Conference report

EPIDOS Annual Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark,

October 2002

Since these conferences started in the early 1990s they

have grown very substantially, both in size and in stat-

ure. This year reached a new high of just over 500 reg-

istrations, with 470 delegates attending.

For the organizers at the EPO, this was an encour-

aging endorsement of course. As a delegate it was also

apparent that the origin and skill set of the attendees is

also changing rapidly. There are still a good many at-tendees with long experience in patent information re-

trieval and evaluation of the results. But there are also

increasing numbers of first time attendees and delegates

for whom this field is a very recent aspect of their pro-

fessional lives.

Some of the drivers for these changes in the pattern of

attendees, such as the extensive information on patents

and patent databases available on the Internet, werenaturally also the drivers for many of the presentations,

workshops and discussions throughout the conference.

For example, there was a workshop ‘‘Case study in

patent searching’’, and presentations on improvements

in the offing for the esp@cenet� databases, Inpadoc on

esp@cenet�, and the European Patent register on epo-

line�.

A recurrent theme in these and related presentationswas that, in the course of planning requested and nec-

essary improvements to their Internet offerings, the EPO

is now more constantly aware of, and taking account of,

the need to avoid impinging significantly on the activi-

ties of the commercial sector of patent information

providers, many of whom have invested heavily over a

long period in value-added services to benefit their

customers, primarily patent information professionals––and their own profitability of course! While we would all

like �everything for nothing�––in this context free, high

quality, easily and efficiently retrieved, high value-added

patent information––this is clearly no more realistic in

practice than in any other aspect of commerce. So, for

example, Peter Paris, in describing the migration of In-

padoc databases to the esp@cenet� environment, made

it clear that, while the full extent of the databases wouldbe available in this manner, some aspects of the retrieval

and analysis of those records would not be included

there. Likewise, in the presentation by Graham Day on

the esp@cenet� improvements, such as better naviga-

tion, patent family data and information services about

the system, he also outlined some requested changeswhich, while sometimes technically feasible, would not

be included because they would add significant value, to

the potential detriment of commercial providers. Clearly

this is at times a delicate balancing act, as the EPO seeks

to meet its users� needs while not distorting the market

to an extent which might lead to a narrowing of services,

both those that are free and those that are charged for,

available to the end-users.The conference kicked off with a series of six work-

shops, in two parallel sessions. These workshops re-

flected the EPO�s greater emphasis on user-oriented,

rather than technology led, products and services. They

were titled �Inpadoc and other advanced tools�, �Casestudy in patent searching�, �The mythical database con-

taining all patent information�, �The oriental perspec-

tive�, �Legal information about patents�, and �Puttingpatent information on your intranet�. The �Case study in

patent searching� was chaired by Georg Nissen of

Danfoss A/S and took as its subject the task of pro-

viding a report on the state of the art in relation to

patent protection on all aspects of Viagra�, the impo-

tence drug. First, the workshop participants spent about

45 mins collectively in seeking to tackle this task, using

only the free Internet resources. Second, Nigel Clarke,once a patent examiner, but in different technologies,

now in marketing at the EPO, presented the results of

his efforts, with access to the same range of free re-

sources, but having spent about 8 h in carrying it out.

Finally, Jeremy Scott, EPO examiner in this field, pre-

sented the results of his searching activities over a sim-

ilar 8 hour period, but using the sophisticated internal

search tools in the EPO and appropriate commercialdatabases. All three approaches succeeded in identifying

the main threads of invention in this field––patents

covering the chemical per se, compositions, methods of

preparation, intermediates, drug delivery methods and

so on––and some measure at least of the size and scope

of the patent holdings in each area. However, the first

search could go no further in this short time. The second

search retrieved a great deal more data, but it took a lotof time and effort, there was a lot of �noise� in the ap-

proximately 10,000 hits, and further analysis and cate-

gorization was hardly practical with such a large answer

set and limited suitable tools available for free. Natu-

rally, the third search gave the best results, with about

World Patent Information 25 (2003) 89–91

www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin

PII: S0172-2190 (02 )00122-9

1200 hits, properly categorised and highly relevant. It

was of course also the most expensive in database etc

costs. Overall, the workshop confirmed some of the

preconceived assumptions that participants had, butalso gave clearer, more concrete ideas. It surprised many

of us how much we had achieved with our initial

floundering around as a group of about 50 non-experts

in this technical field. Also, quite a useful result was

possible with much more time and application in the free

Internet resources; with a topic having a substantial, but

less massive, patent portfolio, it seemed quite feasible

that this approach could have got a more focussed anduseful, though still incomplete, result, at least in fa-

vourable technologies. But the workshop illustrated that

there really is no substitute for an extensive and skilled

search by an expert in patent searching and in the rele-

vant technical area, using value-added, specialised da-

tabases with sophisticated retrieval and analysis tools.

As an aside, many delegates were staggered to realise the

superb tools available in-house to the examiners in theEPO––they would like to see these available through

the commercial hosts if possible. I understood from an

answer to a question at an EPO seminar in The Hague

in March, 1 that the EPO is open to discussions with

hosts on such possibilities.

The other workshop that I attended, �The oriental

perspective�, was in two parts, with Irene Schellner, from

the Japanese patent information section at the EPO, asthe expert in each part. First, we were provided with an

excellent update of and comparison of Japanese patent

information resources available on both free and com-

mercial systems. It is valuable for all patent information

users in Europe to get information and perspectives

from this section at the EPO, as part of the EPO�s remit

to help European industry make better use of all patent

information from around the world. In this context, itwas interesting to hear in the second half of this work-

shop about their proposals to extend their activities to

cover other South East Asian countries. There is clearly

a fast growing interest in the patents of PR China and

South Korea especially, both of which present similarly

difficult language problems. In both halves of the

workshop, feedback on both �wish lists� and the priority

which attendees attached to each requirement identifiedwas sought. An interesting related point came out of one

of the exhibitor�s presentations that indicated the de-

velopment of systems in which search queries in English

are first translated into Japanese and the resulting query

searched in the Japanese language version of the data-

base. So long as the initial translation procedure is

sufficiently sophisticated, this has valuable potential for

more accurate and comprehensive searches of the Jap-

anese (patent) literature. 2

Some other presentations of particular interest during

the conference included

– Nigel Clarke, on the market research shortly to be

undertaken to discover, on a broad front, what ex-

isting and potential patent information users want

from the patent information supply industry at large

and the EPO itself as a significant player in that in-

dustry.

– Lucy Akers (PIUG Chair) summarizing the extent towhich users� needs identified at the Epidos 2001 Con-

ference in Cardiff had been met. Of those that were

realistically possible to fulfill in the short term (i.e. ex-

cluding a small number of requests that were non-

starters at present because of technical difficulty or,

more often, because of political constraints), she con-

cluded that a very high proportion had been met, in

part or fully.– Poul-Erik Nielsen (Danish PTO) on IPScore�, a tool

for evaluation of patent and technology develop-

ments. This generated a lot of interest among dele-

gates.

– Presentations on EPO developments, in ESPACE�

(Hannes Kiesbauer), the re-engineered website (David

Dickinson) and the Online European Patent register

(Giovanni Calamida), as well as on Inpadoc andesp@cenet�––as mentioned already.

There was of course the usual formal opening cere-

mony, in this case in the presence of H R H Crown

Prince Frederik of Denmark, followed by presentations

by the worthies of the EPO (Ingo Kober), the Danish

government (Bendt Bentsen) and the Danish PTO

(Mogens Kring). This was followed by a debate on pa-tent office �mission statements�. Neither extended open-

ing ceremonies nor mission statements are my scene at

all, but both were well-organized and went well and

were no doubt appreciated by many delegates. Inter-

estingly though, informal discussions that I had with

�rank and file� staff at the EPO indicated that, contrary

to my and probably their expectations, the EPO�s mis-

sion statement, and the resulting better focus, prioriti-zation and organization there, had a beneficial effect

throughout. They felt much better motivated, with

greater scope for individual initiative to address prob-

lems and get new ideas moving.

Once again, Stephen Adams (Magister Ltd) gave an

excellent, informative and witty summary of the con-

ference, in his role as rapporteur. Referring to the

1 For a report on the seminar, see World Patent Information, 24(3),

247–248, 2002.

2 With thanks to Lucy Akers, who attended this presentation and

drew my attention to this development.

90 Conference report / World Patent Information 25 (2003) 89–91

change of emphasis at the EPO from being primarily

technology-led in the patent information field, to user-

led priorities in assisting the goal of a knowledge-based

society in Europe, he likened it to the �Starship� Epidos!He drew attention to various dichotomies, such as the

ever-increasing availability of vast databases of free

patent information to a much wider public than in the

past but a corresponding danger of incomprehension

and maybe ill-advised use by much of that wider public,

and the increased need for the patent information pro-

fession to assist this wider public to successfully convert

information to knowledge as a result of this wideravailability. He also highlighted the related change that

we are seeing from an emphasis on the search and re-

trieval process to an increasing emphasis on tools for

analysis of search results to give useful insights and vi-

sualization tools to help people at all levels to under-

stand the underlying trends revealed by the analysis of

the patent data.

Overall, this conference, workshops, exhibition andsatellite training events, and subsequent epoline� meet-

ing was a useful opportunity to keep up-to-date with

current developments in the patent information indus-

try, within the EPO, commercial providers, other patent

offices and more broadly. The other valuable aspect,

networking amongst other delegates, which so often

provides delegates with really useful tips and ideas, was

also much in evidence. And of course the whole pro-ceedings were organized and run very efficiently by

Ferdinand Rudolph, Dan Shalloe and all their staff at

the Vienna Office of the EPO, in cooperation this year

with the staff of the Danish PTO.

Recommendations for improvement? Well I feel that

the conference would have greater impact amongst

delegates and also outside the conference itself if a really

good, maybe somewhat provocative keynote speechfrom a major player in the IP and patent information

scene (outside of the EPO and other national, regional

and international government organizations, and pos-

sibly from outside Europe) were to be included early on

in the initial opening session.

This has necessarily been a selective review––more

detailed information on the conference can be found

at http://www.european-patent-office.org/epidos/conf/eac2002/.

A nice spin-off from attending any conference can be

the chance to add a day or two as holiday to explore the

location. It was my first visit to Copenhagen and it was

most enjoyable. While there, if you have the chance do

not miss the old capital of Roskilde, a short train

journey away. It has a wonderful cathedral with many

interesting features, not least a series of chapels housingmemorials and coffins of virtually all the Danish kings

and queens of the last 1000 years or so––fascinating.

And so to next year. Epidos�s Annual Conference for

2003 will be held in early November, in Luxembourg, in

conjunction with the EC�s biennial Patinnova� event. I

hope to see you there!

Michael Blackman45 Kenwood Drive

Beckenham

Kent BR3 6Q7, UK

E-mail address: mblackwpi@aol.com

Conference report / World Patent Information 25 (2003) 89–91 91