IP5 in work-sharing mission

Following last week's summit between the patent offices of Europe, Korea, China, Japan and the US, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that the quintet had distilled its aims into a mission-statement: 'The elimination of unnecessary duplication of work among the offices, enhancement of patent examination efficiency and quality, and guarantee of the stability of patent rights.' The IP5 also agreed 10 major projects to standardise information between the five offices.

In its statement, the EPO explained that the IP5 had launched the scheme to tackle a range of problems in the worldwide patent system, which is weathering lengthy backlogs. 'The heads of the five offices recognise the trend toward greater globalisation and seek to minimise the resultant redundancy of patent searches and examinations,' said the EPO. 'They also share a concern for the growing number of pending patent applications and the prolonged pendency period; and they acknowledge that delays in granting patents hinder the promotion of innovation, which is an intrinsic function of the patent system. To tackle this global phenomenon in an efficient manner, the IP5 offices have agreed to collaborate in moving forward with a work-sharing initiative.'

Under the agreed plan, each patent office will take the lead on two of the standardisation projects, with the results set to benefit the IP5 as a whole. Here is how the workload has been assigned:

• The EPO will compile a common documentation database designed to assist prior art searches, and devise a common approach for a hybrid classification, which will harmonise IP5 patent categories and facilitate reuse of work between the offices.
• Japan's Patent Office, the JPO, will develop protocols for a common application format and common access to search and examination results, raising efficiency in the filing and retrieval of patent documents.
• The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) aims to focus on promoting skills through a common training policy, and overcoming language barriers with the aid of mutual machine translation.
• Attention to detail will be in the hands of China's State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) as it works on common rules for examination practice and a common statistical parameter system for examination.
• Meanwhile, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will help the IP5 to adopt consistent search methods via a common approach to sharing and documenting search strategies, plus common search and examination support tools.

With any two offices in the IP5 receiving around a quarter of a million applications per year, enhanced work-sharing methods – such as reusing single sets of documents – are seen as key to avoiding worsening backlogs. According to the EPO, 'consistency in the patent process will ensure the predictability of patent results when applicants lodge applications at multiple offices. Greater simplicity will increase the convenience and savings of applicants.'

The IP5 has pledged to meet up again in 2009 to assess progress on the standardisation drive.