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Global patent filings extended a run of strong annual increases in 2013, underpinned by double-digit growth in China where about a third of the world’s 2.6 million patent applications were filed, followed by the United States of America (US) and Japan as the next-largest recipients. Amid an uneven pace of global economic ...

The EPO has achieved ISO 9001 certification for its quality management system, which covers the search, examination, opposition, limitation and revocation stages of its patent granting process. The certificate was presented to EPO President Benoît Battistelli by Mr Blechschmidt, managing director of the German Society for the Certification of Quality Assurance Systems ...

More than 2 million patent applications were filed at the world's five largest IP offices in 2013, an increase of 11% over 2012, according to a new report published jointly by the EPO, the Japan Patent Office, the Korean Intellectual Property Office, the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic ...

The long-awaited Opinions of the Advocate General on the legal challenges by Spain against the unitary patent package have been issued by the Court of Justice for the European Union (CJEU). The Advocate General has suggested that the CJEU should dismiss both challenges (C-146/13 and C147-13) pursued by Spain against the ...

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host its first Cybersecurity Partnership Meeting on Friday, November 14, 2014, in Menlo Park, California. The meeting will serve as a collaborative forum for stakeholders seeking patent protection in the cybersecurity and network ...

EPO Global dossier service was launched in June for the European Patent Register, and is now accessible via Espacenet. The advantage is that many more filewrappers are made available in Espacenet via the Global dossier. Espacenet gives access to all available documents, whereas filewrappers in the Register have ...

Continuing to improve the quality of services to its users by establishing a one-stop shop for applicants, the European Patent Office (EPO) has launched a new system for the online filing of patent applications. The launch marks a new and important step forward to reducing the amount of paper handling ...

In an effort to boost innovation and trade, the EPO has signed Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) pilot programmes with the patent offices of Canada, Mexico and Singapore to launch accelerated treatment of patent applications, starting in January 2015. The bilateral agreements were signed in Geneva at the side ...

The launch of the new EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon 2020 at the beginning of this year effected a paradigm shift: a fresh emphasis on innovation and an increased drive towards supporting the competitiveness of innovative SMEs and entrepreneurs within the EU and internationally. The proficient management of ...

Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Sweden topped this year’s Global Innovation Index, while Sub-Saharan Africa posted significant regional improvement in the annual rankings published by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Amid a newly documented slowdown in the growth of global research and development, the ...