In its 120th session the Tribunal delivered a total of 90 judgments, of which 45 cases involving the EPO. Of the EPO cases, only 5 cases were won at least partially by the complainants. Of the remaining cases 11 were summarily dismissed. The result is marginally better for the complainants than that of the previous session but remains extremely poor. Moreover, none of the cases that were won seriously inconveniences the EPO.

The present paper discusses selected cases and the overall implications.

Pierre-Yves Le Borgn', a French Member of Parliament, made an intervention at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 25 June 2015.

Mr Le Borgn' explained the rollback of fundamental rights at the European Patent Office (EPO) and referred to the Report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights from Mr José María Beneyto, Accountability of international organizations for human rights violations:

"I make appeal to the Member States, from whom the European Patent holds its legitimacy, to act, because now is the time to act."

The intervention is available on YouTube. A transcript is available here.
Translations inEnglish,German andDutch are available by scrolling through the document.

Pierre Yves Le Borgn', a French Representative in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, has initiated a declaration co-signed by 82 Members of Parliament, including four of the five main political group leaders.

The declaration can be found on the Assembly's website in English (archive) andFrench (archive).Translations are also available in German and Dutch.

In his blog, Pierre Yves Le Borgn' announces his intention tosubject the deficient governance of the EPO to a review by the Venice Commisssion (The European Commission for Democracy through Law) which could make suitable recommendations to find a solution.

The Münchner Merkur reports on the demonstration of EPO staff on 24 June 2015 in front of the ISAR building in Munich:

"The regularity of the protests by the staff at the European Patent Office brings back memories of the Leipzig Monday demonstrations in the days of EastGermany, and, like them, this is a matter of basic rights. Large sections of the 7000 employees accuse their most senior executive, Office President Benoît Battistelli, ofcontinuing abuse of power and of using East German methods - accusations he strenuously denies."

"The Office itself is stonewalling. Disciplinary matters are strictly confidential, and that means strictly no comment as to whether and how monitoring iscurrently being carried out. Insiders have reason to believe that a new guideline regarding video surveillance is in the making."

Translations in English,French andDutch can be found by scrolling through the document.

The social conflict at the European Patent Office continues. The working climate has become toxic for both individual staff in the EPO and for the broader functioning of this European institution as a whole.

An overview of the latest events and an analysis of the current situation can be found in this publication.

Ms Bergot, Principal Director of Human Resources of the EPO, has scheduled new meetings of the working group on "union recognition" between the administration and union officials. However, Mr Kongstad (Chairman of the Administrative Council) has still not reacted to the letter sent by SUEPO Central concerning the investigation of staff representatives and/or union executives during trilateral talks.

Pending Mr Kongstad's written answer, as also reiteratered in the Council meeting of 24/25 June 2015, SUEPO regrets it must decline the invitation at present. Of course, SUEPO is looking forward to developments making the resumption of meaningful discussions possible.

A letter of reply sent to Ms Bergot can be found here.

FOSS Patents reports on the demonstration of more than 1000 EPO employees on 24 June 2015 in front of the ISAR buidling in Munich.
Florian Mueller also comments on the intervention of Axelle Lemaire, French State Secretary for Digital Economy, who used her keynote speech at the European Inventor Award ceremony of 11 June 2015 as an opportunity to comment on the social conflict in the EPO and express her government's concerns for the rights of EPO staff:

"It's really unusual in two regards. One, this speech was given at the European Inventor Award ceremony, an event at which the EPO wanted to celebrate itself. I consider that event a sad thing.In my opinion, a patent office that promotes in any way (by this I also mean the USPTO with its Steve Jobs patents exhibition) patents that are or could still be used in litigation miserably fails to be neutral and its leadership should be replaced.But for the EPO's leadership, that event is meant to be a day of joy and self-aggrandizement.The fact that a politician would touch onthe delicate issue of the EPO labor conflict and human rights issues on such an occasion gives those remarks about ten times more weight than if they had been made in daily business.Two, Mr. Battistelli is French and the national governments of officials of international organizations are usually the last ones to withdraw their support."

Elektronik Tidningen, a Swedish website, has also reported on the demonstration.

SUEPO organises on Wednesday 24 June 2015 a demonstration in Munich in front of the EPO Isar building (Bob-van-Benthem-Platz 1) starting at 12.30h.

The main purpose of the demonstration is to make it clear to the Members of the Administration that investigating your "social partner" with the private security firm Control Risks is not the best way to renew "social dialogue".

Our claims are still the same: respect for Rule of Law, for Freedom of Association and Honest Negotiation of our work package. But we do not forget the mission of the EPO as a public service created for the benefit of the citizens of Europe. That is why we continue to defend high quality searches and examinations as well as transparency.

IPKat reports on the European Inventor Award 2015 ceremony which took place on 11 June 2015 in Paris.Axelle Lemaire, French State Secretary for Digital Economy used her keynote speech as an opportunity to comment on the social conflict in the EPO and her government's concerns for the rights of EPO staff. She said:

"Innovation is an imperative, an economic imperative. And what's true for technology is also true for public innovation, modes of governance, and social innovation. Under this heading, while it’s not the object of our meeting this morning, the French government knows of the social difficulties that are expressed within the EPO and in this regard, the Office has an exemplary duty of absolute transparency in the rights of employees working there."

The video of the event is hosted on the European Commission A/V services and shows the full speech in French (starting from 109:40 for the criticisms).
Les Echos, the French newspaper acting as communication partner for the Office, initially released a report of the event including Ms Lemaire's criticisms, but later removed them.

De Volkskrant(printable version) reports that "SUEPO is taking the Dutch government to court.In February, the Court of Appeal ruled that the EPO in Rijswijk is breaching human rights. Despite this, the Dutch government has not intervened, whileSUEPO is of the opinion that it should."

"In response to clarification requested by Members of Parliaments, Minister Van der Steur (Justice) wrote'Enforcement of the ruling would be in conflict with the Kingdom's obligations underinternational law'."

"The Dutch government has a financial interest that means it won't come down too hard on the EPO.The economy does well from the establishment of international organisations on Dutch soil.In Rijswijk, the EPO is currently building a new office for more than 200 million euro."

Translations in English, French and German are available by scrolling through the document.The article was also published in the paper version of 9 June 2015.