The situation today.

This was about the past, how President Battistelli managed to raise its power and to render each and every controlling instance moot. Märpel shall come back to that.

But what is the present situation?

The present situation is a state of shock. Maybe President Battistelli is trying to put into practice the Shock Doctrine? Formalities have been reorganised, examiners put in a state of permanent urgency.

Märpel deplores that everyone forgets formality officers. In truth they are an essential part of the office. The procedures are complex and many, with EP, PCT and national searches. Every error has legal consequences. This is an area of specialists. Or actually, it was an area of specialists till the last reorganisation. Now, everyone is supposed to do every possible procedure, without any training. The training budget was exactly zero.

The training budget for examiners is also exactly zero. As our COOs say, "ambitious objectives" were set for production, objectives that would put Aleksei Stakhanov right into the lazy bin. To reach these self-imposed objectives, every possible cut was made. Märpel even heard that women examiners were asked not to require pregnancy leave in 2018 or that special leave for funeral of family members are systematically refused. High grant objectives were set. Märpel was able to saw the procedure: every examiner gets an increased figure. The examiner can directly agree or ask for review. The review is always negative. Yet, apparently, the EPO as a whole is under target and President Battistelli is "not amused" and measures are to be announced in the coming days.

If Märpel could "amuse" President Battistelli, she would. That might actually distract him from retaliation on Patrick Corcoran, the most famous appeal board member, who still is in limbo. Sending him to The Hague was an obvious act of harassment. Märpel would also like to comfort the 100 or so managers whose only crime was to criticise President Battistelli policies in the past years and who found themselves redundant at the end of 2017.

Speaking of which: President Battistelli wanted to put redundant people out and everybody on 5 years contracts in February, but somebody must have reminded him that the EPO already has had great difficulties recruiting in 2017 (only half the planned post were filled). So President Battistelli accused the Council of having had that idea and pretended he was the staff saviour. The Council did not even objected, reaching new lows that Märpel would not even have thought possible. Maybe the new dentures made biting difficult.

And AT-ILO? Apparently, that tribunal sees its mission in defending the independence (or -dare we say- immunity?) of President Battistelli, issuing amazing judgments which Mârpel shall analyse in the next articles.