Bonum Certa Men Certa

German Media Becomes Aware of Battistelli's Defiance of the Very Basis of the EPO

FTI Consulting helps the EPO 'manage' Dutch and German media (new contract recently signed), but that does not always work

EPC



Summary: The mass media is catching up with Battistelli's alienation, segregation or isolation of the boards of appeal as part of his plan to phase them out of existence and maintain systematic exacerbation of patent quality for production's sake, where "production" is inaccurately and improperly measured

THE media has been rather quiet regarding the EPO recently. The only "EPO" we see in the news is actually the drug, typically in relation to doping in the Olympic games.



"For your information," told us one of several readers who alerted us about Süddeutsche Zeitung, the local paper "finally breaks the silence on the EPO..."

It is an article composed not by one of the more familiar writers (who ought to be quite familiar with EPO matters) and several people told us about it.

"I noticed the following article which has just appeared in the Süddeutsche Zeitung," one reader told us. "It is mainly about the planned move of the EPO Boards of Appeal to Haar and it refers to the recent coverage of this story on Techrights." (see for example [1, 2])

It is good to know that they follow Techrights. We typically get the stories here earlier than the corporate media.

"Battistelli's plans to send the Boards of Appeal into "exile" in Haar are eerily reminiscent of the methods employed by Željko Topić during his time at the Croatian SIPO," told us this reader, "as previously reported by Techrights" (see for example [1, 2])

"The difference," continued this reader, "is that in his previous role Topić could only inflict damage on the IP system in Croatia. It seems that with Battistelli's backing he has managed to manoeuvre himself into a position where he can now operate on a European scale."

This is pretty bad as it brings what we once saw dubbed "Balkan standards" into the whole of Europe. We previously made note of exactly the above point (similarity to Topić's history in Croatia).

These problems at the EPO are real and there is no solution in sight for them (not in summertime anyway). European Inventor Award 2017 (EIA2017) is already being planned as if everything will be fine for another year to come and the PR people are 'spamming' for it (there have been yet more examples of that since, albeit not as much if anything at all after we published the article). "Inventors who aren't European nationals but have been granted a European patent can also be nominated for this Award," the EPO stated in relation to EIA2017. It's not "European Inventor Award 2017" just as "European Patent Office" is not really European, I've told them, considering the fact that there is even discriminatory prioritisation which puts small European businesses at the back of the line.

"I would replace "in Europe" by "at the EPO"," wrote Benjamin Henrion in response to software patents advocacy in Europe. I told him that that EPO "is not European, it just has the word "European" in its name, like Federal Express which isn't Federal." The EPC does not permit software patenting either, but that does not exactly prevent EPO management from trying to work around the exclusions.

A lot of the above relates to how detached from the EPC Battistelli's EPO has gotten. It's jaw-dropping that he managed to get away with it. The EPO now has a Brexit-like 'Constitutional Crisis' (dealing with deviation from founding documents like EPC and EU/Lisbon Treaty). Apparently, with help with his marionette called Kongstad, there is something Battistelli can do. A discussion about it is buried inside a very long, multi-page comments thread (the only remaining suitable place as IP Kat barely covers EPO these days). To quote the latest in this discussion:

Hmmm. Not sure I agree that the founding fathers "made arrangements" for arbitration. For example, they failed to provide a description of how arbitration should work, and who should be the arbiter.

At best, the PPI merely provides for the possibility of arbitration. However, there are many practical barriers to that possibility being exploited. For a start, there is the complete apathy upon the part of the representatives to the AC (who, it must be remembered, come from national offices whose income from renewal fees will increase if examination standards at the EPO are lowered). Then there is the total absence of any formal procedure for initiating a dispute.

So who do you see "getting the ball rolling" in this context?




Read Article 24 of the PPI.

I keep posting the text of the Article but the comment doesn't seem to get through ... http://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/2016/e/ma5.html

There is a very detailed description of how the arbitration is to take place. The President of the ICJ has a role in selecting the committee. It's all there in black and white. You just need to RTFM ...




Do not overlook Article 23 (2) PPI:

If a Contracting State intends to submit a dispute to arbitration, it shall notify the Chairman of the Administrative Council, who shall forthwith inform each Contracting State of such notification.

That is how the ball starts rolling. A notification is sent to the Chairman of the AC. It's that simply.




Thanks. You are quite correct, of course. Interesting that Art. 24(2) PPI states that "This panel shall be established as soon as possible after the Protocol enters into force and shall be revised each time this proves necessary". This implies that the relevant panel should have been established almost 40 years ago. So which panel is it? And what rules of procedure for that panel have been established according to Art. 24(4)? Or are those yet further provisions of the EPC that the AC has neglected to follow?


I suspect that this could very well be the case. To the best of my knowledge the details of the "panel" - if it has been established - have never been published. Normally one would expect that kind of information to appear in the Official Journal. However there does not seem to be any explicit requirement for publication of the membership of the panel.

From that I conclude that either the provision has been ignored or else it's a well-kept secret.


