Administrative Council Fails To Determine New EPO President

A session of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg) is going on from December 08-11, 2009.

Reports are coming in that yesterday another round of voting to determine the next EPO President has failed. According to Article 11 (1) EPC, the President of the European Patent Office shall be appointed by the Administrative Council. According to Article 35 (2) EPC, a majority of three-quarters of the votes of the Contracting States represented and voting is required therefor. There appears to be no exception which might lead to the election of a new President, bypassing the 75% quorum rule.

And it looks as if none of the candiates of the present tableau has managed to reach this quorum.

Meanwhile it has come to be known that Mr Jesper Kongstad has withdrawn as candidate for EPO president.

According to my knowledge, Mr Roland Grossenbacher (Switzerland), Director of the Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum, and Mr Benoît Battistelli (France), Director General of the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle, have been the frontrunners in the voting process but both failed to pass the quorum.

Now the Administrative council might re-open the application process for new candidates or retry to get a sufficient majority on the next session in 2010.

[UPDATE 2009-12-11] Ms Brimelow's term of Office extended by up to 6 months.

[UPDATE 2009-12-11] Serious dispute concerning transparency in today's session of EPOrg AC - IAM Blog

(Photo: (C) 2008 by ME°°'s photostream via Flickr under a CC-BY licence)