The 2nd International Conference “Digital Transformation: Focus on IP”, organized by Rospatent with the participation of the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO), was held at the Technopolis Moscow Congress Center on April 23-24, 2019.

Top executives representing international, intergovernmental IP offices, Federal executive authorities of Russia, national patent offices, representatives of development institutions, law and business communities, Russian and foreign IT experts participated in the Conference.

This year the issues of intellectual property adaptation to the digital economy challenges, integration of disruptive technologies into the daily work of patent offices lied in the heart of the Conference.

The Conference was opened with the speeches of EAPO President Saule Tlevlessova, WIPO Assistant Director General Yo Takagi, Head of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property Grigoriy Ivliev and other honorable guests and representatives of the event organizers.

Highlighting the importance of the Conference, EAPO President S. Tlevlessova appreciated Rospatent efforts for organizing the event and hoped that gatherings within the Conference will gain annual character.

“In the course of their daily work patent offices, staying on the edge of technological progress, face enormous bulks of patent information”, said EAPO President. “Today, the volume of the world patent information reached up to 120 million documents. Each year the world sees 3 million new inventions and utility model applications and 7 million trademark applications”.

As President Tlevlessova mentioned, it is namely the new technologies and cooperation among patent offices in patent search and examination that become the very tool in the hand of the examiner to efficiently process patent documents and shorten the pendency period.

EAPO President also mentioned about the worldwide tendency of growth of applications on industrial property subject matters. In 2018, the number of applications filed under international registration systems increased: by 3.9% under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), by 6.4% under the Madrid system and by 3.7% under the Hague system. Comparing these figures with the growth in the number of Eurasian applications by 5.6% observed in 2018, S. Tlevlessova emphasized the continued demand of the “classic” system of legal protection of intellectual property.

Returning to the digital agenda, EAPO President noted the Eurasian Office’s close monitoring of the development of tools using artificial intelligence systems, machine learning. The Office has already introduced a machine translation system, and automatic preliminary search is under testing.

EAPO is working on building trust infrastructure with applicants, patent attorneys, other organizations and partners. Up to 85% of applications are filed with the Office in electronic form, correspondence with applicants is conducted through a personal account using electronic digital signature, the EAPO information systems are integrated with the patent attorneys’ in-office systems, interaction with Rospatent related to patent searches is carried out in an electronic environment.

EAPO President shared her vision of the Office’s future technological development, establishment of digital tools and platforms, which will provide for a new level of interaction with the users of the Eurasian patent system.

At the closing of the plenary session, President Tlevlessova, as part of the Conference honorable guests and speakers answered the questions of mass media.

EAPO invitee World Women Inventors and Entrepreneurs Association (WWIEA) President Mrs. Han Mi-Young took part in the Conference.

WWIEA President made a speech at Section “Education and Personnel in the Digital Economy” on the topic “Educational Program Contents Focused on Women’s IP” where Mrs. Han referred to the educational programs aimed at development of creative thinking and realized with the WWIEA participation. The programs were carried out in the Republic of Korea and supported women-inventors in self-estimation and evolvement of their entrepreneurial capacity.

Mrs. Han Mi-Young told the audience success stories on innovation commercialization by women-inventors thanks to the WWIEA educational programs. President Han as well shared her vision of further development of separate modules of WWIEA educational programs on the basis of modern information technologies.

Within the frameworks of the “Foreign Section” EAPO representatives also took part in the discussions on digitization trends and best practices of world patent offices and companies, where also Mr. Yann Maniere, Chief Economist of the European Patent Office, participated.

The section participants addressed the challenges and opportunities that arise in the digital environment, patenting subject matters of the fourth industrial revolution, digital platforms and services provided by patent offices to users of patent information and many other topical issues of the integration of the intellectual property institute and rapidly developing digital technologies.