The European Patent Office. Some recent topics

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1 The Some recent topics Dr. Günther Vacek Patent Information Fair & Conference, Tokyo 2014

2 Contents About us CPC Machine translation Unitary patent Contact 2

3 Our mission As the patent office for Europe, we support innovation, competitiveness and economic growth across Europe through a commitment to high quality and efficient services delivered under the European Patent Convention. 3

4 2013: 40 years of the European Patent Convention October 1973 Diplomatic Conference in Munich Signature of the European Patent Convention (EPC) by 16 countries Entry into force of the EPC in 7 countries Foundation of the European Patent Organisation Foundation of the Celebration of 40 years of the EPC More on 4

5 Today, 38 member states and 2 extension states Belgium Germany France Luxembourg Netherlands Switzerland United Kingdom Sweden Italy Austria Liechtenstein Greece Spain Denmark Monaco Portugal Ireland Finland Cyprus Turkey Bulgaria Czech Republic Estonia Slovakia Slovenia Hungary Romania Poland Iceland Lithuania Latvia Malta Croatia Norway Former Yugoslav Rep. Macedonia San Marino Albania Serbia European patent applications and patents can also be extended at the applicant's request to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro. 5

6 Our five locations in Europe Headquarters Liaison office with the EU 6

7 The role of the EPO in the European grant procedure We provide patent protection in up to 40 European countries based on a single application in one of the three official languages (English, French, German) We are also responsible for limitation and revocation proceedings by patentees opposition proceedings by third parties appeal proceedings before the boards of appeal The EPO makes all patent documents available to the public 7

8 The EPO also processes international (PCT) applications We act as a receiving office for international applications (PCT) We carry out approximately: 40% of all international search procedures 48% of all international preliminary examinations The EPO delivers the international search report within 3 months* * From the date of receipt of the application by the International Searching Authority. 8

9 State-of-the-art searches World's largest collection of documents 800 million records of patent and non-patent literature documents in over 120 databases more than journals databases updated daily High-performance EPOQUE search tool used by examiners a worldwide benchmark used by over 40 patent offices, including Australia, Brazil, Canada and China Machine translation to extend the range of easily accessible information 9

10 All patent documents are accessible free of charge on Espacenet over 88 million patent documents, easily searchable Patent Translate Automatic translation between English and 31 other languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. 10

11 Contents About us CPC Machine translation Unitary patent Contact 11

12 Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) 12

13 CPC milestones (1/3) October 2010 The EPO and the USPTO have agreed to jointly develop a patent classification system on the basis of the European Classification system (ECLA) including best practices of the USPC October 2012 CPC scheme made public: CPC scheme and first batch of definitions publicly available from 1 October January 2013 EPO and USPTO launch Cooperative Patent Classification System (CPC) March 2013 First US patent applications published with CPC symbols 13

14 CPC milestones (2/3) April 2013 The first revised version of the CPC scheme enters into force May 2013 First US patent grant published with CPC symbols June 2013 The EPO and SIPO sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for SIPO to begin classifying its newly published patent applications into the CPC 14

15 CPC milestones (3/3) June 2013 The USPTO and KIPO sign an Agreement for KIPO to start a pilot to classify into the CPC August 2013 All CPC Definitions become available on the Internet (626 CPC Definitions amounting to around pages) September 2013 The EPO and ROSPATENT sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for ROSPATENT to classify into the CPC December 2013 The EPO and INPI Brazil sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for INPI to classify into the CPC 15

16 Improved classification scheme: Based on ECLA, integrating EPO's indexing codes (ICOs and KWs) and some of USPC (e.g. Business Methods) Housekeeping, reclassification Very refined: subdivisions for focused searches Improved alignment with the IPC: CPC is a further subdivision of the IPC Numbering Symbols used for invention vs additional information A reclassified collection: Families are reclassified when scheme changes "Warnings" if inventories of particular groups are not complete Changes published in advance 16

17 Who s on-board within the European Patent Organisation? NIPO PRV PRH UKIPO DKPTO UPV Öst. Patentamt HIPO OEPM OBI 17

18 Who s on-board around the world? USPTO IMPI EPO Rospatent SIPO KIPO INPI Brazil 18

19 CPC goes International Patent Offices which currently classify in CPC and (will) provide data to the EPO (data stored at document level): ES, FI, GB, SE (former ECNO Offices) AT, DK, GR, HU (new) soon CZ, NO, PT Patent Offices which have signed agreements to classify into the CPC: SIPO, KIPO, Rospatent, INPI Brazil CPC is used by more than examiners in more than 45 Patent Offices around the world and the user community is growing 19

