WE can totally relate to examiners who are disgusted by politicians like Benoît Battistelli and his friend António Campinos running the EPO, Europe's second-largest institution, which was supposed to be scientific rather than political.

"This is what a coup looks like. The EPO works not for Europe and not for science. It's eager to have amicable dialogues not with staff but with a bunch of American law firms."How did we come to this? Why did the Office end up being a litigation fanatic in bed with parasites? Wasn't it supposed to be an ally of European scientists? Look how it's constantly attacking patent examiners, who aren't just scientists but the main, if not sole, asset of the Office.

The EPO is no longer able to attract talent. Technical people know to stay well away from the EPO; incidentally, the EPO's blog had its SSL certificate expire on Friday. If that's not technical incompetence, what is? Can't a multi-billion-dollar institution sort out these kinds of things? Apparently not. And it's far from the first such technical fluke; we gave more examples before.

2 documents/letters have just been released to highlight impending legal action (staff is truly fed up and we cannot blame the staff; we're only surprised it took so long).

Aside from the SSL f*-up of Friday (some people unable to even access the EPO's official blog), there was also this pure nonsense from late Friday (warning: epo.org link) in the EPO's "news" section.

It speaks of a "virtual event." I.e. webchat... (glorified chat)

Your lovely and amicable buddy/gentleman 'Steve' Rowan (Stephen Rowan doing a 'Mike' Bloomberg) of the EPO "welcomed the US participants" who weren't scientists but basically parasites claiming to be standing for "innovation" (litigation really).

Maybe meet actual scientists instead of lawyers (applicants)? The EPO is a lost cause these days, as they don't seem to know what patent offices really exist for. They also lost sight of the word "European" in their name. The actual 'meeting' (not) was on Thursday, as per the opening statement which says: "The 36th annual meeting of the US Bar-EPO Liaison Council took place yesterday (19 November), held for the first time as a virtual event."

US Bar.

No, they don't offer alcoholic beverages. They're also not connected to William Barr. They're vicious litigators and they're motivated not by science. "Some 27 US members attended [sic] this year's meeting," [sic] it said, "representing [sic] IP [sic] law associations and IP [sic] sections of state bar associations from across the country." (US, not Europe)

Here comes 'Steve' (Stephen)...

"In his opening remarks," it says, "EPO Vice-President Steve Rowan welcomed the US participants, highlighting that the annual meeting is an excellent opportunity to receive direct feedback from our US users in order to better understand their needs. He also outlined recent measures put in place at the Office to support applicants during the pandemic."

So they have an actual dialogue with people who are neither European nor scientists. They don't actually create things, except perhaps feuds, threatening letters which keep people awake all night, and of course lawsuits.

So this is who or what the EPO nowadays represents.

As usual, EPO non-scientists entrained the same old buzzwords, the obligatory "HEY HI" (AI) nonsense included. Further down it reads: "A lively exchange on Artificial Intelligence took place, with US members presenting a recent report published by the USPTO, Public Views on Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property Policy, and the Office addressing the issues from a European perspective, also drawing attention to the EPO's upcoming digital conference The role of patents in an AI driven world, which will take place on 17/18 December 2020."

The EPO says "HEY HI" to parasites and bullies while giving the finger to its very own staff. They couldn't even bother showing up for a so-called 'meeting' (webchat from home) with the staff representatives, as we noted a couple of days ago.

This is what a coup looks like. The EPO works not for Europe and not for science. It's eager to have amicable dialogues not with staff but with a bunch of American law firms. ⬆