The European Patent Officeat a glance

Christos Dimopoulos

Head of the Vice-President's Office

International/Legal Affairs (DG5)

Who we are

Locations

The EPO has offices at

five different locations.

Its headquarters are in Munich.

Number of staff in 2010

Munich 3 718

The Hague 2 710

Berlin 274

Vienna 112

Brussels 4

Total 6 818

Around 60% are patent examiners

Staff from 31 different countries (2010)

Country Number of staffAT Austria 237

BE Belgium 359

BG Bulgaria 35

CH Switzerland 74

CY Cyprus 8

CZ Czech Republic 20

ES Spain 447

DE Germany 1 851

DK Denmark 75

EE Estonia 7

FI Finland 49

FR France 1 225

GB United Kingdom 507

GR Greece 165

HU Hungary 29

IE Ireland 82

HR Croatia 2

Country Number of staff

IT Italy 507

LT Lithuania 4

LU Luxembourg 69

LV Latvia 5

MT Malta 2

NL Netherlands 609

SE Sweden 125

PL Poland 62

PT Portugal 87

RO Romania 115

SI Slovenia 14

SK Slovakia 15

TR Turkey 29

Others 2

Total 6 818

IS Iceland 1

Our Strategy

Our strategy - main features (1):

• Since its inception almost 35 years ago, the EPO is financially independent (income from fees cover all outgoings and investments)

• 38 Members States to the EPC (include all 27 members of the European Union, plus Albania, Croatia, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey). European patents are recognised in two further countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro.

• Beyond the borders of Europe, the EPO is active in facilitating the protection of European patents in neighbouring countries. In 2010, the EPO signed a Validation Agreement with Morocco; similar is under discussion with Tunisia.

• The EPO is a global player. Based on its broad technical expertise, it is heavily involved in the efforts to introduce a unitary patent for Europe and to harmonise the patent system worldwide.

Our Strategy - main Features (2):

• The EPO plays a leading role in developing and implementing electronic tools for patent searching and examination. Patent offices have for many years been satisfied users of the tools and databases set up and developed further by the EPO.

• The EPO complements the work of the national patent offices (NPOs) in Europe. The European patent system is a two-tier environment where the EPO plays the central role in the entire patent grant procedure.

• The national patent offices develop a dynamic IP and innovation policy at local level. An ambitious co-operation policy associating the EPO with the NPOs, in particular via the European Patent Network (EPN), is to be implemented to optimise co-operation between them.

• In order to maximise the potential and efficiency of its activities and to avoid duplication of work, the Office therefore concludes agreements with IP organisations such as the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The way forward

The way forward

In January 2011, two external studies on finance and IT commissioned by the President of the Office were discussed, both within the EPO and with its external stakeholders:

The IT study:

• confirmed the reputation of EPO's current IT systems, but

• stressed the need for the EPO to play a leading role in making the European patent system more efficient and collaborative.

The Financial study:

• confirmed that the EPO is capable of financing its medium-term projects, but

• pointed out the risks inherent in its social liabilities, e.g. its pension system.

The way forward

In March 2011, the Administrative Council (AC) unanimously endorsed the proposals put forward by the President of the Office, based on the following scenario for boosting efficiency:

enhancing the quality of EPO products and services

controlling costs

maintaining overall fee levels

implementing effective IT tools, simplifying our processes

introducing new forms of work (e. g. part-time home working) and improving working conditions (new TH building project)

developing EPO’s leadership role in international co-operation

setting up the EPN: intensified co-operation between the EPO and the national offices of our member states.

Making Europe the best place for innovation

Making Europe the best place for innovation

(a European Patent can be valid in up to 40 countries

with some 600 million inhabitants)

European Patent Network

Enhanced collaboration with OHIM

Unitary Patent protection

Improving access to patent documents

Improving access to patent documents

Patent searching will improve as access to EPO databases improves. The EPO has the world’s most complete set of patent data and the most extensive

collection of patent-related literature (Espacenet, for example, is available to millions of users free of

charge). Three recent examples of continuing efforts :

Climate change and identifying clean-energy technologies (CETs)

Machine translation and EPO agreement with Google

Access to ITU documentation

Simplifying the global patent system

Simplifying the global patent system

EPO is member of the IP 5, a forum composed of the five largest patent offices in the

world (EPO plus the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and US patent offices), representing 90 % of the global patent activity.

Main IP5 goals are: eliminate unnecessary duplication

of work among the offices,

enhance patent examination efficiency and

quality, guarantee the stability of patent rights.

The EPO also enjoys direct relations with WIPO. Together they strive into making

the global patent system more user-friendly and harmonising the patenting process as much as possible.

More information?

www.epo.org

Thank you for your attention