CA/88/18 Orig.: en Munich, 21.09.2018 SUBJECT: President's activities report SUBMITTED BY: President of the European Patent Office ADDRESSEES: Administrative Council (for information) CA/88/18 e 2018-4859 - I - TABLE OF CONTENTS Subject Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. PERFORMANCE OF THE PATENT GRANTING PROCESS 2 A. WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION 2 B. QUALITY 7 a) Quality action plans 8 b) Quality Management System 8 c) Asian documentation 9 d) Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) 10 e) Harmonisation efforts in relation to ICT 12 f) Harmonisation in the HBC sector: biotechnology and pharmaceutical patents 14 g) Procedures and Guidelines 14 C. RELATIONS WITH USERS 15 a) User support 15 b) User feedback 16 c) Communication with applicants 17 III. SOCIAL DIALOGUE 18 IV. IT AND AUTOMATION PROJECTS 19 A. ITR – DELIVERIES FOR THE PGP AND KMS 19 a) Delivering the digital transformation agenda 20 b) Improvements to existing tools 21 c) Other tool adaptations 21 B. DELIVERIES FOR OTHER AREAS 22 a) Corporate area 22 b) Infrastructure/data centres 23 C. LAUNCH OF AN IT AUDIT 23 V. BUILDINGS 23 A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE 23 B. OTHER BUILDING PROJECTS 25 a) Status review of EPO premises – overview 25 CA/88/18 e 2018-4859 - II - VI. EPN 33 A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES 33 B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY 34 a) Institutional Strengthening 34 b) Judicial Training 34 c) Professional Representatives 34 d) Academia 35 e) E-learning 35 C. CO-OPERATION WITH THE EUIPO 35 D. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO 36 E. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER 36 F. PATENT INFORMATION 37 a) New Espacenet 37 b) Patent information research 37 VII. EPO AS GLOBAL PLAYER 37 A. BILATERAL RELATIONS 37 a) Reinforced co-operation with South Africa 37 b) Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) 38 B. IP5 CO-OPERATION 39 a) Patent Harmonisation Expert Panel (PHEP) 40 C. TRILATERAL CO-OPERATION 40 D. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION 41 E. STRENGTHENING THE PCT 41 VIII. UNITARY PATENT / UNIFIED PATENT COURT 42 IX. THE EPO AND SOCIETY 43 A. EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD 43 B. NEW MAIN BUILDING INAUGURATION 44 X. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION 44 CA/88/18 e 2018-4859 I. INTRODUCTION In order to ensure transparency and enhance the reporting of the Office's activities to the Council, a comprehensive overview of the year just passed is presented to the Council every year at its March meeting. The present interim report describes the principal developments so far in 2018, taking into account the change in the presidency of the Office with effect from 1 July 2018. The full account will be presented in March 2019. The main elements of the report can be summarised as followed: • Patent granting process: The number of patent applications continued to increase during the first seven months of the year (101 474; +4.3% compared with the same period in 2017). The production of searches, examinations and oppositions increased by 5.4% for the same period. This helped to further improve timeliness and reduce backlogs. • Social dialogue: The new President has placed a particular focus on meeting staff, staff representatives and trade unionists. He has also held numerous one-on-one meetings. A staff survey is being prepared for launch. Responses from staff and other stakeholders will be collected over the coming months to feed in particular into the future strategic plan for the Office to be presented in 2019. • Buildings: Following the successful official inauguration of the New Main building in The Hague at the end of June, in the presence of the King of the Netherlands, a dedicated event was organised with staff in early September to mark the start of the move into the new building, which will continue until the end of October. The Office has also conducted an evaluation of the level of wear of its other buildings across the different sites, to assess future needs. • IT: The Office continued to improve its tools related to the knowledge management system in particular, with enriched databases and new functionalities. A successful adaptation to the new IT revolution based on artificial intelligence being paramount for the future efficiency of the Office, it was decided to commission an external audit in early September to assess the extent to which the