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Posted in Europe, Patents at 5:30 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Hoping to ‘pacify’ (euphemism for eliminate) voices of reason, the EPO’s management is now crushing unions in order to make an example out of them (intimidation) and proceed with policies that are unequivocally hostile towards European interests (collectively and per member states)
RIGHT at this very moment the EPO‘s management along with British interrogators are bullying a staff union member. Union-busting takes place at the very heart of Europe and to make matters worse, European taxpayers foot the bills. The EPO has hopefully become a laughing stock which will fail to attract talent (many are already leaving, some by killing themselves [1, 2, 3, 4] to the dismay and denial of Benoît Battistelli), at least until the corrupt leadership resigns and there are true reforms, not just a change of logo and/or a Web site redesign. A lot of damage has systematically been done at an organisational level, let alone the controversial (likely corrupt) staff appointments, by Benoît Battistelli. He changed the system over the years and removed oversight. He (re)built the EPO establishment as though it’s modelled after the Kremlin. Staff rights have been reduced to Chinese standards.
“Actions continue at the European Patent Office (EPO),” says SUEPO’s site today (since yesterday). “The next demonstration will take place on Tuesday 15 September, starting at 12.00h from the Pschorrhöfe complex in Munich.
“From there the demonstrators will march to the local Labour Inspectorate, Gewerbeaufsichtsamt (Heßtraße 130).”
Florian Müller has just shed some light on the union-busting that takes place at this moment and he suggests that “EPO employees who are unhappy about the situation should try to find a better way to vote with their feet than taking to the streets of Munich (and other cities) to no avail. They should quit their jobs at the EPO and take jobs in the private economy. Engineering jobs, especially.”
That would hit the corrupt management where it probably hurts most and make it abundantly evident that it failed to manage. It just drove people away (both staff and stakeholders, including businesses). Battistelli and his millionaire (and billionaire) friends are now moving a step closer to global monopolies on ideas [via Laura F. Ercoli] because judging by this update, they are moving towards the UPC before it’s even authorised or approved by the public. A lot of this happens discreetly (in secret) because the public would never overwhelmingly endorse such a move. “At its meeting on 3 September 2015,” says the site, “the Preparatory Committee agreed the draft proposal for the Rules on the European Patent Litigation Certificate and other appropriate qualifications. The Explanatory memorandum and a copy of the Draft Rules are available.”
Was this meeting even announced anywhere? Who attended? Where were the stakeholders? It’s about as undemocratic as these so-called ‘trade’ deals’ (like TPP). Laura F. Ercoli wrote more on the subject, noting that there is still opposition in Italy. To quote: “Italy has officially confirmed it is joining the unitary patent, but there are clear signs that its politicians are still not reconciled with the use of English, French and German only as unitary patent working languages.”
“Italian politicians still not reconciled with English, French and German as sole unitary patent working languages,” Ercoli wrote.
Pushers/lobbists of the UPC already push ahead with a “Preparatory Committee” — whatever and whoever that is — putting in place “Rules for the European Patent Litigation Certificate”.
They are bringing more patent aggression (litigation) to more of Europe, repeating the errors of some countries (or one country) where patent trolls continue to thrive.
As one might expect, patent lawyers’ sites are happy about this and one writes that “The European Patent Litigation Certificate is the qualification that a European Patent Attorney will be able to obtain in order to have the same rights to conduct litigation at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) as a legal practitioner in a member state which is a party to the Unified Patent Court Agreement (according to Article 48 of that Agreement).”
Notice how patent lawyers in Europe are (re)acting. They write about it as though the UPC is already a reality. Even the patent ‘industry’ (lawyers) in the UK prematurely makes buildings/courts for the UPC, before there is even a referendum or any hard confirmation of the UPC becoming inevitable. Perhaps they think that a self-fulfilling prophecy strategy would work. They are broadening litigation scope because it helps massive corporations and their lawyers (Benoît Battistelli’s mates). As some patent maximalists put it the other day, “Chris Benson of HGF – the Unitary Patent Court won’t eliminate forum shopping- the rules and tactics will just change.” Yes, for the worse, for sure!
For those who haven’t been following the UPC (we have written about it for about 7 years, even when it had different names in its prior incarnations), there are simple ways to get up to date. We recommend a restricted access article from IP Watch (Swiss site), composed two months ago. It is titled “Is The European Unitary Patent System On Its Way To A Tepid Start?”
No doubt there are big plans here to expand the scope of patents, enriching lawyers, providing more protectionism to very large corporations, and essentially pass commonwealth or public wealth to very few hands. It’s a heist or a systemic privatisation of knowledge and wealth. The EPO’s actions can be correlated to a lot of the actions taken by ‘trade’ deal ‘negotiators’ (essentially traitors to their population), so no wonder the EPO has become more militant and aggressive against dissent (which it is rightly expecting).
The EPO is now unambiguously engaging in a war (on dissent), dictating to staff and clearly conveying the message that if they are not 100% on board and in line with Battistelli’s vision, there will be dire consequences. Even for a private corporation such a standard would be deemed unthinkable… █
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