CA/88/17 Orig.: en Munich, 22.09.2017
SUBJECT: President's activities report
SUBMITTED BY: President of the European Patent Office
ADDRESSEES: Administrative Council (for information)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Subject Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. PERFORMANCE 1 A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION 1 a) Filings and applications 1 b) Efficiency 2 c) Publications 4 d) Time to publication of the patent 4 III. MEASURES TAKEN IN DG1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE QUALITY AND SERVICE 6 A. DG1/DG2 REORGANISATION 6 B. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN 2017 7 C. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE" 8 a) "Esprit de service" | "ViCo for oral proceedings" 8 b) "Esprit de service" | Customer relationship management (CRM) 9 c) "Esprit de service" | Praktika Extern 2017 9 d) "Esprit de service" | 1LCS 10 D. DG1 QUALITY ACTION PLAN 11 a) Proactive workload management 11 b) CASE – Conformity Assurance for Search & Examination 11 c) Classification 12 d) Added subject-matter 12 e) Novelty, inventive step and clarity 12 f) Non-unity 12 g) Opposition 12 h) Individual quality objectives 13 i) Asian documentation 13 E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) AND IMPACT OF INDUSTRY 4.0 ON DG1 14 F. CONTINUOUS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER 15 a) Peer-to-peer lectures 15 b) Tip of the day 16 c) EPeOple 16
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G. PROCEDURES 16 a) Early Certainty from Search (ECfS) 16 b) Extension of Early Certainty to examination and opposition 17 c) Informing the applicant of the imminent start of examination 19 d) PCT Direct 19 e) Guidelines for Examination 20 f) Amended Rules 32 and 33 EPC as of 1 October 2017 (expert solution) 21 H. CLASSIFICATION 21 a) Training activities for the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) 21 b) Quality measures in the CPC 22 c) Data exchange 22 d) Interaction with CPC users 22 e) CPC and the IP5 offices 22 f) Offices' participation in the CPC 23 g) Other benefits related to classification 24 IV. IT AND AUTOMATION PROJECTS 25 A. ITR – DELIVERIES FOR EXAMINERS 25 a) Delivering future IT systems 25 b) Improvements to current tools 26 c) Adapting tools in support of EPO strategies 26 B. IT DELIVERIES FOR BUSINESS SUPPORT 27 V. BUILDINGS AND PROCUREMENT 28 A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE 28 B. OTHER BUILDING PROJECTS 29 a) Security 29 b) Ongoing building projects and facility management 29 VI. QUALITY 30 A. QUALITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND INDICATORS 30 a) SACEPO – Standing Advisory Committee before the EPO 31 B. USER CONSULTATIONS AND SURVEYS 31 C. COMPLAINTS 32 VII. HUMAN RESOURCES 33 A. RECRUITMENT AND CAREER 33 a) Examiner recruitment 33 b) DG1/DG2 reorganisation 33
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B. HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 34 C. SOCIAL DIALOGUE 34 a) Staff Committee elections: 34 b) Strike 35 D. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT 35 E. REVISION OF THE SERVICE REGULATIONS – STANDARDS OF CONDUCT AND REFORM OF THE INTERNAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AT THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE 36 VIII. EPN 36 A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES 36 B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY 38 a) Institutional Strengthening 38 b) Judicial training 39 c) Professional representatives 39 d) Innovation support 39 e) Academia 40 f) Didactics 41 C. CO-OPERATION WITH THE EUIPO 41 D. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO 41 E. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER 41 F. PATENT INFORMATION 42 IX. the EPO AS A GLOBAL PLAYER 44 A. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS 44 B. BILATERAL RELATIONS 44 a) Validation system 44 b) Technical co-operation 45 C. IP5 CO-OPERATION 46 a) Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) 47 b) Patent Harmonisation Expert Panel (PHEP) 47 D. TRILATERAL CO-OPERATION 48 E. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION 48 F. CO-OPERATION WITH WIPO 48 G. STRENGTHENING THE PCT 48 H. SUBSTANTIVE PATENT LAW HARMONISATION 50
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X. UNITARY PATENT/UNIFIED PATENT COURT 51 A. UNITARY PATENT 51 B. UNIFIED PATENT COURT (UPC) 51 C. UNITARY PATENT PROTECTION DIVISION 52 XI. The EPO AND SOCIETY 53 A. ANNUAL REPORT 2016 53 B. EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD 53 C. CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN TECHNOLOGIES AND BIOTECHNOLOGIES 56 a) Clarified practice in the area of plant and animal patents 56 b) EPO-CPVO co-operation 56 XII. CONCLUDING REMARKS 57 XIII. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION 57
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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 2017; the full account will be presented in March 2018.
II. PERFORMANCE
A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION a) Filings and applications
Up to July 2017, 97 330 European patent applications (European direct applications filed in 2017 and PCT applications entering the European regional phase in 2017) were recorded. This represents a 5.8% increase over the corresponding figure for 2016.
Up to June, the number of EP patent filings including international PCT filings amounted to 148 036, 5.2% above the corresponding figure for 2016.
EPO Applications Budget 160.000 159.300 161.000 152.700 150 000
125 000
100 000
75 000
Data extracted Data extracted 21-08-17 50 000 22-08-16 97 330 91 993 +5.8% 25 000
0 2014 2015 2016 2017
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b) Efficiency
Since January and up to the end of July 2017, the Office received 134 341 search requests (+3.1%) as well as 88 978 requests for European examination (+5.6%). This represents an increase of 4.0% in the overall workload compared to the same period of 2016. Provisionally, for the first half of 2017, the share of the EPO as ISA was 33.6% (35.0% for the same period of 2016). After 7 months in 2017, the examiners' output reached 246 704 search, examination and opposition products, 4.5% above the corresponding 2016 figures.
The Strategic Orientations document (CA/19/11) and subsequent roadmaps presented the Quality and Efficiency Scenario as the backbone of the strategic goals that are to be supported by the EPO roadmaps. In this framework, 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. The figure below outlines the success of this strategy whereby the number of full-time equivalent employees has decreased while the number of products produced by each FTE is increasing, a clear marker of the improved efficiency of the Office.
Paid man years Products per FTE (FTE) 7 000 66 63.6 6 900 64 61.9 6 800 62 60 6 700 58 6 600 56.5 56 6 500 6 526 54 6 400 6 455 6 472 6 436 6 429 6 401 6 420 52 6 300 50 49.8 6 200 49.0 48 48.4 6 100 47.7 46 6 000 44 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Aug 2016 ‐ July 2017 Paid man years, FTE SEO Products / FTE
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The increased production from January to August 2017 is mainly the result of an increase in core capacity with 76 additional examiners, a continuing reduction of sickness levels, combined with close control of investments in non-core activities. This capacity increase has allowed about 8 100 more products to be produced compared to 2016 (+3.2%) whilst a further improvement in productivity resulted in about 3 000 more products being produced compared to 2016 (+1.1%).
DG1 has indeed continued its efforts to “focus on core” aiming at concentrating a maximum of resources on search, examination and opposition work. This means that investments requiring examiner resources have been carefully considered and, where possible, the system of “paid work packages” has been used. To the end of August, DG1 was able to concentrate some 90% of its gross examiner capacity on core business, including the time needed for personal development, quality management and classification activities.
Early Certainty timeliness
So far in 2017, the EPO completed searches on average 4.9 months after the date of receipt of the files (5.3 for the same period in 2016). The notification of the intention to grant (IGRA) was issued on average 22.6 months from the date on which examination started (23.3 in 2016). The opposition divisions issued their decision within 23.7 months from the date on which the opposition file was received (25.4 in 2016).
With +4.3% more production than last year for the same period (January-August), the Office is able to implement its strategy of stocks reduction according to the Early Certainty objectives. This production increase is now essentially originating from more examination products. Indeed, the search stock has almost reached the desired level and more and more focus is put on reducing the examination stock. The past increase in search production has led to a temporary increase in the new examination workload (+14% vs January-August 2016) which – thanks to the increased examination production – has been fully absorbed: in August 2017, the DG1's total pending workload has been reduced to 498 000 products (-2% vs end 2016) despite a high increase (+6%) in the new search and examination workload. This pending workload represents 14.1 months of work (vs 14.7 at the end of 2016).
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c) Publications
By the end of July 2017, the EPO had published 57 870 European patents, which is 11% more than the first eight months of 2016.
EPO Published Patents Budget 95 940 92 000 100 000 90 000
80 000
68 421 70 000 64 613 60 000
50 000
40 000 Data extracted 22-08-17 30 000 Data extracted 57 870 22-08-16 +11% 52 000 20 000 10 000
0 2014 2015 2016 2017 d) 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 European direct applications this is the date of receipt, for Euro-PCT applications the date of entry into the regional phase. It measures the duration of the European grant procedure completed during each reporting period.
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Time to publication of the patent in months 46.2 44.2 45.3 43.3 42.7
36
24
12
0 2013 2014 2015 2016 Jan‐Jul 2017
The increase in the time to publication up to 2016 reflects the fact that as from 2015 the EPO started dealing with older files in the examination stock. It is too early to judge if the 2017 decrease is the start of a new trend.
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General EPO Statistics 24 August 2017
Difference 2016 2017 2017/2016 in %
1 Total European patent applications - July 91 993 97 330 5.8%
2a Direct European applications - July 36 085 37 996 5.3%
2b PCT applications entering the regional phase - July 55 908 59 334 6.1%
3 Searches carried out (Examiner products) - July 146 226 147 296 0.7%
- of which European + supplementary + other 96 202 97 441 1.3% - of which International PCT searches carried out 50 024 49 855 -0.3%
4 European examinations carried out (Examiner products) - July 82 088 91 782 11.8%
5 International preliminary examinations carried out (Examiner products) - 5 411 5 367 -0.8%
6 Oppositions (Examiner products) - July 2 401 2 259 -5.9%
7 Total Examiner Products DG 1 - July 395 910 246 704 -37.7%
8 SEO Time (Search, Examination, Opposition in '000 days) - July 440.6 455.4 3.4%
9 Patents published - July 52 000 57 870 11.3%
10 Pending EPO SEO workload expressed in months of output - July 15.6 14.1 -9.6%
All production figures (items 3 to 7) are based on counts of examiner products. Pendency (item 10) is based on stock at directorate level and production at directorate level (finished cases).
III. MEASURES TAKEN IN DG1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE QUALITY AND SERVICE
A. DG1/DG2 REORGANISATION
With the reorganisation of DG1 and DG2, as presented in CA/65/17, the Office is taking a decisive step to increase efficiency and timeliness by implementing an end-to-end patent granting process under the responsibility of one single directorate-general. A project implementation team has been set up to ensure a smooth implementation of this reorganisation under the guidance of a steering committee led by Controlling Office.
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The implementation is progressing according to plan, and following was achieved in Q3/2017:
Recruitment of three Chief Operating Officers (COOs) to lead the respective technical areas:
PD Mobility & Mechatronics (M&M): Roberta Romano-Götsch
PD Healthcare, Biotechnology & Chemistry (HBC): Karin Seegert
PD Information & Communication Technology (ICT): Grant Philpott
Set-up of an Executive Operations Committee under the chairmanship of the President to oversee the operation of the new structure and to follow up on DG1 performance and quality achievements. Participants are: VP1, COOs, PD Business Services and Controlling Office with participation of PD HR, CIO and other services as required.
Recruitment of the majority of directors and team managers for the operational directorates, the Opposition and Centralised Formalities directorates and the support areas.
Implementation of the new support areas: PD Business Services, PD Automation Support, PD User Support & Quality Management.
