In a judgment, dated 17 February 2015, the Gerechtshof den Haag (appellate court based in The Hague) lifted the immunity of the EPO and ordered it to rescind several recent amendments to the organisation's staff regulations.The action was brought by SUEPO against the EPO and the court has ruled that the EPO:

• must stop blocking emails from @suepo.org within 7 days,
• may not dictate the length and type of industrial actions and,
• within 14 days, must allow SUEPO to enter into collective bargaining.

IPKat reports on this decision.

FOSS Patents considers that staff of the EPO asks a good question: How many patents does Europe need?.The question was raised in the SUEPO flyer announcing the coming demonstration in front of the British Consulate.

"SUEPO's concern [about patent quality] is understandable in light of an official document (minutes of May 2009 of Board 28 meeting), which says that Mr Battistelli as well as the Chairman of the Administrative Council (AC) shared the following philosophy: "Priority on increased output should be the leading consideration.""

Florian Mueller considers that "the leaderhsip of a patent office, should, as a matter of principle, always view patent quality as the number one priority, with efficiency being a close second if there are objective indications of inefficiencies and a distant second if benchmarking and other types of analysis suggest that any further efficiency gains would be limited or, if overreaching, come at the expense of patent quality."

"One of the structural problems (which in turn is the root cause of other structural deficiencies) is that the EPO basically mints money for national patent offices by putting out many patents, and only by granting (not by rejecting) applications -- otherwise there's no money to be made for national patent offices."

Jim Boff, Chairman of the Patents Committee of CIPA (the UK's Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys) has sent a letter to Mr Jesper Kongstad, Chairman of the EPO's Administrative Council (AC).

In this letter, CIPA is urging the AC to take interim measures to increase and copperfasten the independence of the Boards, while noting that these measures are not a substitute for amending the EPC itself:"Given the experience with ratification of EPC2000, amendment to the EPC will take too long to deal with the immediate problem, but should not be ruled out, particularly given that the Article 4a EPC conference of ministers is long overdue and the above mentioned proposal for autonomy was made over 10 years ago." A copy of the letter can be found in this post of IPKat.

IPKat concludes that: "Whether in the short term (with rule changes) or in the longer term (with an amendment of the Convention), the aim would be to set in stone the separation of powers which has been overwhelmingly demanded by the users of the EPO, Europe's patent judiciary, the EPO staff, and the members of the Appeal Boards themselves. Everyone, that is, except the management of the EPO which appears hellbent on bringing the Boards under its nurturing and protective wing."

IPKat reports on the discussions concerning the reform of both the governance and the structure of the Boards of Appeal.

The proposals of the Board 28 of the Administrative Council (AC) are said to "enhance the visibility of the independence and autonomy of governance". No amendment of the EPC is foreseen.Regarding the speculation that the EBoA is to be moved to Berlin, Mr Kongstad's response until now is a diplomatic "no comment".

The Danish magazine Jyllands-Posten published anarticle (printable version)titled "Raging war at the European Patent Office" which reports on the governance problems at the EPO. The text is als available in English, French and German by scrolling through the document.

Jyllands-Posten is the Danish magazine which published in 2005 editorial cartoons depicting Muhammad. These cartoons were later published by Charlie Hebdo.Both magazines defend "freedom of expression, freedom of thought and freedom of the press".

The SUEPO websites were unreachable on Thursday 5 February 2015 because of a cyber attack (of the Denial of Service type).The attackers also attempted an SSH brute-force attack to take control of the server. Such attacks constitute a violation of law and SUEPO has filed criminal charges against unknown and will cooperate with the German and Dutch authorities, who are now investigating the matter.

Next week, on 11 February 2015, Board 28 of the European Patent Office will meet.Board 28 is the sub-group of the Administrative Council that is envisaged under Article 28 EPC.IPKat reports that new arrangements are proposed for the administration of the Boards of Appeal, "they are likely to be implemented very quickly and with no consultation. Users have certainly not been consulted, and Merpel understands that until now, neither have the Boards of Appeal themselves."

The new Career System adopted by the Administrative Council in its meeting in December 2014 (CA/D 10/14) already has "a number of elements that have serious consequences for the independence and impartiality of the Boards of Appeal".

"This decision of the Administrative Council is in clear contradiction with its own declaration at the end of the December 2014 meeting, reiterating its full endorsement of and support for the principle of independence of the members of the Boards of Appeal, as specifically set out in Article 23 EPC and generally embodied in internationally recognized principles of judicial independence. While formally support is expressed of the Boards’ independence, in reality measures have been put into place that go directly in the opposite direction.One can only wonder what purpose it might serve to strengthen the influence of the executive over the judiciary, with all the possible severe international consequences."

EPLAW Patent Blogrecently published an open letter of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW) to the Delegations of the Administrative Council (AC) of the EPO.EPLAW joined the chorus of patent professionals expressing their concerns about the temporary removal of a member of the Boards of Appeal (BoA) from office, as ordered by Mr Battistelli, President of the EPO, and confirmed by the AC. In addition to public discussions among patent professionals, further developments regarding the status of the BoA have taken place "behind the scenes".These are detailed in the article available here.

The article also reports on the public concern expressed in many letters and in numerous discussions about the recent actions and considers that:

"Co-operation between the AC and the EPO is in many situations the best choice. However, for the sake of safeguarding the independence of the BoA, simply avoiding independent and critical assessment of obvious flaws for the sake of the appearance of 'business as usual' is not good enough and is not in the long-term interest of the EPO users. [...]Transparency is of crucial importance and the AC should try to regain the lost confidence of the users of the EPO, e.g. by seeking external advice from judges, users and last but not least by members of the BoA before taking far-reaching decisions."

On Wednesday 21 January, approximately 1,000 EPO employees took the streets in Munich and went to the Danish consulate. The Danish consulate was chosen because a Danish public servant, Mr Jesper Kongstad, is the Chairman of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation and has always aligned with controversial president Benoît Battistelli.

FOSS Patents reports on the demonstration and publishes a SUEPO flyer

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."