On Wednesday, 16 May I was in Moscow to sign an agreement with the Russian patent office – Rospatent – about Patent Translate, our MT service. Over the coming months, [...]
Last week, the EPO’s Economic and Scientific Advisory Board (ESAB), which was set up in January, held its two first workshops in Munich. They brought together some 40 participants from [...]
Last week in London I met Andy Green, CEO of Logica, to launch a major strategic project – a significant modernisation of our patent-related processes that will set new service [...]
Following on from the first agreement on our machine translation programme, reached in November 2011 with the Chinese Patent Office (SIPO), this week in Tokyo I was very pleased to [...]
On Tuesday, we published our preliminary figures for patent filings received in 2011. They reached a new peak of 243 000, up 3% on the 2010 figure (235 000), which [...]
As the year draws to a close, I would like to take this opportunity to review our main achievements. The EPO did well in 2011, despite Europe’s economic difficulties. We [...]
The latest yearly bilateral meeting between the Chinese Patent Office (SIPO) and the EPO, held in Chongqing (South West China) last week, was further testimony to the long and fruitful [...]
Last week, I was delighted to welcome to the EPO an EU delegation led by Michel Barnier, the EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, and including two Members of [...]
The summer break is traditionally a quiet period for industry and for patents as well, with August usually the month which produces the lowest number of patent filings. However, this [...]
At first sight, patents and standards may seem contradictory. Certainly, when defining a standard to be used by all the players in a particular market, it is indeed vital to [...]
