The heads of the world’s five largest intellectual property offices (IP5), met in Suzhou, China, pledged to step up their co-operation in order to further optimise their services to users and the public.
The meeting was chaired by Dr. Shen Changyu, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO), with the participation of Mr. Benoît Battistelli, President of the European Patent Office (EPO), Mr. Kihara Yoshitake, Deputy Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO), Mr. Choi Donggyou, Commissioner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) and Mr. Russell Slifer, Deputy Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Mr. John Sandage, Deputy Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), attended the meeting as an observer.
Prior to the meeting, the IP5 heads of office met representatives of industry from the five countries/regions to directly address their needs. The IP5 offices reaffirmed the importance and benefits of user involvement in the IP5 co-operation.
Recognising the vital role of intellectual property in boosting technological innovation and economic development, the IP5 heads signed a Joint statement on IP5 co-operation. Underlining the benefits IP5 co-operation had already delivered to users, the IP5 offices agreed in their statement to work together to further optimise their services to users and the public. They identified future target areas of IP5 co-operation, including improving patent information services and cooperating on topics such as unity of invention, citation of prior art and written description and sufficiency of disclosure, with the aim of creating efficiency in the patent application procedure and reducing costs for applicants. They agreed on a number of future joint activities, for example in dossier information, quality management, statistics and training policy.
The heads of the IP5 offices also took stock of recent progress made in their co-operation which includes introduction of a common application format (CAF), machine translation, the Common Citation Document (CCD), the IP5 Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), patent information policy, and the Global Dossier.
The next heads of office meeting will be hosted by the JPO in 2016.
Source: European Patent Office
