Alison Brimelow has warned that national patent offices must avert 'global patent warming' by working closer together to ease backlogs. The European Patent Office (EPO) president was speaking at the 41st World Intellectual Property Congress, held in Boston by the Association Internationale pour la Protection de la Propriété Intellectuelle (AIPPI). This high-point of the annual IP calendar came just days after the 2008 Patent Statistics for Decision Makers conference in Vienna – an EPO event that also addressed the long-running spate of gridlocked pendency. US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) chief, Jon Dudas, endorsed Brimelow's comments, and said that member nations of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) are poised to approve a harmonisation package to contain the worldwide problem.

Brimelow's remarks come at a critical time for the EPO, with news emerging that the office's Staff Union (SUEPO) has called upon its members to take industrial action on Thursday 18 September. The union is demanding an industry presence on EPO governing committees to ensure long-term positive developments in patent quality. It has timed the strike to coincide with a Brussels meeting of the EPO executive, in which 'strategic renewal' of the office will be the main topic of discussion.

The 41st Congress marked the most visible use of the term 'global patent warming', describing the pressure-cooker atmosphere cast across the IP landscape by pendency issues – with the threat of meltdown a looming presence. It was first coined in July by one of the most senior EPO officials, controller Ciáran McGinley, who wrote that incoming volumes per patent office were increasing as a result of globalisation driven by trade and patent activity. He also pointed out that the general pendency volume was increasing despite what was happening to pendency times in individual patent offices. 'Woolly boundaries are widespread,' he argued, 'not just between granted patents but especially among pending applications. It is becoming too much, the system is gradually becoming much warmer. It may not be warm everywhere (yet). It may not be warm in all industrial sectors (yet). But it is definitely temperate.'

Some of the suggestions McGinley has put forward for making the global patent system more efficient include: improving cooperation and communication between examiners; raising the bar for what is considered to be patentable subject matter, and increasing the harmonisation of patent offices' procedures in order to speed up national-phase filing. Dudas's hint of an imminent WIPO announcement indicates that patentees can expect some movement on at least the third point. EPO workers have pointed to national-phase filing as the largest single backlog contributor, with corporate patentees seeking to launch their products in a diverse range of markets. While the global backlog may suggest an overall growth in innovation, the reality is one of an increase in multiple filings for single innovations.

Japan's patent office, the JPO, has also expressed concern over the current scenario. At the 41st Congress, it announced that it will follow the example of the USPTO's Peer-to-Patent initiative by launching a pilot programme to open up examinations to academics and industry experts.

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