Implementation of an extensive training plan for formalities officers.
The IT changes required to smoothly implement the new structure are also well under way. Business requirements have been collected, a thorough impact analysis on the existing systems has been performed and the design, implementation and end-to-end testing of the changes are ongoing.
The first priority of the implementation team is to make sure that the new DG1 is fully operational by 1 January 2018 while ensuring business continuity.
B. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN 2017
Recruitment of the best candidates who will become well-trained patent examiners is vital for achieving our goals in quality, efficiency and timeliness. In order to reach Early Certainty objectives by 2020, the examiner headcount target for the end of 2017 is 4 432. Posts are being freed across the Office to maximise the number of engineers and scientists starting their training.
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In order to find potential patent examiners from a wider range of member states, the HR Talent Acquisition managers are intensifying their focus on searching for talents in the less well represented member states. At the end of August, more than 170 job offers had been issued for 2017, leading to an estimated end-of-year examiner headcount around 4 400 examiners. The technical areas that have recruited most potential examiners in 2017 are ICT and Vehicles & General Technology, followed by Medical & Consumer Technology and Technical Chemistry.
C. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE" a) "Esprit de service" | "ViCo for oral proceedings"
For the period September 2015 – August 2016 the Office held 1 030 oral proceedings via ViCo. For the period September 2016 – August 2017, 1 447 were conducted via ViCo. This represents an increase of +40.5%. In the period September 2015 – August 2016, the share of all oral proceedings held via ViCo was 6.8%. In the period September 2016 – August 2017, this share increased to 8.6%.
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b) "Esprit de service" | Customer relationship management (CRM)
In line with the service orientation of the Office, First-Line Customer Services for DG1 have been operational since November 2012 for all examiners, and CRM tickets are created to register incoming customer calls, emails and online enquiries. DG1 deals with 300 to 400 CRM tickets per month. DG1's performance in closing tickets on time has improved over last year, and efforts continue to enhance staff awareness and monitor performance. Performance has improved over the last two years. The KPI for DG1 for the whole of 2015 was 66%; for 2016 it was 72%, and for 2017 it is 82% to date. Team managers have been assigned responsibility for monitoring, the tools have been made available and training undertaken. These efforts will continue as additional team managers are appointed later in the year. c) "Esprit de service" | Praktika Extern 2017
The Praktika Extern programme continues to be a successful form of interaction between examiners, patent attorneys and applicants. It gives rise to a better understanding of the issues and challenges of a different professional environment dealing with intellectual property, and to get direct general feedback regarding the quality and procedural efficiency delivered by the EPO. The programme also serves to raise awareness about the products and service-oriented developments the EPO is offering.
In 2017, 55 examiners have been selected to participate in the programme, which is an increase of 30% over 2016. The programme lasts between 2 and 3 weeks and takes place between June and November. Most examiners visit a patent attorney firm. A few join companies with in-house attorneys.
They get an opportunity to see 'the other side of the file' and also learn about licensing, freedom to operate and national procedures, as well as litigation within and outside Europe. Their participation in these activities and active involvement in patent casework broaden their understanding of the complexity of IP and the importance of all stakeholders in the IP world.
A focus this year is to spread the mutual benefits in particular to new firms that have not been visited before or that have not participated in the programme since 2015. A good spread across Europe has been achieved: Praktika Extern hosts will be visited in 15 different member states (CH, DE, DK, ES, FR, IE, IS, IT, LT, NL, NO, PT, SE, SK, UK).
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Highlighting our specific endeavours for maintaining our quality at the highest standards has been part of the Praktika Extern 2017 campaign: Early Certainty, ISO 9001 and searching in Asian patent documentation. The selected examiners have been briefed to give detailed information on these selected topics. Feedback from our hosts is well appreciated and helps to improve our quality continuously. d) "Esprit de service" | 1LCS
Improving the customer experience, understanding differing business logic and closely listening to user needs continues to be fundamental for the EPO to offer high-level services with key dimensions of reliability, accuracy and timeliness. The well-established single and transparent point of contact already enables our Customer Desk to handle user enquiries with a CRM ticketing system ensuring that all customer queries are answered in a timely and satisfactory manner. Over 63 700 user enquiries were captured and distributed by First-Line Customer Services (1LCS) in Customer Desk during 2016 to the various operational units, particularly to formalities officers and examiners but also to Online Services, Finance and Legal. So far up to July 2017, 37 362 enquiries were created, with 90% being solved within their respective KPIs (in most cases within two business days).
Live user feedback/sentiment is monitored by the Customer Business Assessment team to enable continuous running improvements to be made to internal CRM ticket processes and structures to drive positive change in achieving both user satisfaction and efficient handling methods.
Key Account Management activities have been successfully in contact with EPO users within the patent grant process aiming to support them and accompanying changes.
In 2017 more than 900 users have been supported either at User Day events, workshops or user visits to use the EPO's filing e-tools effectively or to get answers to questions in the patent grant process. This consistent and cost- effective strategy for the adoption of e-tools through knowledge transfer has been positively acknowledged and appreciated by users.
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D. DG1 QUALITY ACTION PLAN
DG1 has already implemented over 70% of the 100 quality actions set out in the 2017 DG1 Quality Action Plan. The quality actions have been grouped together into over 20 Corrective And Preventive Actions (CAPA) in order to manage further development of the EPO's Quality Management System and ensure that the quality objectives are achieved. In addition, Patent Administration has followed up on its dedicated quality action plan to support the patent grant process with specific actions on improving the quality of products and services regarding opposition, withdrawals, bibliographic data of B publications and user interaction. Close co-operation between Patent Administration and DG1 as part of the ongoing DG1-DG2 restructuring is supporting the achievement of the defined KPIs on all quality objectives, and by doing so also the quality of services towards users.
Examples of actions taken to improve specific aspects of DG1's performance are indicated below: a) Proactive workload management
A priority-monitoring report has been established to support directors and team managers in balancing examiner workload. In addition, a shift in balance between search and examination workload for new examiners at the 11th month enables them to avoid building up an examination workload in the third and fourth years. The introduction of an online PACE request form has also enabled the Office to better control these requests, enabling the examiner to deal with these priority requests on time and thereby reducing the likelihood of an applicant complaint. Additional efforts have also been undertaken to ensure a smooth transition of work between DG1 and Patent Administration; they have been helped by the development of a Service Level Agreement identifying the relevant time limits for formalities to complete key tasks. b) CASE – Conformity Assurance for Search & Examination
Checklists for search and grant as well as an e-learning module to support the chairpersons in performing the CASE checks have been implemented. To further strengthen the CASE process, it is now mandatory for both the chairpersons and line managers to register both positive and negative findings in the CASE system. In addition, the training for chairpersons in examination has been updated to also place additional emphasis on the role of the chairperson in supporting the Office's Quality Management System. The combination of these actions has had a significant impact which has resulted in a substantial increase in CASE usage.
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c) Classification
A review of the classification training provided to new examiners has just been performed, and an adaptation of the training material is in progress to support the Office's objectives of providing complete classification at publication as well as to enhance the quality of classification by new examiners. d) Added subject-matter
An e-learning module has been released to support examiners in correctly identifying and dealing with generalisations and unallowable addition of features to claims. e) Novelty, inventive step and clarity
A series of Quality and Efficiency workshops have been provided to examiners to highlight critical issues such as the need to run the preparation XTopUp at multiple stages in the examination process in order to identify documents prejudicial to novelty or inventive step of the claims. In addition, a series of questions on implicit features, claim interpretation, the selection of the closest prior art and pseudo- dependent claims have been incorporated into the quizzes for newcomers to raise awareness at an earlier stage. The advanced training on clarity and sufficiency of disclosure is currently being revised and the workshops will be relaunched in Q4 2017. f) Non-unity
A non-unity minimum reasoning has just been introduced to ensure that the argumentation provided by the examiners to the applicants is well-grounded; examiners have been informed of the non-unity minimum reasoning through an e-learning module. In addition, the newcomer training on non-unity has been adapted using the feature-wall tool to ensure that all elements of the minimum reasoning are covered. The advanced training on non-unity is currently being adapted and will be relaunched later this year. g) Opposition
A "chairperson in opposition" profile has been developed to ensure that chairpersons have the relevant technical and social skills to effectively chair the opposition proceedings. In addition, the opposition training is being fully revised with a new course (advanced opposition techniques) being developed to equip examiners to take on the chairperson-in-opposition role.
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h) Individual quality objectives
Directors have based the individual quality objectives in 2017 on specific aspects identified in the various reporting and monitoring tools as well as on certain parameters identified in the procedural data visualisation tool to focus individual examiner behaviour towards DG1's strategic objectives. i) Asian documentation
The use of Asian documentation in DG1 continues to grow steadily and is showing no signs of slowing down. Around 10 million Asian documents (with no English- language family member) are viewed annually in the machine-translated, full-text version. After various awareness campaigns, all DG1 examiners now realise the full importance of Asian documentation. This steady growth in usage has been aided by developments in tools and training for examiners in using them, by official classroom training, e-learning modules and continuous knowledge transfer (CKT) lectures. The next phase is the drill-down to technical field area and this has been started by asking the gérants of every single technical area to identify which search strategies are particularly relevant to retrieve Asian documentation in their domain.
The Asian Patent Expert Group (APEG), constituted of examiners expert in Asian documentation, continues to hold lectures with both internal and external experts, to keep the awareness of the importance of Asian documentation high. A cardboard memory cube detailing different aspects of Asian documentation has been piloted with 100 examiners, with a view to giving one to all examiners if the feedback is positive. The APEG focus for the rest of 2017 will be on China – looking at specific issues with Chinese documentation and running panel discussions, in The Hague and Munich, with experts on patenting in China. This ties in with a greater number of Chinese applications at the EPO and also higher- quality applications (more technical content) emerging from China as prior art.
Machine translation is improving all the time, but when it is not quite at the required level examiners still have the options of a human-assisted machine translation (which takes 2-3 days to arrive) or the translation of short texts (via Asian-language-speaking examiners in the APEG group – 90% of these requests are completed on the same day). For important cases, such as opposition files, a full human translation can still be requested. APEG has provided examiners with memos and a flowchart on when to use which translation.
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The way the EPO handles Asian documentation is now widely regarded as one of our main Unique Selling Points (USPs) when we contact external stakeholders. A new brochure to reinforce this has been approved and will be used at external events.
E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) AND IMPACT OF INDUSTRY 4.0 ON DG1
Following on from the 2014 creation of the ICT area from the Computers and Telecoms clusters, DG1 will now restructure into three main technical areas (ICT; Mobility and Mechatronics; Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry). The creation of the ICT area, the largest within DG1, reflects the influence of ICT- driven innovation on industry – the so-called fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. As such, DG1 will be in an even better position to deliver stable and consistent practice across all technological areas which are developing and applying ICT, most particularly with regard to applications comprising CIIs (computer-implemented inventions)
Efficient management of ICT issues is supported not only by this consolidation of the DG1 structure, but also by a number of initiatives already in place, such as the DG1/DG5 ICT committee and the annual revision of the CII content of the Guidelines, which is now in its third year. Examiner training in CII matters has also recently been reviewed and updated to ensure that all examiners possess the level of CII competence appropriate to their technical field. A number of projects have also been established to monitor the development of Industry 4.0 and CII applications.
