THE EPO isn't viewed as a villain for no reason. TPP apologists and lobbyists (the corporate media being a big part of it) try to paint TPP critics as clueless (with no access to the text because it's intentionally kept secret), paranoid (assuming the worst), irrational haters and the EPO's management hopes that the European public will view internal backlash as just a few disgruntled employees (or laid off staff seeking revenge).
Are the Boards of Appeal dying out?
Some public debate already took place at the beginning of the year 2015 as regards staffing of the Boards of Appeal (BoA). The business distribution scheme revealed in June an increased number of posts as chairpersons or members left vacant as a result of the decision of the President of the EPO to refuse to propose to the Administrative Council (AC) any new appointment to the BoA, which is his exclusive prerogative according to Article 11(3) EPC. Some AC delegations already questioned this decision, to no avail until now.
The problem obviously worsens with time, in particular with chairpersons and members choosing to leave the Office before a new pension system comes into place. At the beginning of 2016, it is already certain that 7 chairperson posts, 13 technical member posts and 7 legal member posts will be vacant. The situation is particularly critical for chairpersons and legal members, where roughly one post out of four is not staffed. Moreover, some technical fields might become orphaned when the competent technical members retire.
In the meantime, the production of the Boards per capita increases. The President of the Office presents this as a confirmation for his very personal decision to block appointments, neglecting to mention that part of the increase stems from the efforts of the Board members and chairs, but also, and to a non-negligible amount, from increased withdrawal rates (see Rule 103 EPC: Reimbursement of appeal fees). It thus seems that the President applies for the Boards the same recipe as in other departments, most notably DG1, where statistics and production figures are misused to justify policies and reforms.
Musical chairs in DG4
We all know the game of “musical chairs” where – when the music stops – n participants rush for n-1 chairs. The one who did not get a chair is out. We do not know whether this game was played for real in HR, but we know many did not enjoyed the music. Since Ms Bergot took over the HR department as PD43, four (out of five) HR directors have gone elsewhere, the last one being about to do so (the fifth and last one, director 433 should soon leave elsewhere in the Office). Heads of unit have also changed. We are not aware that any of these managers have volunteered to give up their posts. As a consequence several positions are now held by happy few - none of them belonging to the "old" team - who enjoy the trust of Ms Bergot (at least for now...). For such an - almost military - efficiency in getting rid of so many people in so little time Ms Bergot certainly deserves a bonus at the end of the year!