The announcement that the EPO shall have less examining staff in 2019 caused some concern amongst examiners. The official discourse is that recruitment is halted and the number shall decrease because many examiners reach the age of pension in 2018-2019.
Märpel finds that surprising, as large numbers of staff took early retirement in the past years, but she could not see the statistics.
But Märpel could find an excel program called "Early Certainty Timeliness Simulator". Do not ask for a download: it only works within the EPO intranet. It was not designed that way for security: more simply it keeps itself up to date on statistics by downloading new ones from the internal databases: new patents filed, patents already searched, grants and withdrawals, etc…
The "Early Certainty Timeliness Simulator" computes future workload per directorate, draws a set of nice curves, etc… Märpel took some time to play with it. In most directorates, stock will reach zero within one or 2 years.
Märpel can only hope for a serious bug in that software. But if the software is right, Märpel knows why President Campinos is not too worried about difficulties in recruiting. And he is not: projections distributed to managers show no recruitment until 2024: 6 years!
Thursday, 30 August 2018
Thursday, 16 August 2018
Ion Brumme
Ion Brumme sent a letter to suepo members to announce that he was reintegrated. You may read more about it here: http://www.ippropatents.com/ippropatentsnews/article.php?article_id=6008
Welcome back, Ion!
Welcome back, Ion!
Wednesday, 15 August 2018
Mariae Himmelfahrt
Märpel would like to wish all citizen of Bavaria a pleasant day today: perfect Biergarten weather, not too hot... Enjoy your free day!
Tuesday, 14 August 2018
Closing shop.
As discussed in the last post, the EPO experiences difficulties in finding candidates. Recruitment is stopped.
The tipping point was last spring, when President Battistelli had a project to move all staff to 5-years contracts. That project shocked the staff, especially staff from Germany. They spread the news to their friends and relatives, far beyond the borders of the Office: in Munich, even the lay person on the street knows that there is a problem at the big building near the Isar. Märpel was actually surprised to hear that message from distant relatives, even her doctor!
The project was put on hold, but this will not be sufficient to undo the damage done to the reputation of the EPO as an employer. Nowadays, prospective employees know that work contracts with the Office can be changed any moment to their disadvantage.
Readers of this blog know that the opposite is not true: employment contracts are binding for staff, even years after they quit the job.
Who in their right mind would want to work under those conditions? Obviously, there is a problem but that situation can only be changed by solving the fundamental governance problem of the organisation: redrafting staff regulations, redesigning the appeal system, redefining the functions of the President.
None of this is on the agenda.
Instead, one of the first announcements of President Campinos was that the target for 2019 shall be lower than the one for 2018 (that announcement is not public but was told in several meetings). Why that surprising announcement when each preceding year saw the target increase by stunning numbers? The official announcement is that target per examiner still increases, but the EPO shall have less examiners. Recruitment is halted abd retirement shall not compensated.
The tipping point was last spring, when President Battistelli had a project to move all staff to 5-years contracts. That project shocked the staff, especially staff from Germany. They spread the news to their friends and relatives, far beyond the borders of the Office: in Munich, even the lay person on the street knows that there is a problem at the big building near the Isar. Märpel was actually surprised to hear that message from distant relatives, even her doctor!
The project was put on hold, but this will not be sufficient to undo the damage done to the reputation of the EPO as an employer. Nowadays, prospective employees know that work contracts with the Office can be changed any moment to their disadvantage.
Readers of this blog know that the opposite is not true: employment contracts are binding for staff, even years after they quit the job.
Who in their right mind would want to work under those conditions? Obviously, there is a problem but that situation can only be changed by solving the fundamental governance problem of the organisation: redrafting staff regulations, redesigning the appeal system, redefining the functions of the President.
None of this is on the agenda.
Instead, one of the first announcements of President Campinos was that the target for 2019 shall be lower than the one for 2018 (that announcement is not public but was told in several meetings). Why that surprising announcement when each preceding year saw the target increase by stunning numbers? The official announcement is that target per examiner still increases, but the EPO shall have less examiners. Recruitment is halted abd retirement shall not compensated.
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