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President's Activities Report SUBMITTED BY CA/88/15 Orig.: en Munich, 25.09.2015 SUBJECT: President's activities report SUBMITTED BY: President of the European Patent Office ADDRESSEES: Administrative Council (for information) CA/88/15 e 152610010 - I - TABLE OF CONTENTS Subject Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. PERFORMANCE 1 A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION 1 a) Filings 1 b) Efficiency 2 c) Publications 3 d) Time to delivery of the search products 4 e) Time to publication of the patent 5 III. MEASURES TAKEN IN DG1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE QUALITY AND SERVICE 7 A. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN 2015 7 B. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE” 7 a) "Esprit de service" | "VICO for Oral Proceedings” 7 b) "Esprit de service" | New WiFi for Oral Proceedings 8 c) "Esprit de service" | 1LCS 8 d) "Esprit de service" | Praktika Extern 2015” 8 C. CAREER PATH AND REORGANISATION 9 a) Examiner Career: Team Managers and Senior Expert Examiners 9 b) Performance Management 10 c) DG1 Quality Action Plan 11 d) Harmonisation activities in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) area 12 e) Areas of Competence (AoC) 13 f) Paid extra activities for examiners 13 D. PROCEDURES AND CLASSIFICATION 14 a) Early Certainty from Search (ECFS) 14 b) PCT Direct 18 c) Training activities for the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) 19 d) Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office 20 IV. BOARDS OF APPEAL 21 A. DG 3 PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTION 21 B. STRUCTURAL REFORM OF THE BOARDS OF APPEALS 22 CA/88/15 e 152610010 - II - V. INTERACTION WITH STAKEHOLDERS 23 A. SACEPO 23 B. PARTNERSHIP FOR QUALITY 24 VI. IT and AUTOMATION PROJECTS 24 A. ITR – DELIVERIES FOR EXAMINERS 24 B. CMS – NEW SYSTEM INTEGRATOR 25 C. NEW AUTOMATION GOVERNANCE 26 D. IT SECURITY 27 E. OTHER DEVELOPMENTS IN AUTOMATION 28 VII. BUILDINGS AND PROCUREMENT 29 A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE 29 B. OTHER BUILDING PROJECTS 29 C. CENTRAL PROCUREMENT 29 VIII. QUALITY 30 IX. HUMAN RESOURCES 31 A. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE NEW PERFORMANCE AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 31 B. HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 32 C. SOCIAL DIALOGUE 34 D. TRANSPARENCY ON WORKING CONDITIONS: PUBLICATION OF THE SERVICE REGULATIONS ON THE EPO WEBSITE 35 X. EPN 36 A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES 36 B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY 38 a) Institutional Strengthening 38 b) Judicial Training 38 c) Innovation Support 39 d) e-learning 39 C. CO-OPERATION WITH OHIM 40 D. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO 40 E. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER 41 F. PATENT INFORMATION 41 CA/88/15 e 152610010 - III - XI. EPO AS A GLOBAL PLAYER 41 A. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS 41 B. BILATERAL RELATIONS 42 C. IP5 COOPERATION 43 D. TRILATERAL COOPERATION 45 E. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION 45 F. STRENGTHENING THE PCT 46 G. SUBSTANTIVE PATENT LAW HARMONISATION 47 XII. UNITARY PATENT / Unified patent court 48 A. UNITARY PATENT 48 B. UNIFIED PATENT COURT (UPC) 48 XIII. THE EPO AND SOCIETY 49 A. ANNUAL REPORT 2014 49 B. EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD 49 C. CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN TECHNOLOGIES AND STANDARDS 50 XIV. CONCLUDING REMARKS 51 XV. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION 51 CA/88/15 e 152610010 I. INTRODUCTION In order to ensure transparency and enhance reporting of Office activities to the Council, a comprehensive overview of the year just passed is presented to each March meeting of the Council. This present interim report thus describes the principal developments so far in 2015; the full account will be presented in March 2016. II. PERFORMANCE A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION a) Filings The first months in 2015 have shown a slowdown in patent filings. At the end of May 108 647 European patent filings were recorded (European direct applications and PCT international applications in 2015). This represents a 4.5% decrease compared with the corresponding figure of 2014, which was boosted by an extraordinary surge in PCT filings from the US as a consequence of the introduction of the America Invents Act First-to-file system in the US in March 2013. At the end of August, the number of requests for a European patent (European direct applications filed in 2015 and PCT applications entering the European regional phase in 2015) amounted to 101 378 applications, 1.2% above the corresponding figure for 2014. CA/88/15 e 1/51 152610010 During the period January to August 2015, the Office received 145 