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The discussion rounds at the conference are your
chance to get involved and help the EPO to set its priorities for European
patent information in future.
Except for a super-workshop
for expert users which is planned for Thursday, 24 October, all discussion
rounds will take place on Tuesday, 22 October 2013.
IMPORTANT! Pre-registration is required for the discussion rounds.
Every conference
delegate is entitled to participate in one discussion round (depending on seat availability). To
register, please use the online form. We will not
grant admission to people who have not registered in advance.
| 09.00 - 10.30 hrs |
Discussion round 1
|
Getting ready for the unitary patent - what are patent searchers' needs?
Rarely has there been so much discussion about a change in patent law in Europe − the unitary patent is without doubt this year's hot IP topic. A quick internet search for "unitary patent" yields over three million hits, including blogs, tweets, Facebook discussions, academic papers, newspaper reports and a plethora of official announcements. For patent information users, the burning question will be where they can find the information they need on unitary patents. The European Patent Office is seeking input to its reflections, so that it can ensure that people will have all the information they need at their fingertips when the first unitary patent is registered. |
| Discussion round 2 |
Question + answer session for first-time delegates
Specially targeted at newcomers to the conference, this discussion round will be an opportunity to put questions on the EPO patent information activities, and on the products and the data. No question is forbidden. The aim of this informal session is to get your first attendance at an EPO Patent Information Conference off to a good start. |
| Discussion round 3 |
Presenting patent information to the board of directors - best practice in preparing the message; and how can the EPO help?
Patent information is complex. It takes time and concentration to understand the results of a patent search. Members of the board rarely have much time available. Information presented to upper management needs to be concise, easy to understand and put into graphical visualisations. What is the best practice, therefore, in tailoring patent information reports for board members, or for fitting patent searching into a company's or organisation's strategic thinking? This discussion round will be in workshop format, with all participants contributing to an exchange of views. |
| Discussion round 4 |
IP in the Web community - how can crowdsourcing and Web 2.0 contribute to patent information?
The Patent Information Conference concluded in a discussion round in
2008 that Web 2.0 was too new and that people had too little experience
with it for them to make proposals on how it could contribute to patent
information. In 2013, the situation is very different. Web 2.0 has
matured and the leading players have emerged. It is the right time to
re-open the discussion on the role that crowdsourcing and social media
can play in the patent searcher's daily life, and what the EPO should be
doing in this area.
|
| 10.45 - 12.15 hrs |
| Discussion round 5 |
Cooperative Patent Classification - what questions are still open?
With the entry into the force of the CPC at the beginning of 2013, the EPO is classifying according to the new scheme and is making its classifications available to users via the Classification Search feature in Espacenet. The first revisions to the CPC took place in April 2013, and more will follow on a regular basis. The USPTO is in its transition period and has also started using and classifying according to the CPC. So what questions are still open? |
| Discussion round 6 |
Open data - will an open data policy for patent information lead to innovation in search products?
Following the high interest in the discussion rounds on open data in
the previous two years, this year, the discussion will be on how to move
forward. The EPO has recently commissioned an external contractor to
make specific proposals on technical measures to implement an open data
policy. The input from this discussion round will contribute to that
work. In addition, linked data is creating opportunities for anyone to build their own services. What should the EPO do to support this?
|
| Discussion round 7 |
Federated Register - what are the users' needs?
Deep-linking from the European Patent Register to national registers of the EPO's member states has been available for over a year. The next step will be the creation of a "federated register", which will gather all the information pertaining to a European patent from multiple patent registers and present it all together on a computer screen in tabular format. This project is high on the EPO's priority list and is part of the IT Roadmap. A first prototype is scheduled for launch in late 2013 and this discussion round will be an opportunity to take a close look at users' needs for this new product as the project moves towards its operational phase. |
| Discussion round 8 |
Legal status - getting a complex database fit for the future - defining priorities
INPADOC Legal Status - now called the EPO's worldwide legal status database - has been the foundation for much legal status patent searching for decades and it remains so today. Advances in technology are opening up new opportunities for this database; opportunities to make it even more useful in future than it is now. This discussion round will put some ideas on the table that the EPO is considering and will offer participants the opportunity to comment - these contributions could shape the worldwide legal status database of tomorrow. |
Further information on registering for discussion rounds
There is space for between about 30 participants in each discussion
round. Based on the principle of first-come, first-served, we will
place each conference registrant in their first choice. If this is not
possible, we'll look for a place in the second choice. We try to avoid placing
two participants from one company or organisation in one discussion round.
During the final two weeks leading up to the conference, any
remaining places in the discussion rounds will be filled by taking
into account registrants' second and third choices.
Discussion round chairmen
Are you interested in being a discussion round chairman? Please
write to conference@epo.org.
