"We are shocked by Mr Campinos’ communiqué"

Series parts:

1. The EPO's Race to the Bottom — Part I — From Bad to Worse
2. The EPO's Race to the Bottom — Part II — “Playing People Off Against Each Other is Not the Way We Want to Go Forward!”
3. YOU ARE HERE ☞ “The King is Naked”

Hiding actual facts

Summary: In a publication dated just under 2 years ago, EPO staff leaders speak out against António Campinos for lying to staff while robbing the staff (a robbery that started under Benoît Battistelli)

THE act of lying to (or misleading) EPO staff is risky because the staff is generally not so gullible. The EPO's management hopes to change that. It wants a bunch of mindless, obedient workers who don't ask questions and settle for a salary equivalent to a cook's.

Here's the document which predates the first batch of lock-downs.

5 February 2020 su20004cp

The king is naked

– Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum

Dear SUEPO Members, dear Colleagues,

The Staff Representation – and other interested circles¹ – heavily criticised the Office’s financial study and contested with solid arguments in many publications the alleged existence of a future financial liability of € 3.8 bn. As if this was not enough, Mr Campinos decided to add a “buffer” of € 2 bn to the first alleged gap, leading to an artificial total gap of € 5.8 bn.

The CSC recently published an additional paper on the matter which disclosed that, on top of other shortcomings, the financial study “forgot” to take into account the revenue generated by the National Renewal Fees (NRF) after 2038, whilst it did take into account payment of pensions after that date. Double standards – again.

The CSC estimated in its paper that future NRF after 2038 are in excess of € 6 bn, largely covering the alleged gap of € 5.8 bn, which management has been trying real hard to put in Staff’s head. The king is naked. The explosive character of this new finding may well be what prompted the President to react swiftly to the CSC paper.

In his latest communiqué, Mr Campinos does not contest the fact disclosed by the CSC, but tries to justify it by stating that “it is [...] important to ensure we don't borrow from future potential revenue”. We could agree with him if the NRF were meant to pay future work. It is however not so: the NRF received after 2038 correspond to work already done by the Office before 2038, as they relate to fees for patents granted until 2038.

Mr Campinos further adds: “It is also the management's responsibility to make sure that staff retiring after 2038 - and not just those retiring in the coming years - have full access to their pensions”. We find it quite a bold statement from Mr Campinos who, after 19 months in office, continues to endorse the defective and unfair New Career System which is directly responsible for destroying the pension prospects of recently recruited colleagues, i.e. precisely those who will retire after 2038. This is adding insult to injury. We further recall that Mr Campinos also recently turned down a proposal from

____ ¹ EPI qualified the Financial Study of "dystopian fiction". The Association of EPO Pensioners sent several letters to the AC (the last one is available here). See also the Kluwer Patent Blog here.

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the CSC to reintroduce a tax adjustment on the Defined Benefit part of the pension of colleagues in the New Pension System.

We are shocked by Mr Campinos’ communiqué and wonder whether Mr Campinos should not seriously consider changing advisers. It is management’s responsibility to ensure that the Office is properly managed and not pushed lightly into a social conflict. EPO Staff are clever. Bogus arguments will not convince them.

SUEPO Committees Munich & The Hague

The EPO's management is just faking it. Campinos is nothing but a liar. He very well knows that he is lying through his teeth, but then again he wasn't rewarded with this job for honesty but for complicity. ⬆

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