Listening to our Members’ Delegations

A report on interviews of epi Presidium with all epi Country constituencies in 2023/2024

1. Concept

Shortly after the new Board/Presidium was elected during the Council meeting C94 in Malmö in May 2023, we announced a project to systematically interact with each of the 39 epi Council delegations representing the profession in the EPC member countries. After around 13 months of planning, scheduling and conducting interviews including Q&A sessions with each of the 39 epi Council delegations we can now provide this consolidated report summarising the process, conclusions and trends we were able to derive from those discussions.

The aim of the process was first of all to learn about the main current and future concerns and problems our members face in their national constituencies secondly to identify areas where epi as a European professional association could help to improve the situation in the countries, and thirdly to enhance understanding and relationship between European Patent Attorneys in their countries with the representatives of those countries in the governance bodies where epi has an official observer role, i.e. the EPO Administrative Council or the UPC Administrative Committee. This exercise also offered the opportunity for the new Presidium members and the epi Council members to better get to know each other. The collected information will be a useful source for future meetings, e.g. with possible cooperation partner organisations or may also be of interest to government officials from particular countries when considering new initiatives concerning the Patent Attorney profession.

2. The process

The Presidium carried out its systematic consultation with each Council delegation based on the survey document that was sent out to all (full and substitute) epi Council members of each EPC country to be filled out. Figure 1 lists the information and questions asked from each delegation. Some epi Council delegations invited input from other important stakeholders of the profession in their country (e.g. presidents of national IP attorney associations) and submitted a consolidated or collected answer back to the Presidium. This was followed by a one-hour video conference meeting in order to discuss the questions and answers given and to have an exchange on additional information. The meetings were also used to discuss the actual topics under consideration, such as the autumn 2023 proposal to further streamline the procedure before the EPO Boards of Appeal with shortening certain deadlines, the EQE-reform finally issued end of 2023, or the new fee structure introduced by EPO in spring 2024. Usually, around 3 members from the Presidium and 2-8 members from the member states were present at those exchanges. Some Council delegations invited additional interested professionals to those meetings, e.g. the President of a national professional association or sometimes active members of certain epi Committees. The meetings were assisted by a Legal Advisor from the epi Secretariat who drafted an action list as well as a summary of the discussions.

3. Findings and observations

Generally, the issues brought up by national epi Council delegations and the topics where support from epi would be seen useful can be categorised in three different areas:

1. Awareness for the relevance of patents of current and future users of the IP-systems
2. Addressing current and future general needs of the patent attorney´s profession
3. Specific problems of the profession in the individual member state

Additionally, several delegations had some remarks and ideas on how to improve the internal working of epi. Particularly, the effectiveness of epi Council meetings was mentioned, by trying to shift standard topics from physical to online voting, extending the duration of Council meetings to generally 1.5 days, or limiting possibilities to file spontaneous motions.

A) Awareness for the relevance of patents

Many delegations reported of ongoing activities leading to new innovations in their jurisdictions but that there is then often a missing sensitivity of the involved companies and institutions for the relevance of patents. Thus, it is found that there is a broader need in almost all EPC countries to sensitise certain circles, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but also universities and their start-up spin-offs, on the one hand to protect their own inventions by filing and obtaining patents, but on the other hand also having a clear picture of the protection landscape by third parties in order to identify and address timely possible freedom-to-operate issues.

Some country delegations reported on the phenomenon that subsidies academic institutions such as universities are being incentivised by R&D or financial funds to file patent applications. Such patent applications are then indeed drafted and filed, but due to the early filing and time pressure from parallel scientific publications, it would become difficult to finally obtain high-quality patent protection based on those applications, providing a disadvantage for later technology transfer activities or even hindering it. Many of those applications are therefore never prosecuted to grant, let alone commercialized by means of technology transfer. Thus, there may be a need to investigate whether the incentivising criteria of R&D subsidy programs do provide the best possible incentives to obtain patent protection for innovations, whereby the obtained protection will be useful in respect of a later commercialisation of the invention.

B) Current and future needs of the Patent Attorneys´ profession

Whereas the situation and prospects for the Patent Attorney profession is quite different in various EPC member countries, certain trends and concerns could be identified being common to a higher number of countries.

The overall number of European Patent Attorneys in all EPC countries has increased during the last 10 years from 11115 in 2013 to 14514 currently in 2024. However, at country level, we found a group of countries wherein the number has constantly increased (AT, BE, CH, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IE, IT, LU, NL and SE), a group of countries wherein the number has remain more or less stable (LI, GR, MC, MT, NO, PT, SI, SK) and a group of countries wherein the number of European Patent Attorneys is decreasing (AL, BG, CY, CZ, EE, HR, HU, IS, LT, LV, MK, PL, RO, RS, SM). In Türkyie (TR), the number first decreased until 2018 and is constantly increasing since then.

