CA/88/14 Orig.: en Munich, 26.09.2014
SUBJECT: President's activities report
SUBMITTED BY: President of the European Patent Office
ADDRESSEES: Administrative Council (for information)
SUMMARY
This document sets out activities from the beginning of 2014.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Subject Page
I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. PERFORMANCE 1 A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION 1 a) Filings 1 b) Efficiency 3 c) Publications 3 d) Time to delivery of the search products 5 e) Time to publication of the patent 6 III. Measures taken in DG1 to improve performance Quality and service 8 A. EARLY CERTAINTY FROM SEARCH (ECFS) 8 B. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN 2014 8 C. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE" 9 a) VICO for Oral Proceedings 9 b) The First-Line Customer Service 9 c) Praktika Extern 2014 10 d) Areas of Competence (AoC) 10 e) Reorganisation of Clusters in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Area 11 f) Examiner Career and Team Manager Pilot 11 D. UTILISATION IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT (UIP) 12 IV. BOARDS OF APPEAL 12 A. DG3 PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTION 12 a) Boards of Appeal 12 b) Enlarged Board of Appeal 13 V. INTERACTION WITH STAKEHOLDERS 14 A. SACEPO 14 B. NATIONAL JUDGES 15 C. ARTICLE 123(2) EPC SYMPOSIUM 15
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VI. IT ROADMAP 16 VII. BUILDINGS 18 A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE 18 B. ACCOMMODATION PLANNING MUNICH / PORTFOLIO OF RENTED BUILDINGS 19 C. BERLIN 19 D. VIENNA BUILDING 19 E. SECURITY PROGRAMME 19 VIII. QUALITY 19 A. PD QUALITY MANAGEMENT 19 IX. HUMAN RESOURCES 20 A. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY 20 B. CAREER/PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 21 C. INVALIDITY 22 X. EPN 22 A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES 22 B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY 24 C. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO 26 D. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER 26 E. PATENT INFORMATION 26 XI. EPO AS A GLOBAL PLAYER 27 A. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS 27 B. BILATERAL RELATIONS 28 C. IP5 29 D. TRILATERAL 32 E. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION 32 F. STRENGTHENING THE PCT 32 G. SUBSTANTIVE PATENT LAW HARMONIZATION 34 a) Tegernsee Experts Group - Plenary session of the Group B+ 34
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XII. UNITARY PATENT 34 A. UNITARY PATENT PROTECTION (UPP) 34 B. UNIFIED PATENT COURT (UPC) 34 XIII. THE EPO AND SOCIETY 35 A. CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN TECHNOLOGIES AND STANDARDS 35 B. EPO IN THE MEDIA 36 a) ANNUAL REPORT 2013 36 b) EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD 36 XIV. CONCLUDING REMARKS 38 XV. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION 38
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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 2014; the full account will be presented in March 2015.
The Council meeting in June saw the adoption of updated roadmaps in the five priority areas – IT, Cooperation, Quality, HR, and Building. Together with the extension of the President’s mandate until mid-2018, the decisions taken in June have set the Office’s medium-term agenda, firmly based on a strategy of pursuing Quality and Efficiency.
II. PERFORMANCE
A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION a) Filings
The first eight months in 2014 have shown a further increase in patent filings, driven by the continuing upward trend in the number of PCT international applications filed. At the end of June 2014, about 136 200 patent filings were recorded. This represents a temporary 6.2% increase over the corresponding figure of 2013, partly due to a surge of PCT filings resulting from the entry into force of the America Invents Act in March 2013 in the U.S. This growth will progressively adjust itself over the coming months with the expectation that the growth in filings should be around 2% at the end of 2014.
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EPO Filings Budget 270 800 258.473 265.690 244.991 250 000
200 000
150 000
100 000 End June End June 128 194 136 198 50 000
0 2011 2012 2013 2014
The number of requests for a European patent (European direct applications filed in 2014 and PCT applications entering the European regional phase in 2014) amounted to 99 900 applications at the end of August, 1.8% above the corresponding figure for 2013.
At the end of August 2014, the Office received 145 715 search requests (+1.9%) as well as 92 570 requests for European examination (+2.3%). This represents an increase of 2.1% in the workload compared to 2013. The share of the EPO as ISA decreased slightly during the first half of 2014 to 37.2%.
The examiners' output reached 213 795 search, examination and opposition products, 3.8% above the figures at end of August 2013.
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b) Efficiency
In the framework of the Quality/Efficiency strategy, it is the goal of the Office to keep its overall staff complement constant while increasing its production in ways sufficient to manage the workload and maintain or improve quality. The figure below illustrates the continuing success of this strategy, whereby the number of Full Time Equivalent employees has decreased while the number of products produced by each FTE is increasing, a clear marker of the improved efficiency of the Office.
Paid man years Products per FTE (FTE) 7 000 52 50,4 51 50 49,0 6 750 48,4 49 47,7 48 46,4 47 45,5 6 500 6 571 46 6 580 6 526 6 472 45 6 436 43,1 6 417 44 6 250 6 348 43 42 41 6 000 40 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 Sep 2013 - Aug 2014 Paid man years, FTE SEO Products / FTE c) Publications
After 8 months in 2014, the EPO published 42 940 European patents, which is 8% less than during the same period in 2013. Of the granted patents, almost 33% (+0.2%) were published within 36 months.
Several factors account for the observed trends.
There has been an increase in the search workload, which has a higher priority than examination work. PCT Chapter 1 workload increased by 4% in 2013, EP first filings by 8%, and National First filings also by 4% in the same year. The increase of priority products was above average (3%) and above plan.
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Applicant behaviour in the grant phase is changing, with an increase in the drop- out rate after the „intention to grant“ notification and before publication of the grant, of about 1,3% (from 8% in 2013 to 9,3% in the last 12 months period). On the basis of 70 000 Intentions to grant issued, the increased drop rate driven by applicants’ behaviour represents about 1 000 publications less.
Furthermore, in recent years re-engineering of the publication process led to shortening of the technical preparations for publication, which resulted in one-off increases in the level of published patents. Comparison today is thus against historically high levels achieved by one-off improvements.
The Office took targeted measures in June this year in order to increase both the production of grants and speed up the administrative processes leading to publication. It is expected that the gap in published patents will at least partially close towards the end of the year.
EPO Published Patents Budget 68 000 70 000 65 657 66 712 62 112 60 000
50 000
40 000
30 000 End August End August 46 725 42 941 20 000
10 000
0 2011 2012 2013 2014
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d) Time to delivery of the search products
The duration of the search process is estimated by the age of the file expressed in months since the date of priority at the time the search report and written opinion are sent.
Age in months at the end of the search 18
16 15.2 14
12
10 EP first filings 8.4 National 8 PCT (ISA) 6 5.1 4
2
0 2010 2011 2012 2013 Current 2014
Current in months 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
EP first filings 5,4 5,4 5,2 5,2 5,1 National 7,8 7,6 7,8 8,5 8,4 PCT (ISA) 15,6 15,4 15,2 15,2 15,2
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e) Time to publication of the patent
The time to publication of the patent is measured from the date of entry into the European grant procedure until the date of publication of the patent: for the European direct application time is counted starting from the date of receipt, while for the Euro-PCT application, from the date of entry into the regional phase. This time measures the duration of the European grant procedure completed during each reporting period. The objective set out is 36 months from the start of the granting procedure.
