Aledo Lopez and António Campinos: (basically white-collar criminals who net huge salaries by breaking/violating laws and conventions - a problem they've already spread to the EU)

Group photo from left to right: Sonja London, Linda Norrgård, Eeva Hakoranta, Angel Aledo Lopez, Alessia Volpe, António Campinos, Roberto Castagno, Antti Riivari, Gilles Requena and Jani Päiväsaari

Older and related (context and background to all this):

"Dear Colleagues," wrote the Central Staff Committee to staff. "Ahead of the upcoming meeting scheduled for 23 September 2025 between the Chief Operating Officer (COO) and the Formalities Officers community, the staff representation sent in an open letter to the COO requests for transparency and clarity about the future of Formalities Officers."

That's next week.

"Besides highlighting the lack of clear information," they said, "the letter also stresses the need for a channel for social dialogue dedicated to DG1 matters."

The EPO is Europe's second-largest institution, utterly ripe for and rife with corruption under Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos (who bought their 'election' and basically engaged in vote-buying), so the matter belongs in the public domain. Scrutiny is well overdue, even prosecution, but the overseers are so complicit that it's not likely to happen any time soon. Europe is heading in a similar direction to that of the United States and Russia.

For a little bit of context, in 2010 Battistelli and fellow "alphamales" pushed out the EPO's President, a female Brit, and then shoehorned the litigation industry - along with illegal kangaroo courts - into the sole authority for granting monopolies in Europe (not just EU). Having done loads of illegal things that merit an arrest, Battistelli then meddled in many affairs to ensure his French friend, Campinos, succeeds him for another decade or so, effectively covering up what happened while continuing the destruction of the Office (for personal gains of associates). They even plunder former EPO staff. It is a giant racket set up by people who wear suits and cannot even speak the local language (poor English, no German).

What has happened to Europe?

Here it is as plain text, HTML, and GemText (depending on the protocol one uses to read this:

European Patent Office
80298 Munich
Germany

Central Staff Committee
Comité central du personnel
Zentraler Personalausschuss

centralSTCOM@epo.org

Reference: sc25052cl

Date: 18/09/2025

European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY

To: Mr Angel Aledo Lopez (Chief Operating Officer)

By email:
To: coo@epo.org

OPEN LETTER

Displacement of Formalities Officers roles

Dear Chief Operating Officer,

Dear Angel, On 15 September 2025, you sent an invitation to the Formalities Officers for a meeting on 23 September, without an agenda.

This meeting is a follow-up to the previous meeting that took place on the 7th of May. It was during that meeting that the displacement of Formalities Officers roles was announced.

Our colleagues Formalities Officers need a clear, transparent roadmap developed in close collaboration with their staff representation. Moving forward, we respectfully request to start a discussion with DG1 on the following:

1. Identification of job opportunities within other units of the Office where FO colleagues’ patent-related expertise could be utilised (e.g. within DG 4/BIT, DG 0, or DG 5).

2. Update on the announced transfer of some examiner tasks to formalities officers.

3. Details on the scope of the measure, including the number of posts available and whether this concerns a broad or limited offering.

4. A clear timeline and transparent conditions under which the displacements would occur.


We reiterate our urgent call for the creation of a proper channel for dialogue on DG1 matters, and we look forward to receiving an invitation at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely yours,

Derek Kelly
Chairman of the Central Staff Committee

It is worth noting that this letter was sent to Angel Aledo Lopez, whose role is sinister (he's part of the nepotism circle of Campinos, who quit giving a f--k about his corruption being so obvious and even refers to himself as "the f--king president" because manners don't matter either). We've already mentioned Lopez in the following articles:

As long as the EPO breaks so many laws and grants European software patents - i.e. patents which are both illegal and undesirable - the EPO is a potent and active enemy of Europe. Russia uses rockets, drones and "hybrid" methods; the EPO uses white-collar corruption. About two-thirds of the EPO's customers/clients (this is what the EPO calls them) are not European. Need we mention that the EPO sent a lot of money and data to Belarus? █

