The EPO has been working with patent offices from emerging economies for a long time with the aim of fostering innovation and bilateral trade by establishing efficient national or regional patent systems closely aligned with the European patent system. The EPO is widely regarded as the world’s leading patent office when it comes to international co-operation due to a number of impressive results achieved in this domain in the last 30 years. 

EBTC’s association with the EPO dates back to 2013 when both parties decided to enter into a partnership with the aim of promoting the use of patent system in India as well as the related services offered by each organization. This association has been going strong ever since. The overriding objective of this co-operation is to address the low levels of awareness among Indian stakeholders of IP in general and the role of the patent system in innovation and technology transfer in particular. In view of the positive results and support expressed by various Indian and European counterparts, both EBTC and EPO decided to formalize their co-operation on IP by signing successive workplans which have continued till date. Through, these workplans EBTC along-with discharging its other functionalities, facilitates EPO as its co-operation partner in implementing various initiatives falling under the ambit of its respective MoUs with MeitY and DIPP as well as those which aim to:

• Raise awareness of the EPO and European patent system among innovators and user community in India.
• Capacity building on EPO’s filing and grant procedures among the Indian user community.
• Organize knowledge sharing sessions with Indian industry, legal fraternity, R&D institutions etc.
• Promote the use of patent information and build capacity among Indian innovators to effectively use EPO patent information tools and products for technology development and business intelligence. 

For more information, write to us at projects@ebtc.eu