Time to publication of the patent in months 44.0 44.3 44.6 43.3 42.9
36
24
12
0 2010 2011 2012 2013 Jan-Aug 2014
The time up to grant decreased from 44.3 months in 2011 to 42.9 months so far in 2014 (median time).
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The following table further highlights the key EPO core business related statistics.
General EPO Statistics 15 September 2014
2013 2014 D 2014/2013 in %
1 Total European patent filings - May 128 194 136 198 6.2%
2a Direct European applications - August 39 682 38 884 -2.0%
2b PCT applications entering the regional phase - August 58 449 61 032 4.4%
3 Searches carried out (EPO level) - August 142 757 150 453 5.4%
- of which European + supplementary + other 69 367 74 956 8.1% - of which International PCT searches carried out 56 147 57 379 2.2%
4 European examinations carried out (EPO level) - August 78 583 75 782 -3.6%
5 International preliminary examinations carried out (EPO level) - August 5 345 5 289 -1.0%
6 Oppositions (EPO level) - August 1 715 1 288 -24.9%
7 Total Examiner Products DG 1 - August 205 912 213 795 3.8%
8 SEO Time (Search, Examination, Opposition in '000 days) - August 429.7 444.8 3.5%
9 Technical appeals cases settled - August 1 410 1 521 7.9%
10 Patents published - August 46 725 42 940 -8.1%
Pending workload search expressed in months of search production 11 11.1 10.2 -8.1% (EPO level) - August
Pending workload examination/opposition expressed in months of 12 54. 56.8 5.2% exa/opp production (EPO level) - August
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III. MEASURES TAKEN IN DG1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE QUALITY AND SERVICE
A. EARLY CERTAINTY FROM SEARCH (ECFS)
Early Certainty from Search, the new scheme for managing DG1 workload, was launched in July 2014. Early Certainty from Search aims at improving legal certainty on IP rights in Europe by optimising the use of the available examiner resources for timely issuance of high priority office actions. It will help the EPO to face the challenge of the patent filings growth while maintaining the highest possible level of legal certainty in Europe on pending patent applications. Building on the recent procedural and legal changes, such as the introduction of the “search opinion” and “Raising the Bar”, the main objective of Early Certainty from Search is to issue the search report and opinion on time for all applications, including those coming from the PCT and for which the EPO was not the ISA. In the examination phase, Early Certainty from Search will also bring improvements in the predictability of the examination process: Although many applicants may not be interested in seeing the examination phase started too early, once started, it is seen as more efficient for all stakeholders to finish the process as quickly as possible. Third parties will be able to accelerate examination by submitting substantiated and non-anonymous observations under Article 115. This will prevent undue delay in initiating examination of key patent applications.
B. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN 2014
A key element of the Efficiency/Quality strategy is to reallocate resources to the core of the patent grating process, notably by increasing the number of examiners in relation to other staff. Examiner recruitment is thus an essential step in implementing strategic policy.
After a very successful 2013, the recruitment procedure for DG1 examiners continues running at good pace in 2014.
With the establishment of the recruitment events, the whole process has become more efficient and the times from application to starting work have been drastically reduced. The recruitment procedure is under continuous review to enhance its quality.
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At the end of July a total number of 190 successful applicants have been offered a job as a patent examiner at the EPO, and 112 have already started. In order to keep the EPO recruitment machine continuously running, we are already sending offers to start in 2015 (7 so far).
The three-year language probation approach is now established as an accepted strategy to recruit the top engineers and scientists across all member states: 45 of the newly hired examiners in 2014 have used this possibility. This year we managed to recruit new examiners from many of the less represented member states using the Language Probation approach (CZ, MK and TR for the first time).
C. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE"
The Office is constantly seeking to improve service to users. The general title given to these initiatives in DG1 is “Esprit de Service”. Several examples have been given in previous reports and the latest progress is described below. a) VICO for Oral Proceedings
Since 1998 oral proceedings by video conference are legally accepted by the EPO. Since the introduction of a new technical solution in May 2012 this service is used increasingly. For the period July 2012-June 2013 513 oral proceedings were scheduled. For the period July 2013 to June 2014 the figure was 599. This represents an increase of 17% and shows that applicants, representatives, and examiners are using the service more actively as an efficient way of working. b) The First-Line Customer Service
In line with the service-orientation of the Office, First-Line Customer Service for DG1 is operational since November 2012 for all examiners on the three sites Munich, The Hague and Berlin including those examiners working part time from home. Since the start of the service 2363 tickets have been created and most of those tickets have been closed in the given timeframe, i.e. a reply was provided to the applicant/representative within 3 working days. So far in 2014 a total of 620 new tickets have been created. Currently, positive trends are observed in the time it takes to close tickets.
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c) Praktika Extern 2014
This program continues to be a successful way to foster interaction between examiners and Patent Attorneys and Applicants and so better understand the issues and challenges in different professional environments dealing with intellectual property. It also provides an opportunity to staff to receive direct feedback regarding Quality and Procedural efficiency delivered by the European Patent Office.
There has been a significant increase in attorney/law firms participating in this year’s program for 2014 compared to previous years. A total of 43 selected examiners will participate, the highest number since the program began in 2009. All examiners taking part in this year’s program will produce reports reflecting their experience and knowledge gained during their internships. The feedback is extremely encouraging and the suggestions made by the Attorneys to improve our level of service will be consolidated and communicated to the relevant units in the Office for analysis and possible implementation.
Many attorney’s offices and companies which participated in the program of 2013 have found the experience to be beneficial to both parties and many have expressed the wish to repeat participation. d) Areas of Competence (AoC)
Impressive progress has been made since the planning exercise was concluded in 2012. The number of examiners working in AoCs will be close to 80% at the end of this year, and it is expected to be around 83% at the end of 2015. This means that over the implementation period 2013 to 2015, 1297 examiners will have moved into an Area of Competence. This is a significant improvement in just 2-3 years. There are now very few technical fields (less than 1%) where no AoC decision has yet been taken. This means that with time (some examiners will stay in their field until retirement) and ongoing recruitment, DG1 will reach quite quickly a full AoC status.
Ultimately, in line with the EPO esprit de service, the public and the applicants will be the first to benefit from the results of this change process. Indeed, having examiners working in AoCs distributed among EPO sites will contribute to maintain and further enhance our high quality standards.
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e) Reorganisation of Clusters in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Area
Responding to the technical convergence of the Computer and Telecommunications industries, the two clusters dealing with these areas have been brought together under one Principal Director, and several of the corresponding directorates reorganised. One important result of this new structure has been the creation of two new directorates, one dedicated to ICT security and the other to HCI (Human- Computer Interfaces), in which expertise previously distributed across both clusters has now been concentrated. Further synergies and opportunities arising from this rationalisation of the major part of our ICT clusters will be exploited in 2015.
With leadership for ICT issues now vested in one main ICT principal directorate, DG1 is better placed to respond to the challenges of a rapidly-changing technological landscape. Principle benefits of this consolidation will be an even greater level of procedural harmonisation (particularly regarding business methods and computer implemented inventions) and an enhanced ability and presence in related issues such as Standards and Open Source. f) Examiner Career and Team Manager Pilot
Managing long term careers whilst keeping up motivation and performance is one of the challenges the EPO is facing. Within the framework of the HR Roadmap and more notably within the Future Career System, reported in more detail below, future career paths in particular for examiners, such as the technical expert career and the managerial career are being explored.
