Annual Technical Report on Patent Information Activities in 2022 submitted by the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO)
I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PATENT INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization
The following three main areas are covered by the Eurasian Patent Office (EAPO) policies of advancing the office’s automated information systems:
- enhancement of digital services;
- development of Eurasian patent information space;
- automation and information support for the EAPO internal workflow, including examination and publication of Eurasian applications and patents.
The main priorities of 2022 for the EAPO with regard to digitalization were:
- expanding features and increasing volumes of electronic interaction with the users of the Eurasian patent system, Eurasian patent attorneys and national IP offices;
- improving the timeliness of the patent procedure and publication of Eurasian patents;
- further development of means for conducting patent search and quality control thereof with due account of EAPO functioning as International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA) under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
With a view to revamp the existing information systems and to ensure the further digitalization of the office as a whole, the creation and rollout of the Eurasian Patent Organization’s Integrated Information System began in 2022. In the reporting year, the technical design specification for this system were prepared, which included support for all stages of the EAPO's activities in the field of inventions. The project provides for the phased introduction of the new system by the end of 2025. The first phase launched in 2022 relates to the enhancement of the corporate general workflow management system.
New services have been introduced for users of the EAPO-ONLINE electronic filing system, allowing them to file applications and requests for applications and patents of other applicants and patent holders.
In the reporting year, the Eurasian Patent Office offered applicants the option to submit digital 3D models as part of the files of applications for inventions and industrial designs. Operations with 3D models are supported at all stages of the Eurasian patent procedure, beginning with online filing via the EAPO-ONLINE system and ending with official publication using the information services of the EAPO website.
Patents for inventions and industrial designs have been granted in electronic form since May 1, 2022. Electronic patents are available in EAPO-ONLINE Personal Accounts and the registers of Eurasian patents on the EAPO website.
New services were implemented for EAPO-ONLINE users to enable the filing of oppositions, observations, requests concerning the applications and patents of other applicants and patent owners. EAPO-ONLINE users may file:
- requests for changing the representatives for applications or patents
- observations on applications at the stage of substantive examination following their publication
- requests for patent term extension
- oppositions against the grant of patents
In 2022, high-quality translation of patent documents was ensured through the implementation in the Eurasian Patent Office of a new version of the machine translation tool WIPO Translate based on neural networks. Russian-English and English-Russian translation is available, and translation from French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish into English is provided in all technical fields.
EAPO is an active user of several other WIPO digital tools: ePCT, WIPO CASE and WIPO Digital Access Service (DAS). In ePCT the office’s functions have been expanded due to the EAPO operation as an ISA/IPEA under the PCT. The office continued preparations to become depositing office in WIPO CASE using new web services of this tool, to be launched in 2023.
Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year
In 2022 the following main areas of patent information activities were in the focus of attention in the EAPO:
- enhancement of paperless technologies in the patent procedure;
- development of online filing tools functionality and tools for the electronic filing of Eurasian applications via patent attorney firms;
- development of online publication of official patent information including full specifications and legal status data;
- technical cooperation with national IP offices of the EAPC Contracting States;
- development of the Eurasian Patent Information System EAPATIS;
- adaptation of AI tools for use in classification and patent search.
Electronic filing
Integrated with the other automated information systems of the Eurasian Patent Office, EAPO-ONLINE is an automated system for electronic filing and electronic exchange which carries out two-way communication of electronic data with applicants, patent owners and their representatives.
The Eurasian Patent Office has recorded an ever-growing inflow of electronic documents. In terms of numbers, 2022 saw 3,798 applications filed electronically with the office, or more than 96 per cent of total filings.
The number of EAPO-ONLINE users who have completely switched to electronic interaction with the Eurasian Patent Office has continued to grow. According to the EAPO strategy of full transition to electronic communication means, all (existing and new) users of EAPO-ONLINE were switched to full electronic interaction from 01/01/2023.
During the reporting year, the share of documents received through the EAPO-ONLINE system also increased. In total, 185,042 documents were received in electronic form through the EAPO-ONLINE system in 2022, or 90% of the total.
Automation of patent procedure
The EAPO maintains record keeping on Eurasian applications and patents using administrative and informational accounting tools for operations on Eurasian applications and patents, which include the SOPRANO administrative information system (supplemented by a number of additional modules) and a set of statistics implemented on the basis of SAP BusinessObjects.
Direct work with documents in electronic form in the EAPO is carried out using the electronic dossiers system on ePHOENIX (EDS ePHOENIX).
