Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO President “Campinos is Wasting His Credibility With “Sweet” Communiqués Full of Hot Air and Storytelling”

For example, pretending to have opened channels for staff representatives while in practice doing precisely the opposite (gagging them all)

Canadian cash



Summary: EPO insiders insist if not demand that all those responsible for the corruption and the abuses be removed; Campinos has done the opposite by promoting those who caused harm and turning his overseer into his subordinate

THERE HAS BEEN NO announcement/news from or about the European Patent Office (EPO) since the start of the year. It's totally quiet, but that doesn't mean things are going well. As a reminder, based upon well-documented evidence, staff representatives have been severely limited in their communication and work security is very low right now. The management still fires people, without warning, for flippant/dubious reasons.



Yesterday or the day before that Kluwer Patent Blog issued ("approved") a comment by MaxDrei (it got past moderation, which they made stricter in that blog last year in an effort to muzzle UPC critics).

People strongly disagree with MaxDrei, whom we believe to be a patent attorney. The first rebuttal brings up Air France.

"A new boss arrived (a canadian)," explains "Sad EPO staff" (hence the photo above). Swapping one French with another, just like swapping Battistelli with António Campinos, who keeps lowering patent quality and promoting software patents in Europe.

Here's that first response:

your point is valid under optimal conditions (theoretical ones) but not in real life.

For instance recently at Air France you had a major social fight (with guess who at head of the company : an énarque of course). Eventually, he had to leave the company (lose a referendum on his course of action) and the social conflict went on.

A new boss arrived (a canadian). Within 15 days he had met with all unions (it took FIVE months to Mr Campinos to meet with SUEPO alone), the HR chief resigned and a solution to the social conflict was found.

At EPO the HR chief largely responsible for the social mess and deterioration of staff careers, motivation and in fine quality, is still seating comfortably.

NONE of the pending cases of the abusively sanctioned staff reps and union officials has been solved, NOT A SINGLE ONE (Els Hardon is still in the dark and Laurent Prunier still dismissed his case pending at ILOAT)

Wake up MaxDrei please: as a new boss Mr Campinos had space (and the moral duty) to change a few heads (of course I agree with you: not fire the entire HR dept.). This would have send a clear signal to all stakeholders.

Instead, he chose to keep them at their positions (where guess what: they continue to act as they did under Battistelli since they are programmed to perform like this).

Campinos is wasting his credibility with “sweet” communiqués full of hot air and storytelling which fool no one (staff is highly educated and understand too well the manipulation).

The pressure on production remains the investigative unit, the management style by fear too (recruitment of new staff has become an issue, newcomers resigned after 2 to 3 years, experienced staff retire). This is the recipe for an industrial disaster since the only asset of the EPO is (was) its STAFF.



Among the comments the next one disagrees also: "Most of these people are even worst than BB and were carefully handpicked by him. They’re merciless, incompetent, shameless. Everyone who was unlucky enough to cross their road has plenty of proof of that. They should have been immediately fired or “promoted away” where they could not bring further nuisance. The fact that they all are still at their places is a clear sign of what the new president’s intentions are. Unfortunately."

"The EPO is going dark and less transparent."Cynic wrote: "I’ll refrain from adding to the comments above, except to say that management is, so far, less visible. Why, I don’t know. But that is neither effective or comforting."

The EPO is going dark and less transparent. Moreover, as insiders keep insisting, Campinos has pursued even greater powers than Battistelli's and has just turned his boss/supervisor into his lapdog. Isn't it 'funny' how nobody in the media (never mind corporate media, even patent-centric media) mentioned this very obvious breach of topological authority? Who is actually bossing Campinos? Nobody. Maybe Battistelli still 'bosses' him; after all, he gave him this job (he had rigged the process), so Campinos is indebted to him. It's pretty clear who has the most leverage here.

The next comment is correcting a mistake from Kluwer Patent Blog, which wrote: "in an ILO decision that the Irish judge Patrick Corcoran should be reinstated, attempts were made to transfer him from Munich to The Hague to do work he was not qualified for (it seems this decision was reversed by Battistelli’s successor António Campinos)."

"The silence is actually a lot more harmful and it gives a false impression of calm while things quietly exacerbate (e.g. quality of patents and quality of staff).""Alas," says a reply to it (seemingly from another insider), "the room allocation shows that Mr. Corcoran has been assigned a working space in our wonderful and modern building. Which is situated in The Hague."

This is what we understand as well. We were a bit surprised/baffled by that above-mentioned assertion of Kluwer Patent Blog.

As we said yesterday, nothing has really changed, certainly not for the better. The silence is actually a lot more harmful and it gives a false impression of calm while things quietly exacerbate (e.g. quality of patents and quality of staff).

"Since 30 December 2018, 11.24 hrs CET," the EPO wrote a couple of days ago, "we are experiencing some issues with New Online Filing (CMS). The issues continue. Our technicians are working to fix the problem as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience."

