Bonum Certa Men Certa

Munich State Attorney is Pursuing Criminal Charges Against the European Patent Office

Weapons of mass distraction

EPO cricket club



Summary: The European Patent Office (EPO) keeps rotting under Battistelli's leadership and the campaign of defamation against truth-tellers (shooting the messengers) within the Office/Organisation is made more apparent

THREE days ago we became aware of lawsuits against the EPO. We actually knew about this for longer than that, but it took a while to get a translation of an article which covered it (with quotes directly from those involved). It actually turned out to be bigger than we had imagined.



SUEPO has translated [PDF] this recent article from the German media and also highlighted this new article in French. This is about "France's patent&™ office complaining about EPO's delays," Hugo Roy from the FSFE told me. There have been complaints from British stakeholders as well, regarding not just delays but also miscommunication and unprofessional handling of applications. Brain drain [1, 2, 3, 4] taking its toll? We wrote about this last week in the context of Patent Administration staff.

Anyway, the latest interesting article says it all really, and we have highlighted the important bits below.

Handelsblatt

Criminal charges at the Patent Office Uprising in Paradise getting worse



By: Jan Keuchel Date: 06.04.2016 10:57

Still no ceasefire: The European Patent Office won’t calm down. Management and staff are sniping at each other, and the Munich State Attorney is pursuing criminal charges – a lot of them.

Battistelli in AFP
Benoît Battistelli
Dispute with the staff getting even worse.
(Photo: AFP)



Düsseldorf. The European Patent Office (EPO), one of the most important starting points for the protection of inventions, has been tearing itself apart for months in a bitter dispute between the President and sections of the staff. At issue are new promotional and sick leave arrangements, union rights, internal investigations, and sackings.

On 15 March, one day before an important meeting of his Administrative Council, President Benoît Battistelli suddenly started sending out peace signals. According to the Frenchman, 2016 will see a “general review of social rules and regulations”.

In the light of rumours that the Council might dismiss him from office due to the conflict, his overseers may have forced Battistelli’s hand. But only under certain conditions: The squabblers would have to get together and “conscientiously and honestly work towards finding a solution”.

But now things start to become clearer: The much heralded peace turns out to be nothing more than a ceasefire. According to information available to Handelsblatt, the conflict at the EPO has actually involved the Munich I State Attorney’s office since as far back as 2013, and there are still a good number of unresolved criminal cases being pursued.

[Photo]
EPO boss Benoît Battistelli
“Bullying and defamation causing massive disruption”



Benoît Battistelli is the boss of a public authority that is actually one of the most important for the entire European economy: The Patent Office. Critics call him the “Sun King” or “Stalin”. In an interview he speaks for the first time about the accusations made against him. More ...

The first of the charges was laid by Battistelli’s Vice-President, and was aimed at a person or persons unknown. The main issue was an accusation of slander and defamation, as Munich I State Attorney’s office confirmed when asked. The charge evidently related to the issues surrounding an Irish patent judge, whom Battistelli had suspended.

At the end of 2015 the Irishman himself then laid charges against Battistelli, on the grounds that his honour has been besmirched. There have been more criminal accusations made against unknown persons, among them by the sacked union executive Elizabeth Hardon. All those involved deny the accusations.

The EPO has been conducting internal investigations against the judge and Hardon since 2013. The Office suspected both of them of having waged a campaign against the President and his deputy.

According to an internal report, among other things, the judge was found to have defamatory letters in his possession. The EPO investigators also found in his office a number of clubs and suspected Nazi material, such as brochure bearing a swastika and entitled “Ich kämpfe”.

Since then, the man concerned has stayed at home. Battistelli later also dismissed Hardon, the chief executive of the staff union Suepo, which he does not recognize. The accusation against her was of threatening non-union members.

Innovation-friendly Europe Development of patent applications

165 000 160 022 152 500 140 000 2011 2015

Applications received in 2015 by sectors

Medical technology 12 474 Digital communications 10 762 Computer technology 10 549 Electrical engineering/mechanical engineering/energy: 10 198 Transport 7802

Handelsblatt Source: EPO

The attorney acting for both of them, Munich-based labour lawyer Senay Okyay, disputes the accusations, contending, among other things, that the clubs which the Irishman had were for gymnastic exercises. The grounds for the criminal charges laid by her client were the wrongful and defamatory accusations that he was a Nazi.

As well as all this, an application for criminal charges has also been made against persons unknown due to the EPO investigation report having allegedly been leaked to various media. “The group of persons entitled to receive this strictly confidential report is restricted to my client, the Administrative Council, and the President of the Office”, says Okyay. Hardon has also sought to lay criminal charges against unknown persons due to her private E-mail account having allegedly been searched in the course of the investigations.

The EPO is unwilling to comment on the charges brought by the Vice-President. With regard to the judge, the word is that they became aware of this after Easter. The State Attorney’s office will know how to deal with such things.

The State Attorney’s office is emphasising that at present all the accusations are being looked into, and no further information can be forthcoming.

[Photo]
Squabbles at the European Patent Office
Uprising in Paradise



Allegations of death threats, a judge with clubs in his office: The European Patent Office is being crippled by internal brawls. The Office is already overdue with thousands of cases, and that is something the economy simply cannot afford. More...

Whatever the outcome, the criminal charges have been stirring things up even more with regard to the issues of social peace at the Office. One particular issue is what the Administrative Council knew about these events when it accepted Battistelli’s peace offering on 16 March.

At the EPO the word is that the Administrative Council has been kept “regularly informed of all relevant events”. The Chair of the Council, Jesper Kongstad, has no comment to make. Perhaps he’s saving his voice. The next Council meeting is in June.



The above contains plenty of new information. It also serves to reinforce the claim that Battistelli (which is referred to above as "Stalin") has been witch-hunting staff, including (in particular) those who said the truth about Željko Topić (staff calls him "Putin"), about whom we have an ongoing series of articles this week.

As a side note, we no longer make local copies of SUEPO PDFs, but when the EPO management actively censored SUEPO's Web site (using legal threats) the management basically encouraged us to do so, which meant that things management found embarrassing ended up spreading further and wider. It's the Streisand Effect. The harder the EPO tries to silence the truth, the worse things will get.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete