European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Networking With the National Delegates
Previous Parts:
Part 22
Borghildur Erlingsdóttir, director of the Icelandic IPO and
deputy chair of the Administrative Council (right) and Maja
Schmitt, director of the Netherlands IPO (left) at the EPN Annual
Cooperation Meeting in Split.
We continue our coverage of the 20th Annual Cooperation Meeting of the European Patent Network which took place in Split, Croatia, on 11th and 12th May 2026. In this part the focus is on the national delegations which participated in the event.
According to the official EPO puff piece, the meeting was attended by "27 heads of office".
As mentioned previously, we don't have access to a list of the attendees but the photographic record and postings on LinkedIn permit us to confirm the presence of the following members of the EPO's Administrative Council (AC):
• CY: Irene Mylona-Chrysostomou, head of delegation;
• FI: Jani Päiväsaari, deputy head of delegation;
• IE: James Kelly, head of delegation;
• IS: Borghildur Erlingsdóttir, head of delegation and deputy chairperson of the AC;
• IT: Simona Marzetti deputy head of delegation;
• LU: Iris De Poulain, head of delegation;
• LT: Vita Kiriliauskaitė, head of delegation;
• LV: Agris Batalauskis, head of delegation;
• MC: Jean-Pierre Santos, head of delegation;
• MC: Isabel, Browarnyj, deputy head of delegation;
• MT: Matthew Pisani, deputy head of delegation;
• NL: Paul van Beukering, head of delegation;
• NL: Maja Schmitt, deputy head of delegation;
• PL: Ewa Skrzydło-Tefelska, head of delegation;
• PT: Ana Bandeira, head of delegation;
• SI: Karin Žvokelj. head of delegation;
• SK: Pavol Gregorčok, head of delegation.
This should not be understood as an exhaustive list of all attendees but rather an incomplete list of those delegates whose presence can be definitely confirmed.
In most cases the head of delegation is also the director of the national IPO but there are some exceptions to this general rule. For example, the Netherlands delegation is headed by Paul van Beukering, a civil servant from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the director of the Netherlands Patent Office, Maja Schmitt, acts as deputy head of delegation.
Joining the representatives of the EPO member states were representatives from the EPO "extension states" (and aspiring candidates for full membership) Moldova and Bosnia-Herzegovina. A few weeks later, on 1 June, Moldova completed its accession process to become the 40th member state of the European Patent Organisation. The accession date for Bosnia-Herzegovina is not yet known.
Alongside the "the great and the good" of the European Patent Network, the meeting was also attended by a delegation from the EU trademark agency EUIPO headed by Sandris Laganovskis, Director of EUIPO’s Cooperation and Partnerships Department.
Readers of Techrights may recall that Sandris Laganovskis was formerly head of the Latvian IPO before he moved to the EUIPO in Alicante towards the end of 2020.
Sandris Laganovskis (left) on a EUIPO "mission" to the Croatian
SIPO in Zagreb from 30 March to 1 April 2026. The other officials
in the photo are (from left to right) Irena Tušek (SIPO), EUIPO
Executive Director João Negrão and SIPO director Ljiljana
Kuterovac.
By a curious coincidence, Laganovskis had already visited Croatia about a month or so earlier when he accompanied his boss, EUIPO Executive Director João Negrão, on a EUIPO "mission" to the Croatian SIPO in Zagreb from 30 March to 1 April 2026.
We conclude this part with a selection of photographs showing some of the Administrative Council delegates who participated in the Annual Cooperation Meeting in Split.
Front row from left to right: Irene Mylona-Chrysostomou
(Cyprus), Agris Batalauskis (Latvia) and Vita Kiriliauskaitė
(Lithuania). Back row: Matthew Pisani (Malta) can be seen to the
left of Agris Batalauskis and Sandris Laganovskis (EUIPO) to the
right of Vita Kiriliauskaitė.
From left to right: Karin Žvokelj (Slovenia), James Kelly
(Ireland), Ana Bandeira (Portugal).
The Monegasque delegation: Isabel Browarnyj (left) and
Jean-Pierre Santos (right).
Panel discussion on “New EPN Services for Europe” (from left to
right): Ewa Skrzydło-Tefelska (Poland), Borghildur Erlingsdóttir
(Iceland), Paul van Beukering (Netherlands), Simona Marzetti
(Italy) and Agris Batalauskis (Latvia).
Director of the Croatian SIPO, Ljiljana Kuterovac, with the
directors of other national IPOs (from left to right): Irene
Mylona-Chrysostomou (Cyprus), Pavol Gregorčok (Slovakia) and Karin
Žvokelj (Slovenia).
Ljiljana Kuterovac with representatives of the Moldovan IPO,
Liliana Vieru (left) and Natalia Mogol (right).
In the next part we will continue our coverage of the EPN Annual Cooperation Meeting and explain how it provided EPO President António Campinos with a prime opportunity to network with the Administrative Council delegates and lobby for his reappointment. █