AIPPIe-News
No.1
April 2008
April 2008
AIPPI General Secretariat |Toedistrasse 16 | CH-8027 Zurich
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Meeting between AIPPI and the European Patent Office
Dariusz Szleper (France), Deputy Reporter General of AIPPIOn Tuesday, February 19, 2008, a meeting took place in Munich, at the headquarters of the European Patent Office, between senior members of the governing body of the EPO and the representatives of AIPPI.
The European Patent Office was represented by its President, Mrs Alison BRIMELOW and the members of the EPO governing bodies and of the President's office, Mr Fernand EIDEN, Principal Director, Mr Mark WEAVER, Director, Mr Eugen STOHR, Director of International Legal Affairs and Mr Christoph MACHWIRTH, Head of Users Associations.
AIPPI was represented by its Vice-President, Mr Thierry MOLLET-VIEVILLE, its Secretary General, Mr Michael BRUNNER, Reporter General, Mr Jochen BUEHLING and Deputy Reporter General, Mr Dariusz SZLEPER.
The aim of the meeting was to exchange information on the current problems and questions interesting both the European Patent Office and the AIPPI in the perspective of enhancing the collaboration between the AIPPI and the EPO in conducting the further studies in the field of patents.
The President of the EPO, Mrs BRIMELOW indicated several issues which highly interest the European Patent Office.
Some of them were related to the internal administration and the financial situation of EPO, others were related to the perspectives of the patent system both in Europe and in the world.
One prominent phenomenon in the patent world was the growing participation of the Asian patent offices and particularly of the China Patent Office. It raises, from the point of view of the functioning of the European Patent Office, the question of the proper examination of the European patents, which should take in consideration the prior art published in those Asian Patent Offices. Now, from a purely practical perspective, it seems that the currently available means of analysis of this prior art do not achieve satisfactory results. The situation raises therefore the problem of the accuracy and relevance of the examination when it considers prior art published by the Chinese or Korean Patent Offices.
Another concern of the EPO administration is the relatively important part of patent applications which are withdrawn after the first search report is established. It appears that about 30% of applications are withdrawn by the applicants after the first search report, which shows that the applicants use the search process of the EPO in order to have a preliminary evaluation of the patentability of their invention instead of doing it by themselves. This first stage of examination does not require considerable fees on behalf of the applicant. This situation raises the question of the structure of fees of the European Patent Office, since even the first search report involves significant costs for the EPO.
It appears therefore necessary to modify the structure of the fees and create a system in which an important share of the fees would be paid already at the stage of the initial application. The EPO is also surveying the patent system as a whole from the financial perspective of the patent offices, since it seems that the average duration of maintenance of patents is currently around seven years. So this aspect should also be taken in consideration in establishing the structure of the maintenance fees.
The last question raised by the President of EPO was the problem of the standards which should be applied to evaluate patentability conditions, and specifically inventive step, in order to grant a patent. This has to be seen in the context of the "raising the bar" concept. The EPO seems very conscious of the fact that the quality of the granted patents has a serious impact on the perception of the whole system of IP and its utility for the economic growth. The necessity of improving the assessment of the inventive step and the proper definition of the standards which allow this evaluation is the subject of major concern for the EPO. The EPO is planning to conduct a study on this question, with the probable aim of publishing the first results of the study in 2009.
After exchanging this information on the major concerns for the EPO, the discussion between the AIPPI representatives and the President of EPO and the officers of this organization, was directed to aspects of the cooperation between AIPPI and EPO.
The Reporter General of AIPPI recalled the previous work of AIPPI which dealt with questions directly related to the EPO's activities and which were in recent years the question of divisional applications dealt with at AIPPI's Singapore ExCo or during previous AIPPI's meetings, such as: the modification of patent claims, the content and relevance of industrial applicability and utility as requirements for patentability, or the patentability of business methods. AIPPI expressed a high interest in the participation in the study of the standards of the evaluation of the inventive step as suggested which was quite welcome by the EPO.
Finally, the discussion was directed to the perspectives of the patent system in Europe. The EPO representatives underlined the importance of the evaluation of the effects experienced by the adoption of the London Protocol by several countries. The participants also commented on the last initiative of the European Commission related to the Community patent and the establishment of the European judicial system for patents which is monitored closely by the EPO.
The EPO representatives indicated that the necessity of raising the level of the quality of the patents implies the participation of all interested parties and specifically of the users of the European patent system, and that it will be recommending the establishment of some kind of code of practice and fair conduct in the proceedings in front of the EPO in order to help the European Patent Office achieve this goal.
AIPPI also expressed its wish to be party to processes organized by the European Patent Office in relation to its educational activities, and it seems that AIPPI may be invited to the European Judges Symposium which is organized every two years by the European Patent Office and which deals with the relation between the European patent system and the national legal systems in the field of the enforcement of patent rights.
The meeting appeared to AIPPI delegates as very fruitful and gave AIPPI the possibility of getting direct information on the questions which highly interest the EPO. The meeting also gave AIPPI a very direct insight on the EPO activities and may help our association to establish its working program in conformity with the needs of the patent community in Europe and in the world.
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