As part of the managerial career path, it is envisaged to provide more career opportunities for examiners by introducing the role of team manager between the examiners and directors. DG1 is investigating this team manager concept with respect to content and expected benefits by means of a pilot which started in April 2014 and which will last for a period of twelve months. Thirty-three team managers of all DG1 cluster were selected based on a new job description for team managers. The 33 teams comprise 325 team members with a team size ranging from 6 to 17 examiners. The team managers spend around 25% of their time on managerial tasks whilst for the majority of time they focus on their core tasks as examiners.
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The pilot is progressing well and according to plan. Regular feedback meetings with the team managers and the participating directors allow the project team to steer the integration of the team managers into the DG1 management line. Basic training has been delivered and deeper soft skill training is currently being offered to the team managers. In parallel, the directors are being prepared for their new role as manager of managers. Acceptance among DG1 managers is very high and among examiners neutral to positive for the time being.
D. UTILISATION IMPLEMENTATION PROJECT (UIP)
UIP is in production with the National Patent Offices of Austria, Denmark, and the United Kingdom. Three streams of priority data are being received via UIP: citations; national office documents such as search reports and written opinions which are useful to our examiners, and classification data which is used for automatic routing of the second filing at the EPO. For 2013 around 5700 UIP responses have been received and nearly as many already (4900) in the first seven months of 2014. The UIP team is working with other national offices, including the Spanish, Czech, and Swiss offices, to increase UIP participation in the coming months.
IV. BOARDS OF APPEAL
A. DG3 PERFORMANCE AND PRODUCTION a) Boards of Appeal
In the first eight months of 2014, 1780 technical appeal cases were received, 4.0% less than in the corresponding period in 2013. The number of technical cases settled in the same period was 1521 cases, a 7.9% increase compared to 2013. The Legal Board of Appeal received 14 and settled 17 appeals.
The increase in DG3’s output together with a moderate decrease in new appeal cases leads to a reduction of the gap between incoming and settled appeal cases. Nevertheless, the overall picture is that incoming work continues to outpace the rate at which cases are settled, with the result that the backlog continues to grow despite measures to address the situation.
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b) Enlarged Board of Appeal
(i) Petitions for review
At the end of August 2014 the Enlarged Board of Appeal had received 12 petitions for review. In the same period it settled 16 petitions for review. None of the petitions were granted.
One petition for review attracted considerable attention. In the interlocutory decision R 19/12, which was issued at the end of April this year, the Enlarged Board of Appeal concluded that the chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal should be excluded from the proceedings because of an objectively justified suspicion of partiality. The main reason for the finding was that the chairman, being also an EPO Vice-President, was closely integrated into the administrative structure of the Office, in particular through his role as member of the Office’s Management Advisory Committee and General Advisory Committee, where he was bound by the President´s instructions. In the reasoning of the decision the Enlarged Board has also addressed in more general terms the problem of the judicial status of the Boards of Appeal and the institutional setting of the Board of Appeal as part of the European Patent Office.
As a direct consequence of this decision and pending the further reflection the President of the EPO has taken some precautionary measures to enable the Chair of the Enlarged Board and the members of the Boards of the Appeal to continue to exercise their functions. The Council was informed at its June meeting and decided to mandate its Board under Art 28 EPC to prepare a debate on this matter at a dedicated meeting of the Board in October, with a view to proposing possible solutions.
In the meantime, objections to the Chair of the Enlarged Board of Appeal have been filed in two other petition for review cases, with reference to R19/12.
(ii) Referrals
In the first eight months of 2014 three new referrals under Art. 112 EPC were made to the Enlarged Board of Appeal, bringing the total number of referrals to six. G 1/14 and G 2/14 concern the question whether an appeal is inadmissible or deemed not to have been filed if filing of the appeal and/or the payment of the appeal fee occur after the relevant time limit has expired. The answer to these questions determines whether or not the appeal fee is reimbursed.
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The most recent referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal is G 3/14 and concerns the issue of whether clarity of independent claims can be or even must be examined during opposition and opposition appeal proceedings when the independent claim has been amended only by a literal insertion of all or some features of an already granted dependent claim. The answers to the questions referred, whatever they may be, will have a considerable impact on opposition and opposition appeal proceedings, and the case has thus been given priority.
In the first eight months of 2014, the Enlarged Board of Appeal decided on two referrals. In G 1/12 the Enlarged Board considered that it is possible to correct a notice of appeal under R. 101(2) EPC by a request for substitution by the name of the true appellant provided the correction only expresses what was intended when filing the appeal. .
In G 1/11 the Enlarged Board of Appeal decided that a technical board of appeal was competent to hear the appeal related to a case where an EPO examining division decides – in a decision taken separately from its decision to grant the patent or refuse the application – not to refund search fees under R. 64 EPC. .
V. INTERACTION WITH STAKEHOLDERS
A. SACEPO
The 46th annual meeting of SACEPO took place in Munich on 22 May 2014 with high-level representatives of European users, from industry (BusinessEurope) and the patent profession (epi). A variety of items and recent developments were lively discussed and constructive feedback was received on topics ranging from the Unitary patent protection and Unified Patent Court to CPC, as well as recent and forthcoming changes to the Implementing Regulations to the EPC, Substantive Patent Law Harmonisation, the patentability of biotechnological inventions, Article 123(2) EPC, forthcoming procedural changes, Asian documentation, EPO’s PCT strategy and PCT direct and the Early Certainty from Search project. Furthermore, the Office announced that it intends to introduce new methods of fee payments. Reports from the two SACEPO's sub-groups on Rules and Guidelines and from the SACEPO's sub-committee on Patent Documentation (SACEPO PDI) ensure coordination of users' input on the EPO's projects, changes and services.
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The SACEPO Working Party on Rules met for the 10th time in Munich on 11 February 2014. Several items and most recent developments were discussed with representatives of European users and useful input for further work was received. Main topics of discussion were a possible amendment of Rule 126 EPC, a waiver option under Rule 71(3) EPC, the EPO’s new practice as regards address for correspondence, IP5 Industry views on procedural harmonisation and the latest developments concerning the draft rules relating to Unitary Patent Protection. A further meeting of the WP on Rules was held on 29 September 2014, with the main topics of a possible amendment of Rule 147 EPC and the implementation at the EPO of new payment methods for paying its fees.
B. NATIONAL JUDGES
In June 2014 six national judges participated in a training program at the EPO, which included an internship of three weeks with a board of appeal. This program enhances the interaction between national judges and members of the boards of appeal.
From 9-12 September 2014 the biennial Judges' symposium took place in Tallinn. The participants comprising predominantly national judges from the Contracting States as well as Board of Appeal members took part in the event. One of the aims of the symposium is to increase harmonisation in the interpretation of European patent law, and many fruitful discussions on pertinent issues of patent law took place.
In October the Academy's seminar for patent law practitioners entitled "EPO boards of appeal and key decisions" was held in The Hague. The case law of the boards was presented by staff of DG3 and also commented on from the users' perspective. The event was booked to capacity, with about 250 practitioners attending.
C. ARTICLE 123(2) EPC SYMPOSIUM
A symposium dedicated to DG1 practice on interpretation of Article 123(2) EPC was organised in February this year in order to give external and internal experts the opportunity to share their experiences and, in doing so, to identify any misunderstandings or inconsistencies as well as tools and means to contribute to a balanced application of Article 123(2) EPC. The conclusions from the symposium were taken into account in the revision of the 2014 Guidelines. Based on this unanimous constructive and successful experience for both sides, the EPO is planning to use this concept to discuss other topics in the future.
