Sub Navigation
Promotion
Welcome to the European Patent Organisation
By way of introduction
The European Patent Organisation is without doubt one of the most successful examples of European co-operation. It is not a European Community institution and in fact includes several non-EU states. Nevertheless, it serves several important goals that it shares with the Community. The Organisation is built on an intergovernmental structure, the supreme organ being the Administrative Council, on which all the member states are represented.
The protection of industrial property is, of course, central to the European policy on innovation. Everyone agrees that innovation is the crucial element in the knowledge economy, and its importance was underlined once again in the Lisbon Agenda. Even after 30 years, the Organisation’s dynamism is still intact. A conference held in Munich in November 2000 to revise the founding treaty, the European Patent Convention (EPC), enabled us to modernise our structures. The revised treaty entered into force on 13 December 2007.
Today, our Organisation continues to demonstrate its determination to develop the common European patent system further and achieve its desire for open and responsive relations with society as a whole, of which it is an integral part. The Administrative Council is the platform where strategies are discussed and adopted in order to promote innovation and strengthen Europe's position in the world, taking into account the viewpoints of all the different stakeholders.
This website is an instrument for encouraging transparency and the participation of interested parties in the Council’s opinion-building process. A debate on possible means of co-operation between the European Patent Office and the member states of the European Patent Organisation, especially within the context of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), was initiated in June 2004. It provided an opportunity to seek contributions from the stakeholders, both at European and local level. A public discussion was also launched on our website. The debate subsequently expanded beyond the PCT area and continued throughout 2005 and 2006. The Council devoted part of its recent meetings to discussing the many substantial contributions submitted by the member states and the European Patent Office, the Organisation's executive arm. Full documentation is available on our website. The first general conclusions from the debate were drawn in the course of 2006, and the exercise will be completed in December 2007 with the presentation of a report, prepared by the Board of the Administrative Council, which will set out the main lines of action needed to cope with a growing workload while fully respecting the acknowledged quality of the European patent.
Let us carry on working together to ensure that Europe stays competitive in tomorrow's economy.
Roland Grossenbacher
Chairman of the Administrative Council,