ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL
Reports on meetings of the Administrative Council
Report on the 85th meeting of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation (26 to 28 June 2001)
The Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation held its 85th meeting in Munich from 26 to 28 June 2001 under the chairmanship of Roland GROSSENBACHER (CH). It was the first Council meeting attended by Manuel DESANTES (ES) in his new capacity as Vice-President DG 5.
The Council was honoured by the presence of Ingrida LABUCKA (LV), Minister of Justice of the Republic of Latvia, and by the attendance of Karin HÖKBORG (SE), chairwoman of the EU Council's Community Patent Working Group.
The meeting opened with tributes and a minute's silence for the late Sir Angus FRASER (GB), who had served as one of the Council's "wise men" and a member of its Appeals Committee, and for the late Jacques DELORME (FR), who was the first Vice-President DG 1.
The Council appointed a new chairman and four new members to the boards of appeal for mechanics, plus three new members for physics and two for chemistry. Two new members were also appointed to the Legal Board of Appeal.
Several existing members of the boards of appeal, the Enlarged Board of Appeal and the Disciplinary Board of Appeal were reappointed for a further term. The reappointments included those of Peter MESSERLI (CH) as the Chairman of the Enlarged Board of Appeal and of the Disciplinary Board of Appeal.
In the interests of improved efficiency and increased transparency, the Administrative Council decided to adopt new working procedures. Most significantly, the practice of holding separate heads of delegation meetings is to be discontinued. In future, matters which involve a genuine need for confidentiality will be discussed and decided by a restricted circle within the full Council.
The Council also decided to set up a group comprising seven heads of delegation, charged with preparing the Council's discussions. This "group of seven" will have no powers of decision but will help to improve the efficiency of Council deliberations.
The Administrative Council formally invited Latvia and Lithuania to accede to the EPC as from 1 July 2002, thereby increasing the number of future EPO member states to 30.
The Swedish EU Presidency reported to the Council on the agreed "Common Approach" of the Community's member states as decided by the Council of Ministers of the Internal Market on 31 May 2001.
The Administrative Council agreed that a Diplomatic Conference to revise the EPC in order to accommodate the Community patent should be convened on
10 June 2002. Further discussion on the progress made on the Community patent will figure on the agenda of the next Council meeting in October 2001.
The Council adopted a number of transitional provisions applying to the revised version of the EPC adopted at the Diplomatic Conference in November 2000. It further approved a new full text of the revised Convention, which will be published in the Official Journal and on the Office's website.
PCT applications currently make up 64.7% of all EPO filings. These applications are putting a strain on the Office, impeding it from performing its principal task of granting European patents. Three measures to alleviate the current situation were adopted by the Administrative Council, fully supported by industry (UNICE) and the Institute of Professional Representatives (epi):
- Renegotiation of the WIPO/EPO PCT Agreement
The Council mandated the President to negotiate amendments to the agreement between the European Patent Organisation and WIPO. The aim is to limit the Office's competence as a PCT authority for non-European countries whose own national offices act as PCT authorities.
- Amendment to Rule 107(1) EPC
With effect from 2 January 2002, the time limit for entry into the regional phase under Rule 107(1) is to be amended to 31 months for all Euro-PCT applications. This will alleviate the Office's workload by freeing capacity currently assigned to examining Chapter II applications, which some applicants merely use as a "time-buying" exercise.
- Amendment to Rule 108 EPC
The Council adopted amendments to Rule 108 EPC and related provisions which will further simplify the formalities governing entry into the regional phase and should result in considerable savings to the Office.
With the increase in the Office's size and the Office-wide implementation of BEST, the need for a new organisational structure has become apparent. The activities undertaken in DG 1 and DG 2 are converging and will continue to do so as BEST spreads. To further harmonise working procedures in DG 1 and DG 2, a new Directorate-General will be created. The Council approved both the proposed new organisational structure, which will come into effect on 1 November 2002, and a vacancy notice for the new post of Vice-President. It also approved the vacancy notice for the successor to the Vice-President DG 1, Jacques MICHEL (FR), who will be retiring at the end of October 2002.
EPO President Ingo KOBER presented his report on the Office's activities during the first half of 2001, the gist of which was as follows.
The Office's work situation was as usual dominated by unabated growth. The number of European patent applications filed in the first four months of the year was 53 780, which represented an increase of 23% (+10% for European direct and +31% for Euro-PCT applications) over the equivalent period in 2000. PCT applications now accounted for 64.7% of all filings at the EPO, slightly higher than the 63.5% forecast.
Current filing figures were 4% above revised estimates.
In the twelve months to April 2001, the Office had received 152 300 applications. This was 26 000 or 21% more than in the preceding twelve-month period. The Office's filing forecast for 2001 was 160 000 applications, which would mean an increase of more than 100% within six years.