Particularly, the longer-term future for the profession appears to be unclear given the current age structure of the profession in the countries with the majority of colleagues aged of 50-60 years, and not many newly qualified patent attorneys aged 30-40 years. Thus, without a turnaround on such trend, the profession in those countries will likely shrink within the next 10-15 years and may even practically disappear in certain countries where there are no new, younger candidates who successfully passed the EQE. A shrinking profession is normally leading to even less awareness and attractiveness amongst potential candidates and may therefore even accelerate the process. The lack of new candidates entering our profession was explained by a lack of awareness for our profession of potential candidates with the necessary scientific or engineering background, the difficulties to convince young engineers or scientists, being often in their late 20s or early 30s, to invest into another 3-4 years education to become a Patent Attorney, whereas there may be much more attractive possibilities for them in other areas of the employment markets (e.g. in certain technical fields as CII), and finally also uncertain prospects for qualified Patent Attorneys, since the amount of (European) patent work in the free profession as well as opportunities to be employed in in-house departments is rather expected to decrease due to a trend in many countries with a smaller profession to increasingly centralise the patent services in countries with a bigger profession or where the headquarters of international companies are located. This can sometimes be even outside of the EPC countries, e.g. in the USA or China. Some countries referred to the difficulties to train candidates, once they have been hired, so that they can successfully pass the EQE (and national qualifications, that is seen still as necessary complement). Once candidates have successfully passed the EQE, there is another threat in many countries, namely younger European Patent Attorneys leave their training country in order to follow more attractive employment conditions in other EPC countries. This is a problem for the company that invested in the training of the candidates and also can to destabilise the profession in that country. Very few countries reported difficulties in trying to keep qualified patent Attorneys within the profession and losing qualified epi members to other job opportunities outside the profession. A common exchange of employment between the profession and the national Patent Office was reported by one member state.

Fig. 2: trends of number of European Patent Attorneys in selected EPC countries

The impact of Artificial Intelligence on the typical activities of patent attorneys was identified by many epi Council delegations as an important factor for the needed future size of the profession, but there is currently a large uncertainty of what can be expected from the use of AI within the next 5-15 years.

Another area, where almost all delegations saw a big need was professional education. Whereas almost everybody agreed that education is a key need in order to keep a profession that is fit to address the current and future demands, there was a wide range of views on the preferred topics. Some delegations favoured, besides EQE-related training, clearly education targeting the core activities of European Patent Attorneys, e.g. courses on drafting applications specialised for particular technical areas, on best practices to respond to EPO Actions, on preparing oral hearings, whereas other delegations had an increased interest in topics complementing the core patent processing activities, e.g. licensing, R&D funding, patent valuation or tax-related aspects. Many delegations mentioned a continuous need for training on the new UP/UPC system. Two delegations mentioned tragic cases of suicides of Patent Attorneys which then immediately lead the Presidium to the idea to have the PEC cooperating with a UK-based foundation to produce a training on how to maintain a good mental health within our demanding profession (see three episodes of “Insight epi” podcasts that were released in October and November 2024, se https://patentepi.org/r/insight-epi).

Many delegations, and not only from economically less stronger countries, expressed the expectation that epi would offer educational events at “reasonable costs” or free of charge for its members, at least for some courses and events.

A few more concrete ideas were collected on how to strengthen the future of our profession, e.g. by partnering with an institution of higher education in order to offer types of additional qualification at university level, particularly designed for European Patent Attorneys and complementing the regular skills of European Patent Attorneys with certain legal knowledge that is very useful in practice when dealing with patents, e.g. international comparison of ownership/entitlement questions or dealing with patents as an object of property or even tax questions (for instance patent box regimes).

Generally, members noted that more and more policy developments in the European Union have a substantial influence on the patent legal framework in EU member states, but also even beyond, towards the European Patent Organisation and in non-EU EPC member states. Thus, delegations encouraged epi to enhance the ability to closely follow, comment and influence patent policy developments at EU-level and make epi members aware of it, such as with the elements of the current EU Patent package which is in the legislative process at different stages.

C) Specific problems in individual countries

Some delegations raised issues that they currently see as an important challenge for the profession in their respective country. Examples of that are, for instance, the lack of any national patent attorney qualification in Greece combined with no possibility for EQE qualified European Patent Attorneys to represent in proceedings before the national Greek patent office OBI, increasing problems for Turkish epi members to obtain a visa for Schengen, slow progress with national patent law reform including implementation of national patent attorney examination in Luxemburg, or the idea to strengthen the profession by requiring, in the pending patent law reform, more mandatory representation steps before the national patent office in Portugal.

4. Findings and Next Steps

Besides the proposals to improve the organisation of Council meetings as mentioned above, an idea was stated by countries with a small number of epi members to consider a new epi group serving as a platform to foster an exchange between countries with a small number of epi members, in order to address their particular challenges.

