Recent developments at the EPO: Focus on quality and efficiency Roberta Romano-Götsch EPO Principal Director Tokyo, November 2016
The European Patent Organisation Patent protection in up to 42 countries 38 European member states 2 European extension states Bosnia-Herzegovina Montenegro Validation states Moldova 2015 Morocco 2015 Tunisia 2016 (to be confirmed) 2
Key facts: the EPO at a glance Second largest intergovernmental institution in Europe Global player and voice of Europe in patents 7000 employees, of which around 4300 highly qualified examiners Will be in charge of granting and administering the unitary patent High-quality European patents (ISO 9001 certification) are drivers of innovation and secure the competitiveness of the European economy 3
Growth of European patent applications 142 822 148 562 148 027 152 703 160 022 +4.8% 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 4
13% of the patent applications originate from Japan Non- European countries 53% Others 5% P.R. China 4% S. Korea 4% Japan 13% EPO member states 47% United States 27% 5
Flow of patent applications between EPO and IP5 countries (2014) 6
Countries driving growth Growth champions P.R. China + 22.2% United States + 16.4% Countries with significant growth rate Italy + 9.0% Belgium + 5.9% United Kingdom + 5.7% S. Korea + 4.0% Spain + 3.8% Netherlands + 3.3% Switzerland + 2.6% Growth from lower volume countries Czech Republic + 27.5% Portugal + 21.2% Poland + 17.8% Turkey + 10.9% Israel + 5.0% 7
Leading fields of technology global TOP10 2015 Change 1 Medical technology 12 474 11.0% 2 Digital communication 10 762 3.2% 3 Computer technology 10 549 7.8% 4 Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy 10 198-1.8% 5 Transport 7 802-1.6% 6 Measurement 7 727 8.0% 7 Organic fine chemistry 6 414 2.1% 8 Engines, pumps, turbines 6 374 17.9% 9 Biotechnology 6 048 5.1% 10 Pharmaceuticals 5 884 9.6% 8
Top Japanese applicants at the EPO in 2015 1 Toyota Motor Corporation 1 034 2 Sony Corporation 875 3 Panasonic Corporation 856 4 Canon Inc. 725 5 Hitachi Ltd 652 6 NEC Corporation 614 7 Toshiba Corporation 597 8 Mitsubishi Electric Corporation 544 9 Fujitsu Limited 456 10 Olympus Corporation 420 11 Ricoh Company Ltd 389 12 Nissan Motor Company, Limited 355 13 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd 343 14 Kyocera Corporation 293 15 Fujifilm Corporation 292 16 Seiko Epson Corporation 278 17 Honda Motor Company Ltd 230 18 Bridgestone Corporation 217 19 NTT DoCoMo, Inc. 215 9
European patents granted 2006-2016 90 000+ projected for 2016 68 400 +6% Steep increase in grants projected in 2016: 2/3 capacity increase, 1/3 efficiency increase 10
How has the EPO managed to increase output? Staff ceiling remains at 7 075 budget posts Conversion of support staff posts to examiner posts (over 500) Examiners have been brought back to examination from other tasks New career system with performance incentives Improved health management with significant reduction in sick leave (<35% since 2010) 11
Quality a core value of the EPO ISO 9001 certification for entire patent granting process ISO 9001 certification in 2014 Patent granting process + ISO 9001 certification in 2015 Patent information + Post grant activities First of the largest patent offices to be fully ISO certified 2016 IAM survey ranked EPO as the best of the five largest patent offices for quality. Fifth consecutive IAM survey in which EPO has ranked number one for Quality of Products and Services 12
Quality in search and examination (I) High specialisation and intensive training of EPO examiners (4300 examiners working in divisions of three people) EPO does not outsource any of its core tasks Stability in our procedures and predictability of results Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) 13
Quality in search and examination (Cont.) State-of-the-art tools allowing efficient access by examiners (e.g. new Epoque) Very comprehensive prior art coverage: over 90 million patent documents available to examiners Non-patent literature: 26% of search reports cite non-patent literature documents A standards documentation standing at 2.6 million documents Almost complete availability of Asian documentation 14
Rapid increase in Asian filings 1600000 Asian-language publications by year 1400000 1200000 1000000 800000 600000 400000 CN JP KR 200000 0 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Asian publications (CN, KR, JP) over time between 2000 and 2014 15
