7,000 EPO employees in DE, NL, AT & BE ... plus one in FR?

EPO President Battistelli in his office. The Eiffel Tower is
not visible from this angle, it would appear.

Back in 2010, when Benoît Battistelli was first appointed as President of the European Patent Office (EPO), there was a certain lack of transparency in the election process. As a blog post by IAM Magazine reported at the time, mischievous rumours quickly emerged from the EPO staff union newsletter (PDF link) to fill the vacuum of information regarding the circumstances of Mr Battistelli’s appointment.

Battistelli’s original contract was negotiated in secret with Mr Jesper Kongstad, the then Acting (and now actual) Chairman of the Administrative Council. It was rumoured, intriguingly, that the contract specified that Mr B’s place of employment was the Parisian suburb of Saint Germain-en-Laye (the town of which he was deputy major, the spiritual home of football team Paris Saint-Germain and the birthplace of Louis XIV, the Sun-King), and that it contained an annex granting him full pension rights at the end of his five-year contract. While Merpel, whose nine lives invariably make any sort of pension annuity unaffordable since the pension must last so much longer than expected, can see the attraction of having full pension rights after a relatively short employment stint, she wonders what advantage or reason could lie behind deeming Mr Battistelli's place of employment to be 700 km west of where his office is actually located, if there is any substance behind that improbable rumour. The union newsletter, SUEPO Informs, also reported that Mr Kongstad refused to show the final contract negotiated with Mr Battistelli to the Administrative Council ('AC'), despite repeated requests by its apparently quite powerless members.

Another of St. Germain-en-Laye's favourite suns (sorry),
who holds the European record for extended reigns with 72
years, 110 days. Also known for ambitious building projects ...

As we now know, Mr. Battistelli has been reappointed for a further three-year term starting in July 2015, to much unhappiness on the part of some EPO staff. What surprised Merpel, however, was being informed by an impeccable source that the AC has once again entrusted Mr Kongstad with negotiating the extended contract with Mr Battistelli, and without requiring that the terms be presented to or ratified by the AC. This casts significant doubt on the SUEPO suggestion that, back in 2009, significant numbers of AC delegates were unhappy not to have been given sight of the original contract (or it suggests that those delegates have very short memories if they are prepared for the same to happen again).

In particular, Merpel understands that

• the decision to extend Mr Battistelli’s contract was carried by an overwhelming majority of the delegations, in a secret ballot.
  
  
• having made the decision to extend the contract, the Council then authorised Mr Kongstad to negotiate and conclude the terms of the extension “under his sole authority”
  
  
• this latitude is however constrained by an understanding that the extension be on the same basis as the original 2009 contract.

It is unfortunate (meaning that Merpel takes great delight in observing) that, at the highest levels of the European Patent Organisation, such murkiness abounds. The original power struggle; the former rivals who are now apparently interdependent as President and AC Chairman; the negotiation of a secret extension to a secret contract appointing the head of a large, powerful, pan-European organisation to which countries have devolved extensive powers: it’s all grist to Merpel’s mill.

Jesper Kongstad, Chairman,
EPO Administrative Council, about whom
Merpel has no funny gags ... yet

Less savoury is the apparent indifference of the AC members to the staff concerns. The AC membership is the various member states, represented almost invariably by the head of each national patent office. Never friends to the EPO staff unions, it appears that the AC has been deaf in recent months to the entreaties of EPO staff representatives asking them on several occasions to put a check on Mr Battistelli’s more excessive actions. Indeed at the most recent meeting, Merpel hears that the AC discussed the current unrest with the President and expressed its unwavering support to him, urging him to push ahead with his reforms.

Is this an example of patent office heads naturally siding with one of their own, and against the troublesome unions? Or is it more nuanced, with AC members having due regard to staff concerns but seeing a different balance in the debate? And just why is the AC so eager to keep Mr Battistelli in place for three more years at (apparently) any cost? 

Most intriguing, does anyone other than Mr B and Mr K know what was in that original contract? Merpel is interested both in the literal answer to this question (i.e. has the contract been seen by, or have its terms been revealed to, anyone other than the two main actors?), as well as in the implied further request that someone might spill the beans and tell us whether Mr B was indeed deemed to be employed in France rather than in Germany, and what tiny fraction of each renewal fee goes into Mr Battistelli's monthly pay-cheque.

While Merpel is always eager to hear from EPO staff members, on this occasion she is hoping to also hear from anyone in the national patent offices who either attends the AC meetings or knows the underlying politics behind the initial appointment and later reappointment of Mr B. Her address for such correspondence, for which she will as ever be unfailingly grateful and unyieldingly discreet, is merpel.mckitten@gmail.com.

The more secretive the EPO is in its dealings, the more curious we all become about what is really going on there. The 21st century is an era of public sector transparency, a fact that the EPO appears not yet to have grasped. Perhaps, if any reader is passing through St Germain-en-Laye, they might drop a note to that effect through the letterbox of the EPO employee who may or may not be based there.