"Merpel" is not a person but a collective sort of pseudonym shared among several writers at IP Kat (some of whom I had great pleasure communicating with). As readers of ours are aware/already know of, there were changes in IP Kat in recent years. The founder left, Bristows became very prominent at IP Kat, CIPA's chief took a role in IP Kat (making the UPC agenda a high priority) and so on.
"IP Kat's censorship got a lot worse some months ago when it 'zapped' an entire comments thread (about 40 comments in total) about Mr. Campinos."In short, IP Kat isn't what it used to be. The people there are different, so the steering/agenda is different. Some people really miss the 'old' IP Kat. The 'old' IP Kat was trying to fix the EPO; today's EPO tries to almost cover up or ignore the scandals, hoping that turning a blind eye to them would make the Office look better and usher in patent maximalism, UPC, etc.
EPO insiders aren't particularly happy about it. A new blog, Merpel renamed, came into existence earlier this month. Some readers took note of it; "There is a new blog about the European Patent Office," one person told us. "Maybe you are interested?"
Reviewing the blog as a whole, so far there have been only three posts there, starting with this opening message: "For a few years, a cat called Merpel wrote news about Eponia... but then on 10.3.2017 it was curtains for Merpel. Can we restart that space of discussions and exchanges? I don't have the talent or the humour of Merpel but maybe I can try."
"In short, IP Kat isn't what it used to be."A lot of things changed after the EPO sanctioned/blocked IP Kat; we don't know all the details about it, but IP Kat has not been the same since. It's a retaliatory tactic -- a hallmark of the Battistelli regime. They had done the same to me.
Taking stock of the posts predating the self-censorship (in chronological order), the blogger says: "This blog is in deference to the old Merpel. However, to avoid the confusion between the new and the old Merpel, this cat shall write her name the Munich way: Märpel."
The latest post is the most detailed one. Titled "The Battistelli years", it starts as follows:
Märpel has a taste for history. She believes that the explanation to present events lies in the past, because in Eponia who controls the past controls the future. Keep this page in your bookmarks, as Märpel shall come back to it in the future.
President Battistelli took his functions in mid 2010. What are the main events of the past years? The suepo.org site has a nice archive, Märpel looked at the year 2011-2017.
"Unless rebutted, these lies might stick and future generations might never know what happened under Battistelli (revisionism, victim-blaming, deletionism)."Blogs come and go all the time. There used to be blogs about EPO abuses that were shut down several years ago (our only regret is that we did not make a complete backup of those). We shall see if Märpel has 9 lives...
The EPO is trying to change the narrative; it's spending a fortune on paid-for 'articles', a glossy Gazette that's full of lies, paid-for 'studies' etc. Unless rebutted, these lies might stick and future generations might never know what happened under Battistelli (revisionism, victim-blaming, deletionism). ⬆