IT has been bad enough to witness (so far this year) US patent maximalists suggesting tips for bypassing 35 U.S.C. €§ 101 and getting software patents from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) even if courts repeatedly and explicitly reject these (no respect for judges and the law). This year we prefer to focus on the European Patent Office (EPO), which is undergoing a reputation recovery (or laundering) campaign that's pretty shallow to see. There's nothing but 'happy stories' from IP Kat, where they even deleted almost 40 comments (an entire thread about António Campinos) that were critical but reasonably polite; almost not a single comment about EPO scandals has appeared since (we are watching all the comments and have been watching every single one since then, via RSS feeds).
A current survey by the EPO among its users is seen by patent firms as a positive sign that the institution takes their concerns seriously. But not everyone shares this optimism. A Dutch patent attorney said, “We get the impression that Campinos is sticking to his predecessor’s efficiency strategy. In this case, there will be no real positive changes for the users of the system.”
The EPO employees, who in recent years have repeatedly taken to the streets to protest Battistelli’s efficiency strategy and increasing work pressure, also hope for change. The Administrative Council set out clear expectations for the new president. “We want to achieve social harmony,” the former chairman told JUVE Patent in an interview in November 2017.
“Before the appointment of António Campinos, it was made clear that all 38 member states are looking for action on this from President Battistelli’s successor.”
Since taking office in mid-2018, Campinos has been actively seeking dialogue with the workforce. He is generally regarded as accessible and open to criticism. A patent attorney in the Netherlands is of the impression that, “he is doing his best to end the social unrest in the EPO and improve the atmosphere.” Initial progress is visible. When describing talks with EPO employees, Thomas Kitzhofer from Munich law firm Prinz & Partner says, “The internal mood has noticeably improved.”
[...]
However, not everyone is of this opinion. “Campinos has had six months to make many changes, but he hasn’t yet,” says an EPO expert. Two employees and members of the SUEPO trade union, Ion Brumme and Malika Weaver, the first suspended and the other demoted under Battistelli, have meanwhile been reinstated and restored to their posts following judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation (ILOAT).
Union members Elizabeth Hardon and Laurent Prunier, on the other hand, have been neither reinstated nor compensated. “Campinos is said to have offered them an amicable settlement,” an insider told JUVE Patent.
The fact no insiders and even some external patent attorneys contacted by JUVE Patent did not want to be named indicates the depth of mistrust towards EPO management in some parts of the workforce. They do not trust the new peace, perhaps due to some of Battistelli’s former confidants still being part of the management committee.
[...]
Implemented in 2017, the structural reform of the Boards of Appeal remains controversial for much of the patent community. This was one of the EPO’s most important projects in the ‘Battistelli era’, where the Administrative Council initiated an extensive but incomplete separation of the court from the EPO.
Now, the Boards of Appeal has had its own president for one and a half years. The separation is also a physical one, having moved from the centre of Munich to Haar, on the eastern edge of the city.
Some patent attorneys and lawyers continue to complain that the Boards of Appeal still lack independence. Its current president, Carl Josefsson, manages both legal and administrative matters. He is, however, still dependent on the EPO president in terms of budgetary concerns and his own reappointment.
“While the reforms were presented as increasing the independence of the Boards, it remains highly doubtful as to whether this was actually achieved,” said a British patent attorney. Another problem is the “ever worsening backlog of cases because of a near-total freeze in recruitment to a large number of Boards of Appeal under Battistelli.”
This development is all the more troubling as the feared problems with quality in patent applications as a result of the efficiency strategy are likely to lead to a significant increase in the number of appeals, and thus to an increased workload for the Boards in the coming years.
Alongside this, the Government is also committed to participating in the unitary patent system and the Unified Patent Court that, if and when it comes into being, will underpin the unitary patent system.
“There is no reason why EPO staff should be treated as second-class European civil servants and that the weakest of our colleagues could be at the mercy of a hierarchy having a record of performance in badly treating staff, up to dismissing staff representatives who normally would enjoy special protection”, the CSC’s letter said.
“Legally speaking, we consider that Article 52 cannot be applied as it stands without any procedures defined for identifying, dealing with and remedying underperformance/incompetence. Pending the above, no single procedure on incompetence should be started.”
In the letter, the CSC questioned whether the new president, who took up the role in July last year, and the new vice presidents, who took office on 1 January 2019, will help the office take a different view on human resources policy, labour law and social dialogue.
An EPO source said that the concerns around article 52 extend to possible appeals at the International Labour Organisation’s Administrative Tribunal, where the allegedly incomplete proposals will most likely be found illegal.
The source explained that this was the reason the CSC had originally warned Campinos to take note of the procedure.
The source noted that Campinos was now six months into the job at the EPO and the “ill-designed policies implemented under his predecessor are still in”.
“This is really worrying since from background, Mr Campinos is a jurist and he was hired by the administrative council to improve the situation inherited from Battistelli.”