Sub Navigation
Council of the European Patent Organisation backs a comprehensive strategy to tackle workload
Leider ist diese Seite derzeit nicht in deutscher Sprache verfügbar.
Munich, 14 December 2007 -- The Council of the European Patent Organisation has backed a strategic approach to handling future workload in the European patent system. The proposal is outlined in a study presented by the Board of the Organisation's Administrative Council and was endorsed at the Administrative Council's meeting on 14 December. It contains a set of strategic recommendations on how the European Patent Office and the patent offices of the member states should best address the challenge of ever-growing numbers of patent applications, increasing backlogs and securing the quality standards of European patents.
The study, drafted in close cooperation with the Organisation's 32 member states, the European Patent Office (EPO), the Organisation's executive body, and after consultation with interested circles, addresses the workload situation from a global perspective. "The patent activity follows the pattern of globalisation, making the patent landscape in Europe very dynamic but also very complex", says Roland Grossenbacher, Chairman of the Administrative Council. "The challenges the European patent system is facing fully reflect that global character: New players are appearing on the scene, causing application numbers to rise dramatically, while new emerging technologies contribute to the complexity and volume of patent applications. All these factors need to be taken into account if the system should efficiently maintain its support function for the European economy."
"The study confirms that the Board of the Administrative Council and the management of the Office very largely share a vision of the situation the European patent system finds itself in," says Alison Brimelow, President of the EPO. "It provides important insights into the route to make the European patent system fit for the future. Moreover, it is an endorsement of the new strategic approach the Office is taking in this respect."
The main findings
The report highlights that in the past 25 years, the volume of patent applications in Europe has quadrupled and reached 208 500 applications at the EPO in 2006, and is expected to increase further. Much of this growth is also attributable to the enhanced global activity of companies, to emerging economies such as China, India and South Korea in the field of patents, and the increasing importance of new technologies, such as information and communication technology and biotechnology, rendering the patent grant procedure also more difficult and costly. As a result, workload and backlogs at the patent offices increase, causing quality problems and long pendency times which can adversely affect the innovation process. The study comes to the conclusion that "no patent office in the world can deal with the workload challenges on its own." Therefore, a greater cooperation between the patent offices is called for that not only focuses on achieving quantitative advantages, such as avoiding duplication of work, but also on maintaining and improving the quality of the patenting process. Moreover, the study makes the case for a reflection on the appropriate level of inventiveness, especially the criteria for patenting excluding non-technical matter.
Five strategic directions to tackle workload
On the basis of these findings, the report pinpoints five strategic directions for dealing with the future workload of the European patent system:
- Utilising work done by others (other patent offices in Europe or outside Europe, applicants and third parties).
- "Raising the bar" (i.e. granting exclusive rights only for technical innovations with sufficient inventive merit)
- Improving the efficiency of the process (coming up with new measures to deal with the workload in an efficient way)
- Enhancing cooperation within Europe (e.g. by building the European Patent Network that consists of the EPO and the national patent offices)
- Making the Organisation and the EPO fit for the future (enhancing their capability to deal with new challenges, reviewing governance and finance).
The report formulates policy recommendations for each of these five areas, which can form the basis of a work programme for the EPO, now that it has been endorsed by the Administrative Council.
The study made use of the findings of the EPO's Scenarios for the Future, published in May 2007, which explores possible future of intellectual property protection and looks at possible developments up to 2025. See http://www.epo.org/topics/patent-system/scenarios-for-the-future.html.
The EPO applies a centralised procedure to examine European patent applications for the Organisation’s member states. Set up in 1977, the EPO has its headquarters in Munich with branches in The Hague, Berlin and Vienna and employs around 6 700 staff.
For more information, contact:
Rainer Osterwalder
Press Spokesman
+49 89 2399-1820
press@epo.org