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Courtesy of the EPO
27 July 2018Patents

Campinos outlines ambitions for EPO presidency

António Campinos, the new president of the European Patent Office (EPO), said yesterday that he plans to provide his staff with more support during the patent granting process.

This was one of the goals he outlined in a  blog post after  taking up the reins at the EPO earlier this month amid a period of turmoil for the office.

WIPR has  previously reported on tensions at the EPO, including strikes, before Campinos took over as president on July 2.

As his first month in the position draws to a close, Campinos demonstrated a willingness to improve the office’s outlook.

He has undertaken nearly 100 meetings to gather feedback in his first month, according to the blog post.

“In the meetings, a number of common themes have cropped up time and time again,” said Campinos. “It seems that there’s a common understanding of the challenges we face and the possible solutions that we might envisage in the future.”

For example, he highlighted that some staff members have requested more support in making the patent granting process more efficient.

While he said that efficiency has been a strategic focus for the EPO in the past, Campinos recognised that this is “actually just one in a triangle of three closely-linked factors” that keep the organisation on track. The other two factors are quality and long-term sustainability.

According to Campinos, all three factors depend on one another, and he believes that the EPO’s optimum performance is located between all three.

“So we’ll be making further assessments of this organisation, such as audits, and forecasts, to help us determine exactly where we should be located between quality, efficiency and long-term sustainability,” he explained.

Campinos said that he was “delighted” to hear that many staff members were passionate about quality. However, he said that even more work can be done in improving the quality of the final product (ie, the patent grant).

He said: “I discussed with employees how we could perhaps start to make more effort to define the quality of the final product, rather than just the process.”

To help achieve this, Campinos noted that the office could strive to achieve a stronger convergence between the quality perceptions of the EPO and its users.

Campinos emphasised that any improvements made to the office would have to be supported by a “thorough digital transformation”.

“A true digital transformation could help us achieve greater efficiency, support quality further, help our examiners do their job better and help us make gains in many other areas, particularly with the rapid development of artificial intelligence,” he said.

Campinos added that both himself and staff members have been looking for cost-effective and well-managed IT projects that will ensure the EPO achieves new levels of “digitalisation”.

Finally, he said that staff training, career opportunities, and maintaining competitive fees are issues that will be addressed in the coming months.

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