The USPTO had similar issues for the same duration back in summer. Brain drain means technical deficit and assured downtimes or other technical issues. The EPO isn't even recruiting new people as its current goal is to reduce the number of workers without it seeming (to the public) like mass layoffs. This is how institutions generally collapse, technically as well as in terms of their reputation (upon which ability to recruit talent directly depends).

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has Un-cancelled the Best People, Just in Time for the Big 4-0
Mr. Oliva should have been there all along (since 2019)
Most "Modern" Technology Makes You Slower and Dumber
Because proprietary software makes you worse off
"What Comes After Free Software?" Wrongly Insinuates We've Reached the Goal (Prison is Not the Goal)
The oil tycoons use similar tactics against environmentalists, giving them fake "wins"
Making More Work Space
I learned the hard way that less is more in circumstances where more means distraction
MAHA is a Lie, Public Officials Never Valued Citizens' Health (They Still Value Private Businesses, Their Sponsors)
Reject demagogues
New Techrights Turns 2
Today starts the third year of the SSG-based Techrights
What Scares Them the Most is Independent News Sites That They Cannot Control and Censor
Wikileaks was a good example of this
If You Don't Control Your Online Platform, Then Someone Else is Controlling You
be (or become) independent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Has a Policy on Racism and Sexism
In then future we'll show the misogyny and racial slurs
Links 22/09/2025: Murdochs Might Join Fentanylware (TikTok) 'Investors' (Masters), United Kingdom Recognises Palestinian Statehood
Links for the day
 
Brett Wilson LLP Has Just Been Sued (by Their Own Clients!)
Vladimir and Alla Yanpolsky sued Brett Wilson LLP in BL-2025-001167 at the end of last week
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part II - UK SLAPPs for Americans, SLAPPs for Profit
Brett Wilson LLP has a track record of this kind
Mayday: Optus emergency calling crisis
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 23/09/2025: Massive Data Breach, Slop Versus Productivity, and Vista 11 Update Breaks Things Again
Links for the day
Code of Censorship
Extortion is peace
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Has a New Press Kit for the Weekend After Next Weekend (40th Anniversary)
miles better than social [sic] media [sic] quips, moderated by narcissists and oil tycoons.
Microsoft Had Two Waves of Mass Layoffs This Month (That We Know of) and It'll Get Worse for Microsoft Soon
Will the axe fall again by month's end?
Gemini Links 23/09/2025: Happy Equinox, Photronic Arts, and Perception Cognition
Links for the day
Lessons We've Learned After 17 Years of American Hosting
GAFAM is "all-in" with the "Trump agenda"
Back to Normal Now, We Plan to Do More In-Depth Series (or Multi-part Stories)
Articles (or series thereof) that contain philosophy are important to us
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 22, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, September 22, 2025
Microsoft Media is Panicking Amid Mass Layoffs Every Month, H-1B Fees, and "Seattle’s Tech Scene in Trouble"
In "late stage Microsoft", copyleft becomes proprietary
The Next Wave of IBM/Red Hat Layoffs Being Discussed Already
Red Hat is sort of disappearing the way Tivoli did
Oracle Started This Year With Slop. Then It Stopped.
Passing fads are like this
Distros That Run on PCs Made 20 Years Ago and Don't Use Systemd
Betas for now
The Complaint About Brett Wilson LLP - Part I - Abusing British Women on Behalf of American Men Who Abuse American Women
Transparency is important to us, so we've decided to make this series
Slopwatch: Google News and the Evident Slopfarm Infestation
This is what people get about Linux when they query Google for Linux
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Esperanto Music History and Apps For Android
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: More American 'Censorship' (Retaliation for Journalism), Cheeto "Might Be Losing His Race Against Time"
Links for the day
The Blob Slop
Give me more words, give me some text
The 50-Pound Note Experiment and the "War on Cash"
Britain is actually seeing a rebound in cash payments, and it's not a temporary phenomenon
Slopwatch: Blaming the Victims for Microsoft's Failures and Plagiarising Phoronix
That's what Google has been reduced to: slop and slopfarms
Links 22/09/2025: Breaches, Windows TCO, and Arrests
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/09/2025: Rabbit Hole and DeGoogling Fairphone
Links for the day
Links 22/09/2025: Russian War Planes Invade NATO Airspace While Dihydroxyacetone Man Escalates Attack on Free Speech Because of Critics
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, September 21, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, September 21, 2025
Links 21/09/2025: "Hey Hi" (Hype) Under Fire, Fakes Identified; Tesla Burns Family
Links for the day
Google's Software is Malware and Malware in Mobile Devices
Originally posted by Rob Musial
Links 20/09/2025: Hegemony Coming to a Close, Luigi Mangione Ruled Not Terrorist
Links for the day
Gemini Links 21/09/2025: "Charlie Kirk Was a Hateful Piece of Shit" and Slop Code Attempted by Microsofter
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, September 20, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, September 20, 2025