European Patent Office (EPO) Series: A Source of Pride for Portugal?
Previous Parts:
Part 39
The election of António Campinos as EPO President in October
2017 was greeted with official acclaim in his home country. But can
he still expect the same level of support from the Portuguese
political establishment in 2026, in particular in the wake of
the 2025 "Cocainegate" affair?
In the preceding part we saw how modern-day Portugal has become adept at bureaucratic empire building and we looked at its success in securing the appointment of António Campinos and João Negrão to the top executive positions at the EPO and EUIPO.
In this part our focus returns to the main theme of this series, namely the current reappointment campaign of the EPO President, as we consider whether Campinos can still expect to enjoy the same level of support from the Portuguese political establishment as he did during the earlier stages of his career.
When Campinos won the race for the top position at the OHIM back in 2010, there doesn't appear to have been much notice taken of the appointment in his home country. Or at least we haven't been able to find any congratulatory announcements from official sources.
This could be due to the fact that at the time in question the country was in a difficult economic situation in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. It was suffering from a high unemployment rate and was coming under severe pressure from "financial markets" because of its huge public debt levels which eventually led to an IMF bailout. So it's likely that the Socialist Party (PS) minority government led by José Sócrates was preoccupied with other more urgent matters and that congratulating Campinos on his new job in Alicante wasn't their first priority.
But despite the lack of any official communiqués marking the event, it's clear that in order to secure that appointment, Campinos must have had the official endorsement of the Portuguese government. It's also worth recalling that back in 2010, the European Commission was headed by the former Portuguese Prime Minister José Barroso, an erstwhile Maoist student radical who later joined Goldman Sachs as a "non-executive chairman" and "advisor". It's quite likely that Campinos received behind-the-scenes support from his compatriot Barroso to help him to secure the top job in Alicante.
OHIM President António Campinos (right) welcoming the President
of the European Commission, José Barroso (left), during the
latter's visit to Alicante in 2014 to mark the 20th
anniversary of the OHIM. It has been speculated that Barroso is
likely to have played an active role behind the scenes in
supporting the appointment of his compatriot Campinos as OHIM
President in 2010.
By the time Campinos was elected as the chosen successor to Benoît Battistelli at the EPO in October 2017, his status and visibility in his home country seems to have advanced to a level where his new appointment was considered sufficiently important to deserve an official communiqué.
The communiqué was published on the website of the XXI Portuguese government, a Socialist Party (PS) minority government led by Prime Minister António Costa which held office between 26 November 2015 and 26 October 2019 and the content of the communiqué was also reproduced on the official website of the Portuguese INPI.
Amongst other things, this communiqué boasted about how Campinos had secured 36 votes "compared with two votes for the other candidate, the Italian Cuno Jakob Tarfusser, currently a judge at the International Criminal Court". It described the European Patent Organisation as "a key institution within the framework of European policy on the promotion and protection of innovation" and mentioned how it was "currently facing the major challenge of implementing the European Patent with unitary effect".
The communiqué concluded by describing the election of Campinos to the position of EPO President as "a source of pride for Portugal":
"The election of António Campinos to a European post of the utmost importance is not only a source of pride for Portugal, but also recognition by our European partners of the importance of, and national involvement in, the promotion of innovation, as well as the alignment our country has demonstrated with European intellectual property policies."
Campinos also received congratulations from the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa who declared that it was "with great satisfaction" that he had learned of "the appointment of António Campinos, currently director of the European Internal Market Agency, for the role of President of the European Patent Office...".
De Sousa also paid tribute to the efforts of "Portuguese diplomacy" in helping Campinos to secure his appointment:
"The election of António Campinos, in addition to a personal success that I am pleased to register, is another demonstration of the quality and competence of Portuguese professionals, increasingly internationally recognised, in this case also with the significant and relevant support of Portuguese diplomacy."
The congratulatory message from de Sousa was noted in Diário de Notícias, a weekly journal which is considered as a newspaper of record for Portugal.