Search requests were still on the rise, having totalled 53 200 in the first four months, 15.5% more than during the same period in 2000 and 2% above the revised estimates. Requests for European searches were up 11.5% and PCT searches 26%.
The workload in substantive examination had risen by 3% during the first four months compared to the same period in 2000. Although PCT Chapter II work was up 23%, this was less than forecast (12 900 as opposed to 14 300).
During the first four months of the year, 484 technical appeals had been filed, 7% above forecast and 11% above the previous year's figure.
Production in search had decreased by 7% compared to the same period in 2000, which was 20% below target. This was due to the industrial action (strike days and dossier blockage) which began at the end of March.
A total of 17 500 granted European patents had been coded by examiners up to the end of April 2001, compared to 7 200 in the same period in 2000.
Examining capacity freed by the new approach to processing PCT applications was being used to deal with as many PCT regional phase applications as possible, as these could be granted more quickly than European direct filings.
The boards of appeal had settled 378 technical appeals during the first four months of the year. The corresponding figure for 2000 was 415.
The backlogs were still a problem. At the end of April 2001, the Office's backlog in search stood at approximately 55 600 cases, of which 34 200 were European searches.
The backlog in examination amounted to 51 600 cases. There was no backlog in opposition, only working stock.
At the end of April 2001, the technical boards of appeal had 3 294 cases awaiting action, an increase of 153 cases or 4.9% compared to the same period the previous year.
Major changes were in progress in the grant procedure.
Since January 2001, all BEST examiners in DG 1 (The Hague and Berlin) had been working under "full BEST conditions". This meant that examiners also examined all the European and international applications for which they had performed the search. BEST deployment in DG 1 now stood at 36%. Since the beginning of 2001, 112 search examiners had migrated to BEST and 64 new examiners had commenced BEST.
Opposition work had commenced in DG 1, where, in a first phase, examiners having at least 6 years' experience were acting as second members in DG 2 opposition cases. More experienced examiners acted as first members, chairmen always being examiners from DG 2.
In DG 2, full deployment of BEST was going according to plan. In the first four months of 2001, 208 examiners had commenced with BEST. They comprised 144 migrants, 59 newcomers and 5 transfers. The total number of BEST examiners in DG 2 was now 539.
With 4 950 searches completed by the end of April, Munich was now an important centre for search in the EPO.
During the previous six months, DG 1 had conducted five further user satisfaction surveys, focusing mainly on the mechanical and chemical sectors. Of the Office's 27 industrial sectors, 18 had now been covered by such surveys. The results were positive, with about 80% of users who expressed an opinion rating the overall performance of the Office as good or very good. Ratings of poor and very poor performance had both been very low, accounting for 5% of the users participating in the survey. Procedural duration was one of the issues which had received less favourable ratings, with room for improvement.
On 2 April 2001, the Enlarged Board of Appeal had decided on case G 1/99 relating to the prohibition of reformatio in peius in appeal proceedings. On 31 May, the Enlarged Board had delivered its opinion in case G 2/98 concerning the requirement of the "same invention" for claiming priority.
Since the end of May, a database comprising all decisions of the Enlarged Board of Appeal and a list of pending cases had been available on the EPO website.
In July, the 2001 edition of the "Ancillary Regulations to the EPC", comprising important implementing provisions to the EPC, would be published.
On the documentation front, the drive towards a paperless Office had continued.
The full-text collection of US patents had been loaded into EPOQUE. The frontfile OCR conversion of EP, WO, DE, CH and US documents was obtained as a publication by-product in the framework of the data exchange programme.
In the area of non-patent literature, the aim of the EPO was to make such documentation as easily searchable as patent documents. EPOQUE now provided online access to 25 million abstracts of articles from 15 800 periodicals and about 340 000 full-text searchable abstracts.
The EPO Virtual Library (EVL), a catalogue of links on the EPO intranet, gave access to the full text content of more than 700 journals, books and other technical and scientific information for internal users. The EVL also provided direct access to the publications most frequently cited in search reports.
A number of presentations had been held to communicate the concept and benefits of epoline® to both internal and external audiences. An extensive programme of roadshows to national offices had been undertaken to launch online filing. epoline® had become an integral part of the EPO's presentation at public events such as trade fairs. The higher profile given to epoline® would help to foster the idea that electronic filing was destined to be the preferred way of applying for a European patent.
The Online European Patent Register was now available free of charge via the Internet. Users could also access the EPO electronic files available in PHOENIX via the Internet.
Recruitment had progressed well in 2001, with 247 new staff joining the Office, 173 being examiners (some additional 100 examiners had accepted offers to start at the EPO later in the year). It was however becoming increasingly difficult to find potential examiners, particularly in the fields of mechanics and telecommunications. A successful attempt had been made to find candidates living outside Europe by attending a jobs fair at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The Office's financial situation remained healthy, with working capital at the beginning of the year standing at DEM 755 million.