AIS SOPRANO and EDS ePHOENIX are integrated with EAPO-ONLINE for electronic filing and electronic exchange.
Electronic collection of Eurasian patent files
In 2022, the electronic collection was replenished with current publications. All electronic folders for Eurasian patents uploaded to ePHOENIX are available along with other documents, including Eurasian applications. In total, as of 31/12/2022, the electronic collection contained materials from 68,478 Eurasian applications and patents.
HIVE publication processing system
The maintenance and development of HIVE system and its functional modules for processing of patent information at the stage of the preparation of EAPO official publications have proceeded. In total, 6,497 descriptions for Eurasian applications and patents were prepared for publication in the HIVE system.
EAPATIS
EAPATIS was developed as one of the core tools for Eurasian Patent Office examiners and users from EAPC Contracting States to access the global collection of patent documents. The audience also includes national IP offices examiners, users from leading universities, libraries, centers of science and technology who benefit from free access to EAPATIS as part of the Eurasian Patent Office initiative since 2011 to promote innovation in the EAPC Contracting States.
88 million documents have been uploaded to the system as of 31/12/2022, more than 200 organizations are given free access to the system.
Considerable attention is paid at the Eurasian Patent Office to providing access to up-to-date external expert-level databases, as well as to the information systems of leading commercial providers. In 2022, Eurasian Patent Office examiners used PatSearch (Rospatent) system, STN databases as well as a number of Elsevier products — Reaxys, Reaxys Medical Chemistry and Embase.
Eurasian Publication Server
Eurasian publication server provides access to primary publications (including full descriptions of inventions to Eurasian applications and patents), and to information published in the notifications related to applications and patents in the EAPO Gazette, as well as to information on legal status of patents. Access to the server is provided for general public on the EAPO web portal. Since its commissioning on 01/01/2014, the appearance of the information about Eurasian patent documents in this information system shall be considered as their official publication. To replenish and update the information system with data an IT was developed for publication of materials of Eurasian applications and patents from HIVE system on the Eurasian Publication Server.
The development of the tools and technologies introduced in 2019 for the instant publication of information on Eurasian patents granted, full descriptions of them, and notices of changes in the legal status of Eurasian applications and patents for inventions has continued. The work performed resulted in a reduction in the average time for preparing descriptions for publication to 22 days. The publication of Eurasian industrial design applications and patents was also carried out using the technology of instant publication.
RAW data product
The Eurasian Patent Office provides official publications as Raw data allowing the stakeholders to download complete descriptions of Eurasian applications and patents in XML, TIFF and PDF formats for subsequent loading into to their own information systems.
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
Compared with the previous year, in 2022 the number of filed applications increased by 2.4% (3731 applications), the number of granted Eurasian patents increased by 14.5% (2766 patents).
In 2022, the distribution of Eurasian applications by technical field has not changed significantly in comparison with the previous year. More than 50% of filed Eurasian applications related to organic chemistry, pharmaceuticals, and medicine.
Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.
Annual Report 2022 (English): https://www.eapo.org/en/publications/reports/report2022/index.html
Annual Report 2022 (Russian): https://www.eapo.org/ru/publications/reports/report2022/index.html
Collection of EAPO Annual Reports (English): https://www.eapo.org/en/?publs=reports
Collection of EAPO Annual Reports (Russian): https://www.eapo.org/ru/?publs=reports
News and press releases:
in Russian: https://www.eapo.org/ru/index.php?newspress=arhiv
in English: https://www.eapo.org/en/index.php?newspress=arhiv
Social networks:
Twitter (Russian): https://twitter.com/EAPO_official
Facebook (Russian): https://www.facebook.com/eapo.official
Facebook (English): https://www.facebook.com/eapo.official.en
Telegram channel (Russian): https://t.me/eapveapo
II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs
In Russian:
https://www.eapo.org/ru/getpatentpct/ "Obtaining a Eurasian Patent under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) Procedure"
https://www.eapo.org/ru/application2019/ “How to File a Eurasian Application”
https://www.eapo.org/ru/inventors02.html Five Steps to Eurasian Patent
https://www.eapo.org/ru/feature.html Main features of the Eurasian patent procedure
https://www.eapo.org/ru/?documents=eapo Documents related to general matters of the functioning of the Eurasian Patent Organization
https://www.eapo.org/ru/?documents=inventions Documents related to legal protection of inventions
https://www.eapo.org/ru/attorneys.php - Database of Eurasian patent attorneys
https://www.eapo.org/ru/?documents=blanks - Request forms
In English:
https://www.eapo.org/en/get_eapatent_inv.pdf "How to Get a Eurasian Patent"
https://www.eapo.org/en/attorneys.php - Database of Eurasian patent attorneys
https://www.eapo.org/en/feature.html - Main features of the Eurasian patent procedure
https://www.eapo.org/en/?documents=eapo - Basic normative legal acts
https://www.eapo.org/en/?documents=inventions - Normative documents related to legal protection of inventions
https://www.eapo.org/en/?documents=designs - Legal protection of industrial designs
The EAPO also provides a hotline for applicants via telephone and e-mail to handle questions on filing and the subsequent examination procedures.