In October 2017, the Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de
Sousa declared that it was "with great satisfaction" that he had
learned of "the appointment of António Campinos … for the role of
President of the European Patent Office" and at the same time he
paid tribute to "the significant and relevant support of Portuguese
diplomacy" in helping Campinos to secure the appointment.
Local copies for the sake of long-term preservation: 2017-10-10 - Campinos elected - XXI Government | 2017-10-10 - Campinos - Congratulations PT President | 2017-10-10 - INPI Campinos EPO election
Almost five years later in June 2022, when the decision to reappoint Campinos for a second term was taken by the EPO's Administrative Council, the official Portuguese reaction seems to have been far more muted.
For example, no announcement can be found on the website of the Portuguese INPI which usually publishes congratulatory notices when its former senior officials such as Campinos and Negrão secure top jobs in intergovernmental bodies like the EPO or EUIPO.
As a matter of fact, the only Portuguese language commentary which can be found online is a bland and obsequious puff piece on the website of the "Portuguese Technological Centre for Footwear". This is an obscure non-profit public utility institution founded in 1986 which describes itself as a Technology and Innovation Centre providing support to the Portuguese footwear and fashion sector. The puff piece published on this website seems to be little more than a translated copypasta version of the official EPO press release announcing the reappointment.
The government of the day was the XXIII Portuguese Government, a Socialist Party (PS) majority government led by Prime Minister António Costa. This was the same government which a little over a year later in July 2023 marked the occasion of João Negrão's appointment as Executive Director of the EUIPO with a laudatory official communiqué entitled "Portugal wins election to head the EU Intellectual Property Office". Some months later, on 7th November 2023, the XXIII Portuguese government suddenly collapsed when Costa resigned as a consequence of "Operation Influencer".
It is not clear why there was no official government communiqué to mark the reappointment of Campinos as EPO President in June 2022. It could have been a sign that the enthusiasm of the Portuguese political establishment for its former "poster child" had cooled by then. After all, it should not be forgotten that in June 2019, about a year after he had taken up his new position in Munich, Campinos was reported to have disgraced himself in public during a "drunk and disorderly" incident which involved his removal from a Lufthansa flight to Brussels.
Nevertheless, despite the absence of any official congratulatory announcements, the fact remains that Campinos could not have secured his 2022 reappointment without the endorsement of the Portuguese government. It is also worth noting in this regard that in his capacity as EPO President Campinos subsequently went on to play a key role in lobbying for the appointment of his compatriot João Negrão as Executive Director of the EUIPO in 2023.
It is tempting to speculate here that the Portuguese political establishment may have been wary about publicising its official support for Campinos in 2022, but it nevertheless endorsed his reappointment as EPO President because his continued presence there would enable him to lobby for his compatriot Negrão in the 2023 race to secure the top job in Alicante for a Portuguese candidate.
As we already noted above, it is a matter of public record, in his capacity as the Portuguese Prime Minister of the day, António Costa endorsed the initial appointment of Campinos as EPO President back in 2017. And we can also be fairly sure that Costa gave his tacit endorsement to the subsequent reappointment of Campinos in 2022 despite the fact that this support was not officially publicised.
Turning to the present, as we already noted in an earlier part of this series, in his present role as President of the European Council, Costa is now in a position to exert a significant influence on the EPO President's 2026 reappointment campaign if he is minded to do so.
We also noted previously that, all other things being equal, it was likely that the Portuguese political establishment – including Costa – would be inclined to support Campinos in his current reappointment bid. But on that occasion we raised the question as to whether all other things still remained equal or whether circumstances had changed to such an extent that Campinos could no longer count on the unqualified support of the Brotherhood of São Bento.
In the concluding part of this series we plan to return to that question as we look at whether Campinos can still rest on his former laurels as "a source of pride for Portugal" or whether he has in the meantime become a potential source of public embarrassment for his political sponsors in the wake of the 2025 "Cocainegate" affair. █