With leadership for ICT issues now vested in one main ICT principal directorate, the Office is better placed to project its services to industry and to ensure that it provides a fully harmonised and stable CII procedure throughout DG1. A high-level policy for external communication on ICT issues is also being prepared together with Directorate 0.8. This more proactive stance and enhanced co-operation have already led to improved dialogue with a number of ICT applicants, large and small. The resultant exchange of information and discussion of strategic and procedural issues has allowed DG1 to further shape its activities and services to the needs of the ICT industry, thereby increasing its attractiveness as a PCT Authority. Following very positive feedback from the seminar on patenting ICT inventions held in New York last year, the EPO will further promote its services in the US by repeating the seminar in Palo Alto in September 2017, again in conjunction with the IPO Annual Meeting.
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F. CONTINUOUS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER
The EPO CKT team has been running since 2001, and has steadily gained in importance in the past few years, supporting staff in dealing with an increasing number of changes in tools and procedures. It used to take place in several clusters but there has been a conscious effort to spread the positive learning experiences and it is now systematically used by all clusters. CKT complements official training (whether classroom or e-learning) with knowledge management services supported by an integrated portal of different knowledge-sharing solutions. It aims to turn proficient examiners into efficient ones.
It has three main deliverables supported by a common taxonomy: a) Peer-to-peer lectures
Peer-to-peer training sessions – short, bite-size information sessions followed by Q&A – usually organised per cluster per site. All these sessions are run without time allocation (except for the presenters), so they need to offer those attending some return on their time investment.
As can be seen from the graph, CKT has passed from "nice to have" to essential in the past three years and is now an integral part of examiner life.
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b) Tip of the day
The tip of the day, published daily on the intranet, comes from staff providing solutions to tricky issues. In 2017 it has so far reached more than 4 000 different users. This service has been around for more than 10 years, with 200 000 to 300 000 views annually, resulting in millions of mini-knowledge transfer moments since its inception. These transfer moments have allowed examiners and other staff to keep up to date with the latest (software) developments and best practices, coming directly from practical experience in day-to-day business. By giving feedback they have also continuously participated in the "plan-do-check- act" cycle that is vital for constant improvement, especially for newly introduced software such as Trimaran, eDrex and ANSERA. c) EPeOple
In EPeOple, staff contribute with their own profile information including a professionally oriented "AboutMe" page indicating special duties, expertise and language competencies. In return for the data they volunteer, they are provided with customised phone book contacts, documentation filtered per profile, and collaboration functions for teams. More than 2 000 staff members have signed up in EPeOple, with more than 5 000 special duties registered. In 2017, an average of 2 400 different users made 40 000 page consultations per month.
The CKT team has had training and contact with external knowledge transfer experts in order to optimise the way things are done. Increasingly, however, the EPO's CKT team is viewed as a leader in knowledge transfer, as evidenced by several conference presentations and in reaching the last ten in the Knowledge Management Excellence Awards, with the finals taking place in Barcelona in September.
It should be noted that the only time investment in CKT is for the running of the central teams, and together this amounts to 48 minutes per examiner. A good tip of the day or presentation can already save this amount.
G. PROCEDURES a) Early Certainty from Search (ECfS)
On 1 July 2014, the Early Certainty from Search (ECfS) strategy was implemented. The aim of this new scheme is to improve legal certainty on pending patent applications by organising the workflow at examiner level in order to deliver, as early as possible in the patent grant process, the information required by industry to assess the risks and opportunities entailed in pending applications.
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With regards to the timely delivery of search reports, independently of the route via which the application entered the EPO, the aim can now be considered as accomplished: the median duration until the search report is issued is 4.9 months.
Lastly, the reduction of the pre-ECfS backlog – i.e. applications with searches already overdue on 1 July 2014 (EP second filings and Euro-PCT applications for which a supplementary European search report must be issued) – is progressing according to plan. This backlog amounted to 73 000 files back in 2014; now, only 6 325 of these files are left. It is foreseen that all the remaining files will be treated by the end of the year. b) Extension of Early Certainty to examination and opposition
Now that ECfS has brought the expected results in terms of search timeliness, the EPO is extending the concept of early certainty to the whole patent grant process.
The intergovernmental conference of member states of the European Patent Organisation on the reform of the patent system, which took place in Paris on 24-25 June 1999 (EPO OJ 8-9/1999, p. 547-548), considered that the conditions of international competition require patents to be granted, on average, within three years. This principle, referred to as the "Paris criteria", would bring early legal certainty to the European patent system, thereby meeting the economic interests of all its users.
Based on a careful assessment of the estimated workload, workforce and legal requirements set forth in the European Patent Convention, the EPO aims to achieve compliance with the following timeliness objectives by the end of 2020:
Prior-art searches with a written opinion on patentability concluded within 6 months after receipt of the file by the search division (already the case under ECfS).
Grants concluded on average within 12 months after the start of substantive examination (May 2017: 22.8 months, improving gradually).
Standard opposition cases concluded within 15 months after the start of the opposition procedure on expiry of the 9-month opposition period (May 2017: 24.0 months, improving rapidly).
In order to achieve this, measures will be taken along the following four lines:
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(i) Further streamlining of procedures
To achieve the timeliness objectives, the Office will continue to pursue a streamlining of practices and procedures with regard to both internal handling/processing and the procedural interaction with applicants.
The Office has reviewed the workflow of the opposition procedure in order to reduce the time needed to reach a decision on an opposition to 15 months for normal cases, and aims to achieve this without any major legal changes, i.e. no rule changes are envisaged. Applicants have been informed via the Official Journal, and the new opposition workflow has been applied since 1 July 2016. The new workflow simplifies the procedure and thereby reduces the possibilities of errors for all parties involved.
Under the umbrella of the "simplification of procedures" initiative, scrutiny of a number of specific further streamlining measures is well under way.
(ii) More effective communication with applicants
The EPO also promotes existing possibilities for more direct ways of interaction between examiners/formalities officers and applicants. Telephone conversations will be promoted, while ensuring that the content is reflected in the public part of the file in the form of minutes. Minutes of a telephone conversation can be issued as a first examination action under Article 94(3) EPC where appropriate. Examiners have been encouraged to make positive statements in communications that identify patentable subject-matter and to make suggestions for grant. These measures aim to further increase the dialogue between examiners and applicants and thereby guide applications to grant in an efficient manner.
(iii) Adapting time limits to the new process
The shift towards more direct and interactive as well as electronic communication (i.e. electronic notification and electronic filing) will allow a review of administrative time buffers.
The EPO will first increase its speed in issuing communications through meeting shortened internal time limits. Once this faster speed has been achieved, it will trigger a discussion on aligning certain time limits such as those under Rule 132(2) EPC with the shortened internal time limits. In particular the extension up to six months and its conditions will be scrutinised.
Lastly, the Office is considering rationalising time limits related to entry into the European phase, thereby strengthening the PCT procedure. Possible measures aim at maintaining the starting point of the examination at the EPO but adjusting the preceding time limits.
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(iv) More information and options for applicants
Applicants are being provided with more information and options for deciding about the further prosecution of their application before and during the examination phase. c) Informing the applicant of the imminent start of examination
Following feedback from the user community, applicants are informed of the imminent start of examination in cases where the application entered the examination phase more than one year ago and no positive written opinion on patentability has previously been issued.
This addresses the criticism of being "caught by surprise" by examination actions on files that have been pending for some time. This additional service has been positively received by the applicants.
In line with subsection (iv) above, applicants are also provided with an additional option for deciding about the further prosecution of their application. This new procedure entered into force in July 2016, and data gathered in the meantime shows that applicants actively use this extra option: two per cent of all applications for which such an information letter is issued are withdrawn during the two months following its receipt. Without such an information letter, only one per cent of all applications at a comparable stage (entered the examination phase, but no first examiner action issued yet) are withdrawn on average during any two-month period. d) PCT Direct
PCT Direct provides applicants with a cost-effective way to improve their application very early in the procedure. Under PCT Direct, an applicant filing an international application claiming priority from an earlier application already searched by the EPO will be able to react to any objections raised in the search opinion drawn up for the priority application. This new service will simplify the assessment of the international application and add to the value of the international search report and written opinion drawn up by the EPO. This service was introduced in 2014 and expanded to all ROs in 2015.
It can lead to shorter examination duration, for example through a grant as the first examination action. Applications which apply PCT Direct have a three-times higher chance of a positive outcome to the PCT procedure, and therefore offer an ideal start for applicants intending to take advantage of the PPH. The number of incoming PCT Direct searches has increased continually since its introduction. Up to now, this service has been well received, with continuous figures of over 200 per month.
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The PCT Direct procedure has been further improved to provide greater transparency and clarity of the search opinion by enabling examiners to refer to the PCT Direct letter in the search opinion of the second filing. e) Guidelines for Examination
The 2017 Guidelines will enter into force on 1 November 2017. A preview version has been published on the EPO website. Chapters relating to computer- implemented inventions (CIIs) have been thoroughly updated. The Guidelines also reflect the recent amendments to Rules 27(b) and 28 EPC – excluding from patentability plants and animals exclusively obtained by an essentially biological breeding process – further streamlined procedures for telephone contact with applicants, clearer instructions for dealing with auxiliary requests and improvements to the PCT Direct service.
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f) Amended Rules 32 and 33 EPC as of 1 October 2017 (expert solution)
At its June meeting the Council adopted amendments to Rules 32 and 33 EPC pertaining to deposits of biological material. By decision CA/D 3/17 the list of recognised experts was abolished and a more flexible system was introduced which will facilitate the use of the expert solution and improve access to deposited biological material. Under the amended provisions, any natural person may be nominated as an expert provided that he complies with the requirements and obligations laid down by the EPO President. The requirements and obligations to be fulfilled by an expert are laid down in a decision of the EPO President which was published in the July issue of the EPO's Official Journal along with an explanatory EPO notice. The new practice takes effect on 1 October 2017.
H. CLASSIFICATION a) Training activities for the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)
A CPC annual event for the CPC offices which classify or intend to classify in CPC took place on 20 February 2017 at the premises of WIPO in Geneva. A CPC annual event for European industry took place at the EPO in Vienna on 5 April 2017. A CPC annual event for US industry took place on 24 May in Atlanta. These events provide valuable feedback to the EPO and USPTO on the CPC system, how it is being used, how to improve it further, and the status of implementation of the CPC at national offices.
The CPC pilot with IP Australia (IPAU), which included the classification by IPAU of PCT files in CPC and the quality assessment of IPAU's classifications when compared with the EPO's allocations, has been finalised. Feedback has been provided to IPAU. An evaluation report on the pilot was made available in spring 2017, which shows some good potential for IPAU to classify in CPC. IPAU will decide whether it wishes to adopt the CPC as its internal classification scheme.
A CPC field-specific training session took place at the EPO in Munich for three weeks in April/May 2017: A group of SIPO and KIPO examiners and classifiers were trained in the CPC in 15 technical fields of high relevance.
Another field-specific training session for 30 examiners and classifiers from SIPO and KIPO is taking place in The Hague from 11 to 29 September 2017. Another 18 technical fields will be covered.
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These field-specific training sessions are one of our most powerful tools to get other offices such as KIPO and SIPO to classify according to EPO standards and practices. With the high volumes of patent applications handled by these patent offices, these training sessions are of high strategic importance.
In May/June 2017 a three-day CPC collective general and advanced training course was given at the EPO in The Hague to 26 examiners/classifiers from 16 different national patent offices.
