Europe's second-largest institution is now, in effect, operating like a candy store

Summary: Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos have turned Europe's largest patent office into a "production line" (for monopolies) instead of a patent office; staff is not amused

THE Local Staff Committee The Hague (LSCTH) has issues the following statement, which is disseminated among staff and is worth reproducing for the general public to fully understand the severity of the crisis. The EPO's Web site has said nothing for a long time, instead touting Germany's approval of illegal and unconstitutional patent courts in clear defiance of the Vienna convention. Here's what life is like for EPO insiders:

All hands on deck! Management back to production line due to unrealistic targets

Dear colleagues,
 
We wish to warmly welcome our line management back to the production line!
 
Indeed, due to the EPO having set targets that are unrealistic considering the dwindling staff numbers from under-recruitment^[1] the following measures have been taken:
 
- project-involvement of examiners has been halted for them to return to full Search & Examination;
- team managers will have their management time budget reduced from 30% to 20% from mid-2023 at a time when the Bringing Teams Together project will be requiring more of their involvement;
- directors are being trained to give academies to newcomers and will also be asked to produce search and examination;
-…
 
And this is not to mention the unabated – often double digit - target increases, the reduced time budget given for opposition work, the pressure put on sick or fragile staff to come back to the production line, etc...

The new measures are likely to provide a short-term solution and look like a rather desperate attempt to get all hands on deck to keep the sinking ship afloat.
 
The following questions come to mind:

• how will relentless target increases help to improve patent quality which seems to be a recurring topic for the  users of the EPO^[2] ?

• why is the EPO not recruiting more:

  
  
  

  • is it because it is unable to due to an unattractive work package?

  • or is it because our productivity is supposed to jump up when we start using AI tools to do Search, Examination, Opposition and Formalities work? If this is the case, when exactly are such tools going to be fully functional? 

• how come the time of line managers can suddenly be freed up in order for them to join the production line:

  
  
  

  • is it because their management activities were not taking up their working time, meaning this actually represented unused overhead staff costs?

  • or will managers have to do search, examination and opposition on their personal time? 

• how are these solutions in any way going to be sustainable in terms of keeping the workload under control in the medium and long term? 

• will being in an examining division with one’s hierarchical superiors not be a conflict of interest? In other terms: will examiners who are supposed to double check the work of their director (or even COO?) – who have decision power on many aspects of their professional lives, and who are pushing ever increasing targets - not have an incentive to turn a blind eye to non-compliances?

[...]

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[1] See also “Depletion of the Workforce: Failure to recruit under the current administration”, CSC, 20.02.2023

[2] Focus on quality over quantity, in-house urge EPO, ManagingIP, 08.12.2022, Concerns about deteriorating patent quality at the EPO, Kluwer Patent, 11.02.2023

This is a long-in-the-making crisis that the union has warned about for years. Are EPO stakeholders and EU politicians paying any attention? Are large political parties in German rewarded financially to look the other way? They now try to usher in an ever bigger travesty in the patent court system. Making a travesty to cover up another travesty is a sort of "Ponzi scheme" in the legal deficit sense. Germany is becoming a dictatorship again and its neighbour to the west is an accomplice. ⬆