Your feedback matters to us: new round of surveys starts soon
2 September 2020
The EPO will shortly commence surveys with its users to gather feedback, which will shape products and services in the future. With the coronavirus crisis changing the ways in which many of us work, it is more important than ever for the EPO to listen and to respond to your evolving needs.
Five surveys will help us understand the level of satisfaction with all aspects of our end-to-end patent granting process, and more besides - helping us to improve; whilst another survey will explore patent applicants' behaviours and intentions - enabling us to forecast demand and adapt proactively.
To ensure anonymity, an external contractor, BERENT Deutschland GmbH, conducts these surveys on behalf of the EPO. Should BERENT contact you, we would be very grateful for your feedback. All efforts are made to keep the interviews as short as possible, and despite running several surveys at the same time we will avoid contacting you too frequently.
You may of course decline survey invitations when you are contacted, or alternatively decline before you are contacted by sending an email to usersurveys@epo.org. You can also write to us at this address with any questions you may have on the surveys.
Consultation is essential to improving the quality and efficiency of our products and services. Your feedback is an important part of our ISO 9001 certified Quality Management System. Dialogue with users also takes place all year through many formal and informal channels, such as meetings with user associations or customer feedback via our website. To complement these, regular direct surveys with a representative sample of applicants and patent attorneys is another way to gather feedback. The results of these anonymous surveys, as well as the changes the EPO will make in response to feedback, will be published on our website in due course next year.