Recent developments at the EPO: Focus on quality and efficiency Raimund Lutz 24 February 2016Vice President, EPO

European Patent Office 2 Total European patent applications* + 4.8% * Direct European applications filed under the EPC and PCT applications entering the European regional phase

European Patent Office 3 Origin of European patent applications* EPO member states 47% * Shares in Direct European applications filed under the EPC and PCT applications entering the European regional phase DE: Germany I FR France I CH : Switzerland I NL: Netherlands I GB: United Kingdom US: United States I JP: Japan I CN: P.R. China I KR: R: Korea I EPO: European Patent Organisation

European Patent Office Evolution of US applications at the EPO 4

European Patent Office Evolution of US European patents granted 5

European Patent Office Major US applicants* at the EPO in * Group consolidation

European Patent Office Meeting the challenges The EPO’s strategic priorities:  Maintaining a strong focus on quality  Improving efficiency  Harmonising the global patent system  Providing transparency for stakeholders and improving access to patent information 7

European Patent Office Commitment to quality 8  Highly skilled examiners  Examining divisions with three examiners  Access to documentation and databases  Quality controls and an ongoing commitment to improvement  ISO 9001 certified Quality Management System High-quality patents provide the legal certainty that is important for innovative businesses seeking protection for their inventions in a highly competitive and globalised market

European Patent Office Quality and efficiency strategy  To face the growing workload, the EPO is modernising, maximising quality, controlling costs, improving timeliness.  The EPO is implementing a wide range of reforms in five key areas (IT, HR, Buildings, Quality, Co-operation)  Result: a constant increase in productivity, decreasing unit costs. 9 Unit Cost June ,9 (12 month rolling) June (12 month rolling)

European Patent Office Quality in search and examination  High specialisation and intensive training of EPO examiners (4300 examiners working in divisions of 3)  State-of-the-art tools allowing efficient access by examiners (e.g. new Epoque)  Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC): Implemented on 1 January 2013 at EPO and USPTO. KIPO, SIPO, INPI Brazil, ROSPATENT and 13 EPO Member States also classifying into the CPC  Very comprehensive prior art coverage: over 90 million patent documents available to examiners  A standards documentation standing at 2.6 million documents  Regular “Partnership for Quality” meetings with users in Europe, US, Japan, China and Korea  EPO is the first IP5 office to be ISO 9001 certified (December 2014) and now includes patent information (attained November 2015). 10

European Patent Office Enhancing quality by improving certainty and timeliness Global prior art search for higher certainty −Enhance coverage of our patent databases including Asian data: ca. 40 million patent documents from China, Japan and Korea 22% of cited prior art in EPO search reports come from Asia “Early Certainty from Search” to improve timeliness −Search reports and opinions on patentability within six months of filing PACE – accelerated examination For accelerated processing, our recommendation is: combine PACE with a request to waive statutory delays 11

European Patent Office Our focus on quality: The results  2015 IAM benchmarking survey among 650 corporate IP managers, non-practising entity (NPE) executives, and private practice lawyers and attorneys worldwide: -Corporate: 60% rated EPO grants as either "excellent" or "very good", which goes up to 81% with the "good" category included. -Private practice: 62% rated EPO quality as either excellent or very good, rising to 87% with the good category included. -NPE executives: 56% with excellent or very good, and 74% with good included. 14% of corporate and private practice respondents, and 19% of NPEs felt that the quality of the EPO's services had improved over the last year. 12

European Patent Office Developing new tools for the benefit of the users Automated translation using Patent Translate -Free on-the-fly translations of patents for 32 languages - 28 languages of EPO member states + Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian requests per day. Common Citation Document -Access to the consolidated view of search reports from ca. 30 patent authorities including the IP5 – 230 million citations constantly updated – recently 40 million backfile US citations added. Global Dossier -Access to patent files (the “file wrapper”) in a federated manner for all applications in the five major offices pertaining to an invention. The Federated European Patent Register -Post-grant legal status information on EP patents via a single point of access collected direct from the online national patent registers of the EPO member states. 13

European Patent Office Developing new tools for the benefit of the users  Automated translation using Patent Translate  Common Citation Document  Global Dossier  The Federated European Patent Register  As the patent system becomes more global, so does the need to access global patent information  A global effort dependent on co-operation with all major offices 14

