Bonum Certa Men Certa

Introduction to Jesper Kongstad, EPO Chairman of the Administrative Council

Part of a series

Jesper Kongstad's mansion



Summary: A look at the professional life of the Chairman of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation, including the lesser-known aspects of Jesper Kongstad's farmhouse/mansion in Denmark (shown above)

Jesper Kongstad is the current Director of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office and Chairman of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. He is also a member of the Board of the Nordic Patent Institute.



"Kongstad rejected this suggestion and claimed that the redundancies which he defended as "just sound management” were a justifiable reaction to the downturn in applications."In 2009, Kongstad put his name forward as a candidate for the position of President of the European Patent Office which was due to be filled on 1 July 2010. In December 2009, he withdrew his candidacy allegedly as the result of some kind of secret deal with Battistelli.

Kongstad was subsequently elected as Chairman of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation on June 29, 2010. He took up office on 1 July 2010 for an initial period of three years, which was later extended to six years in March 2013. He was re-elected for a further period of three years in March 2016.

Kongstad has been the Director of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office (DKPTO) since 2003. In 2009 it was reported that the DKPTO had laid off 35 members of staff after seeing a slump in applications due to the global recession. This layoff amounted to somewhere around 15% of the total workforce of the DKPTO. It was criticised is some quarters as "a very drastic approach" and it was suggested that the DKPTO was using the crisis as an excuse to cut certain services. Kongstad rejected this suggestion and claimed that the redundancies which he defended as "just sound management” were a justifiable reaction to the downturn in applications.

"Despite the Scandinavian tradition for transparency and accountability, Kongstad is ironically an outspoken opponent of transparency rules for IP trading."It's also interesting to note that during 2009 and 2010 the DKPTO was involved in an EU twinning project with the Croatian State Intellectual property office (SIPO). This is where Željko Topić had worked before he started abusing EPO staff like he did at SIPO.

Despite the Scandinavian tradition for transparency and accountability, Kongstad is ironically an outspoken opponent of transparency rules for IP trading.

From his CV which appears on LinkedIn it can be seen that Kongstad began his professional career in Denmark as an administrative officer in the Ministry for Industry (1984-1990). In 1990 he began working at the Statens Serum Institute where he remained in various roles until 1999. Statens Serum Institute is a public enterprise under the Danish Ministry of Health. After that he switched to the private sector where he was CEO of a biopharmaceutical startup company called Astion A/S.

"He is rumored to have strong connections to the conservative-liberal Venstre party which was in government at that time. It has been speculated that his political connections might have assisted him in securing his position at the DKPTO but this cannot be confirmed."In 2003 Kongstad returned to the public sector when he was appointed as Director of the DKPTO. He is rumored to have strong connections to the conservative-liberal Venstre party which was in government at that time. It has been speculated that his political connections might have assisted him in securing his position at the DKPTO but this cannot be confirmed.

Some sources alleged that the Kongstad family used to live in a fashionable upmarket suburb of Copenhagen, but the Kongstads did not live directly in Copenhagen as originally believed but rather in Rungsted which is an affluent suburban neighborhood in Hørsholm Municipality on the Øresund coast, north of Copenhagen. In 2013 they suddenly relocated to a farmhouse in Valby, Helsinge in the Gribskov municipality which is situated about 80 km north-west of Copenhagen. The source for this is an article published in February 2014 in a Danish Farmer's Magazine called "LandbrugsAvisen". The article is entitled "Fra villa til chinchilla" - From the villa to chinchillas.

According to publicly available data on Danish real estate websites, the house in Valby boasts an impressive 240 square metres of floor space and the property includes around 22 hectares of agricultural land. One recent evaluation put the property value at 4.6 million DKR (about 620k Euros at current exchange rates).

"Whatever about that, the move to the farmhouse has given Kongstad's wife, Majbritt, the possibility to reinvent herself as a chinchilla-breeder and director of a fur farming operation which was reportedly inspired by a dinner table conversation with Torben Nielsen, the then Chief Executive of Kopenhagen Fur. "In Danish press articles which reported on the Kongstad family's move from Rungsted to a more pastoral setting in Valby, the move was said to be motivated by a desire for a change in life-style. But some people who have looked into the matter think that there may be more to it than just this. As far as can be determined, the purchase of the farmhouse was financed mostly by credit (mortgage). At the same time, it is unclear what exactly happened to the proceeds of the sale of the previous upmarket suburban house which could have been expected to yield some gains due to the rise in property prices in the Rungsted area over the years. It has been speculated that at least some of the proceeds from the Rungsted house sale might have been used to cover losses in one or more of the various private businesses operated by Mr. Kongstad and his family.

Whatever about that, the move to the farmhouse has given Kongstad's wife, Majbritt, the possibility to reinvent herself as a chinchilla-breeder and director of a fur farming operation which was reportedly inspired by a dinner table conversation with Torben Nielsen, the then Chief Executive of Kopenhagen Fur.

Note: For those unfamiliar with the fur industry, Kopenhagen Fur is the largest fur skin auction company in the world. Recent research has also uncovered some interesting connections between Kopenhagen Fur and allegations of attempts to buy influence in Danish politics including a donation to the Venstre party which we hope to look at in more detail later on.

In future articles we intend to take a closer look at Mr. Kongstad's political masters in Denmark and the rumoured connections to the Venstre party. We would also like to examine his various private business ventures and the questions which these raise about potential conflicts of interest.

