European Patent Office (EPO) Series: All the President's Men
Previous Parts:
Part 11
In this part we start taking a closer look at the members of the entourage which accompanied António Campinos to his meeting with António Costa in Brussels on 3rd February 2026.
In this part our focus returns to the meeting which took place in Brussels on 3rd February 2026 between the two Antónios – Campinos and Costa. More specifically, we intend to shine a light on the members of the entourage which accompanied the EPO President on that occasion.
As we mentioned in the first part of this series, the official website of the European Council includes a number of photographs and a video clip which which enables us to identify the individuals in question, namely:
• Gilles Requena
• Patrice Pellegrino
• Sandro Mendonça
The first person named above is Gilles Requena who will be familiar to readers of Techrights. Requena's current job title at the EPO is "Chief Patent Research and Policy Officer" and he continues to serve as a member of the EPO's Management Advisory Committee (MAC) as he has done since the days of Benoît Battistelli.
The second person is Patrice Pellegrino who is the head of the EPO's Liaison Office in Brussels, a position that he has occupied since January 2020.
The third person is Sandro Mendonça.
There is a Brazilian football player of the same name – Sandro da Silva Mendonça – who pursued a career in Malaysia and has more recently taken up a position as an assistant manager with the Kyrgyzstan national team.
But the Sandro Mendonça who is of interest to us here is an entirely different person, namely Sandro Miguel Ferreira Mendonça. He has no known connection with the world of professional football. On the contrary, he is a Portuguese academic who has recently become a key player on "Team Campinos" at the EPO.
As far as can be determined, Mendonça joined the EPO some time during 2025. According to his LinkedIn webpage, he is attached to the EPO's "Science Policy Research Unit" but, as we shall see in due course, it seems that more recently he has advanced to the position of "Advisor to the President".
Mendonça joined Team Campinos some time during 2025 and according to his LinkedIn webpage, he is attached to the EPO's "Science Policy Research Unit".
Prior to joining the EPO, Mendonça was an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics of Iscte – Lisbon University Institute of Lisbon. One of his many online CVs describes him as "an economist with experience as a teacher, researcher, decision-maker, consultant and opinion-maker".
In the upcoming parts we will take a closer look at the above-mentioned individuals.
Stay tuned for more coming up soon... █