European taxpayers now subsidise Washington-based PR agencies

Summary: The increasing privatisation of the European Patent Office (EPO), resembling what happens in the UK to the NHS, shows that the real goal is to crush the quality of the service and instead serve a bunch of rich and powerful interests, in defiance of the original goals of this well-funded (by taxpayers) organisation

Battistelli is in China at the moment as tyrants unite. The Chinese state councilor meets the EPO's President, based on Chinese media, but what goes on in Europe? We think that the next big scandal is brewing and this will be the subject of tonight's (late night) articles.

"The organisation which proclaims to be public is now contracting foreign private entities to help manipulate public perception of the organisation."Two nights ago we started looking for an important document and then made a request for it. It very quickly yielded this document, which proves that the EPO was meddling with the media.

The European Patent Office ought to be called the European Private Office because essentially this op-called 'public' body is privatising parts of its 'business' while ensuring that people with occasional connections to the management can potentially make a lot of money (risk-free profit) at the expense of European taxpayers. The organisation which proclaims to be public is now contracting foreign private entities to help manipulate public perception of the organisation.

"FTI Consulting deals with "litigation consulting, strategic communications" and various other areas, which seem to match the EPO's current media strategy](silencing opposing voices with legal threats while manipulating the media)."A firm which was commenting on the recent Volkswagen scandal and according to the Wall Street Journal "provides legal, financial and public-relations services", has just been paid close to a million dollars by the EPO.

FTI Consulting is basically, according to its Web site, something rather mysterious and only superficially (on the surface) benign. Wikipedia says "FTI Consulting is a business advisory firm headquartered in Washington, DC." With 4,400 employees and $1.76 billion in revenue last year (and rising), this is quite a giant and it is publicly traded as FCN (NYSE). It's a decade younger than the EPO (1982) and about my age. FTI Consulting deals with "litigation consulting, strategic communications" and various other areas, which seem to match the EPO's current media strategy (silencing opposing voices with legal threats while manipulating the media). "In January 2014, FTI Consulting acquired London-based TLG Partners," which gives them presence in Europe. The EPO has already signed a contract with the London-based Control Risks Group (CRG) -- a subject which we covered in the following posts:

• More Utter Shame Unveiled at Battistelli's EPO: Intimidation Tactics With Help From 'Control Risks'
• Süddeutsche Zeitung Article About the EPO's Investigation Unit and Control Risks Group
• The EPO Sinks Deeper in a Scandal After Paying Public Money for Military-Connected Control Risks to Stalk Journalists and Staff
• EPO May be Creating Its Own Lawless NSA (or GCHQ) With Control Risks Group Deal
• EPO Officially Confirms That It Specifically Hired Control Risks Group (CRG) to Spy on Journalists and Their Sources
• EPO Corruption Compared to FIFA Corruption While 'Control Risks' Helps EPO Hide/Suppress Evidence of Corruption; Calls on German Authorities to Crack Down on Both
• The European Patent Office Has Become Militarised
• EPO Reluctantly (and Privately) Confirms Giving Public Money for Military-connected 'Control Risks' to Spy on Journalists and Their Sources While Techrights is Under Fresh DDOS Attacks
• EPO Data Protection Officer 'Just a Dictator's Minion', Approved Keyloggers and Hidden Cameras
• European Patent Office (EPO) Now Uses Keyloggers to Spy on Staff
• Investigation Unit a Complete Farce Inside the EPO
• Süddeutsche Zeitung Says Talking Helps While EPO Management Back-stabs Other Side of the Table
• EPO Surveillance, Threats, and Patronisation of Dutch Legal System Covered in Dutch Article From De Volkskrant
• Techrights Confirmed as a Target of EPO Surveillance, With Help From Control Risks Group (CRG)

While we are not sure if it's factually true (Maggie Thatcher isn't our area of expertise, unlike some UK-IPO-related issues), one new comment in IP Kat says that “Maggie [Thatcher] attempted to privatise the UK Patent Office in the late 1980’s”

Notice just how much of the EPO is now being privatised for profit (external agencies), just like Blackwater in relation to the US Army. First CRG, now PR firms... what next? Tax money from Europe is being shipped to large private companies overseas. And for what? Gaming the European media? ⬆

“[A]fter analysing a five-day working week in the media, across 10 hard-copy papers, ACIJ and Crikey found that nearly 55% of stories analysed were driven by some form of public relations. The Daily Telegraph came out on top of the league ladder with 70% of stories analysed triggered by public relations. The Sydney Morning Herald gets the wooden spoon with (only) 42% PR-driven stories for that week.”

--"Over half your news is spin"