EP

Chamber Of Horrors
(EPO Applicant / Representative in the Fetters of New Regulations?)

During the first centuries of its operation, the European Patent Office (EPO) had actively established and seeked to maintain an overall policy of being a 'user-friendly' Patent Office serving its 'customers' in a flexible and smooth way. Of course, the EPO was an 'authority' right from the start and it never had 'customers'. Nevertheless, this policy was part of a start-up strategy to boost the EPO's acceptance as in the 70s of the past century it was quite unclear as to whether or not the newly set up Office would be able to stand against the bunch of traditional national Patent and Trade Mark Offices in the EPC Member States running well-established businesses, respectively. For example, the introduction of the 'Further Processing' provision (Article 121 EPC 1973) in addition to the well-known 'restitutio in integrum' (Article 122 EPC 1973) at the outset could be seen as an attempt to make the EPC more user-friendly for the applicants and their representatives than comparable provisions in many of the national jurisdictions of the EPC Member States: If you have missed some of the more important deadlines, don't worry, just complete the omitted act and pay the prescribed Official fee, no questions asked. In contrast, requesting 'restitutio in integrum' - in those days the only available remedy in many national jurisdictions - always means some painstaking efforts to explain and justify missing the respective deadline. Such measures might have attracted applicants and lured them towards the EPO, taking them away from national routes of patent prosecution.

Those good old days are now gone forever. Like other patent authorities, also the European Patent Office is drowning in streams of patent applications constantly arriving in their thousands, thereby, over the time, accumulating to a huge backlog. And, certain circles of the general public have turned hostile towards the patent system in its entirety, demanding that fewer patents shall be granted. Hence, there appears to be some parallelism between the interests of the management of the EPO to cope with the huge backlog problem, on the one hand, and a general turn of the zeitgeist in favour of making it harder to obtain a patent, on the other hand. Hence, it does not come as a surprise that the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation, the primary institution created by the EPC which is running the European Patent Office, is more and more willing to shift burdens away from the Office to the applicants and their representatives.

Raising the Bar - First basket.

Under the label 'Raising the Bar' a bunch of measures have been taken by the EPO, backed by respective decisions of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation:

Qualified Candidates for EPO Presidency (In alphabetical order)

From the EPO website:

"The time limit for receipt of applications for the post of President of the European Patent Office expired on 15 September 2009. The procedure will now continue with the applications from the four qualified candidates for the position, which falls vacant on 1 July 2010.

In alphabetical order, the four qualified candidates are:

• Ms Susanne AS SIVBORG (Sweden), Director General of the Swedish Patent and Registration Office
• Mr Benoît BATTISTELLI (France), Director General of the Institut National de la Propriété Industrielle
• Mr Roland GROSSENBACHER (Switzerland), Director of the Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum
• Mr Jesper KONGSTAD (Denmark), Director General of the Danish Patent and Trademark Office

The appointment procedure is governed by the European Patent Convention (EPC). The President is appointed by representatives of the member states of the European Patent Organisation meeting in the Administrative Council (under Article 11(1) EPC) by a majority of three-quarters of the votes cast (Article 35(2) EPC). The term of office is five years, and it may be renewed.

At its meeting in October 2009 the Administrative Council will hear the qualified candidates individually before deliberating and voting on the appointment.

The term of office of the current EPO President, Alison Brimelow (United Kingdom), ends on 30 June 2010."

So far no surprise then. EPO does not tell us if there have been non-qualified candidates, e.g. those lacking support of their respective Government.

See also my earlier postings here, here, and there.

Photo: EPO Website.