Our training efforts aim to combine field-specific training for several offices to optimise our resources. These efforts are needed as our target is that offices classify in the CPC according to EPO standards. All these activities furthermore set the EPO as the world benchmark in classification. b) Quality measures in the CPC
Quality measures are in place to make sure that offices use the CPC in the same way. Field-specific feedback is provided to the offices following training sessions. Furthermore, the classifications provided by offices are automatically compared with those given by EPO examiners. The resulting analysis is shared with each office separately. c) Data exchange
Currently, only the EPO processes CPC data from national offices. CPC data is now uploaded to the EPO's database (DocDB) in production mode for 14 offices, including the EPO and USPTO. d) Interaction with CPC users
In addition to participating in dedicated events (e.g. IMPACT meeting in April 2017 or CPC user meeting during PIUG in Atlanta in May 2017), the EPO also receives questions and feedback direct, e.g. via email. It uses this feedback to further improve the CPC system. e) CPC and the IP5 offices
The EPO continues to play a major role in IP5 co-operation in classification, to further align the CPC with JPO's FI/F-terms and the IPC. Harmonisation of classification practices and adaptation to emerging technologies, e.g. Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), are further elements of this co-operation.
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f) Offices' participation in the CPC
The following offices have decided to classify their collections in CPC and share their data with the EPO.
16 EPO member-state national offices (AT, CH, CZ, DK, EE, ES, FI, GB, GR, HU, NL, NO, PL, PT, SE, TR), half of which are already classifying in the CPC and delivering CPC data to the EPO (AT, ES, FI, GB, GR, NO, PT, SE)
7 non-member-state organisations (BR, CN, EAPO, IL, KR, MX and RU), five of which are already classifying in the CPC and delivering CPC data to the EPO (BR, CN, KR, MX and RU)
SIPO started delivering CPC data in July 2015 and has so far already provided classification data for about 469 000 publications.1* SIPO is now delivering classifications for about 20 000 documents per month.
KIPO started delivering CPC data in August 2015 and has so far already provided classifications for about 2 120 000 publications.* KIPO will have classified about 1.5 million backfile documents from the last ten years in the CPC by the end of 2018. In January 2016, KIPO started classifying all its frontfile applications in CPC
INPI Brazil has already been publishing CPC symbols on its patent documents since the beginning of December 2014. It is also delivering CPC data to the EPO on a continuous basis (over 9 800 publications to date*)
Rospatent has started classifying its documents into CPC as of January 2016. It has started delivering CPC data to the EPO since May 2016 and has provided so far classifications for over 13 500 publications*
At the end of 2016, IMPI Mexico started classifying its documents into CPC and delivering the corresponding data to the EPO. It has currently provided CPC classifications for over 1 500 publications*
Once the CPC data is stored in the EPO's databases, it can be used for searching by EPO examiners, all EPOQUE Net users and the public at large via Espacenet and other EPO patent information products.
source: EPODOC, as of 24 July 2017
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As far as the CPC and the USPTO are concerned, the quality of the classification work provided by the USPTO still remains below DG1 needs and expectations. Action is needed to improve the situation. A quality assessment pilot is being carried out in 20 selected technical fields to analyse differences in the assessment of the classified documents by the EPO experts and the USPTO experts. Based on this analysis, videoconferences will be organised to understand the differences in the classification practises at both offices and to harmonise them. USPTO experts have also been invited to attend the field-specific training sessions that will take place in September 2017 in The Hague.
The EPO has taken up a key leadership and support role focused on ensuring that its classification partners, and especially the USPTO, commit to our quality and timeliness classification standards. g) Other benefits related to classification
In 2015 and 2016 DG1 took a number of measures to reduce the volume of documents circulated to examiners, without impacting the quality of the documentation needed for search. The result of these measures was a net saving of 23.5 FTEs of examiners' time in 2016 compared to 2015. This freed-up examiner capacity has been used by DG1 for its 2016 production. Furthermore, by mid-2017 a saving of 8% compared to the same period in 2016 had been achieved.
The EPO has also embarked on a project with WIPO to hand the management of reclassification work following IPC revisions back to WIPO. It is expected that in the future the volume of documents that the EPO commits to reclassifying after an IPC revision will be reduced. This should bring additional benefits to the EPO.
A change in the way DG1 is organised in terms of classification as well as in the way documents are distributed will be introduced in the fourth quarter of 2017. This will further reduce the circulation of documents in DG1, and will have a positive impact on DG1's investment in classification at operational level.
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IV. IT AND AUTOMATION PROJECTS
A. ITR – DELIVERIES FOR EXAMINERS
The roll-out of deliveries from the IT Roadmap has continued in 2017, again with three categories of activity: a) Delivering future IT systems
Progress with eDossier for Search has been steady, with the focus on consolidation, ensuring that solid foundations are in place to support all of the intended functionality. A third release was deployed during the third quarter with this in mind, and the detailed planning for a fourth release is under review in the coming weeks. The plan is to deploy the tool across DG1 only when full functionality is in place and tested.
Work on eDossier for Examination, extending the electronic workflow to the examination process, is also progressing steadily. Up until now, the focus has been on finalising a complete set of functional requirements which are now being broken down into technical solutions for the development work to begin. The project is still on schedule for build activities from September 2017 onwards, followed by testing of the releases of which the major parts are to be expected in 2018. The project has a strong dependency on eDossier for Search for which technical integration has to be completed simultaneously.
Good progress has also been made on the project to deliver the capabilities needed for the Office to accept XML filings. Since its start at the end of last year, the tool has been developed to extract ST36 XML data from filings submitted in "docx" format, and to validate the compliance of filings. A first pilot started during the summer and gave users the chance to try out the validation function and see for themselves the completeness and accuracy of the XML. As well as these technical changes, legal aspects are also in preparation including the update to PCT Annex F. The plan is to start a second pilot in November which will allow some 300 applicants to use the system for real files, demonstrating the simplicity, accuracy and reliability of working with XML files. This development is an important step towards digital end-to-end processing of files without the need for the EPO to carry the burden of expensive file conversions.
Other important projects in the PGP programme (HFS, NACM) are progressing according to plan.
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b) Improvements to current tools
Small improvements are constantly being made to our tools. One example of this in 2017 is the upgrade of SEA (Suite of Examiner Applications) to a 64-bit Java version. This has doubled the maximum memory allocated to SEA, making a significant difference to stability, especially when SEA is used intensively for several hours, and improving the overall performance.
With search tools, the most important developments so far this year were an improvement to the pre-search tool and implementation of SeaStar. These improvements on the tools allow higher productivity and quality in the search process (EP, PCT, etc.). SeaStar is a new examiner-inspired tool used when searching standards. It offers advanced filtering and improved access to results for a wide range of standards databases, and is fully integrated with existing tools. c) Adapting tools in support of EPO strategies
Initiatives such as Early Certainty and the restructuring of DG1 and DG2 also continue to necessitate IT modifications. Significant support for the Office's overall performance increase has come from improvements to reporting and management information. DG1 management tools such as MUSE and the Landing Page have been further adapted, for example to provide directors and team managers with greater transparency on Early Certainty and CASE timeliness, as well as pre- search metrics on take-up of the tool. A new version of the DG1 Balanced Scorecard has also been introduced, with improvements to trend lines and clearer indication of strategic targets.
With a focus on quality, the CASE procedure has been modified to strengthen ISO compliance. This has necessitated corresponding tool changes.
Another important area of activity has been the reorganisation of DG1 and DG2. The impact of renumbering departments, for example, may seem relatively trivial but many of the EPO systems and management tools need to be modified to support the organisational change. A few examples are the newly created opposition directorates, systematic large directorates across the new DG1 including examiner and formalities officers teams, decentralising the PCT-RO formalities, etc. The move to end-to-end responsibility has necessitated a review of workflows and the adaptive development of a number of tools, including eDossier, to ensure that everything is prepared for the new structure on 1 January next year.
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Finally, in support of the Security Roadmap, automation changes have been introduced to ensure the use of strong passwords and to protect data by encrypting data carriers and reducing the risk of data theft or exposure from lost, stolen, or inappropriately decommissioned computers.
B. IT DELIVERIES FOR BUSINESS SUPPORT
Corporate area deliveries
In the corporate area, various automation services have evolved for the different business lines of the organisation, and foundation stones for future developments have been laid and provided for.
For HR
The new solution for management of internal appeals went live successfully on 1 July, according to plan. A second release augmenting its capabilities further is planned for September.
The selection and procurement of the SaaS (Software as a Service) SuccessFactors to support and become the standard for talent management at the EPO has been concluded. It will be used in the upcoming quarters for provisioning new IM services for performance management, onboarding and other HR processes. Additionally, a new solution and interface for candidate testing (CEB) was successfully deployed in July.
For other business lines
Procurement of the corporate business intelligence solution for business analytics, Tableau, was successfully concluded.
The software platform component is now deployed and integrated into the EPO infrastructure, and provides the basis for faster delivery of dashboards and reporting in future, in collaboration between IM and the business.
For PGP
The project to enable credit-card payment in the patent grant process reached an important milestone upon delivery of an essential building block allowing the consolidation of fees in SAP PSCD.
Data management
Espacenet now gives full access to a collection of over 100 million patents.
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Security and infrastructure
The Office continues to invest in modernising its IT infrastructure. In particular, the period under review has seen progress on the following projects and services:
The IaaS project (Infrastructure as a Service) has been started (part of the infrastructure and acceptance testing)
VoIP (Voice over IP) to replace the current telephony and videoconference systems in a more integrated and cost-effective way
High-privilege account management system (to secure key root access to essential servers)
New identity and access management service
Services covering new equipment (desktop, laptop) running under Windows 10, including the renewal of service desk support.
In support of the Security Roadmap, automation changes have been introduced to ensure the use of strong passwords, and to protect data by encrypting data carriers and reducing the risk of data theft or exposure from lost, stolen, or inappropriately decommissioned computers and data storage components.
V. BUILDINGS AND PROCUREMENT
A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE
In the first half of 2017, the EPO New Main building in Rijswijk reached its highest point of approximately 110 metres. In keeping with tradition in the Netherlands, this was celebrated on 27 June with a topping-out ceremony at which a flag was raised at the highest point. On 3 July a presentation to all staff in The Hague took place in the auditorium, giving details of the interior fit-out and furniture.
An initial timeline for the transition has been developed and shows that around 2 700 moves will be necessary. In preparation for operation of the building after the handover, the technical and civil maintenance contracts are almost finished and ready to be awarded, and the contract for civil maintenance will be presented to the next BFC for approval.
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B. OTHER BUILDING PROJECTS a) Security
Implementation of the physical aspects of the 2016-2018 security programme is ongoing, with a focus on protecting the outer perimeter of the Isar building and improving access control at the various entrances to all EPO sites. Around the Isar building electric bollards are now operational, and heavy boulders have been positioned around the outer perimeter.
X-ray scanners and metal detectors are already in place in the Isar building and in The Hague. For Munich PschorrHöfe, Haar, Vienna and Berlin they will be operational by the end of this year. Munich, The Hague and Vienna are already equipped with speed lanes providing electronic control for movement from semi- public to restricted areas. In Berlin, speed lanes will be introduced as part of the ongoing renovation. In Vienna a closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera system outside the building, including supporting illumination, was installed and successfully implemented by 25 August.
Starting in October, the new badges with state-of-the-art chips will be gradually introduced. The House Rules and circulars relating to physical and IT security entered into force on 1 April, and their practical aspects are being implemented. b) Ongoing building projects and facility management
Work has started on finalising the plans for moves resulting from the restructuring of DG 1/DG 2, to enable the large directorates to be physically in place by the end of 2017. The handover process for the new accommodation for the Boards of Appeal Unit in Haar started on 18 August, and the moves began on 22 September. From early October, the Unit will be fully functional in Haar. The additional investments needed to adapt the building to the Unit's needs were kept at the EUR 6.7 million approved in CA/82/16. The vacant space in the Isar building will be filled with corporate-area units and a DG 1 directorate by the end of 2017.
