Narcissus by Caravaggio, gazing at his own reflection.
THE NUMBER of comments we now see (and receive) about Patrick Corcoran, courtesy of several different sources, makes it clear that he will see his contract officially ending in a few hours. He will still be at the EPO, but it's not clear how long for. Insiders expect Battistelli to use the new vicinity to fire him, possibly when nobody is looking. Watch or recall just when he was officially notified: (we've heard it elsewhere too)
Depressed EPO staff
DECEMBER 29, 2017 AT 12:58 PM
as feared, Mr Corcoran received notification of his transfer to DG1 on 22 December 2017, the last working day of the year.
The Boards are thus truly independent, Thema abgeschlossen.
I also hope that legal peace will be restored in regard to the much reported case of Mr. Corcoran, of which there is an excellent and up to date summary on wikipedia.
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I wish the EPO and particularly its Administrative Council (AC) Glasnost. At least in my opinion, the Administrative Council is the “window” of the public into the EPO and vice versa. According to the European Patent Convention, the Administrative Council is the one and only control instance of the European Patent Office (if one leaves matters of constitutional law on a side for the moment). This means, however, that the AC should take its role as a control instance seriously, and certainly much more seriously than in the past, and visibly interfere where things go wrong rather than cover them up. Due to its unique position, the Administrative Council also is accountable (and should be held accountable) for the EPO’s policy and the EPO’s management to the public.
However, all of this requires that the AC communicates with the public directly, not through an EPO management filter, and openly. In particular, the AC should have its own website, independent from the EPO, where it publishes and explains its decisions so that the public is able to understand and discuss them. The AC should also be directly approachable by the public and by EPO staff members who feel unfairly treated by their management. Perhaps an Ombudsman would do the EPO good.
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Mathieu Klos from JuVe reported that Mr. Corcoran has been reinstated but not reappointed. Assuming this is true, the question still remains what exactly “reinstated” means. If it were to mean that he was reinstated just for the 10 remaining days of his regular tenure as Board of Appeal member (which ends on 31/12/2017, i.e. today), but not for the time period that he lost due to its illegal removal from the office – according to the ILO AT decisions -, then I doubt very much that such a decision would restore legal peace. I sincerely hope that the AC found a better and fairer solution than this one. We will see.
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In my opinion at least, it would be very advisable to enter into a fresh discussion in 2018 on whether the EPO really has the right structure to satisfy the needs of its stakeholders, who (among other things) want and need an independent, efficient, competent, but above all fair judicial body to decide on European Patents and applications. The concept of fairness includes that the parties are given an effective right to be heard, including the possibility to file appropriate requests also in the appeal instance, depending on and in response to the procedural situation. Fairness to the parties should never be sacrificed to procedural efficiency; otherwise we would need no boards of appeal at all.
In addition, it also seems to me that we should have a discussion about Art. 13 EPC and whether the ILO Administrative Tribunal really is the best forum to safeguard elementary staff rights. At least in my opinion there are substantiated doubts in this regard, which may justify a discussion whether a judicial reform of the EPO should also include this aspect.
Depressed EPO staff
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FYI internally we all know that if decision R 19/12 was NEVER translated into FR and EN this was on direct instructions of Battistelli fuming that the Boards dared to issue it at the first place (this alone is unacceptable since it deprives the public to access an important piece of legal information in the 3 official EPO languages).
Now the worse part: Battistelli is said (from reliable sources) to prepare himself for the position of : first President of UPC Court in Paris (since the treaty foresees that the first President will be a French citizen)
So if after 6 years of total mis-management of the EPO on all accounts, countries involved in IP matters such as Germany, England, Italy, CH, BENELUX and the Scandinavian, do not put a FINAL END to this circus, expect him back soon for more funny stuff…
With this said let us keep hope in better days AFTER he is gone, since the next 6 months will be deplorable ones for sure
"He has already plastered his face all over the EPO's Web site -- clearly a symptom of narcissism (NPD) if not full-blown megalomania."We shall now return to helping transparency at the EPO. We go backwards in time and attempt to document the conflict between peasants staff and king President.
The Battistelli saga won't be over at the end of June because Campinos was Battistelli's choice and Battistelli has plans going forwards (for himself, in both France and Europe). Don't expect the scandals to suddenly end in July and for Battistelli's name to no longer be brought up. He has already plastered his face all over the EPO's Web site -- clearly a symptom of narcissism (NPD) if not full-blown megalomania. ⬆