Moving towards a global patent system
The global economy and worldwide research present patent offices with many challenges. Europeans and Americans are working on a unified patent classification system which could revolutionise how they work and how applications are filed. A conference report
In conference room 0.2.1 on the ground floor at the EPO in The Hague it's like being at a summit meeting: fifteen men and women sit facing each other at long tables, some leaning on their elbows, others jotting down notes or surreptitiously texting on their smartphones. A projector hums, laptops rattle, biros scratch. There's a gap of a few feet between the delegations, and there's another gap that the negotiators have to bridge as the meeting progresses. The people in the conference room are treating each other with respect, partly because they know that the failure of their negotiations could have a major impact on the global economy and on growth in technological innovation, and that conversely an agreement would be a great leap forward. Yet the fifteen men and women in room 0.2.1 are not negotiating a climate convention or the reduction of nuclear warheads; they are trying to harmonise the patent classification systems of the EPO and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It may sound like a bureaucrat's dream, but it has huge potential. In the words of Niclas Morey, head of the EPO delegation: "It's a major step towards a more global patent system."
The background to this conference is a meeting last autumn at which EPO President Benoît Battistelli and USPTO Director David Kappos reached agreement on extensive co-operation between the two organisations. The handshake with which they launched the Cooperative Patent Classification project (CPC) may rightly be dubbed historic: "Our offices both have highly developed patent classification systems", says Frederick Schmidt, head of the US delegation. "Now we want to bring the best practices of two worlds together, and we hope this will give a big boost to the development of the global patent system."
CPC is not the only international initiative in the patent sector. Some years ago the EPO, the USPTO and the patent offices of China, Japan and Korea joined together in the IP5 initiative, designed to avoid unnecessary work duplication, improve examining efficiency and enhance patent quality. There are various working parties seeking to harmonise issues such as database management, patent classification or examiner training.