Please note that the time zone for the programme is CEST.
Event moderator: Dominika Baráč, Patent Examiner HBC, EPO
| Monday, 19 April 2021 | |
|---|---|
| 10.00 - 10.10 hrs |
Welcome to EPO User Day 2021 |
| 10.10 - 11.00 hrs |
Panel discussion |
| 11.00 - 12.00 hrs |
Breakout sessions Online Filing 2.0: Discover the new web-based filing system Language: English
Moderator: Richard Schiettekatte, Head of User Intelligence Unit, EPO Online Filing 2.0: Discover the new web-based filing system Language: French
Moderator: Sébastien Queste, Team Manager, HBC Online Filing 2.0: Discover the new web-based filing system Language: German
Moderator: Gerrit Huber, Team Manager, HBC, EPO Opposition proceedings by VICO The EPO has held oral proceedings by video conference (VICO) for some years, with over 2 600 VICOs having taken place to date. Building on this, the Office extended video conferencing to oral proceedings in opposition. The benefits are clear: VICO functionality increases accessibility, allows parties to participate from around the globe, save time and money, and reduce carbon footprints
Round table Stephen Pilling, Senior Expert , Biopharmacy and medical use, EPO |
| 12.00 - 13.00 hrs | Breakout sessions EPO Mailbox and best-practice interactions with the EPO Our experts explain how to receive electronic notifications from the EPO and offer tips for smart card-related actions and filing interactions.
Moderator: Barnaby Hoyal, Team Manager, HBC, EPO Iggy Leong, Head of Professional Support, Mathys & Squire LLP PCT applications at the EPO The EPO is the world's largest International Searching Authority and International Preliminary Examining Authority, conducting 32% of all international search procedures and 63% of all international preliminary examinations. An EPO international search report and written opinion are delivered within three months.
Round table Q&A |
| Tuesday, 20 April 2021 | |
| 10.00 - 10.15 hrs |
Welcome and wrap-up of day 1 |
| 10.15 - 11.00 hrs |
Breakout sessions
EP procedure: online filing Our experts review the formal requirements for the EP procedure and their implications for online filing.
Moderator: Ricardo Oltra García, Team Manager, M&M, EPO
|
| 11.00 - 11.05 hrs |
Plenary welcome |
| 11.05 - 11.45 hrs |
Panel discussion
|
| 11.45 - 12.30 hrs |
Patent Index 2020: The future of Innovation
Michaela Seimen Howat, Sustainable and impact investing strategist, Chief Investment Office, UBS |
| 12.30 - 13.00 hrs |
The EPO's contribution to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals |
| 13.00 - 13.10 hrs |
Wrap-up and outlook |
Dominika Baráč
Patent examiner in food science and technology, EPO
Event moderator
Dominika joined the EPO in
2008 as a patent examiner in food science and technology. She is a member of a centralised
opposition directorate and chairs oral proceedings in opposition cases, and currently works for Directorate European Co-operation.
Markus Thieme
Team Manager in optics and Advisor to VP Corporate Services, EPO
Markus joined the EPO in 2008. His portfolio covers quality management, process optimisation and computer-implemented inventions. He has held management positions in the telecommunications industry and has a strong background in international co-operation. He holds a PhD from the Technical University of Munich.
Niclas Morey
Principal Director Quality, Business and User Services, EPO
Niclas joined the EPO in 1990. He was appointed to his
current position in 2017 where he leads the entirety of operations support,
covering the areas of users, classification, patent procedural support and quality
and risk management.
Yorick Lostetter
Director Business Analysis and
Planning, EPO
Yorick joined the EPO in 1999. He leads the service unit that supports managers in the areas of operational production/capacity
planning and performance monitoring. He is involved in improving the timeliness
of the EPO's products and services in the patent grant process.
Richard Schiettekatte
Head of User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Richard joined the EPO in 2003. He is responsible for the unit that directly interacts with users and provides support, training and information on procedural questions. The unit is also responsible for addressing technical issues related to EPO services and tools.
Michael Lindblom
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Michael has been working with the e-services of the EPO
since 2002 and has spent much time with the practical implementation of the EPO
products in the IP user environment. His areas of responsibility include the
Nordic countries, the UK and Germany.
Alan Garry
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Alan joined the EPO in 1998. In
his previous position he managed the
User Business Assessment team responsible for the CRM ticketing tool and
managing the user experience. Alan works in key account management since 2018. His
areas of responsibility include the UK, Ireland and Germany.
Sébastien Queste
Team Manager, Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry, EPO
Sébastien
holds an engineering diploma in formulation chemistry and a PhD in organic and
macromolecular chemistry. He joined the EPO in 2007 as a patent examiner in the
field of polymers. He was appointed as a team manager in 2017 and manages two
different teams, with a focus on people management.
