e-learning centre of the European Patent Academy

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). Virtual classroom sessions allow for direct interaction with EPO expert tutors.

This self-paced course will give you an overview of how patentability requirements are assessed at the EPO and what objections might be raised during the process. It includes a number of examples of different situations.

This distance learning course is intended for search champions nominated by their national office to help their local peers with the new Common Search Tool.

This course comprises 35 recorded lectures in which expert examiners present their CPC technical fields.

The lectures are based on the presentations delivered during the CPC field-specific trainings that took place in 2018 in The Hague and in 2019 in Munich. The events were aimed at staff who use the CPC in classification at national offices in both member states and non-member states.

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.

If you are interested in the course, get in touch with the Academy contact person at your office or with academy@epo.org.

This course includes presentations by EPO lawyers and examiners on recent changes in EPO substantive and procedural matters. Topics addressed are: assessing evidence and plausibility in sufficiency; essential features and their impact on compliance with EPC requirements; latest developments in the Guidelines referred to computer implemented inventions (CII); and procedural aspects at the final stages of the grant procedure towards the best possible protection.

This distance learning course is offered to patent examiners at national IP offices and comprises a series of ten live virtual classroom (VC) sessions on the use of EPOQUE Net. They will help to broaden skills of EPOQUE Net users at national offices. Practical cases will be provided as short assignments prior to each VC. Solution(s) proposed by participants and the tutor(s) will be therein discussed. Tips and tricks on efficient use of the EPO's professional patent search tool will be brought to participants. Features of possible new roll-outs will also be included in the course. 

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

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.

How much do you know about time limits? Why not test your knowledge of the various topics in our question groups?

The European Patent Office addressed the challenges and opportunities of patenting Artificial Intelligence at a one-day conference on 30 May 2018, which connected people from business, academia, the judiciary, policy making and patent offices. This course room offers access to the recordings of the lectures and panel discussions.

"Search Matters" is an annual event that showcases the EPO's patent search strategies and techniques, focusing on efficient search strategies, search practice in specific technical fields, as well as recent developments.

Examination Matters has become the meeting place for patent attorneys dealing with the EPO in the patent granting procedure. This year's event focused on a single broad thematic area, chemistry, and included five specialised, advanced-level presentations given by senior examiners. In addition, there was a roundtable on strengthening diversity and inclusion in the patent world.

This high-level event was once again organised in close co-operation with the epi.

This expert exchange between managers of patent/IP academies at the national offices of member states, who develop training programmes for audiences external to their offices, and their peers at the EPO, proposes to address key aspects of e-learning. The objective is to identify a possible set of best practices toward more complementarity and synergy between the existing training offers within the EPN.

The expert exchange on procedural and expert matters addresses which important aspects are to be considered regarding amendments and corrections during substantive examination proceedings.

The workshop includes detailed discussions on the admissibility of amendments at the various stages of the proceedings, in conjunction with the applicable legal requirements as well as with other elements, such as auxiliary requests, substantive priority claims and divisional applications, as examples.

This course offers CPC field-specific training for DPMA examiners for selected sub-classes:

This course offers CPC field-specific training for CNIPA examiners for selected sub-classes:

• A61K8
• H04L9

This course offers CPC field-specific training for INPI examiners for selected sub-classes:

This self-paced course provides an overview of the benefits of the intellectual property system, and of patents in particular. You will discover the importance of patents from two perspectives: as a valuable source of information when it comes to researching whether an idea or a product has already been patented, and as a means of protecting inventions.

This course room offers access to videos giving an overview of the new Guidelines (in force as of March 2021) and the updates relevant for examiner procedures.

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.

This self-paced course offers a basic introduction to the most important legal and procedural aspects of patents and the European patent system.

Pan-European Seal: this on-line course is mandatory for all candidates.

This series of six virtual classroom sessions (VCs) is designed for business advisors, technology transfer professionals and anyone else interested in understanding how IP issues impact SMEs and new businesses.

In diesem Kurs finden Sie die Videos einer Vortragsreihe für Formalsachbearbeiter, welche im Februar und März 2017 stattfand. Juristen und erfahrene Formalsachbearbeiter des EPA behandelten Verfahrensfragen, Beispiele und aktuelle Entwicklungen aus speziellen Bereichen der Formalsachbearbeitung.

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

Opposition Matters follows in the footsteps of its sister events, Search Matters and Examination Matters, which over the years have become key events for patent searchers and attorneys alike. Have you ever wondered what the day-to-day work of an examiner in opposition involves? The Opposition Matters conference offered the opportunity to find out - direct from our examiners and with senior European patent attorneys co-presenting alongside EPO examiners.

This high-level event was once again organised in close co-operation with the epi.

Find here the recordings of the sessions.

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).

Every patent application is assigned a category in one of the major patent classification schemes to ensure it can be found in subsequent searches by patent offices and other interested parties. Learn more about how this is done.

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

This course room offers access to material covering topics related to the substantive European patent law applicable specifically to healthcare and EPO's approach to examining patent applications in this field.

This course gives an insight into the specific patentability requirements and legal basis for particular topics such as biotechnology, computer-implemented inventions or patents based on traditional medicinal knowledge.

This self-paced course has been created to provide TUM students with  an overview of what patents are, what requirements an invention has to fulfill to be patentable and what a patent application should generally comply with. The course also deals with patent documentation and other intellectual property (IP) rights. Students can obtain a certificate after passing a quiz.

This second course of the CPC series gives you a short overview of the CPC and how it differs from the IPC. It also looks at some practical aspects and useful strategies. 

This course provides you with an overview and practical exercises about the problem-solution approach, which was developed to assess the inventiveness requirement of a European patent application.

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.

In order to understand, locate and evaluate patent information you need to know something about patent documents. In this self-paced online course you will learn about patents and patent documentation.

This course is a pre-requisite for universities participating in tutored online sessions on patent documentation organised by the European Patent Academy. For further information, please contact academy@epo.org.

When having to decide if to grant a patent or refuse an application, the EPO examines whether an application meets the requirements of the European Patent Convention (EPC).

What exactly does this involve? And which are the steps of the procedure?

This course will give you an overview of the grant procedure at the EPO with insights into related formalities, structure and role of the Boards of Appeal and options to accelerate the procedure.

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 course presents tools and databases available at the EPO that help you to prepare and file your patent application.

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.