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VI. QUALITY
A. QUALITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND INDICATORS
In July, the President chaired the Interim Quality Review to assess the overall progress of quality matters and indicators for the first half of the year. Overall, good results confirmed the growing maturity of the EPO's Quality Management System. Very good results were achieved in PCT A1 timeliness: 96.1% of all EPO ISRs are now delivered within the allotted time. The quality action plans in operations are on track and showing good progress.
Also in July, the EPO published externally the first edition of the annual EPO Quality Report. The extensive 40-page report covers all aspects of quality and reveals many detailed indicators to the public for the first time. The aim of the report is to inform all interested parties about the EPO's initiatives and progress on quality matters in a transparent and open manner. The report, available on the EPO website, was sent electronically to the user associations and their representatives who participate in EPO quality-related forums.
The implementation of the end-to-end process in DG1, through the DG1/2 reorganisation, allows further strengthening of the Quality Management System. Various working groups have been set up to ensure that the QMS aligns itself with the implementation of the end-to-end process. PDQM is supporting these groups and is co-ordinating the revision of the QMS documentation of processes affected by the reorganisation. The main benefits to the QMS will materialise thanks to better quality monitoring and increased operational ownership of continual improvement. Indeed the end-to-end process will now allow synergies between the quality control systems for substantive and formal examination. More targeted operational product quality control will therefore be possible. Furthermore, continual improvement activities will be further strengthened. Firstly, the handover points between substantive and formalities examiners is streamlined by the end- to-end process. Secondly, the single ownership of both aspects of the procedures allows for better integration of the continual improvement activities.
Principal Directorate User Support and Quality Management (PDUSQM) will combine the former Customer Desk and Customer Relations areas from Patent Administration and the two directorates Quality Support and Quality Analysis & Policy, previously in PD Quality Management. The new PDUSQM thereby consolidates all user- and quality-related directorates into a single area in DG1.
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After the successful ISO 9001 certification audit in 2014 and the yearly surveillance audits thereafter, this year it was time for the recertification audit under the revised ISO 9001:2015 standard. Therefore, in September, the ISO 9001 recertification audit by the external certifying authority was conducted in Vienna and Munich. Several operational areas were interviewed in Munich and Vienna, as were many of the supporting areas. The handover of the new certificate is expected in December.
The 2017 exercise of integrated quality reporting to Operations has started. This exercise is the preparation phase for the next annual quality cycle, and involves supplying the main input into the annual quality review taking place in December and supporting the development of quality action plans for 2018. However, this year the presentation given to the operational units is being reviewed to adapt it to the new structure and to stress the end-to-end approach in DG1. a) SACEPO – Standing Advisory Committee before the EPO
Several meetings with the user community took place within the framework of SACEPO. The President participated in the annual plenary session on 17 May 2017, where 25 high-level user representatives provided valuable feedback and comments on new and ongoing projects at the EPO.
At working level, the Working Parties on Rules, on Guidelines and on Patent Information met in smaller groups to discuss issues relating to their particular fields, including a short-notice ad hoc meeting in mid-July focusing on adaptations to the Guidelines following the changes to the EPC implementing regulations on the patentability of plants and animals obtained by essentially biological processes.
B. USER CONSULTATIONS AND SURVEYS
Patent Administration's user satisfaction survey showed a clear increase in satisfied or very satisfied users in the last two years, from 80% in 2015 to 87% in 2016 and now to 89% in 2017, well above the 2017 target of 85%.
Regarding the results of user satisfaction surveys in search and examination, the three-year cycle in all technical fields is now complete. This year TeC (Technical Chemistry) and ICT (Information and Communication Technology) were surveyed. The results in both cases are positive. For TeC the already good results were maintained for both search and examination. For ICT, both results showed significant improvements: search increased from 81% in 2014 to 89% in 2017 (satisfied and very satisfied); for examination, satisfaction increased from 68% to 77% in three years.
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Overall, considering all clusters over the last three years, for search the percentage of satisfied and very satisfied users increased to 83%, exceeding the target of 80%, and for examination it is now 76%. At the end of the previous three- year cycle in 2014, search was at 79% and examination was at 75%.
To keep abreast of user views and perceptions, in 2016 the Office produced a user feedback review report for the first time. It gathered user feedback from all interactions with users of the patent grant system, e.g. via user meetings, examiner visits, praktika extern reports, etc. This feedback is fed into the continual improvement cycle of the EPO Quality Management System as a valuable tool for helping informed decision-making. One important aspect of user feedback obtained in 2016 is the relative lack of awareness among some applicants about EPO procedures. Consequently, an external publication addressing this issue will be published this year.
PDQM continues to perform fact-based analysis of concerns raised in user feedback. We assess user perception against other sources of data to establish a clear picture, to provide information to our users, and to monitor trends over time. Two recent topics are feedback concerning replies to intention-to-grant communications and prior-art citations introduced during examination.
At the same time, quality analysis results provide feedback to DG1 Operations. For example, PD Quality Management has begun to provide tailored search strategy guidance to examination units. This is based on statistical analysis of the availability of Asian patent literature at technical field level.
A look at EPO quality from a 360° perspective has been initiated. This will include, for example, a regular analysis of articles on the web which discuss EPO patent quality. A second example is that feedback will be collected regularly from internal users and staff in order to promote quality ownership at all levels and further engage staff in the development of the Quality Management System.
C. COMPLAINTS
The number of complaints decreased in the first half of 2017 (to 337, compared to 467 in the same period in 2016). This decrease can be explained for the most part by improvements to timeliness.
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Moreover, the EPO also promotes new channels to collect and discuss quality issues with users, such as the new SACEPO Working Party on Quality. This policy of greater engagement with users therefore gives them other ways to raise concerns with the Office if they do not feel at ease making complaints.
It is noteworthy that many problems reported in complaints were successfully resolved by modifying procedures and addressing recurrent issues. Increased co-operation between PDQM and all units resulted in a collective effort to solve issues highlighted in the complaints made in recent years.
In parallel, the visibility of the complaints-handling process is being improved. Information outlining the complaints procedure has been added to the Guidelines for Examination at the EPO and to the Guidelines for Search and Examination at the EPO as a PCT Authority. This public information will be further expanded with the advent of a new informal online feedback procedure, which offers, in parallel to the formal complaint procedure, an alternative means to raise concerns.
VII. HUMAN RESOURCES
A. RECRUITMENT AND CAREER a) Examiner recruitment
A crucial factor in successfully implementing the Early Certainty strategy is the recruitment of examiners. Consequently, the Office continues to invest heavily in recruiting examiners, while maintaining the highest quality standards and increasing diversity among the examiner population. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, taking into account the increased competition for multilingual examiners, a review of the talent acquisition strategy and its organisation has been started. To date in 2017, a total of 101 new examiners from 18 different nationalities have already been hired. Furthermore, 69 job offers have been issued, 60 to candidates who will join before the end of 2017 and 9 to candidates who will join in 2018. b) DG1/DG2 reorganisation
The end-to-end patent granting process provided the basis for the DG1 and DG2 reorganisation and for reviewing a number of functions. To facilitate the merging process, a number of internal selection procedures were launched, accompanied by a comprehensive training plan. Both aspects are key for the successful implementation of the new organisational structure on 1 January 2018.
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Following the appointment of the three Chief Operating Officers in July, almost 90 directors were reassigned (directors in charge of large directorates, directors in charge of opposition and formalities officers, co-ordinating directors. Directors of the newly formed large directorates are being given development support in taking up their new role. All directors will have a dedicated and internally designed training session on the work of Patent Administration as part of the overall integration plan. With almost 200 new team manager positions to be filled, the new organisational design offers new career opportunities to a large population of examiners and formalities officers.
B. HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Following the recommendations from last year's Occupational Health and Safety Risk Assessment (OHSRA), an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) was implemented in May this year. This programme complements the EPO's existing HR services by offering a range of support services to staff members and their immediate families.
The EAP can help in the following areas: coping with isolation and loneliness, adapting across cultures, addressing legal or financial issues, and offering advice and referrals for work-life issues such as family support, parenting and caring for the elderly. The service is available free of charge 24/7/365 in the three EPO official languages. The aim of the EAP is to support employees in the personal challenges they may face in their private or professional lives (such as communication, interpersonal relationships, finding solutions to work-related issues, marital and financial difficulties, addiction issues, adapting to an intercultural environment, and dealing with stress, depression and loneliness – including crisis support).
C. SOCIAL DIALOGUE a) Staff Committee elections:
On 20 June, the elections to the Central Staff Committee (CSC) and all local staff committees (LSCs) took place in the form of a paper ballot. The ad hoc Supervisory Committee confirmed that the elections were organised in compliance with the applicable provisions and did not observe any irregularity which could have unduly influenced the results of the elections. Participation was 57% for the CSC and 56.5% for the LSCs, compared to 70% in the 2014 elections.
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25 candidates stood for the 10 full and 10 alternate positions to be filled on the CSC. As for the four LSCs, following the revision of Circular No. 355 regarding the staff committee election rules the number of LSC members to be elected in Munich and The Hague increased from 9 to 11 and from 7 to 9 respectively. In total, 27 candidates stood for election as LSC members, for a total of 28 seats to be filled. The three-year mandate of all committee members started on 1 July 2017. b) Strike
On 22 May 2017, a strike call signed by the members of the staff committees was sent to the President. A meeting took place between staff committee members and top management on 8 June. As no precise and common claims regarding the interests of staff members were presented for discussion, no agreement was reached and the strike ballot took place according to the regulations on 22 June 2017.
The Supervisory Committee in charge of overseeing the voting process confirmed that the vote had been conducted in accordance with the regulations. In total, 36.1% of the staff voted in favour of the strike (40.5% of staff voted, with 89.2% voting in favour). On 30 June and 3 July, an average of 4% of staff went on strike for half a day, and 7.5% for a full day, compared to 39% for the previous strike action on 7 April 2016.
D. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT
Following the outcome of the 2016 Social Study and feedback gathered during the Social Conference's workshops, and in order to strengthen the direct participation of the staff in changes, in 2017 the Office introduced focus groups as a mechanism for collecting staff feedback and views. An Office-wide call for interest as well as requests via each DG for interested managers and staff went out during the first part of the year and resulted in a pool of over 500 employees. By July, about 200 employees had participated in focus groups (related to the investigation guidelines, internal appeals, reorganisation of the patent granting process, flexibility of the employment framework, etc.).
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E. REVISION OF THE SERVICE REGULATIONS – STANDARDS OF CONDUCT AND REFORM OF THE INTERNAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AT THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE
The aim of the revision was to present a comprehensive overview of the Office's legal framework for the standards and rules of conduct for staff, the procedure for investigating cases of alleged misconduct, the disciplinary procedure, and the internal appeals system. The proposals were designed to clarify the standards of conduct and formally integrate the fundamental guarantees of investigative procedure – due process, presumption of innocence, proportionality, impartiality, right to assistance and right to remain silent – into the Service Regulations, as well as introducing a comprehensive Ethics and Compliance function to assist staff members in discerning the expectations regarding their conduct, and to raise awareness of issues relating to ethics, anti-fraud, and abuse. Furthermore, it reinforces the Office's commitment to fighting discrimination and harassment and to protecting whistle-blowers from any form of retaliation. In addition, the legal framework governing disciplinary proceedings was revised with a view to enhancing the perception of respect of the principles of due process and fairness. The revision also included appointing the chairs of the Appeals Committee and Disciplinary Committee from outside the Office, to improve the perception of their independence among the staff.