All registered users of EAPO-ONLINE e-filing and document exchange system have access to a detailed user manual.
Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
All documents related to each particular patent application are available to EAPO examiners in ePHOENIX electronic dossier system. Applicants have access to the same set of documents related to their applications in the relevant personal accounts of EAPO-ONLINE.
Classification1, preclassification2 (if applicable), reclassification3 activities; classification systems used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)); matters concerning indexing of patent information
EAPO patent documentation is included into PCT Minimum Documentation and patent documents are classified and reclassified in the International Patent Classification (IPC) on the publication stage. Since 2019 Eurasian patent documents are additionally classified in accordance with the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC).
Information about published Eurasian patent documents including classification data is sent to the EPO for public access.
Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents
Eurasian patent applications are filed with the EAPO in Russian only. When patent application is filed, an applicant or a representative provides abstract in required format in accordance with filing procedure. This abstract is published with bibliographic data of the application in the EAPO Gazette and on the Eurasian publication server, on title pages of application and corresponding patent. Translation of bibliographic data and abstracts of Eurasian patents into English is carried out by the EAPO; translations to published patents are available for information purposes in EAPATIS.
III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE
Main types of publications of the Office (patent applications, full text, first pages, abstracts, bibliographic data, granted patents, etc.), medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)
In 2022, the EAPO issued the following publications and provided the following on-line publication services in the field of patent information:
- EAPO Gazette (bibliographic data, abstract or claims, announcements); web portal:
https://www.eapo.org/ru/?publs=bulletin
- Eurasian Publication Server (full descriptions of published applications and granted patents, title pages, bibliographic data, abstract or claims, announcements); web portal:
https://www.eapo.org/ru/publications/publicat/publicat.php
- Descriptions of inventions in Eurasian patent documents (full descriptions of published applications and granted patents including title pages, in PDF format, bibliographic data, abstract or claims, full texts of patents, translations of bibliographic data and abstracts into English for patents in XML format); ftp server of the EAPO
- Legislative, normative-methodical and reference documentation of the EAPO:
- General aspects of the functioning of the EAPO https://www.eapo.org/ru/?documents=eapo
- Legal protection of inventions https://www.eapo.org/ru/?documents=inventions
Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.
In 2022, the EAPO published in its official Gazette the following procedural announcements in the field of patent information:
Applications:
BZ2A Eurasian patent application published with a search report (A1 publication)
BZ1A Eurasian patent application published without a search report (A2 publication)
EZ2A Separate publication of a search report (A3 publication)
HZ9A Reprint of the description of invention in a Eurasian patent application (title page only, list of corrections applied, A8 publication)
HH9A Reprint of the description of invention in a Eurasian patent application (list of corrections applied, A9 publication)
FA9A Withdrawal of a Eurasian application
NF9A Restoration of lapsed right to a Eurasian patent application
PD1A Registration of transfer of right to a Eurasian application by succession in title
PC1A Registration of transfer of right to a Eurasian application by assignment
HC1A Change in name of an applicant in a Eurasian application
HM1A Change in composition of inventors in Eurasian patent application
PZ1A Registration of pledge of right to a Eurasian application
HK9A Corrections to EAPO Gazette related to published Eurasian patent application
Patents:
FG4A Eurasian patent for invention (B1 publication)
FC9A Refusal to grant Eurasian patent
LC4A Eurasian patent for invention for which administrative decision of partial revocation was made (+ B2 publication)
LD4A Eurasian patent for invention for which a decision of limitation was made on the basis of proprietor’s request filed with EAPO (+B3 publication)
MA4A Revocation of a Eurasian patent at the proprietor’s request filed with EAPO
MC4A Revocation of a Eurasian patent in full under administrative opposition procedure
MD4A Opposition filed against grant of a Eurasian patent
MF4A Designated state decision on revocation of a Eurasian patent in full
MH4A Designated state decision on revocation of a Eurasian patent in part
MK4A Eurasian patent expired after termination of the term of validity
MM4A Lapse of a Eurasian patent in contracting state due to non-payment within the time limit of renewal fees
