- I - TABLE OF CONTENTS

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1 CA/88/17 Orig.: en Munich, SUBJECT: SUBMITTED BY: ADDRESSEES: President's activities report President of the European Patent Office Administrative Council (for information) CA/88/17 e

2 - I - TABLE OF CONTENTS Subject Page I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. PERFORMANCE 1 III. A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION 1 a) Filings and applications 1 b) Efficiency 2 c) Publications 4 d) Time to publication of the patent 4 MEASURES TAKEN IN DG1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE QUALITY AND SERVICE 6 A. DG1/DG2 REORGANISATION 6 B. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN C. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE" 8 a) "Esprit de service" "ViCo for oral proceedings" 8 b) "Esprit de service" Customer relationship management (CRM) 9 c) "Esprit de service" Praktika Extern d) "Esprit de service" 1LCS 10 D. DG1 QUALITY ACTION PLAN 11 a) Proactive workload management 11 b) CASE Conformity Assurance for Search & Examination 11 c) Classification 12 d) Added subject-matter 12 e) Novelty, inventive step and clarity 12 f) Non-unity 12 g) Opposition 12 h) Individual quality objectives 13 i) Asian documentation 13 E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) AND IMPACT OF INDUSTRY 4.0 ON DG1 14 F. CONTINUOUS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER 15 a) Peer-to-peer lectures 15 b) Tip of the day 16 c) EPeOple 16 CA/88/17 e

3 - II - G. PROCEDURES 16 a) Early Certainty from Search (ECfS) 16 b) Extension of Early Certainty to examination and opposition 17 c) Informing the applicant of the imminent start of examination 19 d) PCT Direct 19 e) Guidelines for Examination 20 f) Amended Rules 32 and 33 EPC as of 1 October 2017 (expert solution) 21 H. CLASSIFICATION 21 a) Training activities for the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) 21 b) Quality measures in the CPC 22 c) Data exchange 22 d) Interaction with CPC users 22 e) CPC and the IP5 offices 22 f) Offices' participation in the CPC 23 g) Other benefits related to classification 24 IV. IT AND AUTOMATION PROJECTS 25 A. ITR DELIVERIES FOR EXAMINERS 25 a) Delivering future IT systems 25 b) Improvements to current tools 26 c) Adapting tools in support of EPO strategies 26 B. IT DELIVERIES FOR BUSINESS SUPPORT 27 V. BUILDINGS AND PROCUREMENT 28 A. NEW MAIN THE HAGUE 28 B. OTHER BUILDING PROJECTS 29 a) Security 29 b) Ongoing building projects and facility management 29 VI. QUALITY 30 A. QUALITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGY AND INDICATORS 30 a) SACEPO Standing Advisory Committee before the EPO 31 B. USER CONSULTATIONS AND SURVEYS 31 C. COMPLAINTS 32 VII. HUMAN RESOURCES 33 A. RECRUITMENT AND CAREER 33 a) Examiner recruitment 33 b) DG1/DG2 reorganisation 33 CA/88/17 e

4 - III - B. HEALTH AND WELL-BEING 34 C. SOCIAL DIALOGUE 34 a) Staff Committee elections: 34 b) Strike 35 D. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT 35 E. REVISION OF THE SERVICE REGULATIONS STANDARDS OF CONDUCT AND REFORM OF THE INTERNAL JUSTICE SYSTEM AT THE EUROPEAN PATENT OFFICE 36 VIII. EPN 36 A. CO-OPERATION WITH MEMBER STATES 36 B. EUROPEAN PATENT ACADEMY 38 a) Institutional Strengthening 38 b) Judicial training 39 c) Professional representatives 39 d) Innovation support 39 e) Academia 40 f) Didactics 41 C. CO-OPERATION WITH THE EUIPO 41 D. REPRESENTATION BEFORE THE EPO 41 E. EUROPEAN PATENT REGISTER 41 F. PATENT INFORMATION 42 IX. the EPO AS A GLOBAL PLAYER 44 A. INTERNATIONAL ORGANISATIONS 44 B. BILATERAL RELATIONS 44 a) Validation system 44 b) Technical co-operation 45 C. IP5 CO-OPERATION 46 a) Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) 47 b) Patent Harmonisation Expert Panel (PHEP) 47 D. TRILATERAL CO-OPERATION 48 E. COOPERATIVE PATENT CLASSIFICATION 48 F. CO-OPERATION WITH WIPO 48 G. STRENGTHENING THE PCT 48 H. SUBSTANTIVE PATENT LAW HARMONISATION 50 CA/88/17 e

5 - IV - X. UNITARY PATENT/UNIFIED PATENT COURT 51 A. UNITARY PATENT 51 B. UNIFIED PATENT COURT (UPC) 51 C. UNITARY PATENT PROTECTION DIVISION 52 XI. The EPO AND SOCIETY 53 A. ANNUAL REPORT B. EUROPEAN INVENTOR AWARD 53 C. CLIMATE CHANGE, GREEN TECHNOLOGIES AND BIOTECHNOLOGIES 56 a) Clarified practice in the area of plant and animal patents 56 b) EPO-CPVO co-operation 56 XII. CONCLUDING REMARKS 57 XIII. RECOMMENDATION FOR PUBLICATION 57 CA/88/17 e