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VI. IT ROADMAP
In the course of 2014, the ITR delivered specific, concrete improvements for examiners, formalities officers and for applicants, in the areas of the Re- engineered Patent Grant Process and also Search Tools and Information Management.
The progress made has enabled the Office to make efficiency gains both in IT systems and in processes and procedures, thereby supporting the Efficiency/Quality strategy and offering real efficiency gains for users.
Building on earlier developments in the Case Management System (CMS), pilot users of the CMS can now file applications under the EP, PCT, and Euro-PCT procedures. The Office’s CMS-based Filing has been further extended to support subsequently filed documents, and other enhanced functionality for applicants.
In parallel, the technical design for implementing the complete re-engineered patent grant process for EP, PCT, and National procedures using the CMS has been completed. This work covers re-engineering all aspects involved in the life of a patent application – from filing through grant or refusal, to publication, opposition, and appeal. All operating processes have been re-engineered and streamlined to allow efficient internal- and external-user interactions with the Office through the use of electronic end-to-end files (“eDossiers”) and processes. Furthermore, this work provides the transition strategy and migration plan that allows the new system to be progressively delivered, and the current legacy mainframe patent grant systems to be decommissioned. The result will be greater efficiency for staff and applicants alike. Based on this design work, the re- engineered processes and the associated new eDossier Graphical User Interface (GUI) will be rolled out in stages over the next three years to cover all of the EPO’s work for search, examination, opposition, appeal and the Unitary Patent.
While the ITR is gradually phasing in the new Case Management System, it has built up a strong track record of delivering improvements to the current systems for the benefit of examiners, formalities officers, and also for applicants and their representatives.
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This year a Figure and Non-Boolean Search tool is being rolled out to examiners which provides for concept searches matching references in figures with corresponding text. A new Non-Patent Literature (NPL) search service has been delivered, that provides access to large externally hosted NPL collection.
Additionally, a new Chemical Annotator tool has been made available, allowing the translation and display of chemical names in patent documents as graphical structures.
Examiners also have the possibility to see all the changes between various versions of the claims and description submitted by applicants, as well as a system to visualize and compare different versions of sequence listings that have been filed in Biotechnology patent applications.
Using the machine translation service, examiners can now translate documents in up to 33 languages, giving them increased access to prior art published in non- official languages (such as Chinese). Via the Dossier Inspection tool (DI+), examiners can now easily access formatted file wrapper information in English about patent applications being processed at the EPO, JPO, KIPO, SIPO and at the USPTO. The DI+ tool can also easily access a Translation-on-the-Fly service in order to easily translate text that is not in English, French, or German that relates to the grant procedure.
Further to the system for semi-automatic pre-drafting of communications provided in 2013, this year a tool (eDrex) for finalising electronically the text of the B- publication document and the abstract for the A-publication has been implemented.
Regarding National Offices and external users, at the end of 2012, the ITR began a pilot, One-Click, that has allowed applicants and their representatives to submit PDF or Word documents either via a Web form or, 18 months after the application has been filed, as e-mail attachments. The design work for the re-engineered patent grant process has also included the initial design of a generic version of online filing for EP, PCT and National Filings for use by National Offices. This system, with a limited set of configurable options, is based on the requirements of the Patent Law Treaty (PLT), together with a super-set of the special functionality currently available in National Office versions of the legacy online filing. For the EP and PCT procedures, it will re-use the existing EPO CMS developments to allow EP and PCT filings via the National Office.
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The Enhanced Worldwide Search project has delivered a number of improvements to Espacenet, enhancing its search and display functions. For instance, Espacenet now offers public access to the CPC and the Common Citation Document, and links to national patent registers.
The deep-linking service of the European Patent Register now retrieves legal status from national patent registers from member states. Furthermore, the European Patent Register has been enhanced to allow it to gather data on the fly from member states’ registers on European patents in the national phase. A new section called the "Federated Register", which is currently greyed out, will be activated to simultaneously display basic bibliographic and legal status data from national registers via web services (as soon as the Web services are implemented by national offices).
In June this year the Office launched the EPO Public Global dossier, that allows members of the public to access to file wrapper and file inspection information of patent family members of European and Chinese patent applications. The EPO Global Dossier service uses an IP5-agreed standard to retrieve on demand, via the European Patent Register, SIPO file-wrapper content for Chinese applications also filed at the EPO. It also performs an automatic machine translation when Chinese documents are requested in English.
Other IP5 offices will soon start providing data for the service, which will further enhance its value.
VII. BUILDINGS
A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE
On 25 June the foundation stone of the New Main office building in The Hague was laid. Participants at the ceremony included Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, the diplomatic corps, numerous members of the Administrative Council, and the architect Jean Nouvel. The event received wide coverage in the Netherlands and illustrated the very positive relations with our host country and underlined the EPO’s position as a major constituent of the international community there.
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Preparatory activities in the existing Main building ahead of the commencement of construction of the new Main office building are in full progress. Asbestos removal from the lower part of the current Main building, which will be demolished later this year, is close to completion. Additionally, the foundation of the energy centre that will be part of the new building is being laid. Commencement of construction of the new Main office building is scheduled for the first quarter of 2015.
B. ACCOMMODATION PLANNING MUNICH / PORTFOLIO OF RENTED BUILDINGS
Following the accommodation Master Plan, the first removals from the Capitellum building have started in August 2014. The complete vacation of the building is foreseen by the end of March 2015. In parallel to these projects, the policies related to Facility Management and Technical Services are under review, with the aim of gaining efficiencies. For example, the consolidation of maintenance contracts has been initiated in Munich.
C. BERLIN
The detailed design work is ongoing. The effective works are planned to start at the end of 2015 and the project is expected to be fully completed by mid-2018.
D. VIENNA BUILDING
The building permit for the EPO was approved and granted by the Vienna Magistrate. The planning and preparation for the technical specifications and the tendering were prepared and the construction work began in early September 2014. According to the current state of planning the construction works are in line with the agreed time schedule.
E. SECURITY PROGRAMME
The improvement of physical security, as foreseen in the Security Programme approved by the Administrative Council in 2011 (CA/96/11), is moving forward with the deployment of video surveillance systems which will be installed in the Isar building by the end of 2014.
VIII. QUALITY
A. PD QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Between September 29 and October 10, DQS, an ISO 9001 certifying body, has audited the Patent Granting Process of the EPO. The final report is expected in the very near future and the Office hopes to report to the December meeting that the it has succeeded in becoming the first IP5 Office to have its Patent Granting Process certified according to the ISO 9001 Quality standard.
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The certification audit was preceded by a very intense period of work to follow-up the pre-certification audit run by Directorate Quality Audit and consultants from BSI (British Standards Institute) in order to address the last remaining issues. Further preparatory work included extensive and comprehensive training sessions at all hierarchical levels in operational areas, awareness campaigns, final revisions of QMS documentation and the refining of our processes.
The next step after the ISO 9001 certification audit of the Patent Granting Process will be the extension of the Quality Management System to “Patent Information”, “DG3 Legal Services and Administration” and “European and International Cooperation”. This will now proceed and the first coordination meetings are planned before the end of this year.
Following the implementation of CASE (Conformity Assessment in Search and Examination) in DG1 to control Non-Conforming Products, a reporting tool for the consolidation of data for use as quality indicators and in the quality dashboard is under development.
