Re: Benoit - The new Italian Dictator
The European Patent Organisation is set up in a way not dissimilar to the EU itself. It exists as a result of a treaty entered into by various separate sovereign nations, many (but not all) who have also signed up to the various treaties that underpin the EU.
And, like the EU and the European Commission, this makes the EPO effectively un-governable. Whilst it is in theory accountable to its member nations, it would take all of them to agree on a course of action if it's direction were to be forcibly changed, like sacking the head of the office.
The discussion surrounding BREXIT is fascinating. On the one hand there's a bunch of EU types promising a hard time for Britain, no trade deal, big divorce settlement, etc. On the either hand there's the German government who seemingly don't agree (they sell a lot of cars here), Sweden and Poland talking openly about having to do a deal with the UK, etc.
One way or other it's going to define who in Europe really pulls the strings; sovereign nations or the European Union / Commission? The treaties say that the nations have devolved many powers to the EU, including the power to arrange trade deals, but it's the member nations who have to decide on whether their (collective?) best interests are still being served by the EU. BREXIT is perhaps the first issue big enough to force all the member nations to truly, seriously consider that question. Here in the UK we're kinda dependent on them doing so.
Alas, the situation in the European Patent Office is so low down the list of priorities for the member nations of the EPO that it is unlikely it will be sorted out. This situation will continue to fester until the situation resolves itself "naturally", or until the Office has become so dysfunctional that politicians in the member nations are being badgered about problems with patents by companies in their own country.
Like many international treaties of this sort, there's very often little thought put into them to define what should happen when things go wrong, how indeed performance of the arrangements should be measured so as to know whether things are going wrong or not, etc. The treaties behind the Eurozone are classics of the genre, with nothing in them to define what happens when a member nation goes bust. Hence the improvised support for Greece, and soon Italy. Such ommissions in the Eurozone treaties were part of the reason why the British government ultimately deciding to not join in.
This always happens because when all the negotiators are sat in that one room talking about setting up the treaty, it's impolite to ask the awkward questions about "problems arising" which might be taken as an insult by others in the room. Appalling really.