ND4A Extension of term of validity of a Eurasian patent
NF4A Restoration of lapsed right to Eurasian patent
NG4A Rejection of opposition against grant of a Eurasian patent
NZ4A Termination of opposition procedure
PC4A Registration of transfer of right to Eurasian patent by assignment
PD4A Registration of transfer of right to Eurasian patent by succession in title
PZ4A Registration of pledge of right to a Eurasian patent
QB4A Registration of a license/sublicense/franchise agreement in a contracting state
QC4A Termination of a license/sublicense/franchise agreement in a contracting state
QM4A Decision on invalidation of a license/sublicense/franchise agreement
QZ4A Registered amendments and supplements in a license/sublicense/franchise agreement
RH4A Grant of a duplicate of a protection certificate
RL4A Decisions of a court or other competent authority in respect of Eurasian patent
RQ4A Decisions of competent authorities related to the use of Eurasian patent
TB4A Change in the composition of inventors in a published Eurasian patent
TC4A Change in name of a patent proprietor in a Eurasian patent
TH4A Reprint of the description of invention in a Eurasian patent (list of corrections applied, B9 publication)
TK4A Corrections to EAPO Gazette related to published Eurasian patents
TZ4A Reprint of the description of invention in a Eurasian patent (title page only, list of corrections applied, B8 publication)
In 2022, in the framework of the “instant” publication technology, daily updates to the official EAPO Gazette were published on the EAPO web portal at https://www.eapo.org/ru/?publs=bulletin (HTML and PDF versions available).
Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases
The provision of EAPO examiners with reference patent and non-patent documentation indicated in the international search report for Eurasian applications was carried out using the automated search report processing (SRP) system. In the reporting year, the selection of reference documents was carried out for 2,729 Eurasian applications. Of the 13,872 reference documents contained in the applications, 13,504 electronic documents were provided to examiners, including 10,419 patents and applications and 3,453 non-patent documents. The level of provision of examiners with reference documents was 97.3%.
When conducting patent searches, examiners used the following restricted access and subscription-based tools: EAPATIS, Reaxys, Reaxys Medical Chemistry database, Embase (ELSEVIER), STN databases, Patsearch , as well as freely accessible ones (Espacenet, PATENTSCOPE, etc.).
The EAPO uses an independently developed virtual patent-information depository comprising of local and external databases of patent documentation and non-patent literature integrated with each other. Access to databases and search therein is realized on the basis of a "one stop shop” policy via EAPATIS. Currently EAPATIS contains over 27 constantly updating databases. Since 2003 the access to the system via the Internet is granted for the EAPO Member States. In 2004-2005 access was provided also to several IP offices of non-member states from the Eurasian region. Local databases are formed by extracting information from optical disc images received by the EAPO as well as by downloading data from the respective Internet resources of international organizations and national patent offices with subsequent data conversion and arranging it in a unified format, indexing and loading into the database.
The EAPO continued its work on development and creation of a single Eurasian patent information space expanding and updating of the EAPO storage with patent documents belonging to the PCT Minimum Documentation, as well as documents issued by the EAPO and national patent offices of EAPС Contracting States. Expansion of the databases was implemented through processing of information from the CISPATENT collections, and databases of national patent offices under the exchange program.
During the reporting period EAPATIS processed approximately 897 thousand search queries, including more than 123,4 thousand queries from examiners of the national patent offices and more than 109,2 thousand queries from the EAPO examiners.
Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to external users, conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)
In 2022 the following patent information products and collections maintained by the EAPO were available to external users:
- EAPATIS (www.eapatis.com)
Guest use (open for general public):
Detailed searches in guest mode were only possible in arrays of the Eurasian (searches in English and Russian) and CISPATENT (searches in English) patent documents. Patent documents of other countries and international organizations could only be searched by their publication number.
Full use:
All EAPATIS databases are available for search and retrieval in full mode. Full use is subscription-based for external users. Free access is provided to national IP offices of EAPC Contracting States and to a number of public libraries, higher educational institutions, academies of sciences and scientific/technical centers in the EAPC Contracting States.