20 About 2 million documents soon classified in CPC each year Total patent applications (direct and PCT national phase entries) in 2012 Total USA United Kingdom Austria Brazil China Sweden 2436 Denmark Spain Russian Federation Republic of Korea Hungary Greece EPO Finland Greece Hungary Republic of Korea Russian Federation Finland 1827 Spain EPO Denmark China Sweden United Kingdom USA Brazil Austria Total Source: WIPO statistics database, corrected for EPO. Last updated: January

21 Gradual implementation at SIPO Field Specific Training at the EPO Newly published patent documents by Dec 2013 by Dec 2014 trained in 43 technical areas trained in 73 technical areas Jan 2014 Jan 2015 classified in these 43 areas classified in these 73 areas by Dec 2015 trained in 100 technical areas Jan 2016 classified across all areas 21

22 CPC at KIPO June 2013 Agreement between USPTO and KIPO to start CPC pilot Nov 2013 Field specific training in 25 most active technical fields at KIPO by EPO and USPTO experts 2014 Reclassification of 10 years of backfile in the 25 technical fields and classification of frontfile End 2014 Evaluation of the pilot - Expansion 22

23 CPC at INPI Brazil Aug 2013 General and advanced training Field Specific Training to 3 Divisions Dec 2013 MoU between INPI Brazil and EPO 2014 Field Specific Training at the EPO to 10 Div. Start of classification in the trained fields 2015 Field Specific Training at the EPO to 7 Div. Further expansion 23

24 CPC at Rospatent Sept Jan 2016 MoU between Rospatent and EPO General and Field Specific Training by the EPO Start of classification of the patent documents being processed Jan 2017 Start of classification of the already published patent documentation 24

25 CPC Coverage 25

26 CPC coverage of other patent documents (via the family concept) data of 02 Oct

27 CPC coverage EPO member states offices (CPCNO, document level) status Country code Nr of publications with CPCNO Nr of CPCNO allocations ES FI GB GR SE Total:

28 CPC Scheme and Definitions availability also available here: ECLA-to-CPC concordance list (XML/TXT) CPC-to-IPC concordance list (XML/TXT) worldwide.espacenet.com/classification 28

29 Amending CPC CPC Scheme needs to be kept updated with technological development, in particular for emerging and fast-growing technologies: (if applicable) with reclassification of the corresponding CPC documentation CPC Definitions also need continuous improvement to improve and clarify titles and practice Changes through Revision, Maintenance and Definition projects same terminology used as in the IPC 29

30 CPC Revision project Changes in the Scheme resulting in changes in (file) scope i.e. reclassification involved = resources required Because of the resources involved, planning and formal approval of the CPC Joint Board are necessary Multi-year revision plan (MYRP) priorities vs. resources overall sharing at the two offices administered by the CPC Editorial Board for the CPC Joint Board 30

31 CPC Maintenance project Minor editorial corrections or clarifications in the CPC Scheme, CPC-to-IPC Concordance List, etc. No change in (file) scope no reclassification involved, i.e. no reclassification resources required mastered by the CPC Editorial Board, without formal approval of the CPC Joint Board 31

32 CPC Definition project Changes in a particular Definition, aiming at major clarification or addition of new sections No change in (file) scope! no reclassification involved, i.e. no reclassification resources required mastered by the CPC Editorial Board, without formal approval of the CPC Joint Board 32

33 CPC E-Forum (CEF) All projects are discussed on an electronic forum: the CPC e-forum (CEF) rebranded version of the IPC e-forum (IEF) A short summary of the ongoing CPC revision projects is available at cpcinfo.org: ects.html 33

34 NEW Pre-release of the CPC scheme one month before the entry into force of a new version, on cpcinfo.org Pre-release on first Tuesday of the month preceding new version New version of the CPC scheme enters into force on the first day of the month For example in 2014: pre-release on 6 May 2014 entry into force 1 June

35 Why Machine Translation? - Reducing the language barrier in the European context: Unitary Patent system supported by MT. - Access to global patent information for prior art searches. 35

36 Global patent filings rising continuously, especially Chinese applications IP5= Europe, USA, Japan, China and Korea 36

37 Patent Translate launched on 29 February 2012 System integrated in Espacenet, the EPO Publication Server, GPI-PISE and EPOQUE 37

38 Patent Translate : illustrative example (Description) 38

39 Patent Translate: how does it work? Result of a collaboration between the EPO and Google Patent data represent a huge source of corpora. Patent documents and their translation/corresponding documents are prepared and stored in a corpora repository. Translation system is trained using this corpora. Translation quality assessed before launch: test fit for purpose level. 39

