Recent update on coronavirus from EPO and EUIPO

According to the situation report from WHO issued on March 7, 2020, coronavirus outbreak (“COVID-19”) has occurred in European region, with increased number of confirmed cases in some countries (e.g., Italy with 4636 confirmed cases, Germany with 639 confirmed cases and France with 613 confirmed cases). Recently, European Patent Office (EPO) and European Union Intellectual Property Office issued update on coronavirus and COVID-19 and precautional measures, which may draw the attention of the public, particularly colleagues who planned to participate scheduled conferences, events or oral proceedings in March and April 2020.

Update from EPO

On March 6, 2020, EPO issued an “[u]pdate on Coronavirus,” providing information for external partners and potential visitors to the EPO (https://www.epo.org/news-issues/news/2020/20200306.html). According to this update, measures are being adopted as a precaution, which relate to oral proceedings, European qualifying examination (EQE), events involving a high number of participants, visit to the EPO and duty travel.

Regarding oral proceedings, in principal, oral proceedings before examining and opposition divisions will in principle take place as scheduled. However, oral proceedings involving parties or representatives who have recently visited high risk areas will be held by videoconference or postponed, upon request. According to the “[u]pdate on Coronavirus,” “high risk areas” include China, the “red area” of Italy (Bertonico, Casalpusterlengo, Castelgerundo, Castiglione d'Adda, Codogno, Fombio, Maleo, San Fiorano, Somaglia, Terranova dei Passerini and Vò) and South Korea, and “the definition of areas affected by the spread of the Coronavirus may be subject to change.”

Further, considering the possible travel restrictions, EPO provides feasible procedures. It is indicated that “where the general spread of Coronavirus prevents a party or representative from attending oral proceedings, for instance in case of travel restrictions in companies or patent attorney firms, the EPO will do everything feasible to remove the need for the party or representative to travel to oral proceedings.” Remote measures could be taken for participating oral proceedings, that is, “oral proceedings by videoconference will be offered in examination and, to the extent possible, in opposition proceedings.” And it is worth noting that, request for alternative measures should be indicated, namely, “[t]he relevant party or representative should indicate in each particular case which alternative measures they request.”

As such, for Chinese applicants who have scheduled to participate oral proceedings before the examining division or opposition division of EPO recently, they may consider requesting to take oral proceedings by a videoconference or to postpone the oral proceedings. Details on oral proceedings and procedures therefor are set forth in Chapter III, Part E, Guidelines for Examination.

Besides the precautional measures related to oral proceedings, in response to the latest developments regarding the spread of the novel coronavirus, the Supervisory Board of the European qualifying examination has decided to cancel the EQE. Events that involve more than 50 participants in March and April are postponed, and external partners are requested to abstain from visiting the EPO if they have recently visited a high-risk area.

Update from EUIPO

On March 3, 2020, EUIPO issued an “[u]pdate on COVID 19” (https://euipo.europa.eu/ohimportal/news/-/action/view/5615451). A series of precautional measures have been adopted by EUIPO and decisions have been made in relation to upcoming events and meetings planned for March. Specifically, EUIPO has postponed all meetings and events involving a high number of external stakeholders during the month of March and postponed EUIPO’s participation in March events and activities outside EUIPO premises with stakeholders such as European Cooperation Project (ECP) technical visits. And EUIPO kindly offered to reimburse costs through the usual procedure, if the participants registered in any cancelled meetings have incurred any expenses.

In view of the update from these authorities, colleagues who are scheduling to participate relevant meetings/conferences/events or to take oral proceedings in March and/or April 2020 may need to reschedule or take necessary preparations for an alternative way of participation.

Source：iprdaily.com

Author：Weiwei Han

Editor：Vapor