The Battistelli 'revolution' is just a gory mess

Reference: Joseph-Ignace Guillotin

Summary: The gradual destruction of the European Patent Office (EPO), which was once unanimously regarded as the world's best, by a neo-liberal autocrat from France, Benoît Battistelli

THE extremely unpopular Battistelli regime at the EPO has turned the entire institution (or Organisation, not just the Office) into a laughing stock. We used to think it paled in comparison to the USPTO (about a couple of years ago), but after publishing more than a thousand articles about the EPO it seems evident that the EPO sets the standards for abuse at international bodies (worse by far than WIPO and broader in terms of scale). Right now there are attempts to blame low-level staff for this.

Due to Team Battistelli, the Office is rapidly losing public support. It took more than 40 years to gain credibility and Battistelli ruins it all in just a few years if not as little as months. He even harms the very function of the Office by killing patent scope and patent quality. Dr. Glyn Moody retweeted Stephen Curry regarding an article we mentioned the other day in relation to the EPO; the situation with regard to patent scope has gotten him upset enough to say "this is yet another reason why we need to abolish patents..." (we presume he meant as a whole because these patents serve to discredit the system's goals).

Yesterday the EPO was trying to associate itself with aerospace, even though the EPO is run by a right-wing politician who knows zilch about science and detests people who are scientists. He treats the Office like a crude production line and it shows. At the same time the EPO is inherently rotten from the top down (the rot comes/starts from the head) and it is all crooked when it comes to bidding and tenders. Watch the latest nonsense from the EPO. They try to give an impression of transparency and accountability when in fact, as one comment put it today (emphasis is ours):

US becoming an EPO memberstate says...

BB [Battistelli] appoints A. Keyak [sic] a US national based in Washington as a "EPO Delegate to the United States" furthermore he gets carte blanche to establish a network within the Office to support him in his future role.

It is clear that DG5 again has not read the EPO Serv. Regs, as to who can be appointed by the EPO and at what distance he has to reside from the EPO buildings,... home working on a permanent basis from Washington and not being a national of one of the EPO Member states is clearly something for the IU or are some Chinese, Japanese delegates to come as well? ... furthermore should the AC not be informed about BB's industry lobbyist activities behind the scenes for attracting foreign investments to France.

Keyack's bizarre role was last mentioned yesterday and we wrote a lot more about him before [1, 2]. How on Earth does Battistelli keep his job in the face of all those scandals? The answer is, total lack of accountability; what used to exist of it (or left of it) has been deliberately shut down by Battistelli, with a supine, cowardly Administrative Council consenting to it.

Judging by the latest propaganda from the EPO, it's all business as usual. Watch the latest publicity stunt which they promoted in Twitter, their Web site (warning: may be trackable) and even the European authorities' platform. To quote the last of these (pertaining to patent scope or patents on seeds and plants):

The Community Plant Variety Office was pleased to host a workshop with many officials of the European Patent Office (EPO) in Angers on 21 and 22 September.

[...]

Martin Ekvad, President of the CPVO and Heli Pihlajamaa, Director Patent Law at the EPO, welcomed the fruitful and very useful workshop for both organisations and look forward to further cooperation.

The organisation and participation of the two organisations in conferences, courses, workshops and other meetings of mutual interest with the aim of maintaining high quality decisions in both institutions will complement this cooperation.

So the EPO is lobbying in Parliament and the Commission (recall what happened and who attended Battistelli's hugely expensive lobbying event) while at the same time claiming immunity from both and denying the rules as they were put together in the EPC (e.g. exclusion of software patents^*).

Here is Barker Brettell LLP speaking about how the EPO is entering a phase of turbulence by basically making a mockery out of the patent examination process, rushing it all as if speed can be attained without compromising quality. To quote this new article: "The European Patent Office (EPO) brought in new guidelines on 1st July 2016 which aim to simplify [sic] the opposition procedure and deliver decisions faster. Here we report on the impact of the new guidelines. Full details of the changes and a useful animation can be obtained via the EPO website.

"The opposition procedure provides third parties with the opportunity [sic] to challenge the validity of European patents centrally, by filing an opposition within nine months of grant. After the opposition deadline has passed a third party must undertake separate national invalidity proceedings, which can be more costly, complex and time consuming. As such, the opposition procedure is popular and approximately four per cent of all granted patents are opposed. According to the EPO annual report (2015) 31 per cent of opposed patents were revoked, 38 per cent were maintained in amended form and 31 per cent survived unamended."

Given the systematic marginalisation of the appeals process by Battistelli, this has got to be some kind of a joke. It's clear that Battistelli just wants to rubberstamp everything very quickly, leaving little or no opportunity for in-depth reassessment. It's truly a recipe for disaster and possibly the end of the EPO as we know it. Some time soon we shall provide more details from the inside, shedding more light on how terrible things have gotten. ⬆ ____ ^* CEN and CENELEC would like to help poison Europe with FRAND, based on this recent publication. They want to advance patents you cannot work around and must pay for, even when they're likely invalid in Europe.