European Patent Office - Staff Unions

Staff Unions

Staff unions active within the EPO include the Staff Union of the European Patent Office (SUEPO) and the Fédération de la Fonction Publique Européenne - European Patent Office (FFPE-EPO).

SUEPO was born in 1979 out of the Syndicat du Personnel de l'Institut International des Brevets (SP-IIB) which was founded in 1969. SUEPO is made up of four local sections in Berlin, Munich, The Hague and Vienna and claims to have consistently about 50% of the staff of the respective sites as member.

FFPE-EPO is a staff union at the EPO, The Hague section. It was registered under Dutch law on March 7, 2008, and is affiliated with the European Civil Service Federation (French: Fédération de la Fonction Publique Européenne or FFPE), founded in 1962. The FFPE-EPO was set up in spite of the fact that there already was a staff union in place in EPO, The Hague, the SUEPO, because -in the words of FFPE-EPO- a need was felt for new representation with new visions, developing new ways of representing everyone's interests, including that of the EPO. An unofficial English translation of the statutes can be found on-line.