The three-pillar reform was unanimously approved by the Administrative Council on 29 June 2017. Following the adoption of this comprehensive package, the Office sent a call for interest in order to select chairs and vice-chairs for the Appeals Committee and the Disciplinary Committee, with the highest levels of professional experience. Around 150 judges, members of courts of arbitration or employment-law professionals expressed an interest in the proposed positions.
VIII. EPN
A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES
The EPO is continuing with the revision of bilateral co-operation plans (BCPs) in the framework of the Co-operation Roadmap. Latvia and Lithuania signed new three-year BCPs in March, so 22 member states have now agreed on a second BCP with the Office.
The eleventh annual meeting with member states took place in the Norwegian city of Bergen at the beginning of July. 70 heads and senior managers from 37 national offices, including those from the extension states, attended this event which fostered exchanges on topics such as best practice in support of national innovation, support to SMEs in the use of patent rights, and national initiatives.
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In mid-May, the EPO held an Espacenet New and Quality at Source workshop in Lisbon which aimed to demonstrate Espacenet New prototypes and consult the national offices' users, among others. The second phase of the Espacenet New project, which is about improving and enhancing the Espacenet user experience and introducing new features, is progressing well. The first phase of this project has been completed: the main deliverable, an Espacenet interface in the national language for each participating national office, is operational everywhere. As a next step, the full-text functionality will be enhanced through the Quality at Source project in order to make it available for potentially all new interfaces.
Quality at Source now includes 34 member states. Five offices had joined the project by mid-year, the objective being to standardise the exchange of patent data within the EPN. In the meantime, a series of training courses on preparing full-text data has started, organised in co-operation with WIPO. 12 national offices have already participated in these courses and many are expected to start delivering full-text data within the coming months. The Quality at Source project will be finished by the end of the year.
The Office is also making good progress with the second phase of the Federated European Patent Register project, Federated Display. 26 national offices already offer or are about to offer free access to post-grant legal status data on European patents via a common interface. Another workshop on the Federated Register was organised in San Marino in September. This project should also be completed by the end of this year.
The most recent patent-related IT project under the Co-operation Roadmap, Hosted Filing Submission (HFS), is forging ahead. The architecture and the functional requirements of the HFS system have been finalised and the build process has started. The HFS project aims to provide a new online filing system for both the EPO and the national offices.
The CPC system, which has an increasingly global reach, has been adopted by 16 member states' offices so far. CPC data from eight national offices is also loaded into EPO databases. Two CPC events for national offices took place this year: the regular annual meeting together with the USPTO at WIPO's premises in Geneva in February and the second EPO training course in The Hague in April. Both events were also open to national offices that had expressed their intention to classify in the CPC.
The national offices confirmed their keen interest in the training projects under the Co-operation Roadmap. The EPO is organising the Discussion Platform for Exchange on Patent Procedures in ten member states this year. This forum for discussion on a selected technical field has been offered since 2014.
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The EQE Candidate Support Project (CSP), now in its fifth year, saw another ten students starting their training. Altogether, the CSP has supported 91 patent attorneys from 17 member states since 2012. 16 students from six member states have successfully completed the EQE so far. Of the original 23 member states initially eligible to participate in the CSP, six now have five or more EQE-qualified patent attorneys. Three of them have already filled their quota of 10 students on the CSP.
Another co-operation project, IP pre-diagnostic services, has widened its scope. The objective of this project is now to introduce IP not only to small and medium- sized enterprises (SMEs), but also to technology universities and research centres. Moreover, the Office is providing further guidance on the effective implementation of the services, along with financial support to the member states. Representatives from 22 national offices participated in a first training course in May.
A related project which also promotes better use of IP by SMEs and other smaller entities is the reorientation of PATLIB centres. 17 centres from 14 member states have joined the project, which started in June. The project mainly entails training measures both in a classroom and distance-learning format as well as coaching and study visits for the most successful participants.
B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY a) Institutional Strengthening
The Academy faces continued demand for training in 2017. In the area of Institutional Strengthening/Co-operation with NPOs, 10 training events attracted 786 participants in Q2/17. This brings the 2017 figures up to 25 events and more than 1 250 participants. The events included the seminar "How to understand and draft search reports and written opinions", organised in Lithuania, the seminar on the European patent system from filing to grant in Slovenia, and the "Examiner exchange platforms" implemented with the national patent offices in Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Romania to the benefit of both the NPOs concerned, EPO examiners, and the interested public.
The results of the 2016 edition of the seminar held between NPO and EPO examiners at expert level, addressing the topics of medical devices, green inventions and non-technical features, have been published on the EPN website. These findings contribute to better sharing of know-how and practice in Europe.
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A training seminar in Austria attended by more than 40 NPO staff supported the new EPO offer to develop IP pre-diagnosis programmes, all over Europe, thereby fostering innovation and growth in our member states. b) Judicial training
In 2017 several training events dedicated to judges from EPO member states took place. The judicial internships programme at the boards of appeal which took place in June was a success. This was followed by an expert judges' workshop held in London, where the most experienced judges discussed issues ranging from equivalence to parallel proceedings at the EPO and national courts and eventually the UPC. The high-level Venice Judges' Forum will be held at the end of this month, allowing judges and litigators to exchange views on substantive patent litigation topics. c) Professional representatives
In accordance with the MoU with the epi, the Academy co-operated with the epi in setting up a series of seminars across the member states on a series of topics including the unitary patent and the UPC. Presentations given both by EPO lawyers and by experienced patent attorneys are attracting large numbers of participants, reflecting the strong interest of the IP community in the unitary patent package.
An area of renewed demand is that of patent administrators, with several universities and institutions starting training programmes for paralegals in Scandinavian countries, but also in Spain and the UK. The Academy provided EPO formalities officers who participated as trainers. This contribution is a driving factor in these courses. d) Innovation support
Three case studies about European SMEs were presented by the EPO's Chief Economist to the NPOs at the 11th annual meeting on co-operation. This prepared the ground for the "launch" of the SME case study series at which the EPO's stakeholders were informed about the project. The "public launch" will follow in September 2017, when patent system users will be able to read up to nine additional SME case studies.
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The SME case studies are a valuable tool for training purposes and for increasing IP awareness among businesses. The selected SMEs are based in different European regions, operate in a wide variety of industries and apply diverse business models. All the companies were interviewed about their IP strategy and underlying business cases. The case studies summarise the key take-home messages for SMEs planning to develop or improve their IP management capabilities.
In general, the Academy continued to support businesses and their advisors through a series of virtual classroom and e-learning sessions about technology commercialisation and IP management. It also supported several events held by intermediaries like the Licensing Executive Society or Pat Tech Exchange. e) Academia
In spring 2017, the Office launched its new Academic Research Programme, which is being implemented by the Chief Economist Unit and the European Patent Academy, offering financial support for academic research on patent-related IP matters. The first round of calls for proposals for the programme has been implemented and the first meeting of the scientific committee has taken place to grant awards to the successful candidates.
The conference entitled "From research results to market" took place in Luxembourg with more than 100 participants, including researchers, technology transfer offices, industry, business advisors and patent offices. The conference is a result of close co-operation with the national patent office, the IP Institute Luxembourg and the University of Luxembourg, and was supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research and the Luxembourg National Research Fund.
The IP teaching kit produced in closed co-operation with the EUIPO is now also available in German, French, Spanish and Italian.
The EPO-OBI conference on Climate Change Mitigation Technology took place in September in Athens, attracting more than 100 participants, including industry and ministry representatives, TTO staff and researchers. Renowned European stakeholders from industry and international organisations attended, and their representatives contributed to the conference with their expertise in the field.
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f) Didactics
In the period from March to October 2017, the Academy has hosted nine online courses with live tutoring, including courses for national offices on examiners' activities, the EQE pre-examination and business-related topics on patents. The number of registered participants continues to be at the usual high levels.
The Academy's public offering now includes courses on opposition, IP rights for researchers, related online case studies as well as new tutorials on the PI tools like the Common Citation Document.
The relaunch of the e-learning platform in responsive design took place in July 2017, increasing the usability and portability of materials.
C. CO-OPERATION WITH THE EUIPO
The Pan-European Seal Professional Traineeship Programme, organised jointly by the EPO and the EUIPO, has just finished its second year. 50 young graduates from numerous member states have been doing a one-year paid internship since October 2016. The focus of the EPO is now on building up partnerships with top technical universities in all member states. So far, 42 leading universities and educational institutions from 19 member states have joined the programme and signed memoranda of understanding with the EPO and the EUIPO.
D. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO
By mid-July 2017, the number of entries on the list of professional representatives before the EPO had reached 11 884. In 2017, 595 candidates passed the European qualifying examination (EQE), an increase of 16% compared to 2016.
The number of registered associations of professional representatives under Rule 152(11) EPC was 681 on 17 July 2017, which represents an increase of approximately 10% on the previous year. At the same time, the number of legal practitioners undertaking representation increased by just over 5% compared to the previous year, reaching a total of 1 954 in July 2017.
The workload involved in the registration of general authorisations remains constantly high, because an existing stock of over 66 000 registered general authorisations has to be managed.
E. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER
After the second quarter of 2017, almost 35% of the new cases the Legal Division has dealt with regarding the European Patent Register have involved interruption of proceedings pursuant to Rule 142 EPC, principally due to bankruptcy.
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The registration of transfers of patent applications or patents in the European Patent Register accounted for around a third of the new cases. The registration of simple and exclusive licences amounted to about 20%. Requests for the exclusion of documents from file inspection have risen to almost 10%.
Stays of proceedings according to Rules 14 and 78 EPC and requests for correction of mistakes under Rule 139 EPC made up the remaining 5% of the Legal Division's work in respect of the European Patent Register.
With the latest release in July 2017 and with the release planned by the end of the year, the European Patent Register will be fully prepared for procedural and legal events related to the European patent with unitary effect.
In the latest Global Dossier release in May, a new feature was introduced. Via the European Patent Register, individual and patent family member RSS feeds are now available for patent monitoring. For some years now, RSS feeds have been available for monitoring changes in EP dossiers, in the "All documents" section of the European Patent Register. With the latest release, the RSS feed feature has been extended to Chinese dossiers of the INPADOC family of an EP document.
The Federated Register service now has eighteen participating states: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. Register web services from six more countries are currently in the test phase and will join the service in the coming weeks or months. This service allows easy access to reliable and up- to-date bibliographic and legal status information on European patents validated in the participating member states.
F. PATENT INFORMATION
The machine translation system has been in full production since 2012 and has now become a tool that is used naturally by the patent world. The recent development of neural machine translation (NMT) enables us to bring even more accurate translations to the users. Translations for 22 languages are now based on this new technology. The remainder will follow in the near future, as soon as quality checks are complete.
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The quality evaluation shows significant improvements in all languages in terms of fluency and accuracy. The decision to co-operate with Google on this important project has once again proven successful and fruitful for all users of the system.
A survey the Office conducted together with market-research consultants has shown that 70% of innovators in Europe use patent information as part of the innovation process. Of these, 75% name the EPO as the provider of the tools they use. These results confirm that patent information supports innovation in Europe and that the EPO is the leading provider of patent information. Details of the findings have been published on the EPO's website, and have been presented to stakeholders on various occasions.
Global Dossier now offers RSS feeds to provide users with alerts to changes in files, for example when new files are added. RSS feeds are offered for individual dossiers of offices supporting Global Dossier and for all their INPADOC family members.
Currently, these individual or family-based RSS alerts are available for files from the EPO and from the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China (SIPO).
For New Espacenet, the harmonisation of national interfaces is continuing and now includes 27 of the 30 participating offices. Further offices are in preparation.
