European Patent Office (EPO) Series: In the Pole Position Despite a Dismal Track Record
Previous Parts:
Part 31
The EPO's "transparency gap" together with the lack of any meaningful oversight by the Administrative Council effectively provides the incumbent President António Campinos with a blank cheque to use public funds from the EPO "Dukatenesel" to further his own private ambitions of securing a third mandate.
As we explained in the last part, the EPO's "transparency gap" together with the lack of any meaningful oversight by the Administrative Council effectively provides the incumbent President António Campinos with a blank cheque to use public funds from the EPO's budget to further his own private ambitions of securing a third mandate.
Any outside observers looking at the EPO might legitimately wonder whether Campinos really deserves to be considered for reappointment based on the rather dismal track record of his first two terms of office.
We recall here that when the search for a successor to Battistelli began in July 2017, the Administrative Council announced that it was looking for candidates with "thorough knowledge and proven practical application of modern management methods, including an outstanding ability to establish and foster social dialogue".
There is a perception among EPO observers that the selection procedure which followed was carefully stage-managed to ensure that Battistelli's designated successor got the job. We will come back to this in more detail in the next part, but for the moment we will simply mention that Campinos managed to secure the requisite three-quarters majority after a single round of voting.
Following his election, Campinos was widely touted in puff pieces published in the "IP media" as the right person to deal with the toxic social climate which had developed inside the EPO under the tyrannical managerial régime of Battistelli and his sidekicks.
According to a "diplomatic source" cited by Kluwer IP Law, the EPO's new President-elect was seen as someone "who will be able to improve social relations and enter into dialogue with workers and unions …".
Unfortunately – for EPO staff at least – Campinos didn't quite manage to live up to those expectations. During his initial term which commenced on 1st July 2018, there was no discernible improvement in social relations or any visible sign of EPO management attempting to enter into bona fide dialogue with staff. On the contrary, unrest and dissatisfaction with the senior management continued to fester among the rank and file of EPO staff.
By May 2022, shortly before his rubber-stamped reappointment for a second term, Campinos was reportedly articulating his version of "social dialogue" in the following colourful terms:
"You will never have such a nice person being the f***ing President for the next fifty f***ing years. So you wake up and make agreements with me, or you never will for your f***ing life."
According to reliable inside sources at the EPO, the situation has continued to deteriorate since then.
While Campinos has been extremely busy during the first half of 2026 conducting an energetic programme of external engagement involving many "duty missions" to the EPO's member states, his relations with the organisation's own staff appear to have plummeted to a historic low.
Among the rank and file of EPO staff there is a widespread perception that social dialogue has broken down completely. Industrial action has been ongoing for more than six months, reflecting deep dissatisfaction over working conditions, governance and the direction of management. Rather than resolving longstanding tensions, the current administration is seen by its critics as having presided over an increasingly polarised workplace.
Yet none of this seems to have had any negative impact on the EPO President's standing with the Administrative Council.
The fact that Campinos remains under serious consideration for a third mandate gives rise to a suspicion that despite the lip service which the Administrative Council is fond of paying to "establishing and fostering social dialogue", its real priorities lie elsewhere.
As a matter of fact, as far as the Council delegates are concerned, their interest in the EPO seems to be of a solely pecuniary character. It is worth bearing in mind here that for the most part, the Council delegates are the heads of national IP offices which derive a significant amount of their annual budgetary income from patent renewal fees paid in respect of patents granted by the EPO. A lot of national IPOs – especially in the smaller, less developed member states – also benefit from "cooperation projects" funded by the EPO.
Under the current EPO administration, the overriding priority has been "budgetary restraint" – at least insofar as ordinary staff are concerned. In particular, the EPO's senior management has stubbornly resisted proposals for a fair and equitable annual salary adjustment mechanism that would adequately compensate employees for inflation. These policies may have generated significant opposition from staff but at the same time they have contributed to financial outcomes that have been greeted with enthusiastic approval by many national delegations.
Most delegations seem to take a simplistic view that the Office's positive "financial performance" justifies continued confidence in the current leadership. Of course it is open to question as to whether an organisation which finds itself in the throes of prolonged social conflict and industrial action can truly be regarded as well managed, irrespective of its balance sheet. However, there are no visible signs that the Administrative Council is interested in looking beyond the "bottom line" presented to it by the President of the Office.
As things stand right now, from the perspective of the Administrative Council a rubber-stamped reappointment of Campinos for a third mandate seems to be the "default option".
But even if the Council were to decide against reappointment and opt instead for a competitive selection procedure, the EPO President's more or less unfettered access to public funds from the EPO "Dukatenesel" means that he would still occupy the pole position should any challengers emerge in due course.
As we have seen from the preceding parts of this series, Campinos has been undertaking an ambitious and wide-ranging programme of official visits to member states during the first half of 2026.
Although it can be argued that such missions are justified on the grounds that they form part of the EPO's official responsibilities they also reinforce the incumbent's visibility and personal standing thereby conferring on him a significant advantage at a time when he is actively seeking another term of office.
Even if it could be argued that individual "duty missions" served a legitimate institutional purpose, taken as a whole the President's "missionary activity" in recent months has generated the kind of personal political capital that challengers lacking access to the same budgetary resources cannot hope to replicate.
In other words, should any alternative candidates emerge, they would find it almost impossible to compete with the visibility and access enjoyed by the incumbent travelling on official business and having the organisation's budgetary resources and communications channels at his disposal.
From a governance point of view, awkward questions arise when resources intended to serve an organisation's mission can be used with little or no oversight for the ulterior purpose of supporting an incumbent's private ambitions to secure reappointment.
Or at least such questions would normally tend to arise if somebody who was interested in asking them could be found amongst those entrusted with the organisation's governance. Unfortunately, the EPO's Administrative Council is known to suffer from a blind-spot when it comes to identifying and addressing such glaring conflicts of interest.
The EPO's Administrative Council is known to suffer from a blind-spot when it comes to identifying and addressing conflicts of interest.
In this particular instance, the Council has clearly failed in its duty to provide adequate safeguards to ensure the possibility of a competitive selection procedure taking place on a genuinely level playing field. Instead it has chosen to tolerate – and even encourage – a situation in which incumbency is freely and openly exploited as a publicly funded electoral asset.
At this point in time the race has not yet run its course. As a matter of fact it hasn't even started. And it goes without saying that Campinos is fervently hoping that the Administrative Council will settle for a rubber-stamped reappointment rather than opt for a competitive selection procedure.
But should the Council decide to go down the latter road in due course, then there can be no doubt that Campinos already enjoys a significant head start over any potential challengers.
If all of this this sounds like a game of "insiders' poker" in which the deck of cards is well and truly stacked against "outsiders" then that might be because that is precisely what it is...
As we shall see in the next part, António Campinos is an old hand when it comes to such high-level institutional intrigue. Amongst other things, we plan to reveal some little-known details about his election as executive director of the Alicante-based OHIM in 2010 which confirm that he is a veritable master of the "rigged game".
Stay tuned for more coming up soon... █