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. CA/88/14 e 142550013 - I - 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 CA/88/14 e 142550013 - II - 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 CA/88/14 e 142550013 - III - 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 CA/88/14 e 142550013 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. CA/88/14 e 1/38 142550013 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. CA/88/14 e 2/38 142550013 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. CA/88/14 e 3/38 142550013 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 CA/88/14 e 4/38 142550013 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 CA/88/14 e 5/38 142550013 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). CA/88/14 e 6/38 142550013 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.