Recent Techrights' Posts

[Video] Dr. Richard Stallman's Keynote Speech in Kerala Finally Uploaded
In non-free format and proprietary YouTube, but perhaps that's better than nothing
LLM Slopfarm: A Site's Last Incarnation Before Throwing in the Towel, Going Offline Permanently
A lot of coverage that claims to be about Finland is chatbot-generated nonsense or poorly-plagiarised work
 
Apparently Confirmed: IBM Layoffs in Canada Today, Hundreds Affected
Impacting "177 people", says one person, "in Ottawa"
When Windows Was Dominant (1990s) Browser Monopoly Meant MSIE, But Now Google Android is Dominant and the Web in a 'Webapps' Era Works With (or Is Designed for) Chrome-isms
We've been there before
Slopwatch: BetaNews, LinuxSecurity.com, and the Attack on Web Search Using Fake and Likely Plagiarised Pages
Changing a few words here and there won't change the fact that it's not properly authored
Links 27/03/2025: U.S. Honeybee Deaths Reach Record High, Legal Occupation Next in Line After War on Science
Links for the day
Using Courts for 'Revenge' is Always a Losing Strategy
Trying to cause someone you dislike to spend a lot of money
IBM CFO James Kavanaugh Refers to Firing of Almost 10,000 Americans as "Workforce Rebalancing" (Shifting IBM's Centre of Balance to Low-salary Contracts/Countries)
The scale of IBM layoffs is getting too large to evade WARN Notices
Islands Are Leaving Microsoft Behind, According to statCounter
Android has had a very strong year
EPO Management Fails to Deny That the Office is Discriminating Against Women
Europe's second-largest institution isn't just exceedingly corrupt but also immoral
In Some Countries the Market Share of Vista 11 is Going Down, Not Up
despite being released in 2021
Rumour: Mass Layoffs in IBM Canada Today
Maybe later today some people from Canada will say something firmer and maybe some media will even talk about that
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 26, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Gemini Links 27/03/2025: X-Files' "Kill Switch", Orlando, and ASN (Autonomous System Number) 'Hack'
Links for the day
Links 26/03/2025: Healthcare Cuts and Turkey's Own "2025 Project" (Culling Opposition)
Links for the day
Microsoft Canonical Pays IDG to Spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
this seems a tad exploitative and reminds us of the time Novell kept telling companies that using anything other than SUSE was dangerous
Gemini Links 26/03/2025: GTD, Zenshuu, and Geminispace Community
Links for the day
Links 26/03/2025: Media's Failures, Arrests of Journalists, Limitations of End-to-End Encryption
Links for the day
LLM Slop (Lots of It Spewed Out by Microsoft) Versus Linux
Microsoft is a very, very evil company. It doesn't mind destroying the Web if there's a chance it'll make a buck in the process or mess up people's brains (in Microsoft's favour).
Slopfarms (Sites That Only Ever Publish LLM Slop) Are Killing Google News
pair of slopfarms still propped up by Google News
Microsoft's Serial Strangler's Law Firm Has a Long History of Fronting for People Who Do Bad and/or Illegal Things
Whose terrible idea was this?
Novell and Microsoft Apologist/Booster Bruce Byfield Writing About the FSF is a Recipe for Problems
Totally not shoehorning some agenda
Looking Forward to the Fall of UPC and Revocation of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Agreement, Which Was Always Illegal and Unconstitutional
We'll try to keep abreast of any progress in this case
Slopwatch: Google News, LinuxSecurity.com, and the General Demise of the Web
many supposed or so-called "news" pages are just spewed out by some chatbots (or tools which help plagiarise original articles without getting caught; detection gets harder)
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 25, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 25, 2025
Links 25/03/2025: Clownflare’s Slop and Bounties on Fake Patents
Links for the day
Links 25/03/2025: Terrace Workbench and Spellcheck in LibreOffice on FreeBSD
Links for the day
Let Them Eat 'Apps'
Go Appless
Linux Runs Almost Everything, But They Almost Never Tell You This (No Marketing Budget)
Only about 1% (or at most 2%) of the Linux Foundation's budget goes towards Linux; a lot is routed towards Bill Gates and Microsoft promotion
Free Software Community Folks Are Closer Together Than the Cliques and Opportunists Rallying Around "Open Source" (Openwashing, Marketing, Conniving)
Generally speaking, freedom-loving geeks learn to reject morbid elements and trolls, who end up expelled
The Open Source Initiative (OSI) Might Get 'Forked' Soon
Someone who read our series has already taken a leading role
IBM Layoffs in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2025
Should Free software people trust such a secretive company?
Roku Will 'Lead' Attempts to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC), Which Represents EPO Corruption and Lobbyism Spreading Upwards Inside the EU
When bribery buys policies and courts, even illegal policies and courts
Growing Poverty Rates in the United States of America (or Elsewhere) Beneficial to GNU/Linux Adoption
Toxic politics around the world, including the US, may mean weaker economies
European Patent Office (EPO) Illegally Turning to Slop Behind Closed Doors, Staff Objects to This Hidden Catastrophe
Who stands to gain from all this and at whose expense?
Gemini Links 25/03/2025: Relaxation, Literary "Movements", and Gemini Mentions
Links for the day
After US Government Funding Cuts the Centralisation of the Web (Especially Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt) is at Risk
They try to pull the plug on open protocols with decent encryption available (unless it is outsourced to third parties)
Links 25/03/2025: Putin Sends Children to Battle, 23andMe Drowns as People's Highly Personal DNA Data Floats
Links for the day
When Microsoft Folks Who Literally Strangle Women Try to Strangle Microsoft Critics
Speaking to Court staff yesterday, they too are shocked about those SLAPPs
Martinique: Windows Down to All-Time Low
we cannot expect Windows to ever recover
Anticipated in 2018: Lilie James & Location tracking, Googlists complained
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 24, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 24, 2025