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Peek Into European Patent Examining Cancelled

Posted by Roblimo on from the you-can't-always-get-what-you-want dept.

We were going to run European Patent Examiner John Savage's answers to 10 Slashdot questions today, but he emailed us this morning and asked us to pull them back because he was was in trouble over the interview. What he had to say was informative, non-controversial, and would not have hurt his employer's reputation at all, but we don't want John to lose his job or face disciplinary action on our account. Anyway, get ready for a slightly unusual Slashdot interview guest next week: Celeb chef and self-described "culinary cartographer" Alton Brown.

5 of 203 comments (clear)

  1. That sucks. by Skyshadow · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You have to wonder what PR brainiac came up with the idea of censoring an interview like this. Anything this guy had to say couldn't possibly look as bad as this does, unless it's on the lines of "we kill puppies and cute little kittens to make mittens".

    Now, everyone will just be wondering what they're hiding...

    --
    Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
    1. Re:That sucks. by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
      > You have to wonder what PR brainiac came up with the idea of censoring an interview like this. Anything this guy had to say couldn't possibly look as bad as this does, unless it's on the lines of "we kill puppies and cute little kittens to make mittens".

      Maybe they just approved a "Method for decreasing thermal losses in human extremities through repurposing of epidermal infant canine and feline tissues"? ;-)

  2. Not surprising by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 5, Informative
    I sent the /. URL to an EU patent examiner I know, and he answered back that the guy has lots of balls to do this, because he could get in lots of trouble for speaking publicly...

    He also said that the questions weren't very good either...

  3. Re:Super by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Insightful
    > Nice to know that informing and educating people about a legal process can put you in danger of losing your job.

    Well, we got one answer -- the one someone asked about US patent examiners, along the lines of: "How does it feel to work for people who have their heads jammed that far up their asses?"

    Looks like the EU patent office prefers a close-up view of its own colon to reality, too.

    The examiner's manager has done more damage to the EU patent office's reputation than any answer the examiner could have given.

  4. It's not as bad as it looks.. by ltning · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm also working at the EPO, as an external contractor. It is interesting to see that he has been forced to pull his interview, but there may be some good reasons for this. And probably none of them has anything to do with the questions per se.
    Imagine you working for a huuuuge company, say IBM, Microsoft, WorldCom ;) or any other company getting lots of media coverage. Imagine you, as 'just another worker' would start answering questions from the press and so on. No matter how much you would state that you do not represent them or their opinion etc. etc., try thinking how easy it is for a newspaper, website, radio station, etc. to simply edit those statements away.. Not only would you risk ending up having your statements treated as if they were 'authoritative', you would, with good reason, piss your boss off.
    One thing is to talk to your friends about the good and bad things happening at your job. An entirely different thing is to publically make statements about it when you really have NO authority to do so. If you are working for someone, you need to be able to trust your employer, AND your employer needs to be able to trust you.
    I could have said a lot of interesting things about how the EPO works, both positive and negative, but I won't do so in a public forum simply because it is not my job!
    If you want answers from the EPO, or any other company or organization, there are usually public relations departments or the like. They are not always too helpful, but that should always be the place to start. And I wouldn't be all too surprised if they would indeed agree to do an interview with the slashdot crowd. After all the EPO takes pride in saying it's an organization of scientists, fundamentally differently organized than the american patent office, and atleast some people in high places do identify with our kind.

    --
    Love over Gold.