Press releases

German Federal Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger met with EPO President Benoît Battistelli at the EPO headquarters in Munich today to discuss developments in the European patent system, and in particular the future unitary patent.

The EPO, the member states of the European Patent Organisation and the OHIM in its observer capacity met in Reykjavik on 11/12 June to discuss how to bring co-operation forward in order to improve the quality and efficiency of the European patent system, and thus better serve industry.

A renewed Memorandum of Understanding further strengthens the co-operation between the EPO and leading standards organisation IEEE-SA

During the meeting, the heads renewed their commitment to develop the "Global Dossier," a system to simplify the viewing and management of applications filed in the IP5 Offices. The heads also agreed to adopt the Global Classification Initiative, a new effort to harmonize patent classification.

In another significant move to break down the language barriers to technological information, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the Japan Patent Office (JPO) today announced the launch of the Japanese-English component of the EPO's automatic translation service Patent Translate.

EPO and SIPO sign a Memorandum of Understanding to enhance cooperation in patent classification