News

Oct 21,2021

Wanhuida Partner attends EPO events

Total word count:1512

The Standing Advisory Committee before the European Patent Office (SACEPO) is comprised of representatives from leading industrial property associations and industry federations from all over the world, as well as representatives of European and international patent attorney associations. The President of the EPO also appoints recognised experts in the field of IP law as ad personam members of the SACEPO. As part of EPO’s commitment to transparency, the agency regularly engages external stakeholders in the framework of the SACEPO to involve user representatives in the development of the European patent system and to gather feedback from users to better respond to their needs. The members of the SACEPO are nominated for a three-year term of office. The current term of office runs from 2021 to 2023.


Duan Xiaoling, Partner of Wanhuida Intellectual Property participates in a series of SACEPO meetings in her capacity as a member of SACEPO Working Party on Quality (WP/Q) Asia/Oceania branch, nominated by user association AIPPI.


Ms. Duan attends the 7th meeting of SACEPO WP/Q, which is convened from 19-21 October 2021, covering topics of “Stakeholder Quality Assessment Panels (SQAP) re. inventive step”, “SQAP re. clarity” and “User area pilot”.


The EPO briefs the SACEPO WP/Q on the “Strategic Plan 2023 - New Online User Engagement programme”, which will provide applicants and representatives with new online patent grant services through a new user area portal in 2021-2023. A pilot of the user area starts in November and will run for at least six months. The agency takes questions and feedback from SACEPO members, shares user satisfaction survey results and action plans with attendees, and hears Reports from Stakeholder Quality Assessment Panels.