Summary: The EPO's misinformation and threats (directed at journalists and publishers) may have accomplished what the management wanted; it's a culture of fear, resulting in self-censorship and lack of oversight by the media

THE European Patent Office (EPO) is as messy as ever. The only thing that changed is, SUEPO became too terrified to speak in public as much as it did in 2015, causing many staff representatives to be attacked by Benoît Battistelli. And back in 2018 they were told to wait for the 'peacemaker' António Campinos, who turned out to be more of the same, including advocate of illegal software patents in Europe. Another thing that changed -- and it may be related to the gagging of SUEPO -- is the demise of the media in general and its coverage of EPO scandals in particular. Secrecy now prevails and blackmailed/bribed media is complicit in maintaining that secrecy (failing to inform the public about corruption in Europe's second-largest institution). When I speak to mainstream and investigative journalists, as I occasionally do, they always have some excuses ready. They nowadays use "COVID" as an excuse to not scrutinise the EPO (usually they just keep silent about the whole thing because speaking out can put their job at risk). Their publishers prepare puff pieces instead (see everything WIPR, IAM and MIP publish these days) and we already know that some of these publishers were bribed by the EPO; others were blackmailed (we published hard evidence of this). If EPO workers call their managers "Mafia", then who are we to disagree? In Mexico the drug cartels, which can be connected at all sorts of levels to politics/army/police, are notorious for murdering lots of journalists. In Europe the murder is a bit more subtle and slightly more organised. No need for anyone to literally die for a story to be killed (spiked). The Mafia says, "write nice things, pay your protection money, otherwise bad things will happen..."

Speaking based on my experiences communicating with people who study (or studied) EPO corruption, the EPO's workers shouldn't be hesitant to call their managers "Mafia". It's a "family business"; it's all about cover-up and silence. It's about blind loyalty. It's a cult, it's a patent religion, complete with its own 'Élodie Kushner'. ⬆