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The European Patent Office, third epoline® annual conference

Munich/The Hague: The European Patent Office (EPO) has announced its third epoline® Annual Conference, which will take place at the Salzburg Congress, Austria on 23-24 November 2004. The conference will examine the latest developments in on-line patent management and information dissemination and its contribution to EU innovation.

The event will show delegates how the epoline® on-line patent filing and management processes as well as the esp@cenet® on-line patent information service are setting new technical standards worldwide in order to make the patent procedure more efficient, transparent, accessible and cost efficient.

The two-day conference in Salzburg will consist of several sessions, mainly, hands on training for both epoline® on-line patent management and esp@cenet® patent information conducted separately in English, French and German by experienced EPO tutors, seminars on the patent procedure and presentations on a range of intellectual property issues. Representatives from industry and academia, as well as intellectual property specialists will feature in the sessions.

The conference will be of particular interest to patent attorneys, their administrative staff and others involved in the protection of Intellectual Property rights.

Media Contact:

For further information about the third epoline® Annual Conference, please contact:

Marion Lemercier
European Patent Office
2280 HV Rijswijk (ZH)
The Netherlands
Tel.: 31-70-340-3588
Fax: 31-70-340-4237
Email: mlemercier@epo.org
http://www.epoline.org

Editor's note:

EPO: The European Patent Office grants European patents for the contracting states to the European Patent Convention (EPC), which was signed in Munich on 5 October 1973 and entered into force on 7 October 1977. It is the executive body of the European Patent Organisation, an intergovernmental body set up under the EPC, whose members are the EPC contracting states. The activities of the EPO are supervised by the Organisation's Administrative Council, composed of delegates from the contracting states. See http://www.european-patent-office.org.

epoline®: is the brand name given to the range of electronic products and services produced by the EPO for the intellectual property community. These products and services have been designed to provide a secure, integrated environment for electronic communication between the EPO, applicants, their representatives and the national patent offices of the contracting states to the EPC. Most significantly, it provides for on-line filing, fee payment and management of deposit accounts, file inspection, and Register enquiries. It offers major advantages over traditional ways of working by providing instant feedback in the forms of status information and immediate confirmation of communications and transactions, while reducing clerical work and paper handling costs, as well as increasing in public visibility of the patenting process and transparency of procedure. See http://www.epoline.org.

esp@cenet®: is the EPO's public worldwide patent information service on the Internet. It provides users with a readily accessible source of published patent information. It also aims to improve awareness at national and international level, in particular among small and medium-sized enterprises, of the kind of information that is accessible to the public. Moreover, as well as offering documents published by the EPO, this service provides access to patent documents published by patent offices around the world. Specifically, esp@cenet® offers access to: all patent documentation available to EPO examiners, recent patent applications from the EPO member states, EPO patent applications and PCT pamphlets from the World Intellectual Property Organisation. See http://www.european-patent-office.org/espacenet/info/index.htm.

EPO Member States: The following states are currently members of the European Patent Organisation: Austria; Belgium; Republic of Bulgaria; Switzerland; Cyprus; Czech Republic; Germany; Denmark; Republic of Estonia; Spain; Finland; France; United Kingdom; Hellenic Republic; Hungary; Ireland; Italy; Liechtenstein; Luxembourg; Monaco; Netherlands; Poland; Portugal; Republic of Romania; Sweden; Slovenia; Slovak Republic and Turkey.

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