EPO’s Battistelli proposes new employment plan
Benoît Battistelli, the president of the European Patent Office (EPO), has proposed an employment plan to recruit staff on renewable contracts of five years.
During a budget and finance committee meeting in October in Munich, Battistelli and Elodie Bergot, principal director of human resources, added a motion to discuss permanent employment at the EPO to the agenda document.
A spokesperson for the EPO said that the office is in a “unique situation” with 97% of its staff hired on a permanent basis.
“The proposal basically aims at giving more flexibility to the employer. The change will apply only to newcomers, it will maintain the possibility of permanent status and it will improve the rights benefiting to the contractors compared to the current situation,” they said.
The spokesperson added that this change was recommended by a 2016 Deloitte financial study, which focused on the long-term financial health of the EPO.
But a source close to the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) was critical of the new proposal, questioning the impact of the change on the ability to recruit highly educated employees from all member states.
The source claimed that Battistelli said that it “was his prerogative to govern until the last day of his mandate”, and that in any event the proposal had “no financial implications” and therefore he was free to push it through the Administrative Council in December with or without the consent of the budget and finance committee.
They added: “We do not look forward to the possible adoption of the proposal, but we hope and trust that the new president … might be more open to tackling problems constructively instead of dogmatically.
David Brinck, partner at EIP, said: the reputation of the EPO is founded on the quality and experience of its patent examiners.
“It must be a concern that moving to fixed-term contracts would hamper the recruitment of high-quality examiners and also potentially result in a high turnover of examiners with the position of EPO examiner eventually being seen as a CV filler rather than a worthy vocation in itself.”
Wouter Pors, partner at Bird & Bird, added that the EPO needs stability to be able to fill the current gaps. “Given the uncertainty that employees have experienced in recent years, this is not the right moment to introduce flexibility. It is unlikely that highly educated professionals will give up their current employment for a future at the EPO which may be perceived as uncertain,” he cautioned. Pors believes that perhaps in a year from now, when the new management has restored trust among the EPO employees, a plan like this could be introduced successfully David Por, partner at Allen & Overy, said that the business rationale behind the proposal is “theoretically understandable”, but that the concern expressed by SUEPO has merit. “It would be a pity if the proposal resulted in a decrease in the quality of the examination at the EPO, which is currently one of the best worldwide,” he added. Por also expressed concern over whether the proposal would apply to members of boards of appeal. Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
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