Judicial Independence of the members of the Boards of Appeal
IPKat reports on a reaction from a Vice-President of the European Patent Office (EPO) to the letter of Sir Robin Jacob addressed to Mr Jesper Kongstad, Chairman of the Administrative Council of the EPO.This letter protested the treatment of a member of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO, and reiterated the importance of the judicial independence of the Boards of Appeal.
FOSS Patents analyses the on-going situation and considers that "opacity has its limits, and the EPO is simply too important for people like Sir Robin (and so many others) to ignore what is going on there":
"The bottom line is that reform is needed. The Administrative Council has been part of the problem, not part of the solution. Sir Robin and others were too polite to address someone other than the Administrative Council. They should have contacted politicial decision-makers and members of different parliaments. The Administrative Council appears to be the fox in charge of the henhouse, though it would be great if it could prove its critics wrong in the months and years ahead and bring about meaningful change, rather than endorse and rely on meaningless sophistry."