Serge Anni
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Serge joined the EPO in 2007. In his current role, he is in
charge of dealing with key accounts, helping implementing online filing tools,
Mailbox, My Files and Online Fee Payment.
Catherine Humbert
Project Manager, Business
Information Technology, EPO
Catherine joined the EPO in
2000. She is the product owner of Online Filing 2.0, and contributes to other
projects under Goal 2 (digital transformation) of the EPO's Strategic Plan
2023. She engages with the EPO's subject-matter experts and external users to
build tools that better address user needs, including those of non-specialists.
Gerrit Huber
Team Manager, Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry, EPO
Gerrit joined the EPO in 2009.
He was appointed as a team manager in 2019. He was a postdoctoral researcher at
MIT, Cambridge, USA, and holds a PhD in materials science from the Max Planck Institute
for Metals Research, Stuttgart.
Ali Dirgen
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Ali joined the EPO in 2003. He
helped with the introduction of CRM at the EPO and was co-administrator of CRM.
His areas of responsibility include Germany, Turkey and the Netherlands.
Ulrike Engels
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Ulrike joined the EPO in 2000. She was a local procedural specialist,
and also gave procedural training to EPO formalities officers. Her areas of
responsibility include Netherlands, Belgium and, to some extent, Germany. She has
also been heavily involved in Online Filing 2.0.
Barnaby Hoyal
Team Manager, Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry, EPO
Barnaby joined the EPO in 2005. He currently leads a
team of examiners working in the field of non-wovens and absorbents. He also
manages a project bringing new search technology to the EPC contracting states.
From 2012 to 2016 Barnaby worked for Directorate International Co-operation and
was responsible for the co-ordination of IT-related activities in the IP5
programme.
Richard Garvey
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Richard joined the EPO in 1998.
His main responsibility is to facilitate streamlined interaction between the
EPO and its users. To complement this, he provides user feedback for the next
generation of EPO tools under the Strategic Plan 2023.
Roberta Andreatta
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Roberta joined the EPO in 2001. She has been in her current
position since 2017 and her areas of responsibility are primarily Italy,
Germany and France.
Christina ten Hövel
Key Account Manager and Patent Administration Expert, User Intelligence Unit,
EPO
Christina
joined the EPO in 2003. She has worked as an expert in the various patent grant
procedures. As a key account manager, she supports EPO users in relation to online
tools and services. She also co-ordinates training events for EPO online tools,
mainly in German-speaking countries.
Alexandre Bitton
Team Manager, Mobility and Mechatronics, EPO
Alexandre joined the EPO in 2001 after his engineering studies in France and Sweden and working in the automotive industry. He is a member of a centralised opposition directorate. He passed the European qualifying examination in 2008, obtained a diploma in patent litigation in 2018 and completed an LLM in IP in 2020.
Tobias Irmscher
Lawyer, Directorate Patent Law , EPO
Tobias joined the EPO in 2006
and has acted as a legally qualified member in more than 100 examination and
opposition cases. He also teaches at the University of Munich and the
International Hellenic University Thessaloniki and is a co-author of the
Benkard commentary on the European Patent Convention.
Camille-Rémy
Bogliolo
Head
of Department PCT Affairs, EPO
Camille-Rémy
joined the EPO in 2006, and has held his current position since 2016. He worked
at the French Patent Office as a lawyer in international and European legal
affairs before joining the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2001,
where he specialised in the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
Elke von Brevern
PCT Affairs Expert, EPO
Elke joined the EPO in 2008. She worked as an online filing
application manager and her portfolio
included online filing tools for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Since
2015, she has co-ordinated the implementation of PCT-related projects at the
EPO.
Claudia Gaur
Key Account Manager, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Claudia joined the EPO in 2006. She worked in the business assessment
area, dealing with quality and statistics and providing customer support. She
has extensive experience of the procedural and practical aspects of filing and
payment and associated user issues
Ricardo Oltra-García
Team Manager in Agriculture, EPO
Ricardo joined the EPO in 2002, where he has
dealt with patent applications for agricultural machinery and worked on all
aspects of the procedure, including being responsible for classification in two
groups and being the chairman of opposition divisions. His team consists of 21
examiners working in diverse areas of agriculture and farming, including
precision and smart agriculture.
Adrian-Léon Gex-Collet
Director, Mobility and Mechatronics, EPO
Adrian joined the EPO in 2003.
