Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Corruption Under António Campinos: Part 1 - António and the Balkan Express Connection

Previously (yesterday): EPO Corruption Under António Campinos: Teaser

Campinos and Kuterovac
Campinos and Kuterovac at the February 2020 EPO-EUIPO love-in Zagreb



Summary: It's clear that António enjoys long-standing cordial relations with the members of Battistelli's "Balkan Express" team

When António turned up at the recent EPO-EUIPO love-in in Zagreb it wasn't his first contact with the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (DZIV). In his former position as head of the EUIPO in Alicante, formerly known as the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM), he was a seasoned traveller on the "Balkan Express" of the IP world.



Campinos and Topic



For example, back in September 2011 he appeared for some photo-ops with the then Director-General of the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (DZIV), our old friend Željko Topić, for the signing of a bilateral co-operation agreement between the OHIM and DZIV which took place on the margins of a WIPO meeting in Geneva.

Kuterovac
Topić's "protégé", Ljiljana Kuterovac



Some time later in May 2013, in preparation for Croatia's coming accession to the European Union, Campinos met with the new Director of the DZIV, Topić's "protégé", Ljiljana Kuterovac, on the margins of an OHIM Administrative Board and Budget Committee (ABBC) meeting where they signed further cooperation and bilateral agreements between the OHIM and DZIV.

Campinos and Kuterovac handshake
Campinos and Kuterovac in May 2013



Not long afterwards, following Croatia's accession to the European Union on 1 July 2013, Campinos turned up at an OHIM-DZIV junket in Zagreb under the title of "Croatia in the Community Trademark and Community Design Systems".

Campinos and Kuterovac in Croatia
Kuterovac and Campinos at an OHIM-DZIV love-in in Zagreb (July 2013)



It's clear that António enjoys long-standing cordial relations with the members of Battistelli's "Balkan Express" team.

So it would hardly be a surprise if he were to lend a helping hand to a friend in need.

"In order to understand the nature of this favour we need to take a closer look at Topić IP d.o.o., a Zagreb-based IP consultancy established in 2019."As a matter of fact, it seems that this is precisely what he did in 2019 when a former member of the team came knocking on his door looking for a small favour to help his newly established IP consultancy business.

In order to understand the nature of this favour we need to take a closer look at Topić IP d.o.o., a Zagreb-based IP consultancy established in 2019.

Stay tuned for the next instalment which we look at this intrepid entrepreneurial start-up which in its own words, "represents clients before European Patent Office (EPO), European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), European Medicines Agency (EMA), Croatian agency for Medicinal Products and Medical Devices, and before more than 20 other competent national authorities from regional EU and non-EU countries to USA and Canada".

Recent Techrights' Posts

For the First Time in a Month OSI's "OpenSource.org" Blogs and It's Basically a Microsoft Blog Post (Microsoft Controls OSI)
For the first time in a month OSI writes something and it is Microsoft propaganda composed by a Microsoft-salaried operative
Microsoft, Already Borrowing 3 Billion Dollars a Month, is Trying to Cause Many People to Resign
MSN (i.e. Microsoft) and others openly admit it
They Want Activists to Just Barely Walk and Eat, Not Do Activism Anymore
It's sort of like the ending of '1984'
Non-Free JavaScript Programs in Banks Aren't Even the Biggest Problem
Technology was supposed to make life easier; in practice, however, for most of us the opposite effect can be observed
IBM is Obliterating Fedora
"Fedora releases were shipping with an increasing number of bugs on launch day even while I was using it for a several year stretch."
 
Gemini Links 08/08/2025: KDE/Qt Development and What's Missing From "Retro"
Links for the day
Links 07/08/2025: US Punishes India Instead of Russia, Attacks Law Firms to Prevent Scrutiny
Links for the day
Read Us in Geminispace as Well
it's definitely a lot simpler than using a Web browser
Once a Site About BSD and GNU/Linux, and After Months of Silence, LinuxBSDos.com Comes Back Only as a Slopfarm
very frustrating
Links 07/08/2025: Hardware Wars, Mass Recall of Colgate Total Clean Mint, More Microsoft Holes Found
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/08/2025: "Right To Manage" and LoRa Analysis
Links for the day
GAFAM 'Says' is Front Page "News"
The point of journalism is to check and assess facts, not parrot what people and companies merely claim
Links 07/08/2025: Apple Makes False Promises, More Trouble for Microsoft
Links for the day
OSS Didn't Always Mean Open Source Software
"oligarchs all the way down"
The Register MS Does More Microsoft Sez or GitHub Sez (Says) Pieces
60 minutes ago
Quit Perpetuating the Narrative of Gemini Protocol 'Dying' (It's False)
The "whisper campaign" against Gemini Protocol
Criticising Social Control Media in Social Control Media
Many people are quitting Social Control Media (fewer of them announce this in public)
Slopfarms Are Typically Fake News
Slopfarms typically relay falsehoods
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: Replacing a Pocket Watch and Buying in Bulk
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 06, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 06, 2025
August Hits Microsoft Hard: Dead Divisions, Dead Products, Layoffs Again (on Week 1)
Microsoft's debt is soaring
Slopwatch: Slow Day for LLM Slop, Serial Sloppers Still at It in Their Slopfarms
The Web would be better off if those sites went offline
Red Hat Layoffs Expected in 5 Days (Monday)
"They will announce and proceed with the cuts on 08/11."
Links 06/08/2025: Substack in Trouble, Slop Sceptic Shira Perlmutter Seeks Emergency Injunction Pending Appeal
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: Pinephone, Reverse-Engineering, and More
Links for the day
Links 06/08/2025: Faked Values of Slop Companies and Government Bailouts
Links for the day
FOSSY 2025 Conference Safety
The GAFAM-funded FOSSY 2025 is over
Microsoft's Favourite Pay-to-Say 'Analyst' Firm Has Just Collapsed
'Analysts' that helped propel Microsoft to fictional values akin to Ponzi schemes
Ask Google (Jeeves)
What does Google "know", not know, or would rather forget (or embellish)?
They Want You To Talk About Trump or 'The Other Bill' in Relation to Trafficking of Underage Girls for Sexual Exploitation
Just something we wanted to say...
How to Quadruple Your "Goodwill" Value and Grow Your (Wall) Street "Value" From $152B to $4000B Without Producing a Single Successful Product/Service
The longer it goes on for, the bigger the implosion will be
Staying Productive
Two very reputable institutions recently told us they now reckon Microsoft is somehow funding those SLAPPs against us
A Blow for Patent Ambitions of Bill Epsteingate
It's about money
66 Countries Where More People Use iPhones (or iPads) Than Microsoft Windows, According to statCounter Data
a list of countries where iOS now exceeds Windows
Apple's iOS Bigger Than Microsoft Windows in Many Countries
This ought to alarm Microsoft
The Mainstream Media Talks About Spotify Share Price and Price Hikes, Not Its Debt Increasing by About 33% in Just 12 Months
Spotify isn't a company in good shape
New "US Editor for The Register" is 80% Microsoft and Windows
they typically just treat Microsoft like the "Holy Grail" of "IT"
Microsoft is Apparently Sending Gag Orders or NDAs to Staff That Got Laid Off (“We were told not to post on LinkedIn. Not to say anything.”)
The main lies we keep seeing
Richard M. Stallman Has Published AI Memos Since 1980 (45 Years Ago)
Back when the term AI actually meant something
Gemini Links 06/08/2025: BitTorrent and Feedly Bots
Links for the day
Windows All-Time Lows, Android All-Time Highs in Kuwait
New lows for Windows can be found in many countries this month
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 05, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 05, 2025