Bonum Certa Men Certa

Guest Post: EPO, an Idyllic Place to Work

With heavily-used stock imagery (as below), this is the image of the EPO which they try to spread... (tweet from 3 days ago)

EPO image



Summary: The true face of the EPO as explained by an insider, recalling the history that led to the negative image and toxic work atmosphere

THE EPO is not an idyllic place. The title (nor ours) is therefore sarcastic. Workers of the EPO may find the following anonymous message, sent to us by a longtime insider, informative.

I would like to bring to your attention some facts in the history of the EPO. Some of these passed facts also account for the present situation. A novice reading your blog may derive that the catastrophic social situation of the EPO nowadays is uniquely the consequence of the mismanagement by the monkey team, Battistelli and his goons. One may also derive that the Office was a nice place to work, a kind of Heaven, before the present management team arrived. This is absolutely wrong.

I could write a book about the subject, but I will make it short. I've known the EPO for decades and all places of employment, unfortunately I cannot tell you more without fearing immediate retaliation from the EPO.

Anyone having a legal background and accurately reading the Codex that was sent to each newcomer would realise to which extent the legal protection was poor and to which extent the legal environment was weak. Notwithstanding, many decided to go for it because besides the legal framework there was an appetising corporate culture. I mean, not just an excellent financial package but also "sexy" practical working conditions. This kind of blindness happens when you are freshly in love with the wrong partner, you see one side [but] not the other.

The dark side of the Office was always present even before it was created, I mean at times of the IIB (Institut International des Brevets) located in the Hague. The staff of the IIB enjoyed a full immunity and tax-free conditions that unfortunately led to misuse of their advantages. Decades ago the newcomer staff in the Hague benefited of a limited right to buy once a tax-free car. Could you imagine how this "tax-free right" was misused? Some newcomers were invited to sell their right to the benefit of older staff (most of the ex-IIB staff). But that was illegal. What choice was left for those "elected" newcomers? They still were in the probation period. That was for many the first disillusionment.

You would then quickly realise how many rivalries were at play among staff. The ex-IIB group, the ex-Oktrooiburo (the Dutch patent office), the Brits, the French, the ex-DPA (German patent office). And on the top of that the insane rivalry between sites of employment. All the groups were acting like a Mafia, defending and positioning their bosses across the office.

At first you had time enough to do your job decently. With "decently" I mean according to the examination rules that were considered the Holy Grail of patenting. But rapidly came production increases, some of them were justified, for instance by acknowledging a learning curve. However, more and more increases in production were justified with arguments like new computer system, BEST (bringing examination and search together) effect, splitting a department, your colleagues does better etc....

The consequence of constant production increases over decades to attain unrealistic targets was double: decrease in quality and examiners searching another activity than the core (chore?) task of "patenting" that was anyway disregarded by the management. And that was the great deal: working in any other side activity alleviated your production pressure. Your productivity (days/file) was far more important when your reporting officer had to write a notation report. Of course there were "artists" misusing the system: the best "producers in a department with far the best productivity had done as little as 4 files/dossiers in a.....year! These persons were particularly well noted as they contributed in one or more resources-hungry "projects" .

Many were aware of the breach and the usual career-seeking staff with lower morale saw an efficient way of rocketing, boosting a career. The first step was to be very friendly and get close to one of the Mafia bosses usually by drinking liters of beer during after-work parties. Then presenting and making accepted a "project". At this stage you already were team leader in a project and partially freed from examination duties. The second step was to make your baby grow by recruiting friends among the elected Mafia then creating a sub-Mafia of your own.

In the mean time, staff that recruited for doing the "dirty" work were pressured even more because the global production of the office was sinking.

Even today the staff working in the patent production line (administrative officers and examiners) are misconsidered at a point that "management" calls them the "TOQUARDS". If you don't know this French word look at:

http://dictionary.reverso.net/french-synonyms/toquard

That is all the respect the managers of the Office give to their staff.

Team Battistelli is at war with its staff or better said with part of the staff, at least the 4000 union members and certainly all the toquards that do the "dirty work" compared to the the nice and far most useful job of bullying staff.

I have been very affected by the testimonials provided in two of your recent posts:

http://techrights.org/2017/02/07/epo-antipathy/ [Insensitivity at the EPO’s Management – Part VI: Fear Climate and Antipathy Now the ‘Norm’]

The quote "The Office has been sowing evil and bad acts all over,.....They have their own inconsistent convenience of career interests to preserve: truly it’s nothing, but to an emotionally and morally semi-blind creature that has lost any professional profile and moral sense, that’s all that matters."

This statement is so poignantly true ....

http://techrights.org/2017/02/09/epo-depression-and-suicides/ [This is Why Many People at the EPO Commit Suicide]

To quote : "“Right now the friends of my friends are being ‘disappeared’ Soon it will be my friends’ turn, and then mine (…) ” (text from Professor Salman Haider)....Soon the EPO will look like a psychiatric hospital with a lot of people in great psychological distress granting patents for Europe. Just missing the doctors to help."

This is again the day by day life in the Office. The EPO has become a criminal organisation killing people among its staff. There are many ways to kill someone, using weapons is certainly the last recourse. The EPO offers you all the tools to commit suicide. I know that, I have seen that with my own eyes.

Yet Battistelli has won all the line .. or did he?

If I were the guy (which I am fortunately not) I would be extremely worried. The staff is now left in a legal desert as confirmed by the latest NL judgement. The staff had "nothing and some hopes". They are left with "nothing" at all in front of a mocking dictator . No law, no tribunal, no union, no friends, no humanity.

Once you realise you are left alone in Hell without any possibility of return, some may be tempted to join the Mafia to soothe the pain ("join them if you cannot fight them"), other may turn their violence against themselves and commit suicides, other may want to blast the whole system. Battistelli shouldn't forget what the primary task of an "engineer" was. So I wish you good look Mr Battistelli, you have set up all the conditions for a big disaster but you'll be a hero.....


Much of the above isn't new to us; nor was it ignored. Prior to Battistelli's reign we had already written about EPO protests and other issues, going back to the dawn of Techrights in 2006. But one can not deny the fact that Battistelli's tactics are what led to stuff hitting the fan and the inherent issues at the Office becoming more widely understood.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
 
Links 16/02/2025: Oligarchs "Collect Your Data and Control Your World", Global Temperatures Shoot Up
Links for the day
Promoting Microsoft Windows With LLM Slop
What is the policy at BetaNews regarding LLM slop?
Links 16/02/2025: "Microsoft Is Laying Off Employees" and Internal Dissent Brewing at Facebook Over Regime Complicity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2025
Links 15/02/2025: Harms to Health, Public Domain, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025