[Patents] disgruntled examiners at EPO

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

I tried to reach the disenchanted EPO insider hkonrad@patentmail.com, but
it seems that his account at patentmail.com has been cancelled, if it ever
existed.  Patentmail.com is a commercial organisation that depends on the
goodwill of the EPO, so there could be many explanations.

I have heard from well informed circles at the EPO that nepotism is
rampant there.  Good posts are always reserved for friends of the leading
officials or for friends and family members of politicians whom they want
to please, such as the Danish foreign minister or the like.

Good patent examiners are regularly kept down because of envy of their
superiors.  They hate to see it, when an examiner does more and better
work in less time and quits work early.  They hate it even more when an
examiner is upset about bad patents and criticises the EPO for softening
its standards.  Talented people often get depressed and/or drunk.  Quite a
few quit.  To qualify for a high post, you need to be mediocre.

This may be a reason why the EPO leadership is composed of persons who
violate the written law and don't have the faintest understanding for the
problems and pains that this is causing to society.

European patent attorneys do have some understanding for this.  Although
they usually insist that anything useful must be patentable, they do now
that the patent system has become unpopular as a result of
this.  E.g. they advise their customers never to give out a press release
to inform infringers.  "Only do that privately, because claiming patent
rights in public will hurt your company image.  The general public
nowadays thinks only of the gene patent debate.  A few years ago that was
different".  I have heard that from patent attorneys not only once.

Unfortunately I can't give any names here, but I would have appreciated it
if Mr. Konrad had been a little bit more outspoken, especially since he
has already supplied the EPO administrators with a pretext for censoring
their mailing list and claiming to be "victim of a malicious attack".

 
> ----- Forwarded message -----
> 
> DDate: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 13:24:23 -0500
> From: No User <no.user@anon.xg.nu>
> To: epo@mlist.austria.eu.net
> 
> Date: 18 Sep 2000 11:14:24
> 
> Subject: Job Posting - EPO internals: Save your time.
> 
> Information regarding a post currently advertised at the Vienna sub-office
> (see http://www.european-patent-office.org/epo/jobs/ext_1010htm).
> 
> If you plan to apply for the job you can save your time. According to
> well informed circles at the EPO this post is foreseen for a friend of
> Mr. Schatz, Vice-President of the EPO. It was reported that he has given
> clear instructions to the head of the Vienna sub-office to take care of
> the success of his candidate.
> 
> The recruitment procedure was already unsuccessful twice because the
> candidate did not have the "desirable qualifications" (lack of language
> skills). This is the third attempt.
> 
> H. Konrad
> hkonrad@patentmail.com