Main achievements: facts and figures

In 2018, the Eurasian Patent Office streamlined its process management to reduce the processing period for applications.

The year in review saw the expansion of geography of EAPO’s cooperation under the Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) Pilot Programme.

In addition to the PPH Pilot Programmes already underway between EAPO and the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and EAPO and the European Patent Office (EPO), a PPH Programme between the Eurasian Patent Office and the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO, currently China National Intellectual Property Administration, CNIPA) was launched on April 1, 2018. On September 25, 2018 EAPO and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Patent Prosecution Highway Programme. The PPH Programme between EAPO and KIPO has been functional since January 1, 2019.

The internal pilot programme for fast-track substantive examination of international patent applications entering the EAPO regional phase of examination (EA-PCT) has been extended till August 1, 2019.

Compared to 2017, the average lapse between the acceptance date of the application for substantive examination and the date of the first notice of the examination was reduced by 19 days and now amounts to 358 days. Overall, between 2016 and 2018 this period is reduced by 94 days. In 2018, the number of Eurasian applications awaiting the actual start of substantive examination decreased by 12 per cent.

The Eurasian Office reported the grant of 2,630 Eurasian patents in 2018. Overall, 31,431 Eurasian patents were granted during the period 1996 through 2018.

Applicants from EAPC Contracting States and the Republic of Moldova were granted 439 Eurasian patents in 2018, marking 16.69 per cent of all the patent grants during the year.

In 2018, applicants from the states not party to the EAPC had 2,191 Eurasian patent grants, or 83.31 per cent of all the patents granted during the year.

The EAPO Administrative Council endorsed a series of amendments and addenda streamlining the Eurasian Patent System. Thus, the Patent Regulations under the Eurasian Patent Convention and the Statute on Fees of EAPO were amended to improve the system of providing incentives to pay fees for legally significant actions performed by the Eurasian Office with respect to Eurasian applications and Eurasian patents. The Administrative Regulations under the Eurasian Patent Convention and the Rules of Procedure of EAPO’s Administrative Council were amended to improve the functioning of the Administrative Council of the Eurasian Patent Organization.

In line with the Eurasian Office’s initiative to establish, on the basis of the Eurasian Patent Organization, a Eurasian system for legal protection of industrial designs, the EAPO headquarters hosted four meetings of the Working Group attended by representatives of EAPO, WIPO and the national IP offices of the EAPC Contracting States. The Working Group produced a Draft Protocol to the Eurasian Patent Convention of September 9, 1994, on the Protection of Industrial Designs which was approved by the EAPO Administrative Council in October 2018.

In 2018, EAPO signed memoranda of understanding on bilateral cooperation with European Patent Office (EPO), China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), thus reaching new horizons in the bilateral cooperation.

The year 2018 saw further expansion of the functionality and volumes of electronic communication with users of the Eurasian patent system, Eurasian patent attorneys and national patent offices. Similarly, the groundwork was completed for the incorporation of new data formats into the Eurasian Office’s workflow.

The share of applications filed by applicants leading correspondence with EAPO solely in electronic form has more than tripled and now stands at 53 per cent. Notably, those filings include applications filed earlier in hard copy.

A toolkit for information exchange for patent search with the Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIPS) has entered its pilot operation phase.

A set of tools for the use of Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) symbols in the workflow for the Eurasian applications and patents has been developed and adopted.

The work is now underway to implement a toolkit for filing and processing the descriptions of inventions in character coded format.

The number of documents filed in two different formats, scanned PDF and character coded DOCX, has risen more than fourfold.

In 2018, the overall design and architecture of EAPO’s website (www.eapo.org) were overhauled, and the updated version became operational.

The Eurasian Office was heavily involved in the advancement and maintenance of its corporate information infrastructure, in line with modern requirements, relying on proactive management and with due account of modern standards of corporate business continuity and security based on the latest developments in information technology.

In 2018, 39 patent attorneys from the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation were certified and registered as Eurasian patent attorneys.