6 I. INTRODUCTION In order to ensure transparency and enhance reporting of Office activities to the Council, a comprehensive overview of the year just passed is presented to each March meeting of the Council. This present interim report thus describes the principal developments so far in 2017; the full account will be presented in March II. PERFORMANCE A. DG 1 WORKLOAD AND PRODUCTION a) Filings and applications Up to July 2017, European patent applications (European direct applications filed in 2017 and PCT applications entering the European regional phase in 2017) were recorded. This represents a 5.8% increase over the corresponding figure for Up to June, the number of EP patent filings including international PCT filings amounted to , 5.2% above the corresponding figure for EPO Applications Budget Data extracted Data extracted % CA/88/17 e 1/57

7 b) Efficiency Since January and up to the end of July 2017, the Office received search requests (+3.1%) as well as requests for European examination (+5.6%). This represents an increase of 4.0% in the overall workload compared to the same period of Provisionally, for the first half of 2017, the share of the EPO as ISA was 33.6% (35.0% for the same period of 2016). After 7 months in 2017, the examiners' output reached search, examination and opposition products, 4.5% above the corresponding 2016 figures. The Strategic Orientations document (CA/19/11) and subsequent roadmaps presented the Quality and Efficiency Scenario as the backbone of the strategic goals that are to be supported by the EPO roadmaps. In this framework, it is the goal of the Office to keep its overall staff complement constant while increasing its production in ways sufficient to manage the workload. The figure below outlines the success of this strategy whereby the number of full-time equivalent employees has decreased while the number of products produced by each FTE is increasing, a clear marker of the improved efficiency of the Office. Paid man years (FTE) Products per FTE Aug 2016 July 2017 Paid man years, FTE SEO Products / FTE 44 CA/88/17 e 2/57

8 The increased production from January to August 2017 is mainly the result of an increase in core capacity with 76 additional examiners, a continuing reduction of sickness levels, combined with close control of investments in non-core activities. This capacity increase has allowed about more products to be produced compared to 2016 (+3.2%) whilst a further improvement in productivity resulted in about more products being produced compared to 2016 (+1.1%). DG1 has indeed continued its efforts to focus on core aiming at concentrating a maximum of resources on search, examination and opposition work. This means that investments requiring examiner resources have been carefully considered and, where possible, the system of paid work packages has been used. To the end of August, DG1 was able to concentrate some 90% of its gross examiner capacity on core business, including the time needed for personal development, quality management and classification activities. Early Certainty timeliness So far in 2017, the EPO completed searches on average 4.9 months after the date of receipt of the files (5.3 for the same period in 2016). The notification of the intention to grant (IGRA) was issued on average 22.6 months from the date on which examination started (23.3 in 2016). The opposition divisions issued their decision within 23.7 months from the date on which the opposition file was received (25.4 in 2016). With +4.3% more production than last year for the same period (January-August), the Office is able to implement its strategy of stocks reduction according to the Early Certainty objectives. This production increase is now essentially originating from more examination products. Indeed, the search stock has almost reached the desired level and more and more focus is put on reducing the examination stock. The past increase in search production has led to a temporary increase in the new examination workload (+14% vs January-August 2016) which thanks to the increased examination production has been fully absorbed: in August 2017, the DG1's total pending workload has been reduced to products (-2% vs end 2016) despite a high increase (+6%) in the new search and examination workload. This pending workload represents 14.1 months of work (vs 14.7 at the end of 2016). CA/88/17 e 3/57

9 c) Publications By the end of July 2017, the EPO had published European patents, which is 11% more than the first eight months of EPO Published Patents Budget Data extracted Data extracted % d) Time to publication of the patent The time elapsed is measured from the date of entry into the European grant procedure up until the date of publication of the patent: for European direct applications this is the date of receipt, for Euro-PCT applications the date of entry into the regional phase. It measures the duration of the European grant procedure completed during each reporting period. CA/88/17 e 4/57

10 Time to publication of the patent in months Jan Jul 2017 The increase in the time to publication up to 2016 reflects the fact that as from 2015 the EPO started dealing with older files in the examination stock. It is too early to judge if the 2017 decrease is the start of a new trend. CA/88/17 e 5/57

11 General EPO Statistics 24 August Difference 2017/2016 in % 1 Total European patent applications - July % 2a Direct European applications - July % 2b PCT applications entering the regional phase - July % 3 Searches carried out (Examiner products) - July % - of which European + supplementary + other % - of which International PCT searches carried out % 4 European examinations carried out (Examiner products) - July % 5 International preliminary examinations carried out (Examiner products) % 6 Oppositions (Examiner products) - July % 7 Total Examiner Products DG 1 - July % 8 SEO Time (Search, Examination, Opposition in '000 days) - July % 9 Patents published - July % 10 Pending EPO SEO workload expressed in months of output - July % All production figures (items 3 to 7) are based on counts of examiner products. Pendency (item 10) is based on stock at directorate level and production at directorate level (finished cases). III. MEASURES TAKEN IN DG1 TO IMPROVE PERFORMANCE QUALITY AND SERVICE A. DG1/DG2 REORGANISATION With the reorganisation of DG1 and DG2, as presented in CA/65/17, the Office is taking a decisive step to increase efficiency and timeliness by implementing an end-to-end patent granting process under the responsibility of one single directorate-general. A project implementation team has been set up to ensure a smooth implementation of this reorganisation under the guidance of a steering committee led by Controlling Office. CA/88/17 e 6/57

