European Patent Office (EPO) Series: Effective Dispute Resolution… But Not For EPO Staff
Previous Parts:
Part 27
Campinos addressing the UPC love-in in Ljubljana on 2nd June 2026
Readers of Techrights might recall that for a short time at the start of the EPO's "Battistelli Era", Slovenia fielded one of the few Administrative Council delegations which managed to maintain its own independent line against the tyrannical EPOnian "Sun King".
At the 136th meeting of the Administrative Council in June 2013 the Slovenian delegation headed by Luka Novak declined to give an endorsement to Battistelli's manifestly unlawful Vichyite "Strike Regulations". In 2014, a leaked recording from a meeting of the EPO's Budget and Finance Committee, showed that Novak's successor – a lady by the name of Vesna Stanković Juričić – was not afraid to openly challenge the Corsican despot and corruptionist Battistelli and call him out on the dubious "human resources" policy which was being promoted by his management team.
However, Vesna Stanković Juričić didn't last long at the head of the Slovenian IPO. She departed in May 2015, about a year and a half through her five year term. Soon after that, following the appointment of Vojko Toman, the Slovenian IPO was effectively captured by "Team Battistelli" and since then it never showed any discernible sign of its formerly independent spirit.
One of Battistelli's last public engagements before he departed in ignominy from the EPO was to attend the EPO’s PATLIB conference in Ljubljana in May 2018 where he posed for photo-ops with Vojko Toman and Eva Štravs Podlogar, State Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology of Slovenia.
Slovenian IPO director Vojko Toman (left) posing for a photo-op with Battistelli in Ljubljana in 2018.
In 2017 Toman greeted the election of Campinos as Battistelli's successor with the following words of approval: “We congratulate Mr. António Campinos on his election. We are certain that based on his past achievements he will lead EPO to new successes. We wish him lots of success and look forward to our future cooperation.”
Article by Tim Lince of IAM, whose chief now works for a patent troll and was secretly funded by the EPO's management.
Since March 2022 the Slovenian IPO has been headed by Karin Žvokelj who has followed the example of her predecessor in pursuing close cooperation with Campinos.
In December 2022 Campinos appeared in Ljubljana to speak at an event which was ostensibly organised to mark the 20th anniversary of Slovenia's accession to the European Patent Convention. The real purpose of that event seems to have been the promotion of the EPO-backed "Unitary Patent System" including the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
Less than a year later, in September 2023, Campinos was back in Ljubljana to conclude an agreement on search co-operation with the Slovenian IPO. On this occasion, the EPO President was received by the Slovenian IPO Director Karin Žvokelj and Matjaž Han, Minister of the Economy, Tourism and Sport.
Campinos grabs a photo-op with Slovenian IPO director Karin Žvokelj in Ljubljana in September 2023.
In her role as Slovenian IPO Director, Žvokelj is heavily involved in the affairs of the Alicante-based EUIPO where she appears to be well-connected with the former faithful acolyte" of Campinos, his Portuguese compatriot João Negrão who succeeded Christian Archambeau as head of the EU trademark agency. On 3rd June 2025, Žvokelj was elected as Chairperson of the Management Board of EUIPO, the agency's governing body which is analogous to the EPO's Administrative Council.
Slovenian IPO Director Karin Žvokelj is also heavily involved in the affairs of the EUIPO and appears to be well-connected with the EU agency's director João Negrão, the Portuguese compatriot of António Campinos.
Presumably under the influence of "Team Battistelli", Slovenia became an "early adopter" of the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
Already in 2015 the Slovenian authorities announced their intention to ratify the UPC Agreement and set up a facility for a UPC-linked Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre. Some time later in May 2018, during his visit to the EPO’s PATLIB conference in Ljubljana, Battistelli "stressed the importance of a full completion of ratification of the UPC Agreement by Slovenia, not least because Ljubljana will host one of the seats of the new court's Mediation and Arbitration Centre".
Slovenia completed its ratification of the UPC Agreement in October 2021 and the planned Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) finally opened for business on 12th May 2026 with the official inauguration ceremony taking place the following month on 2nd June 2026.
This event offered EPO President Campinos an ideal opportunity to combine reappointment lobbying with UPC promotion as he joined a select audience of "judges, representatives of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), policymakers and European patent professionals" for PMAC.
No doubt Campinos also availed of the opportunity to "network" with Slovenian IPO Director Karin Žvokelj. This was probably the third time that their paths had crossed during the last month. By a curious coincidence, Žvokelj appeared as a guest speaker at the INTA Annual Meeting in London at the start of May where Campinos delivered the keynote speech. She also attended the European Patent Network junket in Split on 11th to 12th May where she was spotted posing for a photo-op with the EPO President.
Slovenian IPO director Karin Žvokelj appeared as a guest speaker at the INTA Annual Meeting in London (left) where Campinos delivered the keynote speech and she also attended the European Patent Network junket in Split where she posed for a photo-op with the EPO President (right).
There is an undeniable irony in a situation where the EPO President travels on a mission to Slovenia to inaugurate a new Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre while staff at the EPO's "production sites" in Munich, Berlin and The Hague continue to grapple with unresolved industrial conflict.
The official narrative celebrates dialogue, mediation and alternative dispute resolution. Speeches extol the virtues of finding common ground before conflict escalates. Europe, we are told, needs modern mechanisms for resolving disputes constructively. But for "the great and the good" of the European "IP community", dispute resolution only appears to be an attractive concept when it serves the vested interests of patent proprietors (mostly multinational corporations).
We recall that it took eight years before the ILOAT finally saw fit to overturn Battistelli's manifestly unlawful "Strike Regulations" in 2021. This belated restoration of the fundamental rights of EPO staff has permitted the current ongoing industrial action to take place unhindered by repressive managerial measures à la Battistelli.
But as industrial action continues at the EPO, the President's self-professed enthusiasm for mediation and dispute resolution is nowhere to be seen. Years of deteriorating labour relations have created the impression of an organisation whose management has little or no interest in resolving disagreements with its staff through meaningful engagement. Employees have repeatedly called for genuine social dialogue. What they typically experience instead is communication from above rather than negotiation across the table.
The irony is all the more palpable when it is recalled that back in 2018 Campinos was mandated by the Administrative Council to restore social dialogue at the EPO.
By May 2022, shortly before his rubber-stamped reappointment for a second term, Campinos was reportedly articulating his version of "social dialogue" in the following terms:
"You will never have such a nice person being the f***ing President for the next fifty f***ing years. So you wake up and make agreements with me, or you never will for your f***ing life."
Fast-forwarding to 2026 we find the EPO President on a self-promotional mission to Slovenia to celebrate a centre dedicated to helping patent proprietors resolve disputes while the same spirit of mediation remains conspicuous by its absence when the disputes involve patent examiners and other staff within his own organisation.
The new PMAC in Ljubljana promises to help parties avoid costly litigation by encouraging dialogue before positions become entrenched. One might legitimately wonder whether anyone has ever considered trying such an approach at the EPO itself.
In any event, it is clear that those responsible for EPO governance still have a long road to travel from proclaiming the virtues of dispute resolution to actually practising them.
In the next part we will report on the EPO President's further UPC promotional mission to Prague, immediately following the PMAC inauguration ceremony in Ljubljana. In particular, we will reveal how this visit to Prague provided him with a convenient opportunity to "network" with the Chairman of the Administrative Council Josef Kratochvíl. █