HAVING just published some infographics about the EPO's inability to recruit -- an ongoing crisis that started under Benoît Battistelli and persists under António Campinos -- let's look at a new publication from EPO staff. It's dated 5 days ago.
"The predictions are becoming reality and true observations (or facts) aren't possible to cover up."Not only are examiners being pressured to allow European software patents; they're pressured to help fake "production" in general. As a result, the presumed validity of European Patents suffers and Europe as a whole will suffer.
Here's the full publication as HTML/plain text/GemText:
Zentraler Personalausschuss Central Staff Committee Le Comité Central du Personnel
Munich,17/02/2023 sc23020cp
Depletion of the Workforce
Failure to recruit under the current administration
Dear Colleagues,
Despite it only being February, we are already facing a surge of the ever-present production pressure. The message from above is that we are behind target, and must all dig deep to make up the deficit. Many colleagues are having the urgency pressed upon them from their line managers, with the message that we just aren’t individually doing enough.
But what is the root cause of this problem? Is it that we are all idle workers with free time in the work day where we can pick up the pace? Or is there another reason? This paper looks at how the workforce numbers have developed over recent years, and further visualises the Offices plans for future recruitment. The findings unfortunately do not bring comfort – we are far from experiencing the worst of the production pressure.
The dwindling examiner workforce The graph below shows how the patent applications have risen since 2012, and further shows the prediction of the Office for the coming years. In stark contrast to this trend is the decrease in the number of examiners, since the peak in 2017. The plan of the Office for future recruitment of examiners is also indicated, illustrating that not only do they currently see no issue with these opposing trends, but that they intend to continue in this direction. This means only one thing for the examiners that remain – more pressure to produce, and less time to dedicate to each file. This has also not gone unnoticed outside of the Office. The IPQC has sent a letter to the EPO highlighting their concerns regarding the lack of time allotted to examiners for search and examination and the deteriorating quality.
Comparing the figures in the graph for 2022 with 2012, it can be seen that the number of examiners is practically equivalent, but the number of incoming patent applications has risen by 30%. The Office often touts the improvements in the IT tools as a driving factor of the increase in “efficiency”. However, from the perspective of the users, the replacement IT tools are experienced as merely a new user interface that we must become familiar with immediately, with similar functionality as the old ones. They certainly do not enable us to think quicker so that we can read and analyse documentation any faster than before.
No better for formality officers The graph below shows the evolution of the number of formality officers from 2018 (prior data is not comparable due to a reorganisation). The situation is certainly no better for these colleagues. In fact, there has been no recruitment at all of formality officers since 2019. In this area, the numbers have fallen rapidly, around 12% since 2018, just 4 years. The plan for 2023 is also for zero recruitment, with some potential for recruitment thereafter. However, the planning still foresees a reduction in formality officers for every single year until 2027.
Low recruitment – choice or consequence? It is not clear whether the stark lack of recruitment is solely due to a choice of the current management, or whether it is also impacted by the difficulty to recruit considering the changes to our employment conditions, particularly the 2018 introduction of fixed-term contracts for all new staff. This job insecurity, which is imposed upon recruits for 10 long years for a role that is a lifetime commitment, undoubtedly impairs the EPOs ability to recruit highly qualified scientists and engineers.
The Office do hint at the difficulties they are facing, in that they have turned to headhunting in response to the current highly competitive job market. Halting recruitment completely for more than two years, and then hiring fewer examiners than leavers for a prolonged period raises questions as to whether the administrations’ description of it being a “cautious planning approach” and a “prudent recruitment policy” are really appropriate. This decision to completely freeze recruitment in more favourable times brings to mind the idiom “make hay while the sun shines”, but it seems we’ve waited until it’s raining. The situation of the aging population at the Office, in that the average age of staff has risen from 45 in 2015 to almost 50 in 2021, raises even more concerns about the recruitment policy. Because of our unbalanced age pyramid, the number of expected retirements rise rapidly year on year, yet we depend upon experienced colleagues to train the new recruits.
What should we do about it? What should we do when faced with mounting pressure from our line managers to do more? One thing we certainly should not do is to work any more hours than contracted, a possibility that becomes all the more possible with the blurring of the physical boundaries between work and home. This is not a short-term issue that can be overcome in a few weeks or months of toil. This is a conscious decision of the administration to test the limits of the workforce by pushing towards a skeleton crew, and working under high pressure conditions for prolonged periods of time can lead to chronic stress. By (over-)achieving the goals set for us we simply push the bar higher. There must be a limit, and we have reached it, and should show that with our actions.
There is one simple answer to the Office being behind target and not managing to deal with incoming workload, and that is something that is not within our ability to fix – more recruitment. We should keep in mind the idea that “failure to prepare on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part”. It is not our job to fill the void that management planned for. But it is our job to collectively set boundaries of how much of our time, effort, and energy we are willing to give to the unsatiable requesters.
The Central Staff Committee
