Summary: Benoît Battistelli's endless bullying of critics (even outside the Office) has not ended; the extremely weak response from the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation serves to show that it is still largely complicit
YESTERDAY'S report from the Administrative Council (AC) of the European Patent Organisation was very disappointing as it misrepresented the legal situation of Patrick Corcoran, a besieged judge who inadvertently helped demonstrate just how messed up or shambolic the EPO has become (by virtue of becoming Battistell's scapegoat).
"We truly worry that the EPO may never recover from this (and rediscover its senses)."Certainly not. He and his Croatian 'bulldog' continue to bully Corcoran not only in a court in Munich but also in Croatia. It is strategic. It's expensive.
We truly worry that the EPO may never recover from this (and rediscover its senses). Battistelli's successor, whom Battistelli promoted behind closed doors, is another Frenchman who is a longtime colleague/friend of Battistell. He takes over in just over 6 months from now. What can possibly change radically by then or after that? Staff of great value, e.g. experience/credentials, is leaving the EPO in droves (we've heard stories; the numbers are shocking). The latest Patent Information News magazine (published and advertised by the the EPO this morning) is indicative of very serious brain drain. They feel the need to look out and reach out for job seekers. It used to be the applicants chasing the EPO, now it's the other way around. They even put job adverts in the actual magazine (we never saw that before). This magazine also promotes the "SME" PR nonsense and more famous lies.
"We have better use for human activity/capacity; we need to create/develop/build things, not endlessly sue one another."Look what the EPO has turned into. What has it become? I was never against the EPO. In fact, I think that a strong EPO is essential for Europe's competitiveness in the world. Regarding the UPC, I was always against it not because of the word "unitary", which is misleading anyway. I am pro-Union, but not pro-patent Armageddon that only lawyers would benefit from. We have better use for human activity/capacity; we need to create/develop/build things, not endlessly sue one another. For those whose livelihood depends on litigation this concept may be difficult to grasp (common sense says one thing, wallet says another). The EPO has just retweeted UPC accounts that are promoting the EPO's 'study', which is actually UPC advocacy/lobbing disguised as 'research'. Is the EPO working for the litigation 'industry' now? Or for science? Given the Office's disdain for actual facts, justice and science (Battistelli fails on all three), it's not hard to guess. Also recall the following four posts:
"Should it be renamed the European Registration Office? Where patents are granted provided the text is legible enough and there's no technical error in the submission?"Is the EPO trying to become the troll's office? Like whatever happens in SIPO (China)? Does it not care about patent quality? Like INPI (France)? BPTO (Brazil), according to a post from this afternoon, considers making the terrible mistakes that INPI made by generally approving virtually every patent application. "The emergency procedure would grant 230,000 pending applications unless patent owners opt out," Managing IP wrote. What's truly incredible is that the EPO is going in this direction as well (eliminating backlog while disregarding quality), in effect becoming more like INPI and maybe to a lesser degree SIPO (China).
Goodbye, EPO? Should it be renamed the European Registration Office? Where patents are granted provided the text is legible enough and there's no technical error in the submission? Where actual judges are treated like a nuisance and defamed out the door? And some "so called judges" (Trump's famous mockery of judges whom he disagrees with) like Battistelli are put in charge of UPC to make arbitrary decisions that are far from impartial? ⬆