12 The implementation is progressing according to plan, and following was achieved in Q3/2017: Recruitment of three Chief Operating Officers (COOs) to lead the respective technical areas: PD Mobility & Mechatronics (M&M): Roberta Romano-Götsch PD Healthcare, Biotechnology & Chemistry (HBC): Karin Seegert PD Information & Communication Technology (ICT): Grant Philpott Set-up of an Executive Operations Committee under the chairmanship of the President to oversee the operation of the new structure and to follow up on DG1 performance and quality achievements. Participants are: VP1, COOs, PD Business Services and Controlling Office with participation of PD HR, CIO and other services as required. Recruitment of the majority of directors and team managers for the operational directorates, the Opposition and Centralised Formalities directorates and the support areas. Implementation of the new support areas: PD Business Services, PD Automation Support, PD User Support & Quality Management. Implementation of an extensive training plan for formalities officers. The IT changes required to smoothly implement the new structure are also well under way. Business requirements have been collected, a thorough impact analysis on the existing systems has been performed and the design, implementation and end-to-end testing of the changes are ongoing. The first priority of the implementation team is to make sure that the new DG1 is fully operational by 1 January 2018 while ensuring business continuity. B. EXAMINER RECRUITMENT IN 2017 Recruitment of the best candidates who will become well-trained patent examiners is vital for achieving our goals in quality, efficiency and timeliness. In order to reach Early Certainty objectives by 2020, the examiner headcount target for the end of 2017 is Posts are being freed across the Office to maximise the number of engineers and scientists starting their training. CA/88/17 e 7/57

13 In order to find potential patent examiners from a wider range of member states, the HR Talent Acquisition managers are intensifying their focus on searching for talents in the less well represented member states. At the end of August, more than 170 job offers had been issued for 2017, leading to an estimated end-of-year examiner headcount around examiners. The technical areas that have recruited most potential examiners in 2017 are ICT and Vehicles & General Technology, followed by Medical & Consumer Technology and Technical Chemistry. C. "ESPRIT DE SERVICE" a) "Esprit de service" "ViCo for oral proceedings" For the period September 2015 August 2016 the Office held oral proceedings via ViCo. For the period September 2016 August 2017, were conducted via ViCo. This represents an increase of +40.5%. In the period September 2015 August 2016, the share of all oral proceedings held via ViCo was 6.8%. In the period September 2016 August 2017, this share increased to 8.6%. CA/88/17 e 8/57

14 b) "Esprit de service" Customer relationship management (CRM) In line with the service orientation of the Office, First-Line Customer Services for DG1 have been operational since November 2012 for all examiners, and CRM tickets are created to register incoming customer calls, s and online enquiries. DG1 deals with 300 to 400 CRM tickets per month. DG1's performance in closing tickets on time has improved over last year, and efforts continue to enhance staff awareness and monitor performance. Performance has improved over the last two years. The KPI for DG1 for the whole of 2015 was 66%; for 2016 it was 72%, and for 2017 it is 82% to date. Team managers have been assigned responsibility for monitoring, the tools have been made available and training undertaken. These efforts will continue as additional team managers are appointed later in the year. c) "Esprit de service" Praktika Extern 2017 The Praktika Extern programme continues to be a successful form of interaction between examiners, patent attorneys and applicants. It gives rise to a better understanding of the issues and challenges of a different professional environment dealing with intellectual property, and to get direct general feedback regarding the quality and procedural efficiency delivered by the EPO. The programme also serves to raise awareness about the products and service-oriented developments the EPO is offering. In 2017, 55 examiners have been selected to participate in the programme, which is an increase of 30% over The programme lasts between 2 and 3 weeks and takes place between June and November. Most examiners visit a patent attorney firm. A few join companies with in-house attorneys. They get an opportunity to see 'the other side of the file' and also learn about licensing, freedom to operate and national procedures, as well as litigation within and outside Europe. Their participation in these activities and active involvement in patent casework broaden their understanding of the complexity of IP and the importance of all stakeholders in the IP world. A focus this year is to spread the mutual benefits in particular to new firms that have not been visited before or that have not participated in the programme since A good spread across Europe has been achieved: Praktika Extern hosts will be visited in 15 different member states (CH, DE, DK, ES, FR, IE, IS, IT, LT, NL, NO, PT, SE, SK, UK). CA/88/17 e 9/57

