Report of the Committee on Biotechnological Inventions

Below is a summary of discussion points in our Biotechnology Committee (BC) since the last B129 report:

1. Debrief / feedback of the meeting between DG1 and epi which took place on Feb 28 in the Hague.

Members of the Committee that attended the meeting between DG1 and epi, held in The Hague on 28 February, report about the meeting during the last BC of 16 April 2024. They all agreed that the meeting was conducted in a cooperative and constructive atmosphere with significant representation from the European Patent Office (EPO) Directors, demonstrating the EPO’s commitment to the discussions.

On the subject of SEQ Listings, the BC’s representatives attending in person attempted to present a PowerPoint presentation with technical information but was unable to do so due the structure of the meeting. It is reported that it would be possible to propose a separate independent meeting with biotech representatives from the EPO to further discuss biotech matters. Chris Mercer (GB) proposed to introduce Simon WRIGTH to Razik Menidjel, Chief Operating Officer of Operations from the EPO and working closely with EPO Vice-President Stephen Rowan, to organise that meeting.

The immediate next step agreed by the BC is to arrange a dedicated meeting with biotech representatives from the EPO through to Razik Menidjel. A face-to-face meeting in The Hague is proposed Razik Menidjel is based there.

The BC also discussed the complaint process at the EPO and it has been suggested to initiate a standardized, constructive complaint process, a kind of “code of conduct” on how to handle complaint at the EPO. When you’re contacting a director directly, it might help if this director has a good way of communicating this to his team and has an attitude to try to improve it but it’s not always the case. This approach aims to create a productive complaint culture without causing issues for examiners and ultimately affecting applicants who are afraid to file complaints.

2. NGT Plants

During the last BC of 16 April 2024, the BC agreed on the importance to continue to educate people about what is a patent and what it is not, and how it’s good for innovation and for supporting the development costs.

As an immediate action to be taken the BC agreed to update epi’s position paper by adding information about the existing licensing platforms. Jan Desomer (BE) and Heiko Sendrowski (DE) are willing to cooperate on that aspect in alignment with what is currently done by other IP and industry organizations. This action by epi can help to increase interaction with MEPs who don’t want to be tainted by industry directly.

3. SEQ Listings

During the last BC of 16 April 2024 it was also agreed that epi must continue to push back at the EPO about the way the EPO has implemented the new standard ST26 and in parallel to act also with our own national patent offices to get their support. The ST26 software is written by the WIPO and not the EPO, the issue is on the way the EPO implemented it.

The BC agreed that the main issue with ST26 remains about the risk of added matter and the EPO is aware of this. There’s additional information in ST26 that wasn’t in ST25.

About the next action to be taken, it’s proposed to amend epi’s position paper and for each of BC’s members to add any recent comments about our experience with ST26 by using the Benjamin’s information as a basis. Then the updated version will be sent to the EPO.

4. Next BC meeting

The next meeting will be an on-line meeting. The date must be defined, perhaps in September, at least before the next C98 epi’s council.