THE EPO has finally tilted itself into a death spiral because not only did it break the rules but it also suppressed workers who protested over it. It's a tyrant's suicidal recipe. There was a protest targeting the British Consulate one month ago (derailed by threats from Battistelli) and a response from EPO's management was published on Friday although it was also commented on (or annotated) by Merpel or her colleagues, in order to address lies and distortion of facts in the statement. We really appreciate all that the British blog IPKat has been doing to raise awareness of the situation inside the EPO.
From the European Patent Office yesterday came the news item that is reproduced in its entirety below, both for the benefit of those readers who may not have seen it and for the benefit of those readers who, having seen it, have not yet emailed it to this moggy on the basis that it might have escaped her attention. The subject matter is Wednesday's visit of the UK Minister for Intellectual Property, Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, to the EPO.
This moggy is aware that a lot of readers had pinned their hopes on the Baroness being able to use this visit as an opportunity for her to express her Government's concern at the level of disquiet -- a disquiet which is not rumoured to exist but which is clearly in evidence -- at both the governance of the EPO and the anxieties of its staff members, many of whom are rumoured to be British. Failing that, some hoped that the Baroness would at least take the opportunity to speak with, or just listen to, some of the union and staff representatives who have no clear route to take in their long and arduous journey to seek redress for what they plainly perceive, with some reason, to be serious grievances.
Others have been less optimistic. With the UK Government's five-year term hurtling towards its close and with Parliamentary business being speedily wound up ahead of the Easter break and the following General Election, this was not an opportunity for a visiting Minister to do anything more significant than pose for photographs, shake hands and, when called upon, to kiss the occasional baby. In any event, like most ministerial visits, this one would have been scheduled months if not years ahead of its taking place so there was no reason to suspect that it was in any way connected with the current turmoil -- for that is what it appears to be -- in the EPO.
REMINDER: in respect of all EPO-related blogposts, no comment will be posted if it is merely ascribed to "Anonymous". Any reader wishing to conceal his or her identity must adopt a pseudonym (which should not be obscene and should not be the name, or the mis-spelling of the name, of a real person). The pseudonym need not be an actual login name, as long as it is stated clearly at the beginning and/or end of the comment itself. This way, it will be easier for people who post later comments to identify and remember the earlier comment-poster and to recall the discussion string. Where, as has already happened on occasion, a string carries over from one blogpost to a later one on the same or a related subject, readers will be encouraged to use the same pseudonym for the sake of continuity.
A couple of readers have forgotten this rule. The blog team have assigned pseudonyms for their posts rather than lose their comments completely -- but it's better to choose your own pseudonym, since the blog team risk ascribing two or more pseudonyms to the same reader.