20/06/2014

Letter of the lawyers of SUEPO addressed to the Administrative Council

William Bourdon, Prof. Liesbeth Zegveld, Javier Ledesma and Alexander Holtz addressed a letter to the delegations of the Administrative Council of the EPO.

18/06/2014

IPKat Blog, Strikes and demonstrations forbidden at the EPO

The IPKat Blog has published a post on 18.06.2014 reporting on Mr Battistelli's interference with the right to strike and demonstrate, and the suggestion from the staff representation that Transparency International makes an assessment on the EPO's integrity.

18/06/2014

President refuses mediation proceedings

The Munich Employment Court proposed mediation proceedings in the ongoing dispute, but Mr Battistelli refused.Full details are available here.

17/06/2014

Governance of the EPO - Document submitted to the Administration Council

The document CA/xxxx/14 was drafted for submission to the Administrative Council's session of March 2014.
In this document, the Central Staff Committee turns to the Administrative Council as the supervisory body ultimately responsible with overseeing the European Patent Office for support with re-establishing a proper balance in the Organisation’s governance and to restoring a better working environment within the Office.

Mr Battistelli refused to transmit the document to the Administrative Council.

15/06/2014

President Battistelli endangers the European Patent System

On the occasion of the upcoming celebration of the Inventor of the Year,SUEPO asks if the EPO has a reason to celebrate.(English,German)

05/06/2014

DG3 partiality saga continues

Press interest in the impartiality debate followingR 0019/12continues, with apiece on awapatent's blog about stricter ethics in IP and yet another take ontheconflict-of-interest between VP3's management role and his chairmanship of the EBAover at EPLAW Patent Blog.

05/06/2014

WIPR: "EPO facing more strike action"

A few days ago, World IP Review published an article entitledEPO facing more strike action; yesterday, they followed it up withthe news that the President refuses to let the strike ballot go ahead.

03/06/2014

Unified Patent Court and the independence of the Boards of Appeal

The IPKat reports on thesurprising growth of support for Europe's Unified Patent Court.

Meanwhile,the EPO's Wikipedia entry has been updatedto take account of the recentdevelopments with regard to the independence of the members of the Boards of Appeal.

27/05/2014

IPKat Blog : More news of EPO unrest reaches the IPKat

The IPKat Blog has published a post (printable version) reporting on the latest developments regarding the problems of governance at the EPO. First is the call for a strike named the Unity Initiative, and the second is the stripping of the chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of his administrative functions following decisionR 0019/12.

23/05/2014

Landmark DG3 decision on partiality

In interlocutory decisionR 0019/12, the Chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (at the same timeVice-President of DG3, VP 3) had to be replaced by his alternatebecause a party's suspicion of partiality was found to be objectivelyjustified since VP 3 was too closely involved in the Office'sadministration, e.g. in the MAC or in the GAC.

The story has been picked up by German legal-issues website juve.de, the French Blog du Droit Européen and the EPLAW Patent Blog