Frankfurter Rundschau comments on the divisions between the staff and the management of the EPO.

The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) which represents more than 265 unions, and the Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging (FNV), the largest union in the Netherlands, have sent a letter to Mr Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

The letter recalls that the judgment of Dutch Court of Appeal gave explicit instructions to the EPO which the EPO decided to ignore by raising an illicit immunity of execution objection: "breaches of fundamental workers' rights on the Dutch territory are a first serious embarassment for the Dutch government and that challenging the respect of these rights side by side with an obviously ill-run international organisation before the highest Court of the Netherlands is an even worse embarassment."

A copy of the letter was sent to the Dutch Foreign Office and Ministry of Economy, the Ambassadors of the 27 EU Member States in The Hague, Ver.Di (Berlin) and USF (Brussels).

Translations are available in French and German.

Members of the Dutch House of Parliament (Tweede Kamer SP and PvDA) have proposed a motion (archive) concerning adherence by the EPOrg to international legislation. The motion was adopted on 15 October 2015:

Marc Tarabella, a Belgian member of the European Parliament has posed questions to the European Commission under the title "Graves problèmes de gouvernance à l'Office européen des brevets (OEB)".
Translations in English, German and Dutch are available by scrolling through the document.

JUVE reports on the results of the user survey concerning the planned reform of the Boards of Appeals:

JUVE publishes an interview with Siegfried Broß, a former judge of the German Constitutional Court, who considers that the European Patent Organisation suffers from structural deficiencies requiring a conference of the Ministers of its member states:

"The disciplinary procedure against a member of the Boards of Appeal is unconstitutional [...] it does not respect presumption of innocence and [...] was initiated by the President of the EPO [...] The publication of discrediting allegations against the accused are totally unacceptable. [...] The Enlarged Boards of Appeal should refuse the request from the Administrative Council and stop the procedure in order to denounce the fundamental abuse. [...] An organisational separation of the Boards of Appeal from the management of the EPO should be seriously considered by the Administrative Council as it is necessary for the Unitary Patent."

This document provides a non-exhaustive list of some articles, blog posts or videos published in December 2018 (sorted in reverse chronological order, not necessarily by relevance). Latest additions are highlighted in yellow:

This document provides a non-exhaustive list of some articles, blog posts or videos published in September 2019 (sorted in reverse chronological order, not necessarily by relevance). Latest additions are highlighted in yellow:

This document provides a non-exhaustive list of some articles, blog posts or videos published in January 2020 (sorted in reverse chronological order, not necessarily by relevance). Latest additions are highlighted in yellow:

 

Other press articles published related to Work/Labour - UPC - Unitary Patent - ILOAT etc.,