In January, the Office had repaid the loan of DEM 67 million granted by the German government some 20 years before, and had thereby become debt-free for the first time in its history.
Investments made in 2001, including the purchase of PschorrHöfe Phase VII, had been financed from the Office's cashflow.
PCT-related work in the Office had increased along with the rising proportion of PCT applications. The Office had given the highest priority to reducing the PCT workload.
The most significant immediate proposal emerging from the current discussion on PCT reform was that there should be a uniform time limit for entry into the national/regional phase. The hope had been expressed that this proposal could be submitted to the PCT Assembly in September. The USA and Japan had both supported the proposal, which would clearly have a significant impact on usage of PCT Chapter II, avoiding the need for applicants to "buy time".
In view of the number of PCT applications from non-member states - 23 500 in 2000 from the USA, for example - it was obvious that the current agreement between the EPO and WIPO was in need of amendment. SACEPO fully agreed with this proposal, which was to be discussed at a special Trilateral meeting in Tokyo in mid-July.
The Community patent and PCT-related problems had been important points at the June 2001 SACEPO meeting. The Office's ideas on the resolution of the PCT issue had met with a thoroughly positive reception, but the response to certain ideas about the Community patent had been distinctly critical.
On 17 May, the President had signed the Patent Law Treaty (PLT) at WIPO in Geneva on behalf of the Organisation. The new treaty contained important simplifications in patent office procedures and should make life much easier for applicants.
The upward trend in the number of candidates enrolling for the European qualifying examination continued.
At 1 164, the number of candidates sitting the recent examination had been about 11% higher than the previous year (1 036). Of these, 567 had been first-time sitters.
In co-operation with epi, the Office had published the updated brochure entitled "How to become a European patent attorney", which explained what kind of work was performed by a European patent attorney and described the requirements for qualifying as a professional representative before the EPO. The brochure was also available on the EPO website.
The 10th meeting of the European Round Table on patent practice, EUROTAB, had taken place in Madrid on 10 and 11 May 2001 at the invitation of the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office. It had been attended by representatives of 16 EPC contracting states, together with participants from the EPO and epi. The following year's meeting would be held in Dublin at the invitation of the Irish Patents Office.
From 22 to 23 May the EPO, together with the Turkish Patent Institute, had co-organised an international symposium on the European patent system. Numerous participants, including representatives from EPO member states, had attended the event, held to mark Turkey's accession to the EPC.
Activities with Asia, Latin America, CIS, China, Africa and the Middle East had continued during the first six months of the year. A number of events had been organised both in the regions and in Europe.
During the first six months of 2001, co-operation activities had been strengthened with Rospatent and SIPO, with which Memoranda of Understanding on technical co-operation had been signed.
Version 3.0 of the Common Software (CS) had been released, providing inter alia for an online filing module enabling data to be loaded into the CS database from the Online Filing (OLF) server.
On 5 and 6 April 2001, a seminar entitled "Revision of the Munich Convention on the European Patent: Results and what comes next" had taken place in Strasbourg. The event, which had attracted some 200 participants, had been organised by CEIPI with the assistance of the EPO and epi.
The seminar had focused on the history and origin of the Diplomatic Conference proceedings, on the amendments to substantive and procedural law and on the outlook for a "second basket".
Further improvements had been undertaken to both level I (national documentation) and level II (worldwide documentation) of esp@cenet®. The system now allowed for truncation of search requests, improved navigation in facsimile documents and better help functionality.
esp@cenet® level I now also allowed for more national documentation; level II provided for search, display and browsing of ECLA symbols. Furthermore, all publication levels arising from a European patent application could now be accessed.
At that time there were 13 co-operation programmes with member states. Four programmes had been completed at the end of 2000. The network of patent information centres linked to patent offices continued to grow and now totalled 170. The PATLIB conference held in Dublin in May had attracted more than 200 participants.
Efforts to expand the coverage of INPADOC databases had continued, with the addition of Taiwan to the bibliographic databases. One important project was the acquisition of data on the entry of PCT patent applications into the national phase. Data had been added from Austria, Bulgaria, Kenya and Latvia, bringing the total number of participating countries to twelve.
With regard to CD-ROM and DVD products, an agreement had been reached with WIPO on co-financing of GlobalPat. As a result, the data for January 2001 would be put on CD-ROM in the second half of the year, followed by the resumption of regular production of the front file.
Since the beginning of 2001, ESPACE® WORLD had been available on a single weekly DVD, replacing the previous five CD-ROMs per week, which had become cumbersome for users to handle.
A new version of the image archive (PXI) had been introduced, resulting in the elimination of tape as a storage medium for documents. All documents were now stored online, thus greatly improving the performance of document display for users.
The President concluded by presenting the Council with the Annual Report for 2000, one of the most eventful years in the history of the Office.