40 Quality level ranking 40

41 Current status translation requests per day most used translation languages DE-EN, CN-EN, JP-EN most translation requests from China, Japan, India, Russia and USA most recent translation engine release in autumn

42 Achievements Patent Translate now covers translations of all EPO member states languages (Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish and Turkish) to/from English, French and German Additionally translation of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian language to/from English In non-epo languages: 7 million Chinese, 6,4 million Japanese, 1,6 million Korean and 1,6 million Russian publications are available to the public via Espacenet 42

43 Statistics - language pair usage

44 Statistics - Origin of request

45 Project end stage Project to be completed end of 2014: 32 languages European and Asian translation quality into/from English fit for patent information purposes end user feedback in order to further improve translation quality 45

46 The unitary patent 46

47 The European Patent System Shortcomings in the post-grant phase sub-optimal enforcement scheme implying parallel litigation with high costs, risk of diverging decisions and legal uncertainty high costs for patent proprietors due to validation requirements and renewal fees in EU Member States The European Union's patent package 1. Unitary patent (protection) 2. Unified Patent Court 47

48 Objectives of the unitary patent A less expensive and less cumbersome patent system for Europe Facilitates access to patent protection for SMEs and research centres Makes Europe more attractive for innovation and investors Boosts Europe's competitiveness 48

49 The unitary patent and the EPO member states Unitary patent states Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Sweden United Kingdom Other EPO member states Italy Spain Iceland Switzerland Norway Turkey Monaco San Marino Liechtenstein Croatia Serbia Albania Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 49

50 The unitary patent: concept Unitary patent is a "European patent with unitary effect" The unitary patent has unitary character with unitary effect for the territory of the 25 participating states A European patent will benefit from unitary effect on request of the patentee Single EPC procedure for European and "unitary patents" Application and examination procedure will remain unchanged 50

51 The unitary patent: concept The unitary patent will co-exist with national patents and with classical European patents Various combinations of classical European patent and unitary patent a unitary patent for the 25 participating EU Member States possibly together with a classical European patent taking effect in one or more EPC Contracting States, such as for instance ES, IT, CH, TK, NO No double protection by a unitary patent and a classical European patent on the territory of the 25 participating states 51

52 Registration of unitary effect Basic requirements Patent proprietor has to file the request for unitary patent protection with the EPO - in writing, - in the language of proceedings, - no later than one month after the mention of the grant is published Unitary effect can only be requested for European patents which were granted - with the same set of claims - in respect of all the participating states Translations only have to be filed during a transitional period Non-observance of time limit and/or correction of deficiencies: Legal remedies, such as re-establishment of rights? to be decided by Select Committee 52

53 Concrete benefits Protection in one single step for the 25 states currently participating Simplified registration procedure instead of 25 different validations Simplified and cost-effective renewal fee payment No post-grant translation required (after initial transition period) Centralised register maintained by the EPO Uniform litigation system affording greater legal certainty 53

54 Language arrangements for applications Translation costs will be reimbursed for SMEs, universities, public research organisations from the EU if the application is filed in an EU language other than English, French or German 54

55 Language arrangements for post-grant translations For a transitional period of up to 12 years: If the patent is granted in French or German, a translation into English will be required If the patent is granted in English, a translation into one of any of the EU languages will be required At the end of the transitional period: No translation required anymore Patent Translate will provide free machine translation in 32 languages 55

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57 When will it all start? European applications already "in the pipeline" today might be given unitary effect if granted after the system starts Minimum of 13 states including GB, France, Germany must ratify the agreement on a Unified Patent Court (expected 2015) First unitary patents will cover only the states which have ratified the agreement, then more as states accede 57

58 Regulations on unitary patent protection The UPC Agreement was signed on 19 February 2013 by 25 EU member states (not by ES and PL, but by IT) It will enter into force after the deposit of the 13th instrument of ratification or accession, including FR, DE and UK So far, five states have deposited their instruments of ratification AT: 7 August 2013, FR: 14 March 2014, SE: 5 June 2014, BE: 6 June 2014, DK: 20 June 2014 MT concluded its parliamentary ratification process. Sl, UK: Ratification process well advanced 58

59 Unitary patent protection: Risks Spain has brought before the CJEU actions against Regulations No. 1257/2012 and No. 1260/2012 (cases C-146/13 and C-147/13) Regulations related to the unitary patent can only become applicable if the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court enters into force 59

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