Zentraler Personalausschuss

Central Staff Committee

Le Comit central du Personnel

02.12.2015
sc11915cp 0.2.1/0.3.2/4.1

Why does the EPO need an investigator performing forensic

activities?
With its vacancy notice published on 16.11.2015 under INT/EXT/5918
http://www.epo.org/about-us/jobs/vacancies/other.html , the EPO is looking for a staff
member with some skills and a task profile very unusual for a public service employee in
a patent office.
Among others the candidate shall have a masters degree in e.g. law, criminology,
forensic science, fraud investigation, or related subjects, to carry out investigations
into cases of alleged misconduct, in particular by: ..., performing forensic activities,
gathering and assessing all relevant evidences (physical and electronic records and
other pertinent information).
According to the Oxford Dictionary 1 , forensic means Relating to or denoting the
application of scientific methods and techniques to the investigation of crime. A list of
modern forensic techniques can be found in Wikipedia2, including dactyloscopy, DNA
analysis and digital forensic.
Staff as well as external readers of this publication may wonder why the EPO needs, in
addition to the currently six staff members in the Investigative Unit, one or two (this is
not entirely clear from the job advertisement) permanent, full-time investigators for these
specific duties, not to forget the costly intervention for unclear purposes of Control
Risksstaff.
Basically, investigations of criminal cases are a monopoly of the state following, at least
in democratic countries, well defined legal regulations (like the Strafprozessordnung
StPO in Germany) under the supervision of the relevant prosecutors and courts. This
secures also the rights of the accused. The respective regulations define for example
the conditions under which DNA samples (see for example 81g StPO), finger prints
and digital records may be taken and how long respective data may be stored.
What now, if indeed a suspicion of crime, like theft, fraud or murder, occurs at the EPO?
According to Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the European Patent
Organisation (PPI), Art. 19 (2) the President of the European Patent Office has the duty
to wave immunity where he considers that such immunity prevents the normal course of
justice and that it is possible to dispense with such immunity without prejudicing the
interest of the Organisation. Then official prosecutors can do their job under the
respective rule of law.
Establishing, however, its own fully fledged prosecution unit, with relevant skills and
equipment within the EPO, located in the direct line of command under the president,
allows bypassing any national or European law protecting the rights of the accused
individual. Moreover, the monopoly of the respective state to investigate potential cases
1
2

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/forensic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forensic_science#20th_century

of crime is set aside and prosecution activities are shifted into the Office with the
consequence that national or European law does no longer apply.
Once again, this will deprive EPO staff from the application of legal standards every
European citizen enjoys.

Your Central Staff Committee