The Utilisation Pilot Project (UPP)
A debate in The European Patent Office's (EPO) Administrative Council ended with a proposal to utilise work done by the national patent offices (NPO) for subsequent filings with the EPO.
The intention is to increase the efficiency of the patent granting process, and to avoid repeating work already being done once.
The testing has started with a view to full-scale implementation, within the framework of the Utilisation Pilot Project (UPP).
The UPP will be used to assess the extent to which the results of work done by the national patent offices of the EPO member states during the examination of applications within their priority year can be utilised by both the European Patent Office (EPO) and the applicants.
The aim of the project is to find out whether the overall efficiency of the European patent granting procedure can be improved by utilising NPO work.
Four pilot offices (Austria, Denmark, Germany and the UK) operated by the EPO, will run the UPP for approximately 12 months. Findings will be reviewed on an ongoing basis.
More information about the UPP and the findings can be found here.
