Quality through partnership

11 November 2009

Patent searchers called for better titles and abstracts in patent documents at the EPO Patent Information Conference in Biarritz last week.

Speaking at the official opening, EPO President Alison Brimelow said: "The quality of patents and the quality of patent information are inextricably linked to each other." While quality patent applications can only be based on "a good search", the opposite is true as well. "If patent applications are not good, then the patent data will not be good, and patent information will suffer," she said.

In a session titled "Quality through partnership", Peter de Bellmond, of IPS Intellectual Property Services AB, argued that disclosure is a fundamental feature of all patent systems and a matter of "ethics". He said that there is a problem with clarity of disclosure in many of today's patent applications, making a patent searcher's job increasingly difficult.

In the same session, Andreas Feichtner, from Reinhard Skuhra Weise & Partner GbR, pointed out that attorneys will be held liable if they do not act in their clients' best interests, and that it might sometimes not be in the interests of the client if the attorney strives for clarity in his patent application.

Thinking about possible changes to the patent system, the President said: "A shift in fee structure towards the front end of the procedure would mean people paying for what they get. It might mean a lower number of filings, but a higher overall grant rate."

"This would be good news for patent searchers too, as it would reduce the number of patent applications being published and - presumably - reduce the noise in the databases," she said.

Ms Brimelow added that quality "means the patent applicant filing correct data, it means stringent data controls at the EPO, and it means having the courage to tell an applicant when his title, abstract or any other part of his application does not meet the required quality standards".

Further information

• EPO events: Patent Information Conference 2009