This also contributes to the breaking down of the global quality objectives, set by the Quality Board, to Individual Quality Objectives for each staff member in DG1 which I requested for next year. The idea for Individual Quality Objectives is to provide a framework and process within which SMART quality objectives will focus examiner effort on ‘getting it right first time’ through efficient and consistent processes as well as through targeted training, thereby aligning staff efforts with the DG1 strategic directions. The objectives will be used for staff reporting and for motivating individual and team continual improvement actions according to ISO 9001 principles. Individual Quality Objectives will be implemented in DG1 for the 2015 reporting year.
IX. HUMAN RESOURCES
A. SOCIAL DEMOCRACY
The new Social Democracy framework was approved by the Administrative Council in March 2014 and has since been implemented. The reform aims at reinforcing the representation of staff and improving the consultative process at all levels. Its main principles, which are a better representativeness with an increased number of elected staff representatives (44 instead of 28) and a proportional representation of grades and sites, an improved legitimacy through clear and transparent election rules, and continuity (increase duration of the mandate from 2 to 3 mandates), create the basis for a stable interlocutor and a constructive dialogue.
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The first staff committee elections under the new social framework were held on 18th June with a participation rate of 70% (6762 employees entitled to vote among which 4618 voted).
20 staff representatives (10 full and 10 alternate) were elected at central level (Central Staff Committee/CSC). At local level (Local Staff Committee), 9 staff representatives were elected in Munich, 7 in The Hague, and 4 respectively in Berlin and Vienna.
The new elected staff representatives entered into their function on 1st July.
On July 4th, the inaugural meeting of CSC/GCC took place. The meeting represented a historic moment, as it was the first time that EPO staff have been represented at the highest level in discussions with management by directly elected representatives from each site.
The GCC met again on 5 September to discuss several proposals including the adoption of the rules of procedure of the GCC.
Unfortunately the CSC has not so far been able to nominate a chairman. The four Local Staff Committees have nominated respectively a chairman and the first meetings were held also in July at each site.
B. CAREER/PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
The updated HR Roadmap adopted in June identified reform of the career system as a priority for the coming years. Work is now in an advanced stage to construct a reformed system in which progress through modified grading and step advancement structures will be based on competence, performance and level of responsibility, rather than on seniority. Revised job profiles, proficiency levels, and salary scales have been drawn up which will underpin the new system and introduce more flexibility and better identification of responsibilities. Overall, the new system will result in a closer link between career opportunities and fair contributions to the strategy and objectives of the Office. Closely linked to these developments, a reformed performance management system is also in advanced preparation which will better contribute to professional development and more individualised career management. Discussions with the staff representation are continuing and proposals will be made to the Council for adoption at its December meeting.
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C. INVALIDITY
As part of the continuing efforts to improve wellbeing at the EPO, proposals are under discussion with the staff representation to reform the invalidity system. The reform envisages the introduction of partial and temporary invalidity, as well as regular reviews of the invalid’s situation. The aims are to prevent invalidity situations from arising, to favour the return to work (part time), and to maintain the link with employment as long as possible. The proposals will be presented to the December Council meeting.
X. EPN
A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES
In 2014 the first half of the Co-operation Roadmap period of implementation was achieved. As a result, an in-depth evaluation of the status of implementation of the Cooperation Roadmap was presented in the last Administrative Council Meeting in June, where we were proud to report the very positive results achieved in the cooperation activities and projects jointly developed by the EPO and its Member States.
One of the most relevant aspects brought by the Co-operation Roadmap was the introduction of the standardized BCP´s (Bilateral Cooperation Plans), in which the EPO and its Member States commonly define and agree on the projects and activities to be implemented under the umbrella of the Co-operation Roadmap. The BCP´s provided us the opportunity to have a better coordination and more effective management of our cooperation strategy and the result was the wide adoption of this working tool by our Member States and Extension States. At the end of July, there were 27 BCP´s fully in force: 25 with Member States and 2 with the Extension States. Presently, several other BCP´s are in an advanced state of drafting.
In parallel to the implementation of a wide range of pan-European cooperation activities and projects, the EPO continued to promote an interactive dialogue with Member-States, not only in what regards the monitoring and execution of the on- going projects, but also with the objective of preparing the future of cooperation. Thus, again this year the EPO hosted the Info Day and the Annual Meeting on Co- operation, where the EPO and its Member-States had the opportunity to exchange information and best practices both on a technical and strategic level.
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The EPN Events - mainly organized in a decentralized manner with the support of a hosting NPO - continue to prove to be a successful instrument to promote a dynamic debate and interchange of expertise and experiences concerning projects and activities of common interest. An example is the very successful organisation of the PATLIB conference, held in Istanbul and attended by more than 250 participants. Another good example was the meeting with EPO Member States Offices on “Classification matters – the CPC”, organized on the first of July in Oslo.
At the same time, several other events and meetings took place focusing on technical projects, as well as, addressing the specific needs of the Member-States.
All these networking events demonstrated, once again, to be a unique instrument to promote an open, wide, interactive, exchange of experiences and point of views between the EPO and its Member States. These meetings and workshops were fundamental for the design of the Cooperation Roadmap Update, presented and unanimously approved by the Member States at the last Administrative Council.
Concerning the results achieved in the implementation of the technical projects, and starting with Machine Translation, with 32 languages made operational in Patent Translate at the end of 2013, one year ahead of initial planning, priority is being given in 2014 to enhance the quality of the service. This is being done through the continued collection of patent corpora.
Regarding on-line filling, a status report has been given in the last TOSC. The EPO will ensure that the present service will remain in place at least for two years after the introduction of the future CMS-based online filing service.
Vis-à-vis EPOQUE Net, the new pricing policy approved by the Council is now fully implemented. As a result the annual revenue decreased by 25% in member states and 10% in non-Member states in comparison to previous years, while, at the same time the number of users increased by 30% in the National Offices of the Member States.
Language Training and the Candidate Support Project are also progressing very positively. Starting with Language Training, there are now 15 Member-States actively participating in this project. Moreover, as regards the Candidate Support Project, this project is gathering full speed and the third training round started in September 2014.
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Also worth mentioning is the Discussion Platform for Exchange on Patent Procedures. This co-operation project stands as a unique opportunity to promote the exchange of experiences and practices between examiners from the EPO and its Member-States. In 2014, Discussion Platform events took place in Bulgaria, Poland, Norway and Turkey.
Finally, it is important to stress the developments already achieved in the new projects and activities introduced by the updated Co-operation Roadmap. Despite the fact that this strategic document was only approved in June, the first positive steps to deploy these innovative projects were taken. Thus, the Data Acquisition project pilot started in September. In order to have Member States fully involved in the projects, invitations were sent for the participation in respective workshops.
In conclusion, in 2014 the Cooperation Roadmap continues to be steadily and very successfully implemented, with the wide contribution and participation from the Member States. We can all, therefore, look very optimistically to the exciting challenges that the renewed Cooperation Roadmap will present.
B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY
Co-operation roadmap-based training dedicated to national patent office staff was implemented in close co-operation with the national patent offices and in accordance with the work plan as approved by the Academy Supervisory Board. Over the reporting period, 1310 staff of NPOs and related institutions participated in dedicated training events. Highlights included the conference on patent valuation and commercialisation in Athens, a seminar on search reports and written opinions in Rome, the exchange platform on patentability in Ankara, a patent package and benefits for its user conference in Ljubljana, a post grant seminar in Paris, a seminar on communication between applicants and examiners in Oslo, and the IP executive week in Munich.
