What EPO Staff, the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO), and Europe Want and Need
Patent systems exist to reduce copycats that are unfair and/or preserve/document knowledge/invention; what if patent offices exist to give as many monopolies as they can get away with in order to increase "income"?
Who should be served by patents?
The public?
Private capital?
Whoever buys the officials that control patent-granting authorities?
We recently wrote about EPO pension changes, which added to an already-burning fire [1, 2]. It's a wildfire which threatens the existence of the EPO (countries already have national patent offices or NPOs as they're called; the EPO represents something that makes bold assumptions). By extension, the existence of European Patents (EPs) and the UPC, which is an illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo court, created by the same entities that ruin the EPO for financial gain.
So what gives?
What might happen next?
"BTW," one reader noted, "the recent series of European Patent Office posts don't mention the full name any more, just the acronym. It's important to have the full name out there. I'd say once per article (at the beginning) might be optimal."
We'll try harder to say "European Patent Office", at least in headlines.
To many people, "EPO" means a drug or various other things.
At the moment the name "European Patent Office" is a bit misleading; considering who the patents go to, it's not European, except its staff. Its purpose or the entities served are not European either. It's more like an outpost with foreign commercial interests.
Regarding the union at the European Patent Office, the reader asked: "Is there a strike announcement or summary at the SUEPO site? The suepo.org site has nothing more recent than late 2025 it seems."
SUEPO does not speak about this in public for several reasons, or seldom/barely does so for good reasons. Even if it did issue a press release, none of the media and so-called 'IP' blogs would pay attention or issue coverage. More of less for the same reasons they totally ignored EPO Cocainegate.
What we need, first and foremost, is functioning media. Some people connected to the EPO ranted about this (to us, in private) as recently as days ago.
Then, once public scrutiny exists, we'll need politicians who care.
We'll need an Office that is accountable to the public and/or the public interest.
For the EPO to function properly it'll need to have good examiners, not paper-pushing peons who are pushed around by line managers to meet unrealistic "targets" (which compromise quality and validity/compliance).
We're very far from where we need to be. Europe's patent system is rotting due to corruption and profound nepotism. █