- Collection of Eurasian Patent Documentation on Espacenet and PATENTSCOPE – online, free of charge;
- Eurasian Publication Server https://www.eapo.org/ru/publications/publicat/publicat.php) – online, free of charge;
- EAPO Gazette (https://www.eapo.org/ru/?publs=bulletin) - online, free of charge.
Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)
Legal status information is stored and processed in the administrative system of the EAPO. This detailed legal and procedural status information is available for the authorized staff of the EAPO. External users may access the following legal status information sources:
- EAPO Gazette (Inventions): https://www.eapo.org/ru/?publs=bulletin
The list of respective announcements is given in the section "Official Gazettes" of this report.
- Eurasian Patent Register: https://www.eapo.org/ru/?patents=reestr
The Register contains information about all published legal status events related to Eurasian patents, as well as the patent validity table by each EAPC Contracting state.
- Eurasian Publication Server: https://www.eapo.org/ru/publications/publicat/publicat.php
The server contains information about all published announcements related to Eurasian applications and patents with corresponding codes in accordance with WIPO standard ST.17. The server provides users with extensive search capabilities, including search in announcements.
The EAPO also delivers to the EPO on regular basis the information about published announcements related to Eurasian applications and patents with corresponding codes in accordance with WIPO standard ST.17 for use in INPADOC.
IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements
No Software
1 Double-Take
2 Citrix
3 Crystal Reports
4 IBM DB2
5 IBM Http server
6 JIRA
7 1C
8 Microsoft Exchange Server
9 Microsoft SQL Server
10 Windows Server
11 Linux OS
Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office
Servers similar to HP, Dell, ORACLE, Cisco, Lenovo from 100 to 200 pcs.
Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources
The patent information depository of EAPATIS contains information from international and regional organizations (WIPO, EPO, EAPO), collections included to the PCT Minimum Documentation (USA, Japan, Germany, UK, etc.) of different back file coverage, from national patent offices of the CIS countries, including EAPC Contracting States. Link to the coverage page of EAPATIS databases: http://www.eapatis.com/help/ru/db_eapatis.php
EAPATIS is capable of conducting searches additionally in Espacenet, PATENTSCOPE, and USPTO databases. It is also able to redirect the user to view information about the found documents directly on the websites of national patent offices or international organizations - EP Register, RU Register, PATENTSCOPE and other registers and databases accessible via the Internet. The J-PlatPat automatic translation system of the Japanese Patent Office can be used to translate documents in Japanese.
More information about EAPATIS is available under the point “Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases” of this report.
Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file
EAPO continued to update search DBs of patent information included in the PCT Minimum Documentation, as well as patent information of the EAPO and the national IP offices.
The replenishment of the CIS database was based on the processing of CISPATENT data, and the database of the world patent documentation fund was updated based on information received by the EAPO within the framework of exchange programs. In 2022, the database was replenished with more than 2 million patent documents, including information on over 60 thousand national patent documents in the region. The total number of documents in the database exceeded 88 million. The database is accessible using the EAPATIS system.
Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)
The EAPO currently uses AIS SOPRANO as an administrative management tool. The system comprises examiner’s workplace, patent register update functions and legal events processing functions. The database of AIS SOPRANO also serves as a data source for various administrative statistics generated and visualized by SAP BusinessObjects and Crystal Reports.
The database of the Eurasian Patent Register is formed with data extracted from SOPRANO. Access to the database is provided to internal and external users. The Register contains legal status data for all Eurasian patents.
V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION
Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries
The internal EAPO web site accumulates in-house legal, regulatory, organizational documents, instructions, reference materials, and minutes of meetings. The internal library of periodicals, received in electronic format from the publishers, subscriptions and publications of EAPO personnel are also posted on the web site. Users may conduct searches over publications by author's name, titles, and key words. All office employees are able to access this site from their workstations.
In 2022, the EAPO received specialized magazines, books, brochures covering various aspects of patent activity. To provide examiners with reference materials the EAPO cooperates with BEN (Library of Natural Sciences), VINITI (Library of the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information), VPTB (All-Russian Patent and Technical Library) and others.
All collections of patent documents are stored electronically and available in EAPATIS.
Publications related to different business procedures and patent information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.
