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Posted in Europe, Patents at 8:06 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
> Image: Heiko Maas
Heiko Maas of the Merkel government served to reinforce the idea that it was in the back pockets of Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos over the past decade
Summary: Without admonishing any individual in particular, as there was at least some written and verbal communication (the other two who claim to be interested in SLAPP just completely stonewalled), we finally share our findings about Germany’s passive role in enabling the EPO’s abuses
Now that the election is over nobody would accuse us of trying to ‘meddle’ or influence the outcome. Regardless, just for the record, I’ve long supported Angela Merkel and the EU. That’s hardly a secret. When it comes to EPO abuses, however, Merkel’s complicity by inaction/silence seems to be consistent (also consistent with her objection to Biden’s and others’ vaccine patent waiver proposal). Merkel herself is a scientist, not a lawyer, so why is she a patent maximalist even when people’s lives depend on access to medicines (or vaccines)? When it’s so darn obvious that artificial scarcity and patent pools are design to drive up the price and deprive poor people of vaccination? To the point where these things are pushed onto rich children (who hardly face risk for their lives anyway) instead of elderly people in poor countries? Because the latter are a lot less profitable…
Anyway, this post isn’t about patent policies and the issues I’ve raised are limited/related purely to freedom of the press (it seems like FTI Consulting, the EPO’s PR firm, might be lobbying these politicians, based on what I heard). For the sake of transparency but at the same time in the interests of privacy I’ve decided to share my written (non-verbal) correspondence with an office belonging to Merkel’s grand coalition. EPO insiders, who can still remember the role of Heiko Maas, won’t be surprised by the outcome. In short, it feels like a total waste of time. They care more about the image of the EPO and themselves; they’re thus unwilling to rock the boat.
I started with this message:
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> Dear ████████ ████████,
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> I found your name in a report about SLAPP in Europe. Over the past 7+ years I’ve been regularly exposing corruption in Europe’s second-largest institution, the EPO, providing the occasional leaked proof and reaching the attention of most EPO staff (about 7,000 of them). I wrote about 3,500 articles about the EPO over the years, but the EPO blocks my site and has hired several British law firms to threaten me with frivolous lawsuits. They also spied on me. I’m not alone, either. This is part of a vicious campaign of censorship. The EPO has gone to great lengths to intimidate and silence those who expose very serious corruption, both internally and externally. Oddly enough, the EPO enjoys diplomatic immunity, which it is happy to exploit, and its corruption has already spilled over to EU authorities (the EPO and EU are otherwise separate, but there’s a cross-pollination in the staff sense). A lawyer that I spoke to earlier this month suggested that I reach out to you. Would you be willing to help? These EPO matter impact every single European citizen, but they’re under-reported due to systematic muzzling.
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> Regards,
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> Roy
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Them:
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> ████████ ███████ wrote on 22/09/2021 17:10: Dear Mr Schestowitz,
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> On behalf of ██████ ██████ I thank you for your Email. Would it be possible to have a phone call so I can understand better what the situation is?
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> Kind regards,
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Me:
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> Hi, thank you for getting back to me.
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> Yes, discussing the situation over the phone would probably be beneficial to both of us. My phone number at home is █████████████████████.
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> Kind regards,
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Them:
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> ████████ █████████ wrote on 23/09/2021 09:03: I would call you today at 14h00 if that works for you as well?
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After speaking for over half an hour I obeyed the amicable request for previous questions on the matter and wrote:
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> Hi █████████,
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> Regarding questions to the EC:
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> https://suepo.org/european_parliament_parliamentary_qunda_epotif_and_audit_governance/d-47460
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> There are also older ones (many) including
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> https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2015-008382_EN.html?redirect
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> Thanks for chasing this, do keep in touch please.
>
That was on the 23rd of September, almost 10 days ago. Reply? None.
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> I pushed again around 5 days later:
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> I know you have been busy with elections and holidays (you alluded to that on our last call), but can we have a follow-up call and discuss progressing SLAPP discussion wrt EPO in Munich?
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Several days have passed and not even an acknowledgement. Nothing. There’s no excuse for that. Not a valid one. 10 days is more than enough.
It is starting to look like the bottom line is, German/EU officials are unwilling to do anything to stop the EPO’s practice of SLAPP against the media/journalism/bloggers. At best, they’re willing to listen; but that’s not the same as actually tackling the issue. █
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