During the last decade the EPO has increasingly hired contract staff.This practice has been criticizedby the staff representation ofthe EPO for circumventing its statutory rights for consultation andfor putting the staff concerned in a legal vacuum. Following an internal appeal,the ILO Tribunal has instructedthe Office in July 2010 to submit itsout-sourcing policy for statutory consultation within 60 days. This has not yet happened.

In the mean time two external staff members whose contracts were not prolongedfiled a complaint against the intermediary (MBA) at a German court.Further information can be found in articles that appeared inSpiegel andSZ.

A hearing at the second instance, the Landesarbeitsgericht München, took place on 18 May.The hearing lasted less than an hour. The presiding judge, Mr. Taubert, exerted extremepressure on the complainants to settle the dispute rather than pursue their complaints.When this was refused the judge dismissed one of the complaints without giving any reasonsand without hearing the complainant. Judge Taubert then turned to the second complainantand repeated his question whether the complainant would not rather settle. Visibly irritatedby the continued refusal, he then stated that in this case her actual employment relationwhen working in the EPO could have been dependent and would require further investigation.A second hearing is to be scheduled to which two key witnesses from the EPO will be invited.

Another complaint concerning the employment practices of the EPO is pendingat the European Court of Human Rights (see FTP).

The Administrative Council met on 29th & 30th March in The Hague.

The agenda can be found here.

The discussions of the first day centered around the (confidential) DeloitteFinance Study commissioned by the President of the EPO, Mr. Battistelli.

A topic of interest on the second day was CA/24/11,the first report of the newly established Audit Committee. In a shortintervention (English version,German version), the staff representation expressed its appreciationfor the work done by the Audit Committee and the positions expressed in the report,in particular concerning the necessity of a Code of Conduct and an anti-fraud policysupported by an effective whistle-blowing policy.

For employees of international organisations their employer is at the same timelegislator and judge. In aninterview with SUEPOMr. Matthew Parish comments on this situation.

Mr. Parish is an International lawyer specializing in sovereign and international dispute resolution.He is also the author of the book"Mirages of international justice" (preorder at Amazon)

The series of SUEPO interviewscontinues with an interview withJesper Kongstad, Chairman of the Administrative Counciland Director-General and CEO of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office.

From the interview:"A more personal goal for me is that working with the new President of the Office, we will be able to create a much closer cooperationbetween the AC and the management of the Office, between the AC and staff, and indirectly betweenmanagement and staff..."

The Administrative Council of the EPO met on 14 and 15 December in TheHague. The agenda (CA/146/10) was dominated by financial issuessuch as the budget for 2011 and questions concerning the financing of staffpensions and health insurance. Two documents were alsopresented (CA/155/10 and CA/156/10) which reported on the resultsof staff surveys held during the last months of the previous presidency.The Administrative Council noted with approval that discussions between thenew administration and the staff representation about how to address theseissues are ongoing.

In the series of SUEPO interviewsPeter Drahos takes a critical view atthe functioning of the global patent system.Peter Drahos is Professor in Law and Director of the Centre for the Governanceof Knowledge and Development at the Australian National University Chair inIntellectual Property at Queen Mary, University of London. His latest book entitled"The Global Governance of Knowledge" is based on a detailed study of the patentsystems of forty-five rich and poor countries.

A citation from the interview:"The challenge for patent offices in the 21st century is whether they willtake on more of a leadership role in networks made up of civil society,health departments, competition authorities and patent offices becomingchampions of a people's social contract or whether they will spend theirtime handing out customer satisfaction surveys to their multinationalclients and hoping for lots of ticks of approval.The latter, I predict, will do little for the morale of their examiners."

As reported previously, the staff representation at the EPOhas criticized the Organisation for not respecting the rights of external staff employed withinthe Organsation. This week the staff representation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO)issued a press release in which it also demands decentworking conditions for their colleagueson flexible contracts. SUEPO sent a letter of support to the ILO Staff Union.

The Administrative Council of the EPO met from 26 to 28 October in TheHague. The agenda (CA/106/10 Rev. 1) was relatively short. The appointmentsof new Vice-Presidents for DG1 (search and examination) and for DG5 (legalmatters) were amongst the more important internal matters. The successfulcandidates are Mr. Minnoye (BE) and Mr. Lutz (DE).Topics ofinterest for the external stakeholders include the amendments to theImplementing Regulations to Rule 71 EPC (CA/81/10 Rev. 1) and Rule 161 EPC(CA/134/10 Rev. 1 f).As expected, the proposals were approved by the Council.

Over at the Social Science Research Network, Matthew Parish has a fascinatingessayon the problem of accountability of international organisations. Political oversight, Parish suggests,is generally weak, yet most international organisations seem to operate in a legal vacuum as well, withwide-ranging immunity from national legal proceedings. Parish's analysis concludes that the legalimmunities enjoyed by international organisations are in need of review.

Bruno van Pottelsberghe's latest paper, "The Quality Factor in Patent Systems" puts forward a new methodology that aims atcomparing quality across patent systems.

Quality is defined as the extent to which patent systems comply with their own patentability conditionsin a transparent way. This definition makes it possible to gauge quality using a two-layer framework:the first layer is composed of the legal standards that describe the patentability conditions of anational patent system (subject-matter, novelty, inventiveness, fees). The second layer is characterisedby the operational design put in place to meet those legal standards.