15 Highlighting our specific endeavours for maintaining our quality at the highest standards has been part of the Praktika Extern 2017 campaign: Early Certainty, ISO 9001 and searching in Asian patent documentation. The selected examiners have been briefed to give detailed information on these selected topics. Feedback from our hosts is well appreciated and helps to improve our quality continuously. d) "Esprit de service" 1LCS Improving the customer experience, understanding differing business logic and closely listening to user needs continues to be fundamental for the EPO to offer high-level services with key dimensions of reliability, accuracy and timeliness. The well-established single and transparent point of contact already enables our Customer Desk to handle user enquiries with a CRM ticketing system ensuring that all customer queries are answered in a timely and satisfactory manner. Over user enquiries were captured and distributed by First-Line Customer Services (1LCS) in Customer Desk during 2016 to the various operational units, particularly to formalities officers and examiners but also to Online Services, Finance and Legal. So far up to July 2017, enquiries were created, with 90% being solved within their respective KPIs (in most cases within two business days). Live user feedback/sentiment is monitored by the Customer Business Assessment team to enable continuous running improvements to be made to internal CRM ticket processes and structures to drive positive change in achieving both user satisfaction and efficient handling methods. Key Account Management activities have been successfully in contact with EPO users within the patent grant process aiming to support them and accompanying changes. In 2017 more than 900 users have been supported either at User Day events, workshops or user visits to use the EPO's filing e-tools effectively or to get answers to questions in the patent grant process. This consistent and costeffective strategy for the adoption of e-tools through knowledge transfer has been positively acknowledged and appreciated by users. CA/88/17 e 10/57

16 D. DG1 QUALITY ACTION PLAN DG1 has already implemented over 70% of the 100 quality actions set out in the 2017 DG1 Quality Action Plan. The quality actions have been grouped together into over 20 Corrective And Preventive Actions (CAPA) in order to manage further development of the EPO's Quality Management System and ensure that the quality objectives are achieved. In addition, Patent Administration has followed up on its dedicated quality action plan to support the patent grant process with specific actions on improving the quality of products and services regarding opposition, withdrawals, bibliographic data of B publications and user interaction. Close co-operation between Patent Administration and DG1 as part of the ongoing DG1-DG2 restructuring is supporting the achievement of the defined KPIs on all quality objectives, and by doing so also the quality of services towards users. Examples of actions taken to improve specific aspects of DG1's performance are indicated below: a) Proactive workload management A priority-monitoring report has been established to support directors and team managers in balancing examiner workload. In addition, a shift in balance between search and examination workload for new examiners at the 11th month enables them to avoid building up an examination workload in the third and fourth years. The introduction of an online PACE request form has also enabled the Office to better control these requests, enabling the examiner to deal with these priority requests on time and thereby reducing the likelihood of an applicant complaint. Additional efforts have also been undertaken to ensure a smooth transition of work between DG1 and Patent Administration; they have been helped by the development of a Service Level Agreement identifying the relevant time limits for formalities to complete key tasks. b) CASE Conformity Assurance for Search & Examination Checklists for search and grant as well as an e-learning module to support the chairpersons in performing the CASE checks have been implemented. To further strengthen the CASE process, it is now mandatory for both the chairpersons and line managers to register both positive and negative findings in the CASE system. In addition, the training for chairpersons in examination has been updated to also place additional emphasis on the role of the chairperson in supporting the Office's Quality Management System. The combination of these actions has had a significant impact which has resulted in a substantial increase in CASE usage. CA/88/17 e 11/57

17 c) Classification A review of the classification training provided to new examiners has just been performed, and an adaptation of the training material is in progress to support the Office's objectives of providing complete classification at publication as well as to enhance the quality of classification by new examiners. d) Added subject-matter An e-learning module has been released to support examiners in correctly identifying and dealing with generalisations and unallowable addition of features to claims. e) Novelty, inventive step and clarity A series of Quality and Efficiency workshops have been provided to examiners to highlight critical issues such as the need to run the preparation XTopUp at multiple stages in the examination process in order to identify documents prejudicial to novelty or inventive step of the claims. In addition, a series of questions on implicit features, claim interpretation, the selection of the closest prior art and pseudodependent claims have been incorporated into the quizzes for newcomers to raise awareness at an earlier stage. The advanced training on clarity and sufficiency of disclosure is currently being revised and the workshops will be relaunched in Q f) Non-unity A non-unity minimum reasoning has just been introduced to ensure that the argumentation provided by the examiners to the applicants is well-grounded; examiners have been informed of the non-unity minimum reasoning through an e-learning module. In addition, the newcomer training on non-unity has been adapted using the feature-wall tool to ensure that all elements of the minimum reasoning are covered. The advanced training on non-unity is currently being adapted and will be relaunched later this year. g) Opposition A "chairperson in opposition" profile has been developed to ensure that chairpersons have the relevant technical and social skills to effectively chair the opposition proceedings. In addition, the opposition training is being fully revised with a new course (advanced opposition techniques) being developed to equip examiners to take on the chairperson-in-opposition role. CA/88/17 e 12/57

