This distance learning course is offered to patent examiners at national IP offices. Participants will learn to apply the criteria for Clarity as well as the methodology for determining the Unity of invention in line with the EPO practice (Guidelines and Case Law). 

Level of expertise: Intermediate level

This distance learning course is offered to patent examiners at national IP offices. Participants will learn to assess novelty and inventive step in line with the EPO practice (Guidelines and Case Law).

Level of expertise: Intermediate level

In this course you find recordings of two webinars on (1) the business use of patent information and (2) PATSTAT online.

This distance learning course is offered to patent examiners of national IP offices, in particular those in charge of drafting communications on the merits of a patent application with respect to patentability requirements. Participants will broaden their skills in preparing the written search opinion accompanying a search report according to EPO Guidelines. Training will consist of on-line modules and tests. Recorded sessions of virtual classrooms which took place during the course OD09-2017 further enhance the understanding of the topics.

Opening of course: 08.05.2017
Closure of course: 31.12.2017
Level of expertise: Intermediate

Find out more about this conference, where European and international user organisations, universities were discussing key substantive patent law harmonisation issues.

This distance learning course is offered to patent examiners at national IP offices who have started to use the EPOQUE Net tool. The course comprises on-line material, such as e-learning modules and will be articulated around a series of 6 virtual classroom (VC) sessions. The course has a focus on the hands-on experience, translated in the form of assignments, exercises and examples. The material will help EPOQUE Net users at national offices to efficiently perform searches using EPOQUE Net. The tutors are experienced EPO examiners.

During the VC sessions, participants have the possibility to communicate live with the experts and ask questions.

Registration form

Practice is the key to your preparations for Paper D of the EQE. From October to December 2017, D-type questions were sent on a daily basis to subscribers. You can still find the questions in a course room with the answers and a forum which was tutored until the end of December 2017. If you want to see them, enrol to the course.

"Boards of Appeal and key decisions" is an annual conference where experienced patent practitioners, judges and staff from national patent offices meet to discuss the most recent key decisions and developments in the EPO's boards of appeal case law.

The conference Examination Matters has become the meeting place for patent attorneys dealing with the EPO in the patent granting procedure. This course room offers access to the recordings of three public webinars covering some of the most popular topics of the event.

Applying for a patent can be a complex undertaking, with many different aspects to consider. The two modules that take you through the Guide for Applicants give an insight into the procedure to be followed when examining European applications and patents in accordance with the European Patent Convention. The module on oral proceedings also shows you what happens in such proceedings relating to the examination procedure before the EPO.

The ip4inno project consists of 21 modules specifically designed for business advisors, technology transfer professionals and anyone else interested in understanding how IP issues impact SMEs and new businesses.

This self-paced training course gives an in-depth overview on the opposition procedure at the EPO.

Pan-European Seal: this on-line course is mandatory for candidates in international & legal affairs (DG5).

This course provides easy access to the main concepts involved as well as to items of specific interest in patent litigation.

This self-paced course explains the criteria for patentability, relating to both the invention and the patent application, according to the EPC.

Pan-European Seal: this on-line course is mandatory for candidates in international & legal affairs (DG5).

This self-paced course room gives candidates access to the actual pre-examination papers from 2015 to 2017.

This course keeps you up to date with some of the most recent changes in patent law.

In this course, you will discover how to devise an effective search strategy, how to evaluate the prior art you find and how to know when to stop searching.find out about the role and importance of strategies in the search process.

This course is intended for those interested in judicial matters, such as the concept of "prior user", the principle applied to interpreting the scope of patent claims in an invention, the enforcement directive on IP rights and developments with regard to the unitary patent.

This self-paced course explains the role of the EPO as appointed international searching authority and international preliminary examining authority in the process of search and examination of patent applications.

Pan-European Seal: this on-line course is mandatory for candidates in international & legal affairs (DG5).

This self-paced training course deals with the role of patents in innovation and research, the conditions an invention has to meet in order to become a patent and how to use patent documentation for a particular research project.

This self-paced training course deals with the role of patents in innovation and research, the conditions an invention has to meet in order to become a patent and how to use patent documentation for a particular research project.

This itinerary is the third part of the 'IP and research' series and features a number of case studies, which illustrate the strategical and practical relevance of patents and IP for research-driven businesses.

This distance learning course comprises a series of five one-hour virtual classroom lectures which introduce the main concepts of IP management. The sessions are particularly suitable for staff in small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) coming to IP management from a background in, for example, R&D, business development or general management.