Bonum Certa Men Certa

EPO Corruption Under António Campinos: Teaser

António Campinos and Topić
António and Željko (2011) - what's a little favour between friends?



Summary: Guest series about EPO affairs with Team Battistelli even after some of it left (still profiting from EPO corruption)

Techrights recently reported on a grubby little EPO-EUIPO love-in together with the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office (DZIV) in Zagreb.



Not for the first time, Techrights was on the right track but as is often the case with EPO matters the public spectacle is only the tip of the iceberg.

EPO insiders have pointed out that there are deeper, hidden layers of corruption which are obscured from public view but which are about to be explored in an upcoming mini-series.

The trigger which inspired this mini-series was a piece of news that came shortly after the Zagreb love-in. Namely, an announcement in the form of the cancellation of the European Qualifying Examination (EQE) 2020 scheduled to take place on 16-19 March.

According to the EPO (warning: epo.org link), the cancellation of the EQE was a response to the latest developments regarding the spread of the COVID-19 (novel Coronavirus).

It's nice to see that the EPO is taking the Coronavirus seriously.

Let's hope it has some success on that front because sadly it seems to have lost the battle against the virus of corruption which has infiltrated its body politic.

But back to the European Qualifying Examination.

For readers who are unfamiliar with the EQE, a few words of explanation may be in order. The EQE is a legal exam focused on patent law which is designed to establish whether a candidate is qualified to practise as a professional representative before the EPO.

In order to qualify for entry on the EPO's list of professional representatives it is normally necessary to have passed this examination.

Candidates for the EQE 2020 who have invested a lot of time and effort into preparing for their big day are understandably rather peeved by this year's cancellation at such short notice.

However, they might be able to take some consolation in the fact that it isn't always necessary to have passed the EQE in order to obtain a place on the EPO's list of professional representatives.

In the coming mini-series we plan to look into the unsolved mystery of how the name of a former EPO Vice-President appeared on this list in 2019.

As you might have suspected, the former EPO Vice-President in question is Željko Topić, who after departing the EPO at the end of 2018 seems to have managed to add a further qualification to his already impressive list of diplomas and certificates.

The events that we plan to examine here took place not during the "reign" of the notoriously corrupt influence-peddler Battistelli but rather on the watch of his successor, the allegedly "clean" António Campinos.

There is a further detail to this saga which suggests that the current EPO Vice-President in charge of Legal and International Affairs, Dr. Christoph Ernst is likely to have been implicated in the affair.

This is hardly surprising in view of Ernst's long-standing connections to the Battistelli-Kongstad clique on the Administrative Council.

Readers may recall that Ernst previously held the position as Chair of the Administrative Council after his predecessor Jesper Kongstad had departed prematurely under circumstances that have never been fully clarified.

Kongstad's abrupt exit from the Administrative Council seems to have been connected with allegations of financial irregularities which have been doing the rounds inside the EPO for many years now.

But in an international organisation which lacks its own independent Audit Committee and where the internal audit function appears to be safely in the hands of the remnants of Battistelli's "old guard", you would be well-advised not to hold your breath waiting for a credible investigation into what would be a criminal matter in any normal jurisdiction.

Whatever about that, Ernst was quickly moved in as a "safe pair of hands" to fill the gap left on the Administrative Council by Kongstad's untimely departure in October 2017.

A little over a year later, in a typical game of EPO musical chairs, he was rewarded with the plum job of Vice-President in charge of Legal and International Affairs (VP5) when the former holder of that position, Raimund Lutz, departed in December 2018.

Ernst and Topić
Did Ernst facilitate Topić's entry onto the EPO's list of professional representatives?



Based on the currently available information it would appear that Ernst played a key role in facilitating Topić's mysterious entry onto the EPO's list of professional representatives in 2019.

Stay tuned for more as we take a closer look at the new EPO management team and the Balkan Express connection.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
 
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: gwit and Restart
Links for the day
Links 13/02/2025: Algorithm Bots and 'Teleport' Breakthrough
Links for the day
EPO Staff Representatives Confront the President Who Says 'F--king' in Front of Female Workers Over Measurable Discrimination Against Female Colleagues
Central Staff Committee versus Lukashenko's sponsor
IBM Layoffs in 'RTO' Clothing Reported by Thomas Claburn
This "hey hi" (AI) nonsense is just a go-to excuse that IBM and GAFAM (and many others) use
Still Waiting for the EU to Abolish the Illegal and Unconstitutional Court Linked to EPO Corruption and Lobbyism by the Patent Litigation Industry
Sadly, all the blogs that used to talk about those issues have been infiltrated and then completely hijacked by the very perpetrators of the illegality
Social Engineering of the Free Software Movement is a Corporate Takeover With Code of Conduct (CoC) to Drive Out or Expel Dissent
Richard Stallman (RMS) covered "cancel culture"
Links 13/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Google (Disguised as "Buyouts"), Telecoms Price Hikes as Collusion/Price-Fixing
Links for the day
[Video] Richard Stallman Questions and Answers Session in Google's YouTube or Invidious
From last night
Gemini Links 13/02/2025: Broken Watches and Naming Types
Links for the day
Corrupt Bill Gates Worming His Way Into Richard Stallman Videos in Google's YouTube
Reputation laundering riding other people's names?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 12, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 12, 2025