The EAPO web portal provides access to a number of documents, publications and guides intended for applicants and patent information users, e.g.:
- General information about Eurasian patent procedures
- Brochure "How to File a Eurasian Application"
- Brochure "How to Get a Eurasian Patent"
- Brochure "Obtaining a Eurasian patent under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) procedure"
- Up-to-date collection of legal texts
- Comment of Eurasian Patent Legislation
- Explanatory statements of the EAPO on certain procedural aspects
- Guidance materials
- User manuals, help files for patent information systems (EAPATIS, EAPO-ONLINE, etc.)
Office's initiatives on providing foreign patent information in the local language(s) (e.g., machine translation tools, translation of abstracts)
EAPO uses WIPO Translate tool (machine to machine integration with EAPATIS) for machine translation of foreign patent information.
Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
The EAPO makes its feasible contribution to the innovative development of its Member States by means of providing a free access to EAPATIS to national IP offices, public libraries, higher educational institutions, academies of sciences and scientific/technical centers of those countries. Totally, more than 200 organizations of this type had free access to EAPATIS as at the end of the year under review.
Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
In 2022 the EAPO took part in 7 events (trainings, seminars, exhibitions) that were fully or partly focused on the use of digital tools, including EAPO tools related to patent information.
One of the most significant events in this field – “Forming of Eurasian Patent Information Space: Experience and Prospects” regional seminar was held in Osh, Kyrgyz Republic on August 23–24, 2022.
The seminar was arranged by the Eurasian Patent Office and the State Agency for Intellectual Property and Innovation of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Kyrgyz Republic (Kyrgyzpatent). The event was attended by representatives of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic, the President of the Eurasian Patent Office, and the leadership and experts of the patent offices of the EAPO member states.
On November 21, 2022, the Tenth Meeting of the Permanent Working Group on Information Technologies of the Eurasian Patent Organization Administrative Council was held in videoconference format. The main topic of the event was the introduction of an updated version of EAPO-ONLINE, which enables applicants to apply for Eurasian patents for inventions and industrial designs with the incorporation of digital 3D models of the subject matter claimed in the documents of Eurasian applications, as well as tools for further processing and publication of 3D models data.
As part of the EAPO comprehensive training program, the Eurasian Patent Office organizes annual training for national IT experts in specialized educational institutions. This training is funded by the EAPO. On November 28–December 2, 2022, the next stage of the training of experts of the national IP offices in information security and information technologies was held.
VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION
International exchange and sharing of patent information in machine-readable form, e.g., priority documents, bibliographic data, abstracts, search reports, full text information
In 2022, patent documentation was exchanged with three international organizations and 52 national patent offices by sharing disk images and Raw data via FTP with Mimosa disk images and RAW DATA arrays. The following data deliveries, based on the cooperation agreements, were carried out by the EAPO in 2022:
- PATENTSCOPE (WIPO) – bibliographic data and full descriptions of Eurasian applications and patents, regional phase entry information for PCT applications;
- Espacenet/DOCDB/BNS (EPO) - bibliographic data and full descriptions of Eurasian applications and patents;
- Inpadoc (EPO) – legal status information;
- CISPATENT (FIPS) - bibliographic data and full descriptions of Eurasian patents.
Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information
In the framework of implementation of the Agreements on granting of access to EAPATIS to scientific organizations, public libraries and higher educational institutions, they were provided with free access to EAPATIS starting from 2019. In the past year more than 190 organizations have already been connected to EAPATIS under this project.
The EAPO participates in the CISPATENT regional project. CISPATENT is a joint patent information product containing information on inventions of the CIS countries and Eurasian patents.
The EAPO finances the participation of the EAPC Contracting States in the CISPATENT project.
The annual set contains information on patent documents of Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia, and of Eurasian Patent Office, including:
- bibliographic data and abstracts in Russian and English;
- patent specifications in the original language of publication.
Periodicity of publications - 12 issues per year.
As a participant of international patent documentation exchange, the EAPO provides complete descriptions of Eurasian applications and patents, and makes its Gazette available to 52 national IP offices and international organizations.
1.Classification is allotting one or more classification symbols (e.g., IPC symbols) to a patent application, either before or during search and examination, which symbols are then published with the patent application.
2. Preclassification is allotting an initial broad classification symbol (e.g., IPC class or subclass, or administrative unit) to a patent application, using human or automated means for internal administrative purposes (e.g., routing an application to the appropriate examiner). Usually preclassification is applied by the administration of an office.
3. Reclassification is the reconsideration and usually the replacement of one or more previously allotted classification symbols to a patent document, following a revision and the entry into force of a new version of the Classification system (e.g., the IPC). The new symbols are available on patent databases.