The 7th edition of the “Examination Matters” conference was attended by over 120 professional representatives sharing first-hand experience with examiners on important aspects of examination process. For the participants this was an exceptional opportunity to get an insight into EPO examiners' daily work and their way of thinking. In order to underline the importance of the cooperation between patent examiners and patent attorneys, for the first time the epi supported the conference, and three of the 24 workshops where jointly presented by EPO examiners and experienced European patent attorneys.
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The Academy supported the inaugural conference of the training centre in Budapest, organised an expert workshop for judges in St. Gallen and offered study visits for judges to the EPO with a focus on the tasks of the Boards of Appeal, which was also the case for six selected judges who went through an intensive four week internship programme at the Boards of Appeal in June. The Academy’s work on the training syllabus for the judicial candidates of the UPC, led to a formal training offer which was submitted by the President to the Chairman of the PrepCom for their meeting on 8 July. Subject to their reply, the EPO’s contribution in the overall training scheme of the Budapest training Centre will be detailed in the work plan 2015 to be submitted to the Supervisory board of the of the Academy in its session of November 2014.
The European Patent Academy and the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) started to promote their new teaching tool – the IP teaching kit – to be used by teaching staff at universities in Europe. The Office also provided training to a number of its own staff on how to use the IP training kit.
In June about 50 representatives from 19 member states met at the EPO in Vienna to explore possibilities on how to promote the dissemination of IP knowledge in universities in Europe. This 4th Progress Conference organised by the European Patent Academy in strong cooperation with OHIM was attended by delegations composed each of a representative of a national patent office (NPO), and representatives of a university and of a technology transfer office (TTO) of their choice. These groups are the three main actors involved in the promoting dissemination of IP knowledge in universities.
Some 120 patent search professionals from all over the world attended this year's Search Matters conference in The Hague – over 20% more than last year. Attendees seized the chance to discuss their particular search issues with individual examiners in one-on-one sessions.
The Academy has also continued developing and maintaining on-line products and courses as well as material for training. In addition to the on-going distance learning courses for examiner’s core activities offered to Patent Offices, public self-paced courses and modules have been made available via the website, as for example in relation to CPC and to the Guide for Applicants or recordings of major conferences such as Search Matters 2014.
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Co-operation for on-line training with the epi is continuing in the planning of new webinars for the Guidelines 2014 and other topics of interest for patent professionals. The on-line course for 2015 EQE pre-examination was launched in September, following a thorough content update.
C. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO
With 10 963 entries at the end of June 2014, the number of registrations on the list of professional representatives shows an increase of approximately 4% over the previous year. A further increase can be expected by the end of the year due to the registration of the successful candidates having passed the European qualifying examination in 2014.
At present, 77% of professional representatives on the list have passed the European qualifying examination; the remaining 23% have been registered pursuant to transitional provisions.
The number of registered associations has risen to a total of 489 by the end of June 2014, which represents an increase of 13% of registrations within the last year.
D. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER
Concerning its duties with regard to the European Patent Register, the Legal Division mainly dealt with an increased number of proceedings for actions claiming ownership of the European patent application or European patent as well as interruption of proceedings due to bankruptcy. Moreover, licences and security rights were progressively considered as economic assets of intellectual property rights, which led to an increased number of requests for registrations of these rights in the European Patent Register.
To ensure more legal certainty and a consistent practice of the EPO, the Decision of the President of the EPO concerning the responsibilities of the Legal Division has been revised to clarify the competence between the Legal Division and departments of DG1 and DG2, as a result of which the workload of the Legal Division has slightly increased. This new responsibility structure, which has entered into force on 1st January 2014, is also intended to serve as a model procedure for the implementation of the Unitary Patent (UNIP).
E. PATENT INFORMATION
The Federated European Register Service is a project based on interoperability between the EPO's patent register and the patent registers of the member states.
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In the first phase of the project, registers of 27 member state offices have been "deep-linked" to the EP register (AT, BE, CH, CZ, DE, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IE, IS, IT, LT, LU, NL, NO, PL, PT, SE, SI, SK, TR) – Turkey and Italy were added this year.
In Phase 2 ("Parallel Retrieval", presenting an overview table with real-time national legal status data,), developments on EPO side are ready. Three national registers (FI, RS, SI) have also set up the appropriate web services – a prerequisite for retrieving national data – for the system to work. Successful continuation of the project now depends on the implementation progress made in the national offices of the member states. In the TOSC meeting earlier this year, the EPO offered full financial support for offices having difficulties developing or modifying their register database. Six further member states (AT, CH, DE, FR, LT, SE) have announced their intention of providing the necessary web services before the end of the year. Once these are up and running, the public launch of phase 2 can take place.
The already mentioned “Global Dossier”, initially conceived as a tool to help examiners in the IP5 offices to share their work results, is now available as a public version, which provides a file inspection service (also called “file wrapper” service) for the family members of a patent application across the IP5 offices. It represents a landmark step in the patent information area, aiming at providing a single access point.
It is planned to link the Global Dossier service to Espacenet later this year to enable access to the file wrappers of family members of families without a European equivalent.
XI. EPO AS A GLOBAL PLAYER
A. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS
The EPO and WIPO Deputy Heads formally signed the EPO-WIPO 2014 Annual Work Plan at a meeting in Geneva on 31 March 2014, and agreed on a number of important cooperation issues. This Annual Work Plan is the second under the 3- year EPO-WIPO Memorandum of Understanding concluded in 2012. The two organisations agreed to cooperate in a number of important areas including classification, optimisation of patent processes, digital processing, international cooperation and public policy issues.
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One benefit to EPO applicants will be more timely processing of PCT applications, especially those where EPO is not the Receiving Office. Other EPO benefits include savings due to streamlining of PCT patent procedures, and in patent information activities, and potentially in the longer term improvements to the PCT system.
B. BILATERAL RELATIONS
On the Validation of European Patents the finalisation of the process can be fairly expected in the coming months for Morocco, Tunisia and Moldavia. In July the Tunisian Minister for Industry, Mines and Energy, Mr Kamel Ben Naceur, came especially to the EPO in Munich to sign the validation agreement and expressed the strong will of the Tunisian authorities to ratify the agreement and to implement the corresponding legal dispositions into the Tunisian law as quickly as possible.
In Latin America, the cooperation activities are developing, particularly well with Mexico, Chile and Colombia in the area of exchange of data. IMPI Mexico has provided its full text patent collection from 1992 to 2012 for loading into the Espacenet and the LATIPAT database. Similarly, the signatories of the LATIPAT MoU, namely the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, the WIPO and the EPO have decided to extend the current MoU for another two years. In July the SPTO and the EPO have also renewed their bilateral agreement to continue joint co- operation activities in Latin America, by creating synergies, implementing joint actions, and better coordinating our respective activities in this region.
In China, it is worth noting that, apart from the important agreement signed with the SIPO in June on the Global Dossier (passive component), the CPC implementation in SIPO is going smoothly and EPO has started to receive the first classified documents from SIPO in September. The EPO President and the new SIPO Commissioner Dr Shen met in Munich in September in a bilateral meeting, during which the long-term objectives of the bilateral cooperation and solid alliances between the two Offices were confirmed. Further progress can also be
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reported about the cooperation activities whith several other Asian IP Offices, in particular in India, in the ASEAN, in the Arabic Gulf and in South Korea. For the latter the KIPO shows a strong commitment to participate actively in the implementation of the CPC.
C. IP5
The IP5 Heads of Office met for the seventh time on 6 June 2014 in Busan, Korea, to take stock of achievements, and agree on next steps and the future direction of their co-operation projects.
