An outburst of anger of a president and his re-election, social tensions, industrial actions: for anyone familiar with the world of patents it will be clear that all this refers to the European Patent Office, which drew a lot of attention on the Kluwer Patent Blog last year, even more than the biggest change in…
The member states of the European Patent Organisation have re-appointed EPO president António Campinos for a second five-year term in office, commencing 1 July 2023. The decision was made at a meeting of the EPO’s Administrative Council held in Munich. As far as is clear, there was no extensive discussion about the reappointment, despite a…
Ahead of their meeting late June, a petition calling for a conference of ministers of contracting states under Article 4a EPC has been sent to the members of the Administrative Council of the EPO. The petition is an initiative of the EPO’s trade union SUEPO, which has invited all staff members to sign it. According…
The creation of a dedicated administrative tribunal could be a way to improve the settlement of labour disputes at the European Patent Office. Eric De Brabandere, professor of international dispute settlement at Leiden University in the Netherlands said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law. The tensions at the EPO have risen over the…
The industrial actions at the European Patent Office, which were organised by trade union SUEPO with the support of the Central Staff Committee (CSC), go into their fourth month next week. The main reason for discontent with the EPO management is a new salary adjustment procedure which, according to SUEPO, ’causes a disastrous immediate and…
Social tensions at the European Patent Office seem to have reached new lows in a meeting last week between an ‘extremely hostile’ EPO president Antonio Campinos and staff representatives. In a letter about the event which was sent to staff members last week, the Central Staff Committee (CSC) wrote the atmosphere at a General Consultative…
Two months after a series of ILOAT judgments stating that former EPO president Benoit Battistelli abused his power by implementing new rules to restrict the rights of staff members to strike in 2013, the EPO has detailed in which way it intends to carry out the judgments. According to a SUEPO report, EPO president António…
In an open letter to EPO president António Campinos, trade union SUEPO has called for an execution of the recent judgments of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (ILOAT) concerning restrictions on the right to strike at the EPO. In a series of judgments the ILOAT ruled that the legal framework which was…
Eight years (!) after complaints of dozens of EPO staff members against the way they were treated after having participated in strikes, a final decision in their cases is finally there: former EPO president Benoit Battistelli abused his power in various ways when and after implementing new rules in July 2013 to restrict the rights…
The Central Staff Committee of the European Patent Office and the trade union SUEPO have called for a strike on Tuesday 15 December 2020 during the meeting of the Administrative Council. SUEPO has announced the strike will be the start of a year of social conflict to defend the future of the Staff and their…
