Posts Tagged: "epo"

Today I give you 10 great Twitter accounts to follow if you are interested in staying up on intellectual property around the world, with a heavy emphasis on Europe and Australia because those are the primary jurisdictions that speak English.

Because 35 U.S.C. 122 prohibits the USPTO from providing information about an as-yet unpublished application to a third party without the applicant’s consent, timely delivery of pre-publication search results requires applicant cooperation in providing the USPTO with the proper consent to release the search result information to the EPO. Failure of applicants to provide the USPTO with the required consent will prevent the USPTO from delivering the search results in a timely fashion and could result in EPO rescinding the exemption, which would require all U.S. applicants to provide the search result information to the EPO at their own time and expense.

The European Patent Office (EPO) today honoured outstanding inventors for their contribution to social, economic and technological progress with the presentation of the European Inventor Award (EIA) – Europe’s most prestigious prize for innovation. “With their brilliant inventions, this year’s laureates have created great economic value and thousands of jobs. Above all, they have improved people’s lives”, said EPO President Benoît Battistelli. “The EIA pays tribute to these creative and entrepreneurial minds for their significant contribution to technological progress, social development and economic growth.”

With a view to the future, the Heads of Office had an initial exchange of views on the “Cloud Patent Examination Solution (CPES)” and “Global Dossier” concept, which are aimed at simplifying procedures for patent applicants and improving the efficiency of the offices when dealing with the same patent application. Simultaneously, they welcome the establishment of an expert panel to continue to discuss patent harmonisation, noting the importance to maintain the momentum. They reaffirmed agreement made last year in Tokyo to accelerate the Common Hybrid Classification Project under a revised mandate which takes into account the launching of a new classification scheme developed by USPTO and EPO (CPC) from January 1st 2013.

Two American scientists have been nominated for the European Inventor Award (EIA), which is presented annually by the European Patent Office (EPO) to outstanding inventors for their contribution to technological, social and economic progress. The winners of the 2012 EIA will be announced during an award ceremony in Copenhagen on June 14th. Prof. Federico Capasso created an entirely new class of semiconductor lasers, called Quantum Cascade Lasers (QCLs). Dr. Stanford Ovshinsky, a leading American scientist in the fields of energy and information, developed clean-energy NiMH batteries.

Munich/Geneva, 3 May 2012 — With the aim of further developing the international patent system to better support innovation in economies around the globe, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have agreed on a comprehensive three-year technical co-operation scheme. The agreement, signed by EPO President Benoît Battistelli and WIPO Director General Francis Gurry in Munich…

The report shows that the mood for 2011 was cautiously optimistic compared to previous years, with fewer organizations experiencing budget reductions and a greater percentage of IP tasks going in-house or being outsourced in order to reduce costs and retain control. This year saw less than half of those surveyed working on a reduced IP budget going into 2012, compared to nearly two-thirds of respondents in last year’s survey. However, the bulk of respondents don’t expect to increase the number of patent families filed in 2012, indicating the persistence of a “do-more-with-less” attitude as the economy slowly recovers.

The UK Intellectual Property Office (UK IPO) characterizes it as misleading, warning “don’t be misled.” The European Patent Office (EPO) calls it deceitful, characterizing it as “subterfuge,” and further pointing out that “their services have no legal effect whatsoever.” The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) says that they are “unrelated to the processing of international applications.” Yet many continue to believe that the nefarious and seemingly ubiquitous solicitations sent to patent applicants and owners are official invoices that must be paid in order to continue to move forward with an international patent application or foreign patent application.

The question, however, is whether this increased inventive activity is sustainable in light of the overwhelming backlogs faced by Patent Offices around the world. It is great to have a lot of inventive activity and interest in obtaining patents. That shows that there is increased interest in business activities because few, if any, pursue a patent for the sole purpose of obtaining a patent. There is almost universally some business goal with associated hopes, dreams and potential positive impact for the economy. Whether this increased innovative activity can and will be something that produces an associated economic boon remains to be seen and is largely, if not completely, dependent on the political machinations of those in Washington, DC and other capitals around the world. Talk about a depressing though!

The EPO was ranked first for patent quality among the world’s five largest patent offices for the second consecutive year in a survey of corporate and private practice IP professionals conducted jointly by Thomson Reuters and Intellectual Asset Management (IAM) magazine. The annual benchmarking survey, published in the June issue of the magazine, finds that the EPO leads by a wide margin in terms of perceived patent quality, and has even improved its position over last year.

Building on more than a quarter century of cooperation, the Trilateral Offices continued to focus on addressing global patent workload challenges, in particular, decreasing pendency and examination backlogs, improving patent quality, and leveraging IT solutions to simplify and speed up processing of patent applications.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO) have agreed to work toward the formation of a joint patent classification system. Unlike other major patent document classification systems, the U.S. patent classification system is not based on the International Patent Classification (IPC) system because it predates the IPC. One of the goals of the partnership is to align the U.S. and the EPO classification systems with the IPC, which is administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialized agency of the United Nations. The jointly developed classification system will be more detailed than the IPC to improve patent searching. As a result, the two offices would move closer to eliminating the unnecessary duplication of work between the two offices, thus promoting more efficient examinations, while also enhancing patent examination quality.