Wind of Change at the EPO?

About 1500 or 1600 individuals (according to the organizers) including EPO employees, sympathizing professional representatives, curious bloggers and chimeras of these categories have demonstrated in front of the EPO's Isar building today, where the meeting of the Administrative Council was about to take place.

The EPO management contributed to the event by calling the police to make sure that the demonstrators did not enter the EPO premises but rather stayed on the walkway.

Representatives of the staff committee made various proposals on how to make sure that the fundamental human rights including the freedom of speech and the guarantee of judicial review are respected. One proposal was to establish an independent committee reviewing the managerial decisions for this purpose, the other one was that the EPC should access the European Council.

For more background information, see here and here.