18 h) Individual quality objectives Directors have based the individual quality objectives in 2017 on specific aspects identified in the various reporting and monitoring tools as well as on certain parameters identified in the procedural data visualisation tool to focus individual examiner behaviour towards DG1's strategic objectives. i) Asian documentation The use of Asian documentation in DG1 continues to grow steadily and is showing no signs of slowing down. Around 10 million Asian documents (with no Englishlanguage family member) are viewed annually in the machine-translated, full-text version. After various awareness campaigns, all DG1 examiners now realise the full importance of Asian documentation. This steady growth in usage has been aided by developments in tools and training for examiners in using them, by official classroom training, e-learning modules and continuous knowledge transfer (CKT) lectures. The next phase is the drill-down to technical field area and this has been started by asking the gérants of every single technical area to identify which search strategies are particularly relevant to retrieve Asian documentation in their domain. The Asian Patent Expert Group (APEG), constituted of examiners expert in Asian documentation, continues to hold lectures with both internal and external experts, to keep the awareness of the importance of Asian documentation high. A cardboard memory cube detailing different aspects of Asian documentation has been piloted with 100 examiners, with a view to giving one to all examiners if the feedback is positive. The APEG focus for the rest of 2017 will be on China looking at specific issues with Chinese documentation and running panel discussions, in The Hague and Munich, with experts on patenting in China. This ties in with a greater number of Chinese applications at the EPO and also higherquality applications (more technical content) emerging from China as prior art. Machine translation is improving all the time, but when it is not quite at the required level examiners still have the options of a human-assisted machine translation (which takes 2-3 days to arrive) or the translation of short texts (via Asian-language-speaking examiners in the APEG group 90% of these requests are completed on the same day). For important cases, such as opposition files, a full human translation can still be requested. APEG has provided examiners with memos and a flowchart on when to use which translation. CA/88/17 e 13/57

19 The way the EPO handles Asian documentation is now widely regarded as one of our main Unique Selling Points (USPs) when we contact external stakeholders. A new brochure to reinforce this has been approved and will be used at external events. E. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) AND IMPACT OF INDUSTRY 4.0 ON DG1 Following on from the 2014 creation of the ICT area from the Computers and Telecoms clusters, DG1 will now restructure into three main technical areas (ICT; Mobility and Mechatronics; Healthcare, Biotechnology and Chemistry). The creation of the ICT area, the largest within DG1, reflects the influence of ICTdriven innovation on industry the so-called fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. As such, DG1 will be in an even better position to deliver stable and consistent practice across all technological areas which are developing and applying ICT, most particularly with regard to applications comprising CIIs (computer-implemented inventions) Efficient management of ICT issues is supported not only by this consolidation of the DG1 structure, but also by a number of initiatives already in place, such as the DG1/DG5 ICT committee and the annual revision of the CII content of the Guidelines, which is now in its third year. Examiner training in CII matters has also recently been reviewed and updated to ensure that all examiners possess the level of CII competence appropriate to their technical field. A number of projects have also been established to monitor the development of Industry 4.0 and CII applications. With leadership for ICT issues now vested in one main ICT principal directorate, the Office is better placed to project its services to industry and to ensure that it provides a fully harmonised and stable CII procedure throughout DG1. A high-level policy for external communication on ICT issues is also being prepared together with Directorate 0.8. This more proactive stance and enhanced co-operation have already led to improved dialogue with a number of ICT applicants, large and small. The resultant exchange of information and discussion of strategic and procedural issues has allowed DG1 to further shape its activities and services to the needs of the ICT industry, thereby increasing its attractiveness as a PCT Authority. Following very positive feedback from the seminar on patenting ICT inventions held in New York last year, the EPO will further promote its services in the US by repeating the seminar in Palo Alto in September 2017, again in conjunction with the IPO Annual Meeting. CA/88/17 e 14/57

20 F. CONTINUOUS KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER The EPO CKT team has been running since 2001, and has steadily gained in importance in the past few years, supporting staff in dealing with an increasing number of changes in tools and procedures. It used to take place in several clusters but there has been a conscious effort to spread the positive learning experiences and it is now systematically used by all clusters. CKT complements official training (whether classroom or e-learning) with knowledge management services supported by an integrated portal of different knowledge-sharing solutions. It aims to turn proficient examiners into efficient ones. It has three main deliverables supported by a common taxonomy: a) Peer-to-peer lectures Peer-to-peer training sessions short, bite-size information sessions followed by Q&A usually organised per cluster per site. All these sessions are run without time allocation (except for the presenters), so they need to offer those attending some return on their time investment. As can be seen from the graph, CKT has passed from "nice to have" to essential in the past three years and is now an integral part of examiner life. CA/88/17 e 15/57