His directorate covers the technologies relating to combustion engine control,
turbo-compressors, rotary pumps, gas turbines, fuel injectors, lubrication and
wind turbines. Adrian has gained experience
in the diverse technical fields of defence technology, agriculture, liquid
coating technology and naval engineering.
Katrin Garlip
Financial Administrative Officer, Revenue Controls, EPO
Katrin joined the EPO in 2003.
She is responsible for all tasks related to patent fee payments and refund
handling as well as the development of the EPO's various payment services, such
as Online Fee Payment , bank transfer preparation and refund claim service. She
also deals with finance-related enquiries from external users and participates
in cross-departmental projects with an impact on fee handling.
Yolanda
Sánchez García
European Patent Register Product Marketing Manager, Patent Knowledge, EPO
Vienna
Yolanda
joined the EPO in Vienna in 2002. She is responsible for promoting applications, training and conducting market
research. She is also involved in planning and developing new Register services
and features, including the Federated Register, Register Alert and the unitary patent
register.
Helena
Domingues
Team Manager, Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry, EPO
Helena
joined the EPO in 2000. She manages a team of 15 examiners. For
the past 12 years she has examined patent applications and oppositions focusing
on therapeutic antibodies and related technologies as well as vaccines.
Stephen
Pilling
Senior Expert , Biopharmacy and medical use, EPO
Stephen joined the EPO in in
1998 as a patent examiner. He passed the European qualifying examination in
2004. He has his current position since 2016 and works on search, examination, opposition,
training and quality.
Yann Ménière
Chief Economist, EPO
Yann joined the EPO as Chief Economist in 2016. He has many years of experience of
providing economic insights into issues relating to patents, innovation and
economic growth. He contributes high-level expertise and analysis to public and
expert forums on a regular basis. Yann led the Chair on IP and Markets
for Technology at MINES ParisTech, where he was previously a professor of
economics and lectured on the economics
of IP.
Keith Sequeira
Head of Governance and Coordination, European Innovation Council
Keith is responsible for the
team supporting the European Innovation Council (EIC) Advisory Board, preparing
the EIC work programmes, hosting the EIC programme managers and overseeing
communication activities. Previously, Keith was senior
advisor to Carols Moedas, European Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation,
on open science and open innovation, including Horizon Europe. He was also a
member of the Cabinet of Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn and has worked in
the EC on monitoring national policies, Horizon 2020, the 7th Framework
Programme, the Innovation Union flagship initiative, innovation indicators and
public procurement of innovation.
Edda
Franz
Principal Director General Administration, Environmental Sustainability Programme Manager and Diversity and Inclusion Board Member, EPO
Edda joined the EPO in 2014. She is a civil engineer with
many years of experience in procurement, building projects and facility
management. She has held global and European responsibilities. She currently leads the EPO's environmental sustainability
programme, which aims to make the EPO carbon-neutral by 2030.
Petra
Schindler-Bauer
Team Manager, Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry, and reducing paper
consumption Project Manager, EPO
Petra joined
the EPO in 2006. She leads a team of examiners in the area of medical
technology and is responsible for her team's workflows and products, including timeliness
and quality. As reducing paper consumption project manager, she investigates
workflows and measures for replacing paper by digital processes with the aim to
reduce paper consumption at the EPO by 70% by 2023.
Christophe Lintz
Director, Business Information Technology, EPO
Christophe joined the EPO in
1984.. He was involved in the development of the first series of search and
documentation tools for examiners and external users, such as Espacenet that is
still in use today. He is also leading the EPO's information and communication technology
sustainability project.
Cristina Russo dos Santos
Team Manager, Information and Communications Technology and Diversity and Inclusion Promoter, EPO
Cristina joined the EPO in 2006. She oversees a team of 10 examiners
in the Information and Communications Technology sector. Prior to the EPO, she worked
for over 15 years in research and academia, where she held the position of invited
professor at the University of Toulon, France.
Amadou
Kamara
Team Manager, Mobility and Mechatronics, and Diversity and Inclusion Promoter,
EPO
Amadou joined the EPO in 2001
and, until the end of 2018, worked as an examiner in the Mobility and
Mechatronics sector. He has managed the Bearing and Suspension team in the same
sector since 2019 and has been a diversity and inclusion promoter since
November 2020.
Xavier Seuba
Director Patent Academy and EQE, EPO
Xavier joined the EPO in 2020. Previously, he was Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at the Open University of Catalonia and Academic Co-ordinator at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies in Strasbourg. Xavier has also worked as a consultant for several international organisations and governments on international trade negotiations and policy matters. He has authored over 100 scientific publications, including nine books.