Upon a proposal of the Presidium to pick-up that idea, the epi Council in its November 2024 C98 meeting in Budapest has endorsed a new Working Group that would bring delegations from countries with fewer than 26 epi members (those with only 2 seats in Council). The aim of that group is to discuss and identify topics that the profession is particularly faced with in these countries and where epi could implement measures to assist the profession there to better adapt and cope with the current and near-future challenges, for instance in connection with the introduction of the Unitary/UPC system in Europe and the connected trend of lower numbers of validations of EP patents. Based on the results from such a Working Group, it would need to be decided, whether those issues can really predominantly be linked to countries with small number of epi members or whether those issues are rather relevant for a certain type or sub-group of epi members, e.g. small free-profession firms or small in-house IP departments.

Increasing awareness for the benefits and risks of the patent system for businesses, particularly SMEs and universities, cannot be the sole and genuine task for epi. However, epi could facilitate and assist in this regard through cooperations with other institutions and associations with a similar interest and which could help to better reach the target audiences, e.g. national Patent Offices, the EPO, the EUIPO, national IP Attorney associations (e.g. via ANIPA), local business associations or networks.

Therefore, epi Council has now instituted at its last C98 meeting a new Working Group with participation from PEC, IPCC and the Editorial Committee in order to develop tools and materials, e.g. a standard presentation, that can be used together with partner organisations to promote the relevance of patents, particularly for SMEs, Universities and their start-up businesses. As a first step, it is proposed to connect with existing initiatives in that direction, e.g. the EPO MIPEF programme for universities, EUIPO SME Fund, or the IPRHelpdesk of the EU Commission. It is further noted that this goal can only be achieved with an increased effort of targeted communication towards business community and persons in need of patent knowledge, which shows that it would be beneficial for epi as an institution to improve its capabilities in this regard.

Such initiative could also be used to address a second aspect that resulted from the survey: increasing awareness of the profession and attracting potential future talents to become candidates. Particularly, any presentation in a university environment can be used to summarise and show to young engineers and scientists the advantages of a career as (European) Patent Attorney. Promoting the profession in general at universities, research centers and suitable job fares where there is a good chance to make more such young scientists and engineers aware of the profession and its potential are in our view best organised together with local professional groups, where they exist, e.g. national patent attorney associations, which are most familiar with the national situations and can give the messages a local spin.

A few specific points mentioned by national delegations can be taken up by the Presidium and could be addressed with the assistance of respective epi Committees and the Secretariat. Examples for such points include e.g.to explore whether there could be a simplification for our members from Türkiye to obtain Schengen visa for professional activities carried out in other EPC member countries or for our members who passed the EQE in Greece, to achieve the possibility to represent also clients before the national Greek IP Office. Another example where epi could assist is the situation in Bulgaria, where it appears currently not possible to benefit from the newly EPO introduced facilitation to online filing of priority patent applications because national regulations require, for security reasons, that first patent applications on inventions from Bulgaria must be filed via the national BG Patent Office, but the national office is not accepting any online filing format that would also fulfil the EPO requirements for online filing, leading to a situation that Bulgarian applicants cannot benefit from the substantial fee discounts. It is understood that the OCC is taking up the latter topic in its work that may also be relevant for other EPC countries.

Regarding improving the impact and outreach of epi in political processes, particularly at the EU-level, progress has already been made during the last months: it was possible to react within roughly two weeks, with the great engagement of the Biotech Committee, to issue an epi position paper on the planned ban of patentability for certain New-Genetic Technology plants in Spring 2024. This position paper has triggered further associations to also support our position. epi is currently also involved in the discussions on how to reform the SPC-system in the EU and in the question of how to implement the EU sanctions against Russian Patent filings in a way that is least detrimental for the European Patent system as a whole. Additionally, the next Board meeting will take place in Alicante in order to strengthen connections with EUIPO, e.g. in the area of raising awareness for the relevance of the IP-system.

On the suggestions regarding a more effective Council meeting organisation, the Presidium would like to further analyse the collected proposals and the first use of internet voting, discuss them with the By-Laws Committee and come up at C99 with some further proposals, e.g. regarding shifts of topics from physical meetings to active forum discussions or internet voting, but always keeping in mind that Council as the highest governance body has to fulfil its function for our Institute as provided for in the Founding Regulation.

5. Conclusion

Overall, appreciation was given by many delegations on the ability to have a dedicated and systematic exchange between the epi Presidium and the country delegations on specific problems and needs and it was suggested to continue with such “Listening to our members” exercise. In view of the substantial time commitment it is unrealistic to have a similar exercise for each of the 39 countries every year. However, we also think that it would be good to repeat this practice to provide all epi Council delegations at least the possibility to have a systematic exchange about every three years. This would mean to schedule meetings with around 13 delegations per year and we would plan to start during second half of 2025 with a next series. There is always the possibility for epi Council delegations to ask for such a meeting, should there arise an actual, urgent need for it.

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