21 b) Tip of the day The tip of the day, published daily on the intranet, comes from staff providing solutions to tricky issues. In 2017 it has so far reached more than different users. This service has been around for more than 10 years, with to views annually, resulting in millions of mini-knowledge transfer moments since its inception. These transfer moments have allowed examiners and other staff to keep up to date with the latest (software) developments and best practices, coming directly from practical experience in day-to-day business. By giving feedback they have also continuously participated in the "plan-do-checkact" cycle that is vital for constant improvement, especially for newly introduced software such as Trimaran, edrex and ANSERA. c) EPeOple In EPeOple, staff contribute with their own profile information including a professionally oriented "AboutMe" page indicating special duties, expertise and language competencies. In return for the data they volunteer, they are provided with customised phone book contacts, documentation filtered per profile, and collaboration functions for teams. More than staff members have signed up in EPeOple, with more than special duties registered. In 2017, an average of different users made page consultations per month. The CKT team has had training and contact with external knowledge transfer experts in order to optimise the way things are done. Increasingly, however, the EPO's CKT team is viewed as a leader in knowledge transfer, as evidenced by several conference presentations and in reaching the last ten in the Knowledge Management Excellence Awards, with the finals taking place in Barcelona in September. It should be noted that the only time investment in CKT is for the running of the central teams, and together this amounts to 48 minutes per examiner. A good tip of the day or presentation can already save this amount. G. PROCEDURES a) Early Certainty from Search (ECfS) On 1 July 2014, the Early Certainty from Search (ECfS) strategy was implemented. The aim of this new scheme is to improve legal certainty on pending patent applications by organising the workflow at examiner level in order to deliver, as early as possible in the patent grant process, the information required by industry to assess the risks and opportunities entailed in pending applications. CA/88/17 e 16/57

22 With regards to the timely delivery of search reports, independently of the route via which the application entered the EPO, the aim can now be considered as accomplished: the median duration until the search report is issued is 4.9 months. Lastly, the reduction of the pre-ecfs backlog i.e. applications with searches already overdue on 1 July 2014 (EP second filings and Euro-PCT applications for which a supplementary European search report must be issued) is progressing according to plan. This backlog amounted to files back in 2014; now, only of these files are left. It is foreseen that all the remaining files will be treated by the end of the year. b) Extension of Early Certainty to examination and opposition Now that ECfS has brought the expected results in terms of search timeliness, the EPO is extending the concept of early certainty to the whole patent grant process. The intergovernmental conference of member states of the European Patent Organisation on the reform of the patent system, which took place in Paris on June 1999 (EPO OJ 8-9/1999, p ), considered that the conditions of international competition require patents to be granted, on average, within three years. This principle, referred to as the "Paris criteria", would bring early legal certainty to the European patent system, thereby meeting the economic interests of all its users. Based on a careful assessment of the estimated workload, workforce and legal requirements set forth in the European Patent Convention, the EPO aims to achieve compliance with the following timeliness objectives by the end of 2020: Prior-art searches with a written opinion on patentability concluded within 6 months after receipt of the file by the search division (already the case under ECfS). Grants concluded on average within 12 months after the start of substantive examination (May 2017: 22.8 months, improving gradually). Standard opposition cases concluded within 15 months after the start of the opposition procedure on expiry of the 9-month opposition period (May 2017: 24.0 months, improving rapidly). In order to achieve this, measures will be taken along the following four lines: CA/88/17 e 17/57

23 (i) Further streamlining of procedures To achieve the timeliness objectives, the Office will continue to pursue a streamlining of practices and procedures with regard to both internal handling/processing and the procedural interaction with applicants. The Office has reviewed the workflow of the opposition procedure in order to reduce the time needed to reach a decision on an opposition to 15 months for normal cases, and aims to achieve this without any major legal changes, i.e. no rule changes are envisaged. Applicants have been informed via the Official Journal, and the new opposition workflow has been applied since 1 July The new workflow simplifies the procedure and thereby reduces the possibilities of errors for all parties involved. Under the umbrella of the "simplification of procedures" initiative, scrutiny of a number of specific further streamlining measures is well under way. (ii) More effective communication with applicants The EPO also promotes existing possibilities for more direct ways of interaction between examiners/formalities officers and applicants. Telephone conversations will be promoted, while ensuring that the content is reflected in the public part of the file in the form of minutes. Minutes of a telephone conversation can be issued as a first examination action under Article 94(3) EPC where appropriate. Examiners have been encouraged to make positive statements in communications that identify patentable subject-matter and to make suggestions for grant. These measures aim to further increase the dialogue between examiners and applicants and thereby guide applications to grant in an efficient manner. (iii) Adapting time limits to the new process The shift towards more direct and interactive as well as electronic communication (i.e. electronic notification and electronic filing) will allow a review of administrative time buffers. The EPO will first increase its speed in issuing communications through meeting shortened internal time limits. Once this faster speed has been achieved, it will trigger a discussion on aligning certain time limits such as those under Rule 132(2) EPC with the shortened internal time limits. In particular the extension up to six months and its conditions will be scrutinised. Lastly, the Office is considering rationalising time limits related to entry into the European phase, thereby strengthening the PCT procedure. Possible measures aim at maintaining the starting point of the examination at the EPO but adjusting the preceding time limits. CA/88/17 e 18/57

