Two of the people below are out, but what about dozens of others?

Summary: No signs of reformation at Europe's second-largest institution, which still suffers from justice deficit and blatant corruption

THE GROWING concern we have about software patents in Europe was last explained yesterday. António Campinos, essentially a Battistelli appointee from the same country, isn't doing anything to change course. Nothing has changed. Nothing at all.

See Michel's new comment about the European Patent Office (EPO): "So far we have not seen much of a change inside the Office. 95% of the people responsible for the misery are still in place and have not even been rebuked. I doubt that we will see real change to the better any time soon."

MaxDrei, who used to comment on EPO abuses at IP Kat (before that blog censored such discussions), then added:

Michel, I doubt your word “responsible”. Responsibility lay with the AC and the immediate past President alone.

Instead of thinking about the EPO, imagine a police force, in which the Chief of Police has a huge ego, which dominates those who try to impose political control over him. Members of the public never meet the Chief. Their experience of the Force is with those police officers who do the bidding of the Chief.

Now imagine a new broom Chief of Police. Does he (or she) fire all the assistant and deputy chiefs, or even issue “rebukes” all round? Surely not. The organisation must continue to function. The biggerst mistake the Americans made in Iraq was to dismiss the entire police force, just because all police officers were doing Saddam’s bidding. They should have left them “in place” and refrained from “rebuking” them.

Instead, the new Chief requires all his senior assistants to turn over a new leaf and do what the new Chief requires. Most humans can adapt to a new boss. Most will obey. Few will wilfully disobey their superiors. Instead, they will more likely resign.

What evidence do you have, that this has not happened? Perhaps the new Chief is still figuring out which amongst his (or her) assistants are the Bad Hats that are incapable of reform, serial abusers, and nothing more than incurable villains that will disobey the new rules, and continue to bring the organisation into disrepute.

SUEPO 'said' something (merely posted a link) for the first time in 1.5 months. It linked to the above post. But we need information from the inside in order to better highlight the abuses. At the moment there seems to be growing information 'lockdown' and staff representatives are afraid (or not allowed) to speak. Team UPC has also been very quiet, but we suspect it does some things behind the scenes (trying to influence the outcome at the FCC). Team UPC has quoted Horst Vissel, a German patent attorney, regarding the UPC and the European Patent Convention (EPC). They aren't giving up just yet. UPC would extend the same injustice introduced by Battistelli (internally) to all member states. It's unlikely they'll ever succeed, especially if the FCC understands just the degree to which justice was subverted and the EPC violated. ⬆