Bonum Certa Men Certa

How EPO Management Manufactures Non-News to Distract the General Public From EPO Lawbreaking and Strikes (With Help From Paid-for Publishers)

No press coverage about a strike; plenty of paid-for fluff about a so-called 'study' wrapped in a buzzword

Action for peace



Summary: With the EPO strike just a couple of days away one might expect the media to say something about Europe's second-largest institution reaching the boiling point; but instead we find EPO-scripted fluff in dubious publications connected to the EPO and the litigation fanatics, in effect cheering/egging on the EPO's management

THE EPO'S PRESIDENT António Campinos has failed. He failed very quickly. Yesterday we wrote a couple of articles to show proof that he had failed within months, not years. Not only could he not restore peace; his popularity sank, he became a 'lame duck', and many people want him out. Strikes under the banner of "enough is enough!" are a belated culmination of it all.



"Strikes under the banner of "enough is enough!" are a belated culmination of it all."We strongly encourage EPO insiders and outside observers alike to pay attention to the role media has played in cover-up as well as distraction. There are several things they don't want the public to see; one is the crime and the illegalities, including the Commission's role in it (the second is strike-related 'media blackout'). How come nobody covered that? Also see the comments here (pretty much all of them blasting CIPA, a longtime booster of Benoît Battistelli, which now supports a violation of the EPC). Litigation firms and media in their pockets are squashing a genuine discussion about these matters. So while management of the EPO keeps breaking the law we're supposed to not care? Trust those "responsible adults" to sort things out while even the Commission is complicit? There's this new analysis from a law firm which concludes that "depriving parties and representatives of their right to personal appearance before the EPO infringes Article 116 EPC" (it's actually in Lexology), but where has the mainstream media been?

Where?

Jorge Campinos and António CampinosWe're meanwhile seeing no lack of arse-covering fluff; days ago the EPO used puff pieces from Watchtroll (link to this 'article' intentionally omitted, as usual) and from the government of China (china.org.cn) to promote some pro-software patents fluff and to distract from the strike. Muireann Bolger of World Intellectual Property Review (WIPR), a person whose name we never saw before, issued this piece of EPO 'spam', echoing the same buzzwords salad as the EPO's: "...smart connected technology, Internet of things, patent filings, 5G, AI, data management, wearable technology, fourth industrial revolution" (clueless nonsense and hype).

This is what happens when the patent office and the media are run by PR people, or "words people" who lack any kind of background in science so they compensate for it by parroting buzzwords.

Those three (above-mentioned) EPO puff pieces were partly inspired by a PR campaign. We can see the EPO pushing paid-for press releases for the UK spin, e.g. in ResponseSource (as usual). The contact is an old friend/colleague of Campinos:

Media contacts European Patent Office

Luis Berenguer Giménez Principal Director Communication / Spokesperson Tel.: +49 89 2399 1203 press@epo.org


Oh, wow. It's like the EPO is a "family business"....

"A study [sic] published today by the European Patent Office (EPO)," it says. Published... just a day or two after notification of strike. Coincidence?

The situation at the EPO is not good; to say the least... as it's an understatement. SUEPO has promised a whole year of conflict ahead, emphasising that the strike is only the start of it. And read this new comment which says:

When the new president took office in July 2018 his mandate from the AC was to restore social peace. Now half way through his mandate, the only possible conclusion is that this aim is far of being achieved. One could even say that he has failed.

Whilst his predecessor was very distant and arrogant, he appeared friendlier. But this was only a façade and reality hit the staff quicker than it wished.

One wonders what his hidden agenda could be. One obvious possibility is to continue the destruction of the EPO started by its predecessor. This is prima facie the only logical conclusion. But who would profit from it? National offices? The UPC? Those are possibilities, but this means that the EPC and the EPO have had their best time.

He continues to do everything to render the EPO less attractive as an employer. Who wants to leave its country of origin, leaving behind its social security system and pension scheme, to come to Munich or The Hague with the risk of being fired after 5 years, be it in the first instance or in the boards of appeal? This is the more so if a potential candidate has a family. The EPO is not any longer a worthwhile employer.

The recruitment might become very local as at least the family of those recruits will not have any change in their way of living. Other recruits could be young people, fresh from university, and merely coming from countries which have not reached the standard of living from Germany or The Netherlands. I do not doubt their capacities, it is just that recruitment becomes lopsided and this is never good. It would be interesting to have a distribution of staff by nationality, be it in DG1 or in the BA.

On top of this the head of the EPO takes pretext of a revenue gap to further diminish the salaries and pensions. The whole financial study leading to this conclusion is a mere fake and any reasonable person will see that the starting assumptions can only have come to mind in a twisted brain.

Not only have a study by a renowned accountancy firm hired by the staff representation but also a deep analysis by the Pensioner’s Association shown how unrealistic the “financial” study is. The instruction to the firm chosen by the EPO was clearly to come to the conclusion that there will be a deep financial gap.

One of the assumptions is that the EPO, after a 4% fee increase for 2020, there will be no further fee increases from then on till 2038! In parallel the salaries will grow and hence an enormous deficit is foreseeable. Simply ludicrous!

The whole scenario reminds me of a French expression saying that if you want to kill your dog, you claim it has caught rabies.

The problem of the EPO is that the AC does not play its role. The tail is wagging the dog and the immunity given for good reasons to the EPO is being misused and has ended up with a feeling of impunity. The EPO has become a playground for would be managers and their minions, and the worse is that they manage the EPO as it was their property and with methods which go back to the 19th century.

No wonder staff wants to react. One can only support their action. Forcing most of the staff in home office does not mean that it cannot react to what is to be considered as a disgrace.

One thing appearing already is that the trail of destruction started by the former head of the EPO is aggravated by its successor. Is this what the users of the European Patent system want? I would expect a reaction from the profession as a whole and not merely by some individuals. Folks, it is your future which is at stake as well. It is high time to realise it!


John Wooden once said:

"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."


At the moment the EPO is wasting money on reputation-laundering fluff; it's a waste of EPO funds and it will backfire. The sooner the media (what's left of independent media) realises what's really going on at the EPO, the better, and the longer it takes the more scandals will exist. 4 or 5 years of Battistelli tyranny entailed a torrent of negative publicity for the EPO around 2014-2017, causing the Office to become incapable of recruiting the people it needs.

Later in the day we may revisit the failure of the media, seeing that it's too occupied and far too busy doing marketing instead of journalism, much as can be expected from a "Sold Asset" rather than independent investigator. It can be interesting to have the EPO audited one day, theoretically at least (if auditors are allowed indoors), to see just how much money was wasted on bribery and blackmail, in effect "fixing" the media coverage regarding the EPO. Then there are bribes for scholars, payments to PR firms, not to mention millions of euros for hours-long annual festivals. Is this what a patent office was entrusted to pursue back in the 1970s? Surely not.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October