Treating Asian documentation Almost complete availability of Asian documentation: EPO databases cover nearly 100% of major Asian countries (bibliographic and image data 40 million documents) 20 million full-text documents* machine-translated into English (*since September 2015) In 2015: 43% of search reports included Asia documents 25% of all citations from Asia (160 000 from Japan, 25 000 from Korea, 15 000 from China) 16
Treating Asian documentation Special group of examiners for extensive Asian training New tools to help with using F/FI-Terms Concept searching Global Dossier Ever improving quality of (human-assisted) machine translation Resulting in much more consultation of Asian documents 17
Increase in patent citations with Asian origin 25000 Origin of Asian Documentation in EPO search reports 20000 15000 10000 Chinese Korean 5000 0 2015 compared to previous years : - almost 45% increase in patent citations with a Chinese priority - almost 35% increase in patent citations with a Korean priority 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015* * extrapolated 18
Reduction of backlogs Early Certainty from Search (ECfS) All incoming searches are issued with written opinion within six months Backlog of searches under ECfS was cleared in mid-2016 The total backlog in late files in other priority areas is planned to further decrease in 2016 Global stock reduced to less than 16 months *from around 36 months in 2014 19
Early certainty expanded Following success of ECfS, EPO has extended Early Certainty to examination and opposition in July 2016. Examination - streamlining patent practice, workflows and procedures. Supported by extended refund fees following withdrawal. Opposition - streamlined opposition procedure set to deliver decisions faster, while giving parties more time to react to summons and prepare for oral proceedings. Complete control over pendency times by 2020: 6 months for a search and its opinion 12 months on average for examination 15 months for a standard opposition. 20
EPO as International Authority EPO ranks 1 st in the world as International Search Authority and International Preliminary Examination Authority (81 100 international search reports 38% and over 9 100 international preliminary examination reports 58.1% in 2015) 21
The EPO Patent Prosecution Highway Fast track examination of applications EPO work products can be used at other PPH Offices (IP5 (JP) + Australia (AU), Canada (CA), Columbia (CO), Mexico (MX), Singapore (SG) Israel (IL)) EP Search and/or examination reports (including PCT) produced by EPO accelerate applications at: JP US KR CN CA MX IL SG AU CO Rospatent, The Philippines, Malaysia and others are in the pipeline 22
Unitary patent the main features: Quality Cost effective Broad territorial protection Reduction of complexity Flexibility Legal certainty 23
Unitary patent final preparations EPO preparations Completed Breakthrough on the legal implementation in December 2015 adoption of complete secondary legal framework, including: implementing rules, budgetary and financial rules, the level and distribution of the renewal fees. Finalisation of the technical implementation about to be concluded. Member States preparations Ongoing Ongoing ratifications of the UPC Agreement by participating Member States. 11 out of the 13 necessary states have ratified so far and a number of others have planned to ratify in 2016. Brexit: Ways will be sought for the unitary patent package to go ahead and to enter into operation as soon as possible. 24
Structural reform of the Boards of Appeal (I) Reorganisation of the Boards of Appeal as separate unit President of the Boards of Appeal Delegation of powers Creation of a Boards of Appeal Committee 25
Structural reform of the Boards of Appeal (II) Focus on efficiency and independence Career: specific rules for the Boards of Appeal Rules on conflict of interest Relocation New fee policy better cost coverage Procedure for amendment of the rules of procedure 26
The EPO in 2016: progress and outlook Building further on the solid results of 2015: +9% production (Jun 2016 vs. June 2015) Further improved results through increased examining capacity and efficiency Number of granted patents up over 30% (2016 projection) with maintained high quality Unitary patent: EPO legally and technically ready to deliver 27
The EPO in 2016: Progress and Outlook Early Certainty: backlog in search cleared all search reports completed within six months Early Certainty from Examination & Opposition launched on 1 July 2016 new streamlined opposition procedure will enable opposition decisions within 15 months for most cases by 2020 aim for examination duration of about one year 28
Thank you for your attention! 29