European Patent Office To Launch Utilisation Pilot Project

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

14 March 2007

The European Patent Office (EPO) will, from April 1, be giving higher priority treatment to applications submitted as part of the Utilisation Pilot Project.

This will allow them to issue Extended European Search Reports (EESR) within 3 - 6 months of request. However, Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) applications that the EPO searches will not be included as part of the pilot project.

The pilot will run for around a year from the beginning of April.

The UPP is being used to assess the extent to which the results of work done by the national patent offices of the EPO member states during the examination of applications within their priority year can be utilised by both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the applicants.

The aim of the project is to find out whether the overall efficiency of the European patent granting procedure can be improved by utilising NPO work.

The scheme is being operated by the EPO together with four pilot offices (Austria, Denmark, Germany and the UK), and findings will be reviewed on an ongoing basis.

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