Laura Smith-Hewitt
Principal Director a.i. Internal Audit and Professional Standards, EPO
Laura joined the EPO in 2000. She leads the "Quality, simply delivered on time" programme, part of the EPO's Strategic Plan 2023. She has worked as a patent examiner in the areas of laboratory technology and electrochemical sensors and had assignments in the President's Office, operational team management, talent management, international co-operation, patent practice and procedure, quality management and online filing software.
Filippo Santi
European Patent Attorney, Barzanò & Zanardo
Filippo joined the private practice of Barzanò & Zanardo in Rome in 1999, where he heads the department in charge of foreign patent filing and prosecution. He previously worked as an information technology consultant for petroleum refineries. He is a member of the Harmonisation Committee of the epi and a tutor at the Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies in Strasbourg.
Reinoud Hesper
Head of Department Patent Law, Filing and Euro-PCT, EPO
Reinoud joined the EPO in 2000. He is responsible for legal issues concerning the filing of European patent applications and the processing of Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications in the European phase. Previously, he worked at the Europa Institute at the University of Utrecht. He is a co-author of the Singer-Stauder commentary on the European Patent Convention.
Iggy Leong
Head of Professional Support, Mathys & Squire LLP
Iggy joined the IP law firm Mathys & Squire LLP in 2007. Based in London, Iggy currently leads a team of over 80 staff. He is responsible for all aspects of IP operational matters. Iggy is highly experienced in facilitating interactions between national and regional IP offices and his firm. He has worked in IP for nearly 30 years, both in-house and in private practice.
Reinhilde Veugelers
Professor, Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation, KU Leuven
In addition to her professorship at KU Leuven, Reinhilde is a Senior Fellow at Bruegel and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. She is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research and a member of Academia Europaea; the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts; and VARIO, the expert group advising the Flemish Minister for Innovation.
Alexandre Tsoukalis
Managing Director and Chief Technical Officer, Micrel Medical Devices
Alexandre co-founded Micrel Medical Devices in 1980. He studied electrical engineering. He has been involved in the design of spectrophotometers and infusion pumps, as well as numerous research projects with several European universities and companies.
Heike Vogelsang-Wenke
Vice-President, epi, and European Patent Attorney
Heike joined the Munich-based IP law firm Grünecker in 1987. She co-heads its biotech department, focusing on opposition and appeal proceedings. Her background is in biotechnology and molecular biology. She is a member of the Board of the Association of German Patent Attorneys and a Council member of the epi. She was elected Vice-President of the epi in 2017 and re-elected in 2020.
Denis Dambois
Policy Officer, European Commission, DG GROW, Intangible economy
Denis joined DG GROW in 2017. He is responsible for patent-related policy. Previously, he worked at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research, dealing with R&D-related IP and technology transfer issues, before moving to the IP unit of DG Trade, where he was responsible for international IP issues. He has also headed the Research and Innovation Section of the EU delegation to India. Denis is a qualified European patent attorney.
Aliki Nichogiannopoulou
Director, Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry, EPO
Aliki joined the EPO in 1998. She has worked as a patent examiner as well as in Patent Law and European and International Co-operation. A molecular biologist by training, she has been involved in a range of projects and activities, including for the raising of awareness of IP at academic institutions. She regularly represents the EPO at conferences and workshops and has a special interest in the legal and ethical aspects of patents in life sciences.
Rino Rappuoli
EIA 2017 winner, Chief Scientist, Head of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline, Vaccines
Rino has a PhD in biological sciences. He is also Honorary Professor of Vaccinology at Imperial College, London, and Extraordinary Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Siena. He has won the European Inventor Award in the Lifetime achievement category, published 736 works in peer-reviewed journals, introduced novel scientific concepts and developed licensed vaccines. He is among the world's leading scientists dedicated to the sustainability of global health.
Michaela Seimen Howat
Sustainable and impact investing strategist, Chief Investment Office, UBS
Michaela joined UBS in 2018 from Scope Ratings, a European credit rating agency, where she was a senior analyst. She has worked in financial services for more than 15 years, including as a rates strategist at Royal Bank of Canada and Barclays and as a bank analyst at Moody's. Michaela studied economics at the universities of Passau and Münster in Germany.
Martin Adu
User Support Expert, User Intelligence Unit, EPO
Martin is an experienced trainer who has worked in e-services at the EPO since the early days of online filing software in 2000. He has supported users with the technical implementation of online filing as well as the use of the smart card for many years.
Eva Bach
Lawyer, Directorate Patent Law, EPO
Eva joined the EPO in 2002. She is responsible for legal aspects of the filing of European patent applications and the processing of Patent Cooperation Treaty applications in the European phase, including the EPO's electronic filing tools. She has legally accompanied the launch of Online Filing 2.0.