Can Battistelli simply bend the rules and make up new rules to justify his abuses retroactively? If some time in the past he simply broke the rules, as he did as far back as 2014 (if not further back), why does he get to keep his job and astronomical salary? EPO mouthpieces have certainly helped that and based on internal documents we saw, Battistelli still cites these same mouthpieces for 'evidence' and 'support' regarding patent quality. He is fooling the delegates at times when they growingly express concerns about patent quality. Battistelli is a chronic liar. Maybe he does this without even realising (the hallmark of sociopaths, learning to believe one's own lies and reject critical voices).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Our Three Lawsuits Against Microsofters Are About to Become a Lot More Relevant to GNU/Linux
The Master will easily understand why Garrett has been attacking me since 2012
Slop Is Not Intelligence and It Does Not Enhance Productivity
Like voice dictation, which cannot tell the difference between "sheet" and "shit"
 
Links 23/07/2025: Slop Patents Tackled, Slop Copyright Misuses Tackled by Politicians
Links for the day
Links 23/07/2025: Retreating From Transparency on Jeffrey Epstein, We No Longer Have Press Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/07/2025: Piano and Food
Links for the day
New and Old
On Ageism in Tech
EPO Crimes Are Spreading to the British Court System
Society is now paying the price for failing to tackle crimes at the EPO
It's Time to Dump SharePoint and Here's What to Use Instead
Nextcloud, ownCloud, Bookstack, MediaWiki, and MediaGoblin
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 22, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 22, 2025
Brett Wilson LLP Has Gone Silent
Sometimes silence says more than nothing at all
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, Planet Ubuntu, and LinuxTechLab
some slopfarms show no remorse and they don't value their reputation at all
Links 23/07/2025: Book Bans, Storms, and Kangaroo Court for Patents Commits More Unlawful Acts of Overreach
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: Thinkpad and Pinephone
Links for the day
Links 22/07/2025: "Blog Restart" and Microsoft Clobbered by “ToolShell"
Links for the day
Global Warming and Global GAFAM Energy-Wasting
Burn more money (borrowed, loans), then hope the waste will somehow translate into profit?
No Compliance With the European Patent Convention (EPC) at the European Patent Office (EPO)
It's about preventing competition against this autocracy
Blue-Collar Trolls vs White-Collar Trolls
Examples of white-collar trolls
Apple Vision Pro Failed So Badly That Its Sales Are About 2,000 Times Smaller Than iPhone Sales
What's left for Apple to offer other than hype?
To Millions of People "Year of the Linux Desktop" Was Some Time in the 1990s (Bootable GNU/Linux as a Complete Operating System is Over 33 in Age)
In some sense, "year of the Linux desktop" was 33 years ago
Make No Assumptions (or Demands) About the Screen Resolution Used by Other People
There are usability aspects, aside from accessibility aspects
Why Wayland (and XWayland) Won't Solve the Key Problem It Proclaims to be Tackling (the Same Is True for Rust)
The problem isn't Wayland per se but the false promises and efforts to force everybody to move to it whilst insulting or demonising everyone who won't play along
They Don't Tell Us that 'Digitalisation' (Now Sold as "Hey Hi") Just Means Customers Become Unpaid Staff and Are Made Accountable
People are being conditioned to associate technology with something undesirable, at times even unbearable
Diplomatic Immunity Should Not Exist for Anybody
The EPO in its current form gradually 'normalises' the end of European democracy
Brett Wilson LLP Stopped Sending Me Papers When I Showed It had Sent Me Over 5 Kilograms of Legal Papers
A week ago we lodged our third lawsuit
Microsoft Mass Layoffs and Shutdowns Became the New Normal at Microsoft
Microsoft mass layoffs became a topic of everyday media coverage since May
Amazon Web Services (AWS) Has Layoffs and Microsoft Gaming/Entertainment Division Has an Uncertain Future
it's good to see all those horrible things crashing and burning
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 21, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 21, 2025
FSF "Raised Almost $139,000 During This Summer Campaign"
"Thank you for making a stand against dystopia!"
Gemini Links 22/07/2025: VPS Exploited and Fear of View
Links for the day
LLM Bots vs Techrights
Slows things down a bit
New Publication Sheds Lights on Abuse of Workers at the European Patent Office (EPO)
Put in simple terms, they're killing the Office, harming remaining staff, try to hire rubber-stampers
Links 21/07/2025: Hardware, Health, and Imperialism
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/07/2025: "When Buying Isn't Owning" and "CMS Special Edition"
Links for the day
Links 21/07/2025: Indie Web and Toxic Politics
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft Lawyers Throwing Stones in Glass Houses
threatened me with bankruptcy
Google "AI Overview" is Not AI and Not Overview
do not be misled; what Google does isn't smart, it's just ripping off the sites it already crawled for as long as 27 years
Making the Case to Dump Microsoft and GAFAM for National and Digital Sovereignty
"Sovereignty is difficult"
The Tactics of the Opposition (Microsoft Lunduke): Associate With K00ks, Throw in Vaccines to Muddy the Water
Who stands to gain from this?
Europe's Second-Largest Institution (EPO) and Largest Patent Monopoly Office Needs More Transparency, Not Less Transparency
In the EPO, what good are elections when one candidate literally bribes all the voters?
How Not to Report News About Microsoft
This pattern of misreporting is so widespread that it's hard to believe it's not intentional
Computer Science is Under Attack, They Want Everyone to be a Consumer
If people can no longer acquire Computer Science education and real Computer Science experience, they will not know how to control their own digital destiny or emancipate the very same universities that now control the syllabus and instead of teaching Computer Science encourage the outsourcing of systems
The Best Tools Are the Simplest Tools
There's a hidden message here about the merits of sticking with X
Ofcom Online Safety Group Speaks of Protecting Women Online, Will Brett Wilson LLP Ever Listen?
They've essentially became like the Taliban's "burka police"
Social Control Media Relies on Advertisers, So It'll Always Be Hostile Towards Free Software
Sales, sales, sales
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 20, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 20, 2025
Fragmentation of Data
Life is too short to "hoard" data
In Defence of "Spinning Rust"
Just because something is "old" (or older) doesn't mean it ought to become extinct
Using Free Software to Prepare Legal Documents
LibreOffice is openly complaining about OOXML as an obstacle
Tech and Technology Are Not the Same Anymore
"Are you into tech, Sir?"
Our Articles About SLAPPs Receive Recognition and Interest
This week we shall continue writing about the 3 lawsuits we filed