“Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.”
–Henri Poincare
Summary: António Campinos, who is rumoured to be Benoît Battistelli’s most likely successor, is also rumoured to be French
THE management of the EPO is already ‘stuffed’ (or stacked) with French people. We wrote many articles about it and EPO staff representation complained about it as well. It’s not a subjective view as it’s rather trivial to simply look at the organisational structure/chart and annotate it with nationalities. This, to a large degree, is Battistelli’s fault. He brought in many former colleagues of his (nepotism).
Alain Pompidou, whom we wrote a lot about in 2015, was the “fourth president of the European Patent Office (EPO) from July 1, 2004 to June 30, 2007,” as Wikipedia puts it. He too was French. To his credit, he did have background in science (professor of histology, embryology and cytogenetics).
António Campinos, whom we wrote a lot about in 2016 (when he was rumoured to be Battistelli’s replacement), may also be French.
“António Campinos, whom we wrote a lot about in 2016 (when he was rumoured to be Battistelli’s replacement), may also be French.”Rumours have spread inside the Office that Campinos has so-called ‘dual’ citizenship, i.e. Portuguese and French (his mother is apparently French). His full name is António Serge De Pinho CAMPINOS (notice the capitals, French style as some publications have put it) and he is formally Portuguese, “although he was born in France,” James Nurton wrote back in October 2010 (we mentioned this last year; we had looked at his background beforehand). He also studied in the University of Montpellier, France (Law Degree, 1991; Master Degree in Public Law, 1994). There’s also the University European Centre, Nancy, France (Post-graduation in European High Studies, 1992), according to his CV. So he speaks French. He is in his late forties, i.e. two decades younger than Battistelli.
If Campinos becomes the next EPO President, that will be 3 French people in charge out of 4 in succession (Brimelow being the exception as she’s a Brit).
How very diverse an office. The EPO produced some puff pieces to that effect about a year ago. It’s a lie. Even insiders complained (at the time) that it was a lie. █