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Posted in Europe, Patents, Rumour at 9:08 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Words heard through the grapevine of the European Patent Office (EPO), where staff is overwhelmingly against the managers and some people, including high-profile staff, add to the exodus
TECHRIGHTS has repeatedly advised readers to contact their national delegates regarding EPO abuses. We also suggest speaking to European politicians, “but the question is whether the Ministers are going to do anything about it,” one reader of ours said. Well, some of them are increasingly vocal on these matters (we gave an example earlier today) and there are also interventions behind the scenes (which we are aware of).
“Minnoye, who´s regarded as a totally incompetent VP, is hated by the directors, too…” –AnonymousThis site’s involvement in these matters began a long time ago, but mostly focused on software patents in Europe. Half a decade ago I wrote to EBoA on the subject. Software patents are part of a broader issue which we often call patent maximalism. This includes GMO/seed monopolies (e.g. patents on plants), artificially high pricing on life-saving medicine (where research is often funded by taxpayers anyway) and other such issues that brought a lot of EPO critics to this kind of campaigning in the first place.
Abuses by the EPO against applicants and against EPO staff is something we only became better aware of in recent years. Staff unions too have been critical of patent maximalism; maybe that’s why (amongst other reasons) the patent maximalists cannot tolerate them and Battistelli is trying to crush them. “I cannot believe he´s going to finish his term,” one reader told us about him. This reader works for Battistelli. We learned that “the rumour about his leaving was spread even by one of the directors [...] if Battistelli falls, the whole bunch will fall [...] Minnoye, who´s regarded as a totally incompetent VP, is hated by the directors, too [...] If you could read the Gazette you would see how many people are voting with their feet [...] a lot of staff retire before time and it´s not only examiners but also directors and a PD (principal director) [...] even the Brussels man has retired although he was relatively young” (we've mentioned the opening here).
“I can´t believe they employed somebody like Topic, with his skeletons in the cupboard…” –AnonymousThis reader added that “we started employing people with Afghanistan experience now [...] there was also a UK guy with Afghanistan experience [...] in his CV he wrote he spoke: Serbien, Croatian and Bosnian [...] which is rubbish [as] there is no Bosnian language [...] I can´t believe they employed somebody like Topic, with his skeletons in the cupboard [...] they´ll go down all together [as Battistelli] cannot survive years of negative publicity [...] there are too many rumours about him [...] that he will prolong here, that he will move to Paris as president of the UPC [...] the first thing the press should write is about the secret contract [as] it appears that the AC is signing the budget without knowing his bonus and only Kongstad [Chairman] knows about it [...] he should be forced to publish his bonus (allegedly over 1 million – 1.4, 1.5) [...] it´s enough for the newspapers to continue writing each time that his contract is secret.”
So much for ‘public’ body… neither public nor European. █
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