555 search requests (-0.1%) as well as 94 232 requests for European examination (+1.8%). This represents an increase of 0.7% in the workload compared to the same period of 2014. It is expected that the end of year total will be very close to the budget figure. At the end of May 2015, the EPO was selected as ISA by the applicants for 36.4% of all PCT international applications filed in 2015 (37.1% for the whole of 2014). The examiners' output reached 243 190 search, examination and opposition products, 14% above the figures at end of August 2014. b) Efficiency In the framework of the Quality/Efficiency strategy, it is the goal of the Office to keep its overall staff complement constant while increasing its production in ways sufficient to manage the workload and maintain or improve quality. The figure below illustrates the continuing success of this strategy, whereby the number of Full Time Equivalent employees has decreased while the number of products produced by each FTE is sharply increasing, a clear marker of the improved efficiency of the Office. Paid man years Products per FTE (FTE) 7 000 55 54.3 54 53 6 750 52 51 49.8 6 500 6 580 50 6 571 6 526 49.0 6 472 49 48.4 6 436 6 429 6 431 47.7 48 6 250 46.4 47 45.5 46 6 000 45 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Sep‐2014 Aug‐2015 Paid man years, FTE SEO Products / FTE CA/88/15 e 2/51 152610010 Core time per examiner increased by 5% over 2014 (Search + Examination + Opposition time over Available paid capacity went up from 83,3% in Jan-Jul 2014 to 86,1% in 2015). Average performance in term of productivity has been much better than last year (7%) and better than planned providing more than 8.000 additional Products compared to plan. c) Publications Targeted measures have been taken by the Office since beginning of this year in order to increase both the production of grants and speed up the administrative processes leading to publication. After 8 months in 2015, the EPO published 44 588 European patents, which is 3.8% more than during the same period in 2014. Of the granted patents, 31.3% (-1.6%) were published within 36 months. EPO Published Patents 68 000 66 712 budget 70 000 65 657 64 613 60 000 50 000 40 000 30 000 End of August End of August 42 938 44 588 20 000 10 000 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 CA/88/15 e 3/51 152610010 d) Time to delivery of the search products The duration of the search process is measured by the age expressed in months of the file since the date of priority at the time the search report – including written opinion is sent (median time). Age in months at the end of the search 16 15.0 14 12 10 8 8.2 EP first filings National 6 5.8 PCT (ISA) 4 2 0 2012 2013 2014 Sep 2014 ‐ Aug 2015 CA/88/15 e 4/51 152610010 e) Time to publication of the patent The time elapsed is measured from the date of entry into the European grant procedure up until the date of publication of the patent: for the European direct application this is the date of receipt, and the Euro-PCT application, the date of entry into the regional phase. It measures the duration of the European grant procedure completed during each reporting period. The objective set out is 36 months from the start of the granting procedure. Time to publication of the patent in months from the start of the EPO grant procedure 44.6 43.3 42.7 42.9 36 24 12 0 2012 2013 2014 Current 2015 The time up to grant decreased from 44.6 months in 2012 to 42.9 months so far in 2015 (median time). CA/88/15 e 5/51 152610010 The following table further highlights the key EPO core business related statistics at the end of August 2015. General EPO Statistics 21 September 2015 2014 2015 2015/2014 in % 1 Total European patent applications (Jan-Aug) 100 159 101 378 1,2% 2a Direct European applications (Jan-Aug) 38 828 38 663 -0,4% 2b PCT applications entering the regional phase (Jan-Aug) 60 730 61 710 1,6% 3 Searches carried out (EPO level) (Jan-Aug) 150 396 163 727 8,9% - of which European + supplementary + other 74 970 89 940 20,0% - of which International PCT searches carried out 57 307 56 624 -1,2% 4 European examinations carried out (EPO level) (Jan-Aug) 75 976 78 229 3,0% International preliminary examinations carried out (EPO 5 5 281 6 280 18,9% level) (Jan-Aug) 6 Oppositions (EPO level) (Jan-Aug) 1 654 1 287 -22,2% 7 Total Examiner Products DG 1 (Examiner level) (Jan-Aug) 213 785 243 189 13,8% 8 SEO Time (Search, Examination, Opposition in '000 days) 443,6 470,8 6,1% (Jan-Aug) 9 Technical appeals cases settled (Jan-Aug) 1 521 1 554 2,2% 10 Patents published (Jan-Aug) 42 938 44 588 3,8% Pending workload search expressed in months of search 11 10,2 8,4 -17,6% production (EPO level) (August) Pending workload examination/opposition expressed in 12 56,7 56,4 -0,5% months of exa/opp production (EPO level) (August) CA/88/15 e 6/51 152610010 III.
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