On 5 June 2014, the IP5 Heads of Office met with representatives of industry associations from the IP5 regions for the third time. Topics discussed included Global Dossier and patent data exchange, work-sharing and quality issues, development of the PCT and PPH systems and patent harmonisation matters.
The next high-level IP5 meetings will be hosted by SIPO in China in 2015.
Tangible results of IP5 co-operation in 2014 include:
Global Dossier: A substantial milestone was reached at the IP5 meeting with Industry on 5 June 2014 with the launch of the EPO’s Global Dossier as reported earlier in this document.
IP5 Authority Files: Another milestone in the IP5 cooperation was the publication of the so-called IP5 authority files at the Industry meeting. The IP5 authority files are listings of all publications of an IP5 Office. For the EPO, this allows the detection and closure of possible gaps which it may have in its collection of IP5 documents thereby increasing the quality of its collections of IP5 documentation. The IP5 authority files are accessible from the EPO-hosted IP5 website (www.fiveipoffices.org).
Re-launch of the IP5 public website: In June 2014, the EPO launched the revamped IP5 website. In an effort to promote transparency of IP5 co-operation for all stakeholders, the IP5 Offices decided to update and restructure the IP5 website to dedicate more space to the tangible results of IP5 co-operation, as well as to the consultation process with industry.
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Procedural patent harmonisation: In coordination with the user associations of the Trilateral and the IP5, the Offices have entrusted the IP5 Patent Harmonisation Experts Panel (PHEP) to formulate a work plan on the basis of the Industry list. Following a preliminary analysis and evaluation of the items included in the list the IP5 Offices have agreed that the PHEP will address the following items with the following lead Offices:
Unity of invention: EPO/SIPO;
Written description/sufficiency of disclosure: JPO;
Citation of prior art: KIPO/USPTO.
This work plan was endorsed by the Heads of Office at their June 2014 meeting in Busan, Korea, where it was also agreed that the topic of unity of invention shall be prioritised. Under the lead of the EPO and in cooperation with SIPO a document has been submitted to the October meeting of the PHEP. The document provides an outline of each office’s practice as regards unity of invention and identifies the divergences and the resulting problems both form the users’ and offices’ stance with a view to, potentially, suggesting options for the Offices to align their practices.
IP5 Patent Prosecution Highway (IP5 PPH) pilot: The IP5 PPH pilot programme was launched on 6 January 2014. The scheme which goes back to a proposal developed by the EPO enables applicants to request the PPH on the basis of both PCT as well as national work products. In practical terms European applicants can access accelerated processing in the other IP5 Offices on the basis of a work product which contains patentable claims and has been established by the EPO.
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Participation in the PPH before the EPO has recently evolved as follows:
Partner Office Work product Number of requests
PCT work products 736 JPO national work products 1860
PCT work products 15 KIPO national work products 11
PCT work products 21 SIPO national work products 18
PCT work products 119 USPTO national work products 1296
4076
In terms of their distribution among the various technical fields most of the requests have been filed in: Electrical Engineering (36.2%), Mechanical Engineering (25.3%) and Chemistry (20.4%).
The EPO attended the 7th working level meeting of the Plurilateral Patent Prosecution Highway Offices that took place upon the invitation of IPOS in Singapore on 25 - 26 September 2014. As in the past years participating offices exchanged updated PPH usage data and had a detailed exchange of views as to issues of PPH implementation practice.
IP5 Statistics: In April 2014, the IP5 Offices published a preliminary report with selected key statistical data covering overall trends at the IP5 level. The IP5 Offices reported a large growth in patent filings in 2013, with altogether 2.2 million patent applications filed, an increase of 10.6% compared to 2012. Altogether the IP5 Offices granted almost 957 000 patents for invention in 2013, an increase of 3.5% compared to 2012. The full IP5 Statistics Report with final figures for 2013 will be released in November 2014.
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D. TRILATERAL
On 9 April 2014, the Trilateral Offices (EPO, JPO, USPTO) met with Industry Trilateral in Trieste (Italy) for an exchange on the harmonisation of patent procedures. The Trilateral Offices and Industry Trilateral discussed a list of possible harmonisation topics relating to procedures and practices and agreed on priority topics for recommendation to the IP5 Offices. At the IP5 Deputy Heads and Heads meeting in June 2014, the offices entrusted the IP5 Patent Harmonisation Experts Panel (PHEP) to formulate a work plan on the basis of the industry priority topics list.
E. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION
The CPC is key to the future competitive edge of the EPO in terms of quality of the search process. The focus for 2014 lies with assuring a high quality of the work done by the USPTO as well as by the offices which have come on board since the launch of the CPC in January 2013. The EPO and the USPTO are setting the standard in harmonisation of classification practices, which must be as high as possible. As reported in June, the EPO is investing in training the offices participating in the CPC. Detailed training for USPTO, SIPO, KIPO, INPI Brazil and ROSPATENT examiners or classifiers was conducted at the EPO throughout the first half of 2014 and also directly at the USPTO in June. SIPO and KIPO will be sharing their classification work with the EPO during the second half of 2014. On 1 July 2014, CPC formed the basis for the workshop with Member States held in Norway.
F. STRENGTHENING THE PCT
At the PCT Working Group which took place in Geneva in June 2014, the Office made a proposal (co-sponsored by KIPO) towards more work sharing between receiving Offices and International Searching Authorities which received good support. It will be further refined for possible adoption next year. Also, the Office supported the introduction of the PPH in the PCT on an opt-in basis; further discussions will be needed before consensus can be reached on the matter.
The Office continues to work hardly in strengthening the PCT by improving its service to users both on tools and procedures. As far as tools are concerned, and in accordance with the WIPO-EPO annual work plan signed in March, the EPO and WIPO have been working together to ensure that applicants using WIPO’s
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ePCT services can file their applications with the EPO as receiving Office from their ePCT accounts. This new means of filing at the EPO should become available in November this year. There is also continued progress with respect to the implementation of the equal service levels principle at the EPO irrespective of the route (EP or PCT) chosen by the applicant. In particular, since April, applicants may use eOLF to submit PCT subsequent documents and, since June, they may file demands for preliminary examination. It is intended to extend the Automatic Debiting Account system to the payment of PCT fees as of April 2015.
As far as procedures are concerned, the Office successfully introduced the top-up search in Chapter II in April 2014, three months ahead of schedule. Top-up searches aim at revealing any intermediate prior art that became available after the establishment of the international search report. The results of top-up searches are taken into consideration by the Office when establishing International Preliminary Examination Reports thereby strengthening the quality of such reports and thus their re-usability in the various national phases.
In addition, the Office will be ready for the entry into force of amended Rule 164 EPC on 1st November 2014. Under this new provision, applicants can, in case of non-unity, enter the European phase on the basis of the invention of their choice irrespective of whether that invention was searched or not during the international phase. Also, additional searches can be requested. This reform will thus greatly facilitate the entry into the European phase. In a Notice of the EPO, which was published in OJ 7/2014, the public was informed on the new procedure. Also in the Guidelines for examination before the EPO 2014 extensive information is provided. Further, the Office has made changes to the European Patent Register required for the new procedure. This is reflected in the revised Decision of the President pursuant to Rule 143(2) EPC concerning the information in the Register which was published in OJ 8/2014.
