There are also skeletons in the closet

Don't ever mention how the EPO sponsored Lukashenko (true story by the way!) or the President will have a tantrum and start SCREAMING, cursing at everybody in sight (even telling the F*** word to female professions)

Summary: The EPO never recovered from Benoît Battistelli; his French friend continues to vandalise the Office and, in the process, many invalid patents are being granted (which is probably what this vandalism was all along geared towards)

THIS is a roundup of a number of EPO issues, as explained in the words of EPO staff, i.e. insiders. We'll try to keep this concise.

Our goal here is (as always before!) to save the EPO from the dangerous cult of patent maximalists. One must respect the original purpose of patents, not turn patents into some kind of religion.

"In the EPO, low-paid scabs seem to be the "way to go" -- people too poor and financially stressed to form or join unions, let alone question demands from perceived authority."Earlier today the Staff Union of the EPO (SUEPO) linked to a new blog post entitled "Deteriorating patent quality: EPO under fire, management is not impressed". The way it was covered gave too much of a platform to lies from António Campinos and his Welsh mouthpiece, even some of the earlier comments smack of AstroTurfing (it's a blog of Team UPC after all!), but that's still better than not even a mere mention of the problem, which is bigger and broader than European software patents. A decision on the EPO’s NO-Career System is expected this Friday (less than a day from now) and we shall see if any patent-centric blog will bother to report the outcome. IP Kat suffered another blow recently and then it did a puff piece about the UPC, in effect celebrating something illegal. The International Labour Organisation's court (ILO's Administrative Tribunal) deals with labour issues, not constitutional issues, but it's expected that the UPC as a whole will be challenged in court some time later this year or next year.

In other news, LSCTH is urging colleagues at the EPO to pursue what they were promised and are legally entitled to. "Education allowance below threshold" is at stake, so they wrote: "Dear Colleagues, As you may know, the Education Allowance Reform contains many unfair aspects. Certainly, one of them is the threshold of 500€ set in the new regulations for receiving the reimbursement of the school fees within the provisions of the education allowance according to Article71.II.5 Serv.Regs: “The direct education costs, comprising enrolment, tuition and capital fees, incurred for pre-school, primary and secondary education that exceed EUR 500 per academic year will be reimbursed.” Therefore, while the main argument put forth by the administration for implementing the reform was fairness, those that were costing the least to the EPO were excluded. Moreover, while pretending to include nationals in the reform, the administration de facto and silently excluded most of them. This aspect, however, not only excludes most of the nationals but any colleague who chooses a national school for their child(ren), as these schools are generally below the threshold. [...] We will continue demanding that the Administration provides fairness and involves the Staff representation in revising the terms of the education allowance reform."

So basically parents who work for the EPO have long suffered hardship because EPO management did not honour basic obligations. Concerns were moreover raised about the schools themselves, as we noted here before.

Then they wonder why almost nobody wants to work for the EPO?

There are more issues discussed in the SUEPO TH [The Hague] digest for June 2023. Here's a slightly redacted version of it:

Staff committee TH elections Thank you for voting in the Staff committee elections! The participation rate was exceptionally high [...] We wish to warmly thank the Election Committee which carried out the whole process. After 9 years, the organisation of the elections has once again been entrusted entirely to an Election Committee nominated by the General Assembly of all staff. This stands in stark contrast to the previous two elections, which were organised by the EPO management and were deemed to violate the freedom of association by the ILOAT (see Judgment 4482) after a legal challenge led by SUEPO.

Bringing Teams Together The survey run by SUEPO TH relating to the “Bringing teams together” has been finalized [...] In a nutshell: colleagues feel that the “bringing teams together” project is reducing engagement and tearing apart the sense of belonging to the organisation. We wish to remind the EPO management that there is plenty of space in the SHELL building for our colleagues who need an allocated individual office space in order to work to the best of their abilities. And we would like to remind colleagues to put their needs in writing to their managers [...] if their workplace for a day does not comply with “the highest standards of cleanliness and hygiene” promised by management.

Spread the word, yes but transparently and honestly The EPO has been asking for your help to recruit new colleagues by calling to spread the word across our networks. We believe that for a successful and long-lasting working relationship, it is important to be transparent and honest from the very beginning. We therefore encourage you to help the Office in their endeavour by adding all the information the Office has omitted, for example how the EPO has the power to change the employment contract (i.e. codex service regulations) at will and does not hesitate to use that power to the detriment of staff while generally ignoring the input of social partners. [...]

The Staff Union of the EPO has helped show that unions can, in some cases, combat serious corruption. It's no wonder that the corrupt seek to abolish unions. In the EPO, low-paid scabs seem to be the "way to go" -- people too poor and financially stressed to form or join unions, let alone question demands from perceived authority. ⬆