15 November 2018Asia-Pacific

LSPN Europe 2018: Chinese filings impressive statement, says EPO director

Last year, for the first time in European Patent Office (EPO) history, a Chinese company filed the most European patent applications, making an “impressive statement” on what companies in the country are doing, according to Peter Albrecht.

Albrecht, who serves as principal director of the EPO’s healthcare, biotech and chemistry sector, was speaking at LSPN Europe 2018 today.

In 2017, electronics company Huawei claimed the top filing spot with 2,398 patent applications, in a move that Albrecht said was a “surprise”. Huawei bumped Siemens (based in Germany) into second place, ahead of competitors LG, Samsung and Qualcomm.

Applications from Chinese entities increased by 16.6% last year, making China the EPO’s fifth most active country (behind the US, Japan, Germany, and France) from which patent applications originated in 2017.

“We need to find answers on how to cope with the massive [amount of] patent applications coming from China,” he said, before outlining how the office is dealing with the influx of patent applications from China specifically and Asia in general.

The Asia Patent Expert Group (APEG) is a team of approximately 90 EPO employees that collects and disseminates information on Asian patent-related matters for colleagues.

Albrecht said that nearly half of EPO search reports contain at least one patent citation of Asian origin (in an Asian or EPO language), while 23% of EPO search reports contain at least one Asian citation which has no other family member.

The office is focusing on the issue of Asian prior art, an area that Albrecht said was “predominantly important” for the EPO to tackle.

Albrecht said that demand is growing, “reinforcing Europe’s attractiveness as a leading innovation market”, and reforms at the office have proven to be successful.

The EPO aims to deliver search reports within six months of receipt, and currently the office has outpaced this, delivering reports with 4.8 months. However, the office is currently on 22.1 months for examination time, with an aim of 12 months.

“We cannot stand still, we need to continuously improve as an organisation,” said Albrecht.

The LSPN Europe 2018 event is taking place today, November 15 at the Bloomsbury Hotel in London.


More on this story

Big Pharma
19 November 2018   The UK has an excellent opportunity to adopt laws on supplementary protection certificates that will provide a “clearer” set of legislation post-Brexit, said French lawyer Marianne Schaffner, partner at Dentons.

More on this story

Big Pharma
19 November 2018   The UK has an excellent opportunity to adopt laws on supplementary protection certificates that will provide a “clearer” set of legislation post-Brexit, said French lawyer Marianne Schaffner, partner at Dentons.