Bonum Certa Men Certa

What EPO Staff Really Thinks

Video download link | md5sum 19a2d85576d04109fd3bcb0514397aa3 SUEPO/Staff Survey 2022 Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: "Preparation for the 2022 fifth edition" of the EPO staff survey has begun; it remains to be seen if the messages get 'lost in the mail' of the ever-so-busy President (Campinos), who is often responsive only when it suits him

THE Central Staff Committee of the EPO wrote to António Campinos last week, asking for permission to conduct a survey and also contact staff (to participate in this survey). This survey was last run 2 years ago and it showed that Campinos had become unpopular and untrustworthy even faster than Benoît Battistelli.

So what will Campinos say to the Central Staff Committee? Time will tell...

In the words of the Central Staff Committee: "On an average three-year rhythm, the Staff Representation runs an EPO-wide Staff Survey with the support of SUEPO and the company Technologia, which is well-known for its expertise in the field of psychosocial risk analysis and prevention. In this open letter, we request that the President facilitates the fifth edition of the survey."

Here's the letter as HTML (later available as plain text and GemText):

Reference: sc22015cl Date: 18/02/2022

European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY Mr António Campinos President of the EPO

By email

Open letter

Fifth edition of the Technologia EPO staff survey

Dear Mr President,

In 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2020 Staff Representation ran an EPO-wide Staff Survey with the support of SUEPO and the company Technologia, which is well known for its expertise in the field of psychosocial risk analysis and prevention.

To maintain an average 3-year rhythm, and in view of the situation during the pandemic in the last two years, it is now time to organise the fifth edition of the staff survey. The timing appears particularly appropriate because this survey would complement the surveys ran by the Office at the beginning of the pandemic in May and October 2020, by providing data on any psychosocial risk in our organisation.

Running the Technologia EPO staff survey again in 2022 will also allow internal benchmarking, i.e., assessing the trend within the EPO by comparing new results with the results of the past surveys (most of the questions are identical from one edition to the next). It is in the interest of all stakeholders, management, and staff, to know exactly how psychosocial risks evolved within the Office, and to provide these very valuable data particularly at the outcome of two years pandemic.

The union SUEPO has again kindly accepted to be our partner in this project. Nevertheless, to facilitate the logistics we request that you authorise the dispatch of individual survey access codes to all staff members at their @epo.org email address.

We trust that you will grant this request to use EPO channels to facilitate this survey as was done in the past. We ask for the courtesy of an answer by the end of February 2022.




We look forward to hearing from you soon and remain at your disposal for any further information you may require.

Yours sincerely,

Alain Dumont Chairman of the Central Staff Committee



The letter and the context are discussed in the video above.

Amidst industrial action it is expected that things will worsen for Campinos. As recently noted in relation to The Hague (TH) and Munich (MU), "in two independent polls the staff in MU and in TH overwhelmingly indicated (93% MU and 93% TH) that they are not satisfied and don’t agree with the path the present administration is on. Also an overwhelming number of staff present in those GA's indicated (83% TH and 89% MU) that they would be inclined to participate in actions lead by the union."

Who runs the Office? Not scientists but litigation fanatics and their henchmen. Soft-spoken scientists will need to become just as loud as monopolists, their lobbyists, liars, and lawyers.

"When asked by Ars, the EPO's spokesperson mentioned the imminent arrival of the unitary patent system as an important reason for revising the EPO's internal rules..."

--Dr. Glyn Moody



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