Techrights
EPO Staff Cuts, as Shown by EPO Insiders (Patent Examination Slowly Being Phased Out; the Goal is to Grant Millions of Monopolies to Non-European Companies That Operate in Europe)
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 17, 2024
It should be clear who stands to benefit and at whose expense
SOME hours ago we wrote about this report that had been shared with EPO staff 10 days after an important and comprehensive meeting.
From the overview for that meeting:
LOCAL STAFF COMMITTEE THE HAGUE | 6 FEBRUARY 2024
AGENDA
1. Reminders & announcements
2. Recruitment & JG 5&6
3. Performance management - Objective setting – vote on resolution
4. Reminder appraisal reports
5. Update on Salary Adjustment Procedure (SAP)
6. Update on New Pension Scheme (NPS) litigation
7. Q&A
LOCAL STAFF COMMITTEE THE HAGUE
This was followed by some administrative things and then came the 5-slide presentation about "Recruitment", showing a glaring lack thereof. We covered this before.
Here are all the slides:
EPO recruitment slide 1
EPO recruitment slide 2
EPO recruitment slide 3
EPO recruitment slide 4
EPO recruitment slide 5
It's as if Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos just wished and still wish to gradually get rid of the staff and of examination. To them, optimal EPO operations involve no examination, just prompt granting of patents (monopolies) - as they conflate speed with quality - without much scrutiny and without experts' involvement. Sooner or later many members of staff will retire, so there's a cliff's edge.
The overview slide:
From 2019 – 2023
• Fewer recruits than leavers in 2019
• Recruitment freeze during the pandemic 2020 – 2021, not compensated for later
• In 2022 and 2023, staff numbers falling further again fewer recruits than leavers
Plan for 2024 – 2028
• No change in direction, maintain pace of staff cuts
• 80% replacement for examiners, FOs no replacement in 2024, and 50% in other areas
Prudent, cautious approach?
And the last slide's text:
• More work for fewer colleagues, and targets ever increasing
• Implications for pension contribution calculations
• Actuarial method had to change because of variations in average age
• A wave of retirements is on the horizon
• Staff ages not evenly distributed among teams
• Technical areas may see majority of experts departing
• Experienced colleagues relied upon for coaching
Response from the administration
• “Front loading” solves the problems with knowledge transfer and coaching capacity
• Digitalisation and new tools have enabled efficiency gains and cuts in staff numbers
Those are not "efficiency gains", they're just cutting corners and applicants are starting to realise that the EPO that existed for the first 40 years is nothing like the past 10+ years' EPO. The latter is just riding the reputation of the former while citing its mouthpieces and parrots at IAM. █