Development of the basic infrastructure for New Espacenet is under way and is progressing according to plan.
Over 100 patent information users from 25 countries attended the annual "East meets West" forum in Vienna. The forum has established itself as a core event for anyone interested in Asian patent information and provides a unique opportunity for European users to talk face to face with experts from Asian patent offices. Some of the main topics during the various sessions were advanced searching and progress in machine translation.
In the area of patent information training, the Office is increasingly placing the emphasis on online events. The short "webinar" sessions regularly attract up to 100 participants. In the first six months of this year, we held 21 webinars in total, attended by a total of some 1 125 participants.
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IX. THE EPO AS A GLOBAL PLAYER
A. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
It has become a tradition for the EPO to hold "Partnership for Quality" meetings with leading American, Asian and European user organisations once a year. While the meetings with the AIPLA, IPO, BusinessEurope and epi among others took place in spring, the Office met with the JPAA and JIPA in September. Meetings with Chinese and Korean user organisations will follow. In addition, the EPO has met with associations such as FICPI and the German GRUR. Recurrent topics at these meetings are the EPO's increase in production and its Early Certainty initiatives.
On a different note, the EPO signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) in April. The EPO and IRENA will work together to develop further evidence-based research on the innovation and dissemination of renewable-energy technologies. As an early outcome of this co-operation, a new policy brief on the latest trends in climate change mitigation technologies was published midyear.
B. BILATERAL RELATIONS a) Validation system
In Cambodia, the approval procedure of the new legal provisions implementing the validation system under national law is under way. The validation agreement is ready to enter into force as soon as Cambodia has enacted these provisions. At the EPO, implementation of the agreement is also under preparation in order to be ready as soon as the Cambodian implementing provisions take effect. It is expected that the validation agreement with Cambodia will enter into force in the second half of 2017.
The validation agreement with Tunisia is expected to enter into force very soon, as Tunisia has enacted the provisions necessary for the functioning of this system. According to its national authorities, entry into force could occur before the end of 2017.
Negotiations between the EPO and the Lao PDR have progressed, and the parties are expected to agree on the final version of the validation agreement once the internal approval procedure in the Lao PDR is finalised. This validation agreement is expected to enter into force in early 2018, after the Lao PDR has enacted the provisions in its national law.
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The negotiations between the EPO and Brunei Darussalam have advanced quickly, and an agreement was reached during the summer. The document on a proposal for a validation agreement is being submitted to the present Council meeting for approval.
The negotiations between the EPO and Angola have also progressed, and it is expected that an agreement on the final text will be reached during this autumn. Entry into force of the validation agreement with Angola could therefore be expected during 2018. b) Technical co-operation
The EPO signed some agreements in spring and summer to further develop technical co-operation with other offices:
Europe: in addition to three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed in 2016, in April the EPO and the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) signed an agreement on a joint PPH pilot programme, which is expected to be launched in the course of the year.
China: the EPO and SIPO signed a comprehensive MoU on data exchange as well as an agreement on EPOQUE Net in May. With SIPO receiving more than 1.3 million patent applications in 2016, it is essential for the EPO and the users of the patent system to access the most up-to-date patent information from China. In addition, the EPO held a roving seminar on the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court in Beijing and Shanghai in July. Filings from China increased at the EPO by 25% last year.
An MoU on bilateral co-operation has been signed with Saudi Arabia. The Philippine patent office is the 48th in the world to have subscribed to the EPOQUE Net service.
With the US accounting for over 25% of applications filed, the Office has placed an attaché there since July 2016 to co-ordinate activities, conduct outreach and provide a point of contact and a resource. During the first year, the attaché attended over two dozen meetings with organisations and companies. Many of the meetings involved regional patent attorney organisations in large cities and other venues not normally reached directly by an EPO representative.
Latin America: The Office has initiated discussions to intensify its relationship with Argentina. In May, the EPO and the National Institute of Industrial Property signed an MoU on bilateral co-operation and a work plan.
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Africa: The EPO has launched a new co-operation programme with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission of South Africa. The agreements which were signed in February include an MoU to establish a long-term partnership, and a work plan.
C. IP5 CO-OPERATION
This year, the EPO has the lead for most IP5 events. Back in January, the Office hosted the fourth meeting of the Global Dossier Task Force. The Global Dossier now also includes access to file wrappers from WIPO IB (PCT dossiers) and some non-IP5 offices which participate via WIPO CASE.
Back to back with the Global Dossier Task Force session, the first meeting of the newly established IP5 Industry Consultation Group was held. This group goes beyond the scope of the Global Dossier initiative and takes on board industry input on topics such as patent procedure harmonisation and legal issues.
On 1 June, the IP5 celebrated its tenth anniversary at the Heads of Office meeting in Malta. The heads of the five offices reaffirmed the vital importance of industry involvement and emphasised that the IP5 projects are designed to support the needs of the user community effectively. The results of the last ten years of IP5 co-operation are summarised in a brochure published on the internet. With a view to enhancing their co-operation further, the heads agreed to focus their future endeavours on: (1) pursuing efforts towards harmonised patent practices and procedures, (2) optimising quality management, (3) maximising the work-sharing potential within the IP5, and (4) improving patent information services.
In that context, the heads also agreed to launch the operational phase of the third pilot project on Collaborative Search and Examination under the PCT, provisionally on 1 May 2018. Within the framework of this pilot project, the IP5 offices acting as competent ISA will draw up high-quality international search reports and written opinions, taking contributions received from the other IP5 offices ("peer ISAs") into account.
During the meeting with IP5 Industry on the previous day, the EPO launched the first implementation of Alerting, an automatic notification of any changes in an EPO or SIPO file wrapper.
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All IP5 offices reported on further progress made on the five priorities for the Global Dossier: alerting, legal status, applicant name standardisation, XML and proof of concept for cross-filings. The EPO has led the drafting of an IP5 document detailing the scope, content, timeliness and availability of the Global Dossier file wrappers. This document was also presented to IP5 Industry, and will be used to guide further enhancements of the existing Global Dossier implementation. The EPO also gave IP5 Industry a progress report on its "New initiatives in XML filing", which again received positive feedback. a) Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH)
The EPO is continuing its efforts to facilitate efficient access to accelerated prosecution for European applicants on the basis of the high-quality work products it establishes.
Two new bilateral PPH pilot programmes with the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) and the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL) were launched on 1 July 2017, while a similar programme with the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) is being implemented on 1 October 2017.
In addition, MoUs dedicated to the PPH are being signed in early October with the National Institute of Industrial Property of Argentina and the National Institute of Industrial Property of Brazil, on the margins of the WIPO General Assembly in Geneva. Once implemented, these PPH pilot programmes will be the first of their kind with these major markets in South America.
By the end of the second quarter of 2017, the EPO had received a total of 9 110 requests for participation in the PPH pilot programme. In line with past trends, the majority of these requests were filed on the basis of a PCT work product, and Japanese users continued to account for the highest percentage of the PPH requests filed at the EPO, followed by US users. b) Patent Harmonisation Expert Panel (PHEP)
During their recent meetings in Malta on 30 May and 1 June 2017, the IP5 Deputy Heads and the IP5 Heads of Office had the opportunity to take stock of progress and confirm the direction of the PHEP work on unity of invention, citation of prior art, and written description/sufficiency of disclosure. Overall the PHEP has been making good progress and is well on track to fulfil its objectives.
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Regarding unity of invention, current (EPO/SIPO-led) work is focusing on the analysis of the IP5 offices' contributions to the case studies in the areas of electricity and chemistry. Preliminary results will be presented and discussed during the upcoming ordinary meeting of the PHEP in November 2017.
Work is also progressing on schedule in the areas of prior-art citation (KIPO/USPTO-led) and written description/sufficiency of disclosure (JPO-led).
The Office will give a detailed progress report on the PHEP agenda after its November 2017 meeting.
D. TRILATERAL CO-OPERATION
At the end of March, the EPO hosted the Trilateral Meeting with industry in Seville. Industry representatives presented their work on substantive patent law harmonisation, i.e. on the topics grace period, prior user rights, conflicting applications and mandatory 18-month publication of applications.
E. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION
Currently, 25 patent offices worldwide classify their national collections in the CPC or have indicated that they be doing so soon. The annual meeting in Geneva in February attracted 45 participants from 30 offices worldwide. A similar meeting for industry representatives was held in Vienna in April. The Office recently held a three-day training course in The Hague to boost the CPC knowledge and skills of examiners in the participating offices; representatives from 14 offices participated in the event.
F. CO-OPERATION WITH WIPO
Since mid-2016, EPO examiners have had access to WIPO CASE data. In the meantime, WIPO CASE has been extended to the Global Dossier for public access, initially for file wrappers from the WIPO IB (PCT dossiers) and Canada, with others such as the Australian, Israeli and UK offices in the pipeline.
G. STRENGTHENING THE PCT
In the first half of 2017, the Office continued its work to further improve its PCT services for both applicants and offices selecting the EPO as ISA. The following examples are illustrative of these efforts:
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First, the new PCT paperless service which ensures that the search copies and subsequent documents are transmitted to the EPO as ISA in electronic form was extended to a first group of five receiving offices on 1 May 2017 (Austria, Sweden, South Africa, New Zealand and Djibouti) and to a second group of four more on 1 August 2017 (Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark and Singapore). A third group comprising Poland, Slovakia, India, Chile, Russia and Georgia is under evaluation from 1 September until 1 November 2017. More receiving offices will follow in 2018 and 2019.
Second, on 1 April the EPO as ISA implemented a new service: the "provisional opinion accompanying the partial search results" aims at further enhancing the quality of its search products and the transparency of its procedures. With this new service, in cases of lack of unity of invention, the EPO provides applicants with not only a partial international search report on the first invention mentioned in the claims but also a provisional opinion on the patentability of that invention. The provisional assessment of patentability for the first invention constitutes a useful basis for applicants who at that stage of the procedure need to take strategic decisions on the future of the patent application, such as whether or not to pay additional search fees.
Third, on 1 November 2016, the EPO started accepting subsequent documents filed via ePCT. This important milestone in the online services we offer to PCT applicants will be built on in the near future with a view to further facilitating PCT prosecution at the EPO. Also, the Office will accept payment of (PCT) fees by credit card as from 1 December 2017.
Lastly, IP5 co-operation on the PCT Collaborative Search and Examination pilot is well on track. The pilot group has made much progress in the preparation of the technical documentation which will serve as a basis for the operational phase, but work is still ongoing. An important milestone was achieved with the adoption of the operational arrangements by the IP5 Deputy Heads on 30 May 2017 and the subsequent decision taken on 1 June 2017 by the IP5 Heads to launch the operational phase of the pilot provisionally by 1 May 2018.
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H. SUBSTANTIVE PATENT LAW HARMONISATION
At the end of March 2017, the Industry Trilateral met with the Trilateral Heads in Seville and reported on their work on harmonisation, striving to achieve consensus on a package of norms which might form the basis for an international agreement. The Industry Trilateral is investing a lot of resources in the harmonisation process and showing flexibility, creativity, and a strong will to harmonise, despite the difficulty and complexity of the process.
In June 2017, the EPO hosted the B+ Users' Symposium, which brought together the Industry Trilateral, national industry and user groups from Australia, Canada and Korea, which are B+ Sub-Group members whose users are not represented within the Industry Trilateral. JPAA, KPAA and the epi were also invited, as well as FICPI, AIPPI, WIPO and delegations from the B+ Sub-Group and the substantive workstreams.