European Patent Office Patent Translate Breaking down the language barriers to patent searching 32 languages covered, translation requests per day 15 EN DE FR EN 25 languages of EPO member states EN RU JP KR CN Available in Espacenet, European Patent Register and other EPO services

European Patent Office Common Citation Document  Launched in 2011 by Trilateral Offices (EPO,JPO,USPTO)  Full IP5 participation  Access to the consolidated view of search reports from ca. 30 patent authorities including the IP5  230 million citations constantly updated  Recently 40 million backfile US citations added  Benefits for users: -Provides access to citation results from multiple offices -All results in common format in a single location -Cited documents available directly for consultation 16

European Patent Office Global Dossier Access to patent files (the “file wrapper”) in a federated manner for all applications in the five major offices pertaining to an invention  Allows users to access all available information about all applications and patents in the participating offices  Available via European Patent Register and Espacenet  Machine-translation in English of the documents in Chinese, Korean or Japanese  Considerable savings possible on file inspection costs 17

European Patent Office The Federated European Patent Register  The Federated Register offers free access to: −basic post-grant legal status information on EP patents via a single point of access collected direct from the online national patent registers of the EPO member states. −The Federated European Patent Register is available from within the European Patent Register, it collects data from the designated contracting states and assembles it in a single display. 18

European Patent Office 19 Federated access to EPO member state registers through deep linking Federated retrieval of data from national registers and display in a unified list The Federated European Patent Register

European Patent Office EPO and PCT – facts and figures 2015  PCT is the work-sharing vehicle of choice for the EPO  EPO ranks 1 st in the world as ISA and IPEA ( international search reports and over international preliminary examination reports in 2015)  Improving services to users: −PCT Direct: extended to all ROs in July 2015 −EPO joined WIPO ePCT on 1 Nov −Freezing of international search fee since April

European Patent Office PCT-PPH (Patent Prosecution Highway)  Fast Track Examination of Applications  EPO work products can be used at other PPH Offices (IP5 + CA, MX, SG, IL) 21 PCT search and/or examination reports produced by EPO accelerate applications at: JP US KR CN CA MX SG IL EP AU CO AU: from 06/2016 CO: from 2 nd half of 2016 Rospatent and Brazil in the pipeline

 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 The European Patent System

European Patent Office Unitary patent package  Unitary patent will come into force once 13 member states (including Germany, France and UK) have ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement (so far, 9 ratifications)  Unitary patent relevant for: 26 member states (all EU member states with the exception of Croatia and Spain)  Unified Patent Court: specialised patent court with jurisdiction covering the infringement and revocation of classic EP patents and unitary patents of 26 member states 23 Unitary patent Unified Patent Court

European Patent Office The unitary patent & the EPO member states Unitary patent states Austria Belgium Bulgaria Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hungary Ireland Italy Latvia Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Netherlands Poland Portugal Romania Slovakia Slovenia Sweden United Kingdom Other EPO member states Spain Iceland Switzerland Norway Turkey Monaco San Marino Liechtenstein Croatia Serbia Albania Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 24

European Patent Office Concrete benefits of the unitary patent  Protection in one single step for the 26 member states  Simplified registration procedure instead of 26 different validations  Centralised and cost-effective renewal fee payment (“True Top 4” proposal)  No post-grant translation required (after initial transitional period)  Centralised register for unitary patent protection maintained by the EPO  Uniform litigation system ensuring greater legal certainty 25

European Patent Office Conclusion  The EPO is committed to continually enhancing the quality and efficiency of its products and services  The EPO will continue making full information on patent data widely usable and networking as much data as possible (like Global Dossier)  The EPO is dedicated to meet its stakeholders’ needs and to contribute to a more attractive European and global patent system 26

European Patent Office EPO Day on 14 September  The EPO will host a one-day seminar on 14 September 2016 in New Work in the area of information and communication technologies.  This event, including interactive workshops, will focus on the major aspects of filing and prosecuting ICT-area patent applications at the EPO.  Further details can be found on the flyers here or on our website.  We hope to see you many of you there. 27

European Patent Office 28 Thank you for your attention!