24 (iv) More information and options for applicants Applicants are being provided with more information and options for deciding about the further prosecution of their application before and during the examination phase. c) Informing the applicant of the imminent start of examination Following feedback from the user community, applicants are informed of the imminent start of examination in cases where the application entered the examination phase more than one year ago and no positive written opinion on patentability has previously been issued. This addresses the criticism of being "caught by surprise" by examination actions on files that have been pending for some time. This additional service has been positively received by the applicants. In line with subsection (iv) above, applicants are also provided with an additional option for deciding about the further prosecution of their application. This new procedure entered into force in July 2016, and data gathered in the meantime shows that applicants actively use this extra option: two per cent of all applications for which such an information letter is issued are withdrawn during the two months following its receipt. Without such an information letter, only one per cent of all applications at a comparable stage (entered the examination phase, but no first examiner action issued yet) are withdrawn on average during any two-month period. d) PCT Direct PCT Direct provides applicants with a cost-effective way to improve their application very early in the procedure. Under PCT Direct, an applicant filing an international application claiming priority from an earlier application already searched by the EPO will be able to react to any objections raised in the search opinion drawn up for the priority application. This new service will simplify the assessment of the international application and add to the value of the international search report and written opinion drawn up by the EPO. This service was introduced in 2014 and expanded to all ROs in It can lead to shorter examination duration, for example through a grant as the first examination action. Applications which apply PCT Direct have a three-times higher chance of a positive outcome to the PCT procedure, and therefore offer an ideal start for applicants intending to take advantage of the PPH. The number of incoming PCT Direct searches has increased continually since its introduction. Up to now, this service has been well received, with continuous figures of over 200 per month. CA/88/17 e 19/57

25 The PCT Direct procedure has been further improved to provide greater transparency and clarity of the search opinion by enabling examiners to refer to the PCT Direct letter in the search opinion of the second filing. e) Guidelines for Examination The 2017 Guidelines will enter into force on 1 November A preview version has been published on the EPO website. Chapters relating to computerimplemented inventions (CIIs) have been thoroughly updated. The Guidelines also reflect the recent amendments to Rules 27(b) and 28 EPC excluding from patentability plants and animals exclusively obtained by an essentially biological breeding process further streamlined procedures for telephone contact with applicants, clearer instructions for dealing with auxiliary requests and improvements to the PCT Direct service. CA/88/17 e 20/57

26 f) Amended Rules 32 and 33 EPC as of 1 October 2017 (expert solution) At its June meeting the Council adopted amendments to Rules 32 and 33 EPC pertaining to deposits of biological material. By decision CA/D 3/17 the list of recognised experts was abolished and a more flexible system was introduced which will facilitate the use of the expert solution and improve access to deposited biological material. Under the amended provisions, any natural person may be nominated as an expert provided that he complies with the requirements and obligations laid down by the EPO President. The requirements and obligations to be fulfilled by an expert are laid down in a decision of the EPO President which was published in the July issue of the EPO's Official Journal along with an explanatory EPO notice. The new practice takes effect on 1 October H. CLASSIFICATION a) Training activities for the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) A CPC annual event for the CPC offices which classify or intend to classify in CPC took place on 20 February 2017 at the premises of WIPO in Geneva. A CPC annual event for European industry took place at the EPO in Vienna on 5 April A CPC annual event for US industry took place on 24 May in Atlanta. These events provide valuable feedback to the EPO and USPTO on the CPC system, how it is being used, how to improve it further, and the status of implementation of the CPC at national offices. The CPC pilot with IP Australia (IPAU), which included the classification by IPAU of PCT files in CPC and the quality assessment of IPAU's classifications when compared with the EPO's allocations, has been finalised. Feedback has been provided to IPAU. An evaluation report on the pilot was made available in spring 2017, which shows some good potential for IPAU to classify in CPC. IPAU will decide whether it wishes to adopt the CPC as its internal classification scheme. A CPC field-specific training session took place at the EPO in Munich for three weeks in April/May 2017: A group of SIPO and KIPO examiners and classifiers were trained in the CPC in 15 technical fields of high relevance. Another field-specific training session for 30 examiners and classifiers from SIPO and KIPO is taking place in The Hague from 11 to 29 September Another 18 technical fields will be covered. CA/88/17 e 21/57

27 These field-specific training sessions are one of our most powerful tools to get other offices such as KIPO and SIPO to classify according to EPO standards and practices. With the high volumes of patent applications handled by these patent offices, these training sessions are of high strategic importance. In May/June 2017 a three-day CPC collective general and advanced training course was given at the EPO in The Hague to 26 examiners/classifiers from 16 different national patent offices. Our training efforts aim to combine field-specific training for several offices to optimise our resources. These efforts are needed as our target is that offices classify in the CPC according to EPO standards. All these activities furthermore set the EPO as the world benchmark in classification. b) Quality measures in the CPC Quality measures are in place to make sure that offices use the CPC in the same way. Field-specific feedback is provided to the offices following training sessions. Furthermore, the classifications provided by offices are automatically compared with those given by EPO examiners. The resulting analysis is shared with each office separately. c) Data exchange Currently, only the EPO processes CPC data from national offices. CPC data is now uploaded to the EPO's database (DocDB) in production mode for 14 offices, including the EPO and USPTO. d) Interaction with CPC users In addition to participating in dedicated events (e.g. IMPACT meeting in April 2017 or CPC user meeting during PIUG in Atlanta in May 2017), the EPO also receives questions and feedback direct, e.g. via . It uses this feedback to further improve the CPC system. e) CPC and the IP5 offices The EPO continues to play a major role in IP5 co-operation in classification, to further align the CPC with JPO's FI/F-terms and the IPC. Harmonisation of classification practices and adaptation to emerging technologies, e.g. Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT), are further elements of this co-operation. CA/88/17 e 22/57

