Bonum Certa Men Certa

Welcoming António Campinos, New President of the European Patent Office

Welcoming sign



Summary: António Campinos starts his job today; we wish him the best of luck and hope he will surprise us for the better

TODAY starts a week of hope at the EPO. After 8 years of tyranny (we have already covered Battistelli's tyrannical behaviour going back to 2010) people hope for honesty, respect, and perhaps even management by a gentleman, not a brute. It's doable, albeit the main issues are that 1) the new President is connected to Battistelli and 2) many of Battistelli's friends remain in top-level management. Will any be gone by Christmas time to signal real and long-lasting change?

Battistelli failed really badly. His own bad behaviour contributed to the collapse of the UPC. A short while ago Alex Morrall (Lexology), avoiding the two lies about UPC, said this: "The European Commission’s Draft Withdrawal Agreement sets out proposals for ongoing equivalent protections in the UK based on existing EU IP rights. There is the potential for major impact on patents in relation to the Unitary European Patent Regime."

Yes, because it won't start. It cannot. 8 years of Battistelli's vandalism/sabotage in the EPO didn't do it.

We're not the first to write about today's change. It is already being pointed out by SUEPO that Christian Kirsch wrote about António Campinos over at Heise. See tweet and link (in German). We suppose SUEPO might produce an English translation some time soon, but it doesn't seem to contain much new/critical information.

Another blog has just reprinted an IP Watch article, for which SUEPO already provided the full text. Here are some remarks on what's expected from Campinos:

Patent attorneys are closely monitoring several changes Battistelli spearheaded. Some of those modifications — expedited timelines for obtaining and challenging patents — were introduced to speed up the patent examination and opposition processes, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP (London) patent attorney Leythem Wall said in an interview. One potential question is whether the system is moving too fast given the finite resources at the EPO, he said. The EPO "generally does a tremendous job," but if the process is faster, the question is whether in the long term quality can keep up, he said.

Another question is whether users of the EPO patent system could have more of a choice as to the speed and timeline of their patent applications, Wall said. There is no way to pause the process or slow it down beyond a few months, he said. The EPO proposed a suspended examination period for up to three years, but there has been no decision to implement, he said. The incoming president could revisit such a scheme, he said.

Some have said they see a change not so much with regard to the process of examining applications but in third-party challenges, Wall said. Since the process is now faster, it places more pressure on third parties to get their challenges right and means they may need to invest more in challenging patents, he said. For examination, following fairly recent changes in their Examination Guidelines, the EPO tends to offer more suggestions on how to overcome objections, which is good, but at the same time it appears to be getting quicker to summon parties to oral hearings at the office, which potentially imposes more costs on users, he said.


Battistelli, who was writing for IAM and doing their keynote speeches in recent months, is still a hero to them. "Battistelli's achievements overshadow the mistakes he undoubtedly made," said IAM in its typical Sunday evening post from Joff Wild, who is still acting as Battistelli's propaganda arm. That says so much about Joff Wild and his motivation although it doesn't surprise us (Joff Wild and Battistelli are pretty close). He was using words like "legacy" to refer to Battistelli like he was some kind of Napoleonic hero. Wild's concluding words are as follows:

And so, a period of tumultuous change comes to an end at the EPO. Battistelli made some mistakes, undoubtedly, but his achievements overshadow them. He left the office having done almost everything he set out to do and with its international standing significantly enhanced. Over the long-term, whether his critics like it or not, it is this that will be remembered. As he begins the next chapter of his life, Benoît Battistelli can be very proud of the one that he has just closed.


Proud? He made a total mess. Many people's lives were ruined (or ended). Many bogus patents got granted, assuring decades of frivolous lawsuits all across Europe. But that will be the subject of the next post. He ruined not only the EPO but also institutions around it, such as ILO.

Campinos' success (or failure) will be judged based on two things: 1) adherence to the law and 2) honesty. Be honest, Mr. Campinos, and always respect and obey the law. That would at least signal to staff that things are changing for the better. For instance, if staff and stakeholders insist that patent quality has suffered (which is true) then say, "OK, we'll look into it and try to improve" rather than just attack the messenger. The mess at the EPO is not the fault of Campinos, but whether he can fix things or not is up to him and Dr. Ernst (who over the past year acted quite recklessly, stonewalling dissent and simply denying legitimate concerns).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete