The Office of International Patent Cooperation (OIPC) is hosting four, IP5 working group meetings in the coming months.  The IP5 is comprised of the five largest Intellectual Property Offices:  the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China (SIPO) and the USPTO.  The IP5 Offices together handle about 80% of the world’s patent applications, and 95% of all work carried out under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Each year, the IP5 Offices rotate to host annual working group meetings.  The purpose of these meetings it to find ways to eliminate unnecessary duplication of work among the offices, enhance the patent examination efficiency and quality, and guarantee the stability of patent rights.

The reason for our email today is to see if you and your members would be interested in volunteering to help out during any of the meetings and/or if you would like to host an event during one (or more) of our IP5 meetings.  These events can be anything that you would like to do, e.g., coffee breaks, happy hours, tea reception, etc. This is a great opportunity for our IP5 colleagues to learn more about our USPTO community and meet some of our employees. It would also provide our Affinity Group leaders and members an opportunity to meet our visiting international delegates.

Below are the schedules for the IP5 working group meetings.  All meetings are held in the USPTO, in the Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA).

August 17- August 20, 2015
Statistics Working Group Meeting
POC: Jane Peek
• Annual compilation of patent statistics for the five largest IP Offices

October 19 – October 23, 2015
Work Group 1 (WG1)
POC: LaChelle Carpenter-Parker
• Classification and related topics: Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)

October 26 – October 30, 2015
Work Group 3 (WG3)
POC: Amber Ostrup
• Work sharing and Quality:  Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH), Collaborative Search Pilot Program

February 1 – February 5, 2016
Work Group 2 (WG2)
POC: Jessica Patterson
• IT-Supported Business Practices: Global Dossier, Priority Document Exchange

If you are interested and available, we would like to offer you an opportunity to host an event to welcome our IP5 colleagues.

Please contact Rachel Pellegrino by e-mail and the respective meeting POC if you are interested in hosting an event.