Preparatory documents drawn up by the B+ Sub-Group and the Industry Trilateral were distributed before the symposium, allowing detailed discussions to take place, even amongst users who had not been involved in the process so far. At the symposium itself, the Industry Trilateral presented their proposals and the outcomes achieved, as well as the alternatives being considered where agreement is proving elusive. Although some progress has been achieved by the Industry Trilateral since March 2017, there is still much work to be done to reach agreement on a coherent set of harmonised norms which will be palatable to users across all major regions. Interesting and open discussions took place amongst industry representatives. Symposium participants were requested to provide written input to the Industry Trilateral by the end of August.
On 21 June 2017, immediately after the symposium, the B+ Sub-Group held a meeting at which it decided to respond to the proposals of the Industry Trilateral. The purpose of the document is to provide input by analysing, in a non-partisan manner, some of the objective issues – practical and legal – raised by the approaches envisaged.
It was also decided to hold a further meeting of the B+ Sub-Group with the Industry Trilateral in the first half of 2018, at which the further work of the Industry Trilateral will be presented and discussed.
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X. UNITARY PATENT/UNIFIED PATENT COURT
A. UNITARY PATENT
Technical implementation of the unitary patent will provide the IT systems and infrastructure required by the EPO to administer all the procedures involved, in particular the processing of requests for unitary patents. The key products and services for activation of the unitary patent system are ready for operation, including in particular the online filing tools, the Register for Unitary Patent Protection (which will have the same structure and functionalities as the European Patent Register), the expansion of EBD (European Bibliographic Data) to include Unitary Patent Register entries, and the European Patent Bulletin. A dry run of the entire IT system with simulated cases has been successfully performed. Moreover, an identifier for unitary patents (new code "C0") has been created and implemented in order to meet the user community's express wish to be able to search for unitary patents in EPO or commercial databases.
The EPO will offer three ways of requesting a unitary patent online: online filing (eOLF), new online filing (CMS) and web-form filing. It will be possible for users to pay UP-related fees to the EPO by inpayment or transfer to an EPO bank account, or by debiting a deposit account held with the EPO. Holders of EPO deposit accounts will also be able to use the EPO's online fee payment service.
As regards communication about the unitary patent, the EPO has revamped the EPO website on the unitary patent and has also published materials for users on how to obtain, maintain and manage unitary patents ("Unitary Patent Guide").
B. UNIFIED PATENT COURT (UPC)
The UPC Preparatory Committee met for the last time on 15 March 2017. It had hoped that the provisional application phase would start at the end of May 2017, with the Court scheduled to begin work in December 2017. However, following the announcement of an early general election in the United Kingdom, held on 8 June 2017, it became apparent that this timeline could not be maintained. In addition, another layer of complexity has been added by a suit brought before the German Constitutional Court concerning Germany's ratification of the UPCA. This has brought a pause to the country's ratification of the UPCA and the Protocol on Provisional Application.
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Under these circumstances, the Preparatory Committee considered it difficult to maintain a definitive starting date for the period of provisional application, which is important to allow the Court to make the necessary preparations for entry into force. It is hoped that provisional application can start during autumn 2017, which would mean that the sunrise period for the opt-out procedure would start in early 2018, followed by the entry into force of the UPCA and by the UPC becoming operational.
Meanwhile, an operational team in charge of implementing the decisions of the Preparatory Committee is actively continuing its work, in particular in the areas of IT (case management system, online opt-out tool), human resources (interviews, training), finance (payment of contributions by member states) and registry.
C. UNITARY PATENT PROTECTION DIVISION
In the context of the recent internal organisational reform concerning mainly DG1 and DG2, the Office has decided to regroup all UPP-related competences, legal and administrative, in a single department in DG5. During the period under review, the UPP Division has focused on completing the preparations for technical implementation of the UPP system. In particular, end-to-end testing has been successfully performed by running different scenarios of the new UPP procedures under real conditions in a dry-run environment. This exercise has shown that the IT system's performance is reliable and stable.
The practical preparatory work for dealing with all UPP-related administrative matters was also concluded. This included drafting more than 70 new forms in the EPO's three official languages, either by creating completely new forms, e.g. the request for unitary effect, or by adapting existing ones to the specific needs of the UPP procedure, e.g. payment of fees or re-establishment of rights. In addition, a certificate attesting to the registration of a European patent with unitary effect has been designed.
To publish the most important UP-related issues, a new part of the European Patent Register has been set up, together with a corresponding new part in the European Patent Bulletin.
To ensure legal certainty, certain EPO decisions about official actions taken in proceedings before the EPO have needed to be updated. Therefore, several decisions of the President have been prepared, for publication in the EPO Official Journal as soon as the date of entry into force of the Agreement is known.
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Moreover, the user community has been informed about the new UPP procedure at several conferences and workshops given by UPP Division staff. In particular, electronic tools for filing documents and how to search in the new UPP chapter of the European Patent Register have been presented. In addition to this, the necessary staff training has begun, to ensure that the new system will run smoothly and efficiently.
To sum up: the UPP Division is ready to go operational as soon as the new system enters into force.
XI. THE EPO AND SOCIETY
A. ANNUAL REPORT 2016
This year, the EPO's Annual Results Press Conference attracted more public attention than ever before. 43 international journalists attended the event, held in Brussels on 7 March 2017. This led to strong media coverage in both quantitative and qualitative terms, and its tone was very positive. Especially in Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland and Austria, there were large increases in the number of publications. The total of 1 214 media articles and reports published set a new record in media coverage of the EPO's annual results, and was even higher than the very good result of the previous year. Overall, 215 print articles, 957 online clips and 5 TV/radio reports were published, with volumes still growing.
The presentation of the EPO's results to the media was supported by the publication of our online Annual Report, which focuses on the highlights of the year and includes a comprehensive statistics section illustrated with graphics and videos. It received almost 100 000 page views between March and July 2017.
The Annual Report was also well received in social media. Over 500 000 users of social networks were exposed to EPO messages and more than 4 000 people posted about the Annual Report.
B. EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD
On 15 June 2017, the 12th annual European Inventor Award took place in Venice, Italy. As all the finalists benefit from European patent protection, this Award provides an ideal opportunity to promote the European patent system as a whole and demonstrate its central role in promoting technological progress, innovation, prosperity and job creation.
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More than 600 guests attended the Award ceremony at the Arsenale di Venezia, including high-ranking guests such as Carlo Calenda, Italian Minister of Economic Development, Carlo Boffi, the Prefect of Venice, Raivis Kronbergs, Executive State Secretary of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Latvia, and jury members including Mario Moretti Polegato, José Luis Arnaut, António Campinos, Helen Lee and Eleni Antoniadou.
The independent international jury selected the 15 finalists from more than 450 individuals and teams of inventors nominated for the 2017 Award. The finalists came from 12 countries – Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US – and were revealed to the media and public on 26 April 2017.
The stories of the 15 outstanding inventors from many technical fields provided the media with rich case studies, and offered a valuable opportunity to position the EPO's messages on the promotion of innovation. The value of the European patent system and of the Office as an institution supporting innovation was communicated to the public through an extensive European and international media campaign which led to positive media reporting on the award finalists and patent-related matters in general.
The European Inventor Award 2017 generated more positive coverage than ever before, especially in markets such as France, Germany and Italy. By the end of July 2017, the total number of published articles had grown to 2 704, which is an excellent outcome, and a new record (up from 1 978 last year). In addition to this quantitative increase, the media campaign also generated a significantly higher output in terms of published quality reports, such as longer feature articles on individual inventors based on a large number of media interviews.
The overwhelming media response clearly shows that the European Inventor Award is now perceived as one of the most important prizes for innovation, and is a welcome source for quality technology reporting. The EPO has increased its coverage on almost all external communication channels, as the growing trend towards technology reporting was again fully confirmed, mirroring the very good results already achieved in Brussels in March 2017.
The attractiveness of the Award is also emphasised by the strong engagement of the public in social media activities related to the prize. The volume of online conversations in the EPO's social media channels has increased significantly, as has the number of video views.
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In that context, the strategy of producing targeted videos for social media use proved highly successful. Compared with last year, the promotion of the finalists in social media led to another 30% increase in online conversations (over 14 000) about the Award and a doubling of the number of views of the Award videos (more than 2 million), with the result that we reached over 5 million people with Award- related stories. One of the finalists' videos (Waleed Hassanein) which was published on the EPO Facebook page reached more than 3.5 million people. Over 1.5 million have watched the video, which has been "liked", shared and commented on more than 95 000 times.
The European Inventor Award online public vote – the Popular Prize – attracted more than 100 000 votes, a 110% increase compared to last year.
Interest from journalists continues to increase every year. Almost 70 attended or reported on the European Inventor Award ceremony in Venice, representing a wide spread of countries, and including many from leading newswire services, such as AFP (France), ANSA (Italy), DPA (Germany) and EFE (Spain). They conducted around 260 interviews in Venice with the award finalists alone.
Print coverage highlights included articles in Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Les Echos in France, Belgian business dailies De Tijd and L'Echo, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung in Switzerland, Italy's Corriere della Sera and Il Sole 24 Ore, and Spanish dailies El Pais and El Mundo.
There was also very good coverage on prime-time radio and TV. The awards were covered by national public radio stations across Europe, including Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. The event was broadcast live by the French TV station Science & Vie and streamed on the websites of Euronews, French business media Les Echos and others.
The 2018 edition of the European Inventor Award remains open for entries until 16 October 2017.
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C. CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN TECHNOLOGIES AND BIOTECHNOLOGIES a) Clarified practice in the area of plant and animal patents
By decision CA/D 6/17 of 29 June 2017 the Administrative Council adopted almost unanimously the Office's proposal to amend Rules 27(b) and 28 EPC in order to exclude from patentability plants and animals exclusively obtained by an essentially biological breeding process. The amendment to the Implementing Regulations takes account of the notice of the European Commission from November 2016 relating to certain articles in the EU Directive on biotechnological inventions (98/44/EC) and safeguards uniformity in harmonised European patent law. Users of the European patent system have been provided with more clarity and legal certainty. The amended rules entered into force on 1 July 2017.
Immediately after this, it was decided to lift the stay of examination and opposition cases concerning plants or animals obtained by an essentially biological process which had been implemented in November 2016 following publication of the Commission's notice and while discussions with the representatives of the EPO member states were under way in the Patent Law Committee and in the Council. These proceedings have been gradually resumed since July 2017 and are being conducted in accordance with the clarified practice.
Simultaneously, an ad hoc SACEPO Working Party Guidelines meeting was held in July 2017 to discuss with the users amendments to the EPO's Guidelines for Examination reflecting the exclusion of plants and animals exclusively obtained by conventional breeding methods. These new instructions in the Guidelines will be published on 1 November 2017, while further clarifications to the EPO's practice in the field of plants and animals are planned for the 2018 revision of the Guidelines. b) EPO-CPVO co-operation
EPO co-operation with the EU's Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO) is well under way. Technical and legal experts have continued their working level discussions on issues such as data exchange. In addition, on 29 November 2017 the EPO is going to hold a public conference together with the CPVO on "Supporting innovation in the plant sector".
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XII. CONCLUDING REMARKS
To conclude, during the first eight months of 2017, the Office has seen important developments in its buildings and IT systems, with several important projects advancing towards completion. In the core area, the trends in terms of production, quality and efficiency are very positive. At the same time, the Office has also succeeded in finalising the reform of some internal procedures (investigations, internal appeals, disciplinary) which met with wide support in the Council in June 2017, closing the third chapter of the strategic orientations set out in CA/102/16 "Future priorities for the EPO: orientation paper", as presented in December 2016.
XIII. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION
Yes.
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