EPO labelled ‘totalitarian state’ as controversy and demo hit

The president of the European Patent Office (EPO), Benoît Battistelli, has reportedly urged the Administrative Council (AC) to dismiss a member of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) despite that body not recommending such action.

It comes amid separate allegations of harassment and as workers demonstrate today, October 14.

Battistelli’s request was allegedly outlined in a message sent to the AC ahead of its meeting this week, according to the IPKat blog yesterday, October 13.

Under article 23 of the European Patent Convention, a member of the EBA cannot be dismissed without the body lodging an official request with the AC, a supervisory organisation of the EPO.

Article 23 is in place to guarantee the independence of the EBA from the AC and EPO president.

So far, the EBA has not made such a request and in fact last month rejected a request by the AC to dismiss the member.

The member, who has not been publicly named, was accused last year of disseminating defamatory material about the EPO and was suspended by the AC in December as part of a ‘house ban’. In response, the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) held a demonstration in support of the suspended worker.

In the same month, members of the EBA urged the AC to recognise that, while the EBA is not above disciplinary measures handed down by the EPO president, it is an independent body and Battistelli was overstepping his mark.

The EBA called for “ a clear limitation on the executive power” of the EPO.

In further news from the EPO, Elizabeth Hardon, vice-chair of SUEPO, has asked AC chair Jesper Kongstad to allow an independent body to assess her claim that she has been on the receiving end of institutional harassment by EPO management.

In a letter dated October 8 she demanded a “misconduct investigation into the institutional harassment against me and other EPO staff representatives ... and that the EPO be instructed immediately to cease and desist from such illegal and irregular misconduct”.

Hardon’s claims come in response to allegations that she herself “orchestrated and promoted” a harassment campaign against a senior member of the EPO based in The Hague office.

“I categorically deny any and all allegations of misconduct against me, and call on the EPO to prove the charges against me beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.

And today, SUEPO is holding a demonstration in support of Hardon in Munich. A leaflet for the demonstration states that the EPO has been “transformed into a totalitarian state where the rights of staff and of those who defend the rights of staff are being crushed to the benefit of a few”.

The EPO declined to comment on the allegations concerning the EBA and Hardon.