Office is prepared for integrating the new technologies. CA/88/18 e 1/44 2018-4859 • User relationships: Several meetings with user associations took place. Topics included how better to integrate user feedback into the Office's quality management system. II. PERFORMANCE OF THE PATENT GRANTING PROCESS A. WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION By the end of July 2018, 101 474 European patent applications (European direct applications filed in 2018 and PCT applications entering the European regional phase in 2018) had been recorded. This represents a 4.3% increase over the corresponding figure in 2017. EPO Applications Budget 180 000 165 600 169 000 160 000 159 300 160 000 140 000 120 000 100 000 as of: as of: 19-08-2018 21-08-2017 80 000 60 000 97 330 101 474 (+4.3%) 40 000 20 000 0 2015 2016 2017 2018 Between 1 January and the end of July 2018, the total incoming search, examination and opposition workload increased by 5.6% compared with the previous year. Specifically, the Office received 140 751 search requests (+4.6%) as well as 95 154 requests for European examination (+7.0%). Provisionally, for the first half of 2018, the share of the EPO as ISA was 33.4% (33.6% for the same period in 2017). CA/88/18 e 2/44 2018-4859 By the end of the first seven months of 2018, examiner output had reached 260 013 search, examination and opposition products, 5.4% higher than the corresponding figure for 2017. While the number of full-time equivalent staff (FTEs) has remained stable since 2015, the number of products produced by each FTE is increasing, a clear marker of the Office's improved efficiency. Paid man years Products per FTE (FTE) 7 000 68 65.8 6 900 64.5 66 64 6 800 61.9 62 6 700 60 6 600 56.5 58 6 500 56 6 400 6 455 54 6 472 6 429 6 419 6 436 6 401 6 411 52 6 300 50 6 200 49.8 48 48.4 49.0 6 100 46 6 000 44 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 Aug2017- Jul2018 Paid man years, FTE SEO Products / FTE CA/88/18 e 3/44 2018-4859 By the end of July 2018, the EPO had published 65 844 European patents, 13.8% more than in the first seven months of 2017. EPO Published Patents Budget 105 635 105 000 110 000 95 940 100 000 90 000 80 000 68421 70 000 as of: 60 000 as of: 08-08-2018 09-08-2017 50 000 40 000 65 844 30 000 57 869 (+13.8%) 20 000 10 000 0 2015 2016 2017 2018 Early certainty timeliness So far in 2018, the median average length of time for completion of a search at the EPO has been 4.6 months from the date of receipt of the file (4.9 months for the same period in 2017). The median average length of time for issuing the notification of the intention to grant (IGRA) is 22.5 months from the date on which the examination started (22.5 months in 2017). The median average length of time for an opposition division to issue its decision is 19.6 months from the date on which the opposition file was received (23.5 months in 2017). CA/88/18 e 4/44 2018-4859 Time to publication The time to publication of a patent 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, it is the date of entry into the regional phase. It represents the duration of the European grant procedure completed during each reporting period. Time to publication of the patent in months 46.2 44.2 44.8 44.9 42.7 36 24 12 0 2014 2015 2016 2017 Jan-Jul 2018 The increase in the time to publication up to 2016 reflects the fact that in 2015 the EPO started dealing with older files in the examination stock. CA/88/18 e 5/44 2018-4859 General EPO Statistics 22 August 2018 Difference 2017 2018 2018/2017 in % 1 Total European patent applications - July 97 330 101 474 4.3% 2a Direct European applications - July 37 996 39 947 5.1% 2b PCT applications entering the regional phase - July 59 334 61 527 3.7% 3 Searches carried out (Examiner products) - July 147 279 141 973 -3.6% - of which European + supplementary + other 97 437 91 072 -6.5% - of which International PCT searches carried out 49 842 50 901 2.1% 4 European examinations carried out (Examiner products) - July 91 770 110 996 21.0% 5 International preliminary examinations carried out (Examiner products) - July 5 362 4 819 -10.1% 6 Oppositions (Examiner products) - July 2 259 2 225 -1.5% 7 Total Examiner Products DG 1 - July 246 670 260 013 5.4% 8 SEO Time (Search, Examination, Opposition in '000 days) - July 454.7 470.9 3.6% 9 Patents published - July 57 869 65 844 13.8% 10 Pending EPO SEO workload expressed in months of output - July 14.1 12.5 -11.3% All production figures (items 3 to 7) are based on counts of examiner products.