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Intercontinental Brigading - Part XI - Losing Over a Million Pounds (Borrowed Money) to Try to Silence Critics of Restricted Boot With Microsoft-Controlled "Certificates"
Garrett is also very jealous of Daniel Pocock
Linux Kernel Needs Diversity and Diversity of Good Code, Not LLM Slop
Linux (and Linus) are kicking a can down the road
Techrights Was Right About a Fake Security Model Built Around Lies or Built Upon Trust in "Certificates" and "Authorities" (like Microsoft)
We have begun to amass some media reports and blog posts from technical sites
 
Links 22/10/2026: "Software Developers Have Been Promoted Into Incompetence"
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2026: eBay to Lay Off a Tenth of Staff (Again), Node.js and PHP Security Crises, Climate News
Links for the day
Red Hat Layoffs Still Going on This Week (Whilst IBM's Debt Grows in Spite of Mass Layoffs)
IBM is bluffing/cheating the shareholders again
IBM's Debt Continues to Increase While the Company Rapidly Shrinks
This is what a dying company looks like
Microsoft Shrinks Every Year
Microsoft will try to spin or twist this as "efficiency"
Gemini Links 22/10/2026: Holiday Inn and Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 21, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Windows Monopoly is No Longer Sustainable (the Case of Oceania)
This is why Microsoft layoffs are happening all the time
Some Downtime Possible Shortly (Router Work)
We don't use PHP in the site anymore
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft This Week and/or Next Week
Cannot pull a bunny out of some hat
With Its Future on the Line, EPO Management (Dictatorship) Resorts to Further Escalations to Fake 'Production' and Curtail Industrial Actions
It's clear that with a yearlong campaign of industrial actions - including strikes - Campinos cannot save face anymore
Gemini Links 21/10/2026: Summer Day in Tokyo (30c in Late October) and Whole Food for the Whole World
Links for the day
Links 21/10/2026: "Zelensky Took the Gloves Off This Time With Convicted Felon" and "Cellebrite iPhone Radio Zero-Day"
Links for the day
Reuters is Becoming Slop, Not a News Agency (Treat Reports From Reuters Sceptically)
In their own words
Disclosure/s Crisis at The Register MS (Promoting a Ponzi Scheme for Money)
So now they sell several schemes/scams at the same time, not limited to the slop
Links 21/10/2026: "The Tragic Death of the Republican Party" and "No War But Data Center War"
Links for the day
Internet Relay Chat Still Growing
The numbers go up, not down [...] Don't believe the doomers
Intercontinental Brigading - Part X - American Back Doors Inside Our Computers, With Transatlantic Swatting Against Critics Thrown 'Into the Mix'
"If your Windows PC's Secure Boot certificates are out of date, your system is vulnerable to malware like rootkits."
Gemini Links 21/10/2026: A Walk Through Amsterdam and Pythagorean Theorem
Links for the day
More Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Weeks From Now, Then Again Months From Now
Microsoft's crisis is not limited to XBox
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Gemini Links 20/10/2026: The Brothers Who Fought Mussolini and a Dying Main Laptop
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Almost Zero Litigation Clients This Year (in the Area They Specialise in)
The silence on the financial front, combined with the lack of new clients, is deafening
Where to Celebrate the 20-Year Anniversary
let us know in IRC
Cheapening of the Workforce at IBM and Microsoft, Typically Without Even Announcing Any Layoffs
from leadership to compelled "retirement"
Help Us Improve Techrights
The site relies on teamwork in a growing community; even readers are part of it
Links 20/10/2026: $100 Million ICE “Intelligence” Program and France Riots
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/10/2026: GAFAM GCP Outage in the UK and New Oddμ Release
Links for the day
Articles in The Register MS Composed by Employees of the Companies They're About
The Register MS is the place to be
Intercontinental Brigading - Part IX - Swatting is Not Funny, Swatting is a Murder Attempt
“Swatting is not harmless. It is a serious crime that can lead to dangerous situations and divert law enforcement away from someone facing an actual emergency. What callers may believe to be a ‘joke’ actually risks the public safety of our communities and can carry lifelong consequences for those responsible”
Links 20/10/2026: Facebook Scraping and Plagiarising News Sites, Copyright Act Turns 50
Links for the day
Microsoft's XBox Leadership and Strategy is Slop
XBox sales are already worst in the entire history of XBox
81% Voted in Favour of EPO Strikes Until End of This Year
Who's in the line of succession at EPO?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 19, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 19, 2026
Gemini Links 20/10/2026: Old Movies, Bandera Hike, and Mongolian
Links for the day