22/11/2015
IPKat Blog, "Eponia: Land of Suspense and Suspensions"
IPKat reports that the Investigative Unit of the European Patent Office paid an unexpected visit to two SUEPO officials in the Hague, who were taken away for an interrogation. On their return, they were badly shaken and required medical treatment and have been on sick leave since.
On 17 November, three further SUEPO officials, who knew they were being investigated for alleged disciplinary offences, were suspended from service and banned from the premises. The Office says, with a perfectly straight face, that "it is not targeting the union". The union has actually been decapitated.
Within two hours of the news of the suspension spreading, some 2,000 employees had organised themselves into a demonstration. The Munich police closed off Erhardstrasse with almost no notice to facilitate this demonstration, and Merpel’s very many eye-witness correspondents tell her that the most remarkable fact of this large attendance was that it contained a lot of new faces, particularly at Director level.