Finally, the Office will introduce in November 2014 a new service, called “PCT Direct”, which aims at ensuring a more efficient treatment of the PCT application during the international phase when priority from an earlier application searched by the EPO is claimed. In a nutshell, applicants will be able to react to objections made in the earlier EPO search opinion by attaching informal comments to their international applications. These will in turn be forwarded to the examiner who performed the earlier search. The search examiner would then take these informal comments into account when performing the international search and issuing the written opinion. The new service will not be subject to any fee but it will be triggered only if the applicable formal requirements are met (Notice to be published in the Official Journal).
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G. SUBSTANTIVE PATENT LAW HARMONIZATION a) Tegernsee Experts Group - Plenary session of the Group B+
Work has continued throughout the year, including a meeting of the Tegernsee Heads in Trieste in April and a Tegernsee Plenary session hosted by the EPO in Geneva in September. A dedicated agenda point figures on the draft agenda for the October Council meeting.
XII. UNITARY PATENT
A. UNITARY PATENT PROTECTION (UPP)
In 2014 considerable progress has been made in the Select Committee with respect to the Rules relating to unitary patent protection dealing with the institutional and procedural framework for the unitary patent. The Rules relating to unitary patent protection have been the subject of three readings and were approved in principle by the Select Committee at the last meeting in June, leaving just a few issues to be settled in autumn. Earlier this year, the Select Committee had already adopted the so-called compensation scheme the provisions of which have been integrated into the Rules relating to unitary patent protection. This general agreement on the rules now paves the way for the EPO’s technical and practical implementation, in the EPO’s IT systems, of the procedures relating to the unitary patent.
At its meetings in March and June the Select Committee also continued the preparatory work on renewal-fee levels which it started in October 2013. The discussions focused on additional simulations of renewal-fee levels and their potential financial implications for the Organisation provided by the Office.
B. UNIFIED PATENT COURT (UPC)
The ratification process has gained some momentum in the last months. After Austria, France became the first of the big three countries to ratify and the ratifications were also completed in Belgium, Sweden and Denmark, after a positive referendum.
Work on the arrangements for the UPC has also been progressing well within the Preparatory Committee set up by the signatory states to the UPC Agreement.
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On the legal front, the Preparatory Committee presented a revised version of the draft Rules of Procedure for the Court, following the public consultation exercise carried out last year. The draft rules are currently examined by the Committee’s Legal Group and an oral user consultation is to take place this autumn. The Preparatory Committee has also launched a call for expressions of interest from candidate judges and has received more than 1 300 replies from persons with differing levels of experience in patent litigation. The EPO’s role in the Preparatory Committee is mainly that of an observer. However, if requested, the Office will be lending active support and provide technical expertise and assistance, such as for example in the training of candidate judges or in the preparations for the establishment of the UPC’s IT systems.
Finally, on 6 May 2014 the Council adopted a regulation amending regulation 1215/2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (a recast version of the so-called "Brussels I” Regulation). The entry into force of this revised regulation is a requirement for the entry into force of the UPC Agreement.
XIII. THE EPO AND SOCIETY
A. CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN TECHNOLOGIES AND STANDARDS
In the field of climate change, EPO and UNEP (United Nations Environment Program) have carried out a further study on patents and climate change mitigation technologies (CCMT) as a follow on to previous similar studies on a global level and in Africa. This report focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean and will be launched on the margin of the 2014 UNFCCC Conference of Parties in Lima, Peru, in December 2014. The study showed that less than 3% of associated patent applications have been filed in this region, again showing that patent rights are unlikely to be a deterrent to exploitation of these technologies in most developing countries. In this way, the EPO continues to inform and provide evidence for policy making on the role of patents in CCMT innovation and transfer, including cooperation with the European Commission and WIPO, helping to improve the reputation of the patent system. The EPO has also further developed the Y02 classification system for climate change mitigation technologies, preparing new sections such as Y02W (Waste) for launch in 2015, further enhancing the EPO’s patent information services in this area.
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Concerning patents and standards, the EPO has continued to promote its model approach in this area to applicants and other stakeholders, including the use of key standards development documentation in its prior art searches to optimise patent quality. Negotiations continue with further appropriate Standards Development Organisations (SDOs), and several new agreements are pending, while cooperation with existing SDOs and the EC are broadened.
B. EPO IN THE MEDIA a) ANNUAL REPORT 2013
The most significant announcement to the media in the first quarter of 2014 was the continuing growth in filings at the EPO, up 2,9 % to over 265,000. European applicants retained their share of 35% of all filings, with US and Japan posting similar figures (24% and 20% respectively) to last year too. The biggest growth yet again came from Korean and Chinese applicants, up to 6% and 8% respectively.
These numbers were put into a broader context with national rankings for patent applications to the EPO per million inhabitants. This gave a very different picture compared with the usual raw data. The presentation showed how many European countries file more patent applications per inhabitant than the United States, South Korea or even Japan. Indeed nine of the top ten were European countries, with Switzerland in the lead by a big margin of 832 patent applications per million inhabitants. The 28 EU member states collectively ranked with 128 applications per million inhabitants, equalling Korea and ahead of the US (107 app/M).
The Press Conference in Brussels attracted 30 journalists and generated the highest press coverage ever for EPO Annual Report, especially in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy but also in Asia and the US. The publication of the EPO’s results to the press was supported by a comprehensive section on our website with statistics, graphics, videos and a highlight report. b) EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD
The ninth edition of the European Inventor Award took pace in Berlin on 17 June 2014. The Award offers the best chance to promote the European patent system as a whole and demonstrate its central role in technological progress, innovation, prosperity and job creation.
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Following a closed meeting of the independent international jury, the fifteen finalists for the European Inventor Award were revealed to the media at the end of April. Customized press releases and films about each finalist were produced in various formats, durations and languages – around 200 in total. These were made available to broadcasters, journalists and bloggers over the following seven weeks, to complement other briefing materials and photographs, so as to encourage them to bring our technology stories to their audiences.
The results have been very positive: up until the end of August the media coverage totalled almost 8000 reports about the Award and the EPO. This coverage included over 4700 TV reports, amounting to over 500 hours of TV broadcasting; our videos were placed online over 1300 times, with a similar number of online text reports. Print reporting more than doubled to almost 400 items, filling more than 140 standard newspaper pages. In social media the performance has again dramatically increased. For example, through the EIA online public poll – the Popular Prize – we attracted nearly 20000 votes.
Shortly before the Award took place the Office launched its new “Innovation TV” app for smart TV, enabling viewers to enjoy the films about the finalists on a big screen in high definition from the comfort of their own home. By the time the Award Ceremony was streamed live from Berlin over smart TV, the app had already been downloaded over 25000 times.
The Award Ceremony itself was attended by 70 journalists from many countries. On the day in Berlin the film crew from CNN was joined by German national broadcasters like ZDF, RTL and N-TV; there was an interview with a winner broadcast live via satellite by the BBC. The news about some of the winners made it into the main evening news of almost 10 national broadcasters.
In showing the vital importance of innovation to the struggling European economy, and the role which good patent strategies play in business success, the ninth edition of the Award has had the greatest impact to date. The tenth edition of the Award will take place in Paris on 11 June 2015.
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XIV. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The unanimous adoption of five updated roadmaps and prolongation of the President’s mandate in June have set the Office’s medium-term agenda, firmly based on a strategy of pursuing Quality and Efficiency. Significant reform measures, notably of social democracy, have been put into place and the representative and consultative bodies foreseen under the new system have taken up their functions. At the same time, the Office’s operational performance has been robust and steady progress has been made in continuing to implement the strategic Efficiency/Quality programme.
XV. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION
Yes
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