28 f) Offices' participation in the CPC The following offices have decided to classify their collections in CPC and share their data with the EPO. 16 EPO member-state national offices (AT, CH, CZ, DK, EE, ES, FI, GB, GR, HU, NL, NO, PL, PT, SE, TR), half of which are already classifying in the CPC and delivering CPC data to the EPO (AT, ES, FI, GB, GR, NO, PT, SE) 7 non-member-state organisations (BR, CN, EAPO, IL, KR, MX and RU), five of which are already classifying in the CPC and delivering CPC data to the EPO (BR, CN, KR, MX and RU) SIPO started delivering CPC data in July 2015 and has so far already provided classification data for about publications. 1 * SIPO is now delivering classifications for about documents per month. KIPO started delivering CPC data in August 2015 and has so far already provided classifications for about publications.* KIPO will have classified about 1.5 million backfile documents from the last ten years in the CPC by the end of In January 2016, KIPO started classifying all its frontfile applications in CPC INPI Brazil has already been publishing CPC symbols on its patent documents since the beginning of December It is also delivering CPC data to the EPO on a continuous basis (over publications to date*) Rospatent has started classifying its documents into CPC as of January It has started delivering CPC data to the EPO since May 2016 and has provided so far classifications for over publications* At the end of 2016, IMPI Mexico started classifying its documents into CPC and delivering the corresponding data to the EPO. It has currently provided CPC classifications for over publications* Once the CPC data is stored in the EPO's databases, it can be used for searching by EPO examiners, all EPOQUE Net users and the public at large via Espacenet and other EPO patent information products. source: EPODOC, as of 24 July 2017 CA/88/17 e 23/57

29 As far as the CPC and the USPTO are concerned, the quality of the classification work provided by the USPTO still remains below DG1 needs and expectations. Action is needed to improve the situation. A quality assessment pilot is being carried out in 20 selected technical fields to analyse differences in the assessment of the classified documents by the EPO experts and the USPTO experts. Based on this analysis, videoconferences will be organised to understand the differences in the classification practises at both offices and to harmonise them. USPTO experts have also been invited to attend the field-specific training sessions that will take place in September 2017 in The Hague. The EPO has taken up a key leadership and support role focused on ensuring that its classification partners, and especially the USPTO, commit to our quality and timeliness classification standards. g) Other benefits related to classification In 2015 and 2016 DG1 took a number of measures to reduce the volume of documents circulated to examiners, without impacting the quality of the documentation needed for search. The result of these measures was a net saving of 23.5 FTEs of examiners' time in 2016 compared to This freed-up examiner capacity has been used by DG1 for its 2016 production. Furthermore, by mid-2017 a saving of 8% compared to the same period in 2016 had been achieved. The EPO has also embarked on a project with WIPO to hand the management of reclassification work following IPC revisions back to WIPO. It is expected that in the future the volume of documents that the EPO commits to reclassifying after an IPC revision will be reduced. This should bring additional benefits to the EPO. A change in the way DG1 is organised in terms of classification as well as in the way documents are distributed will be introduced in the fourth quarter of This will further reduce the circulation of documents in DG1, and will have a positive impact on DG1's investment in classification at operational level. CA/88/17 e 24/57

30 IV. IT AND AUTOMATION PROJECTS A. ITR DELIVERIES FOR EXAMINERS The roll-out of deliveries from the IT Roadmap has continued in 2017, again with three categories of activity: a) Delivering future IT systems Progress with edossier for Search has been steady, with the focus on consolidation, ensuring that solid foundations are in place to support all of the intended functionality. A third release was deployed during the third quarter with this in mind, and the detailed planning for a fourth release is under review in the coming weeks. The plan is to deploy the tool across DG1 only when full functionality is in place and tested. Work on edossier for Examination, extending the electronic workflow to the examination process, is also progressing steadily. Up until now, the focus has been on finalising a complete set of functional requirements which are now being broken down into technical solutions for the development work to begin. The project is still on schedule for build activities from September 2017 onwards, followed by testing of the releases of which the major parts are to be expected in The project has a strong dependency on edossier for Search for which technical integration has to be completed simultaneously. Good progress has also been made on the project to deliver the capabilities needed for the Office to accept XML filings. Since its start at the end of last year, the tool has been developed to extract ST36 XML data from filings submitted in "docx" format, and to validate the compliance of filings. A first pilot started during the summer and gave users the chance to try out the validation function and see for themselves the completeness and accuracy of the XML. As well as these technical changes, legal aspects are also in preparation including the update to PCT Annex F. The plan is to start a second pilot in November which will allow some 300 applicants to use the system for real files, demonstrating the simplicity, accuracy and reliability of working with XML files. This development is an important step towards digital end-to-end processing of files without the need for the EPO to carry the burden of expensive file conversions. Other important projects in the PGP programme (HFS, NACM) are progressing according to plan. CA/88/17 e 25/57