Michel Goudelis, Ged Owens 04.2015EPO

Patent Offices and SDOs cooperation

Status 2015

2European Patent Office

Standards documents available for EPO examination

Memorandums of Understanding, and similar agreements in place with: ETSI ITU IEEE-SA WorldDMB BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik)

Standards and contributions from:

ETSI 3GPP ITU IEEE-SA IETF OMA DVB MPEG JPEG

3European Patent Office

Actual EPO standards databases

Current facts:

11 Active standards databases in EPOQUE 5 databases in the pipeline Total documents 2,28 Million in 2014 (1.8 million in 2013 ) 15.000 citations in search and examination in 2014 Up to 60% of search reports in key fields (Wireless Networks, Audio Video

Media) contain standards documents as pertinent for the patent

examination

Future plans:

3 further Standards databases foreseen in Telecommunications, Computers

and Audio Video  

Citation of standards documents by EPO Examiners

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

0

2500

5000

7500

10000

12500

15000

Nu

mb

er o

f ci

tati

on

s

5

Number documents present in the standards databases and available to EPO Examiners

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

500000

1000000

1500000

2000000

2500000

Standards

6European Patent Office

Achievements

EPO has clarified the legal status of standards documents in patent examination with

most important SDOs

EPO has pioneered the use of standards documents as prior art among patent

offices, and has the most comprehensive collection in its internal databases

Key SDOs, in cooperation with EPO, considerably enhance patent transparency

around SEPs by linking SEP declaration databases to EPO public databases,

providing up-to-date information on:

− validity of application,

− scope of granted patents,

− patent family, etc.

Agreements and cooperation between EPO and SDOs constantly increasing

7European Patent Office

Actual EPO standards databases

Existing trends: “Computer implemented inventions” now a substantial proportion of

inventions in all technical areas

− Telematics, smart grids (transport, buildings, cities), eHealth... “Convergence” of technologies with ICT

− Patents and standards essential in more technical fields

Future plans: EPO cooperating with further SDOs, including CEN-CENELEC, to promote

and educate on potential synergy of patents and standards EPO liaising with SDOs to improve patent transparency, and interactions

and synergy of these key innovation support systems