The 9th Meeting of IP5 Heads of Offices Held in Tokyo
The 9th annual meeting of the heads of the world's five largest intellectual property offices ("IP5") was held in Tokyo between 31 May and 2 June 2016. Members of the IP5 comprise the State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), which together account for around 80% of all patent applications being filed worldwide.
The meeting was chaired by JPO commissioner Hitoshi Ito and participated by SIPO deputy commissioner He Zhimin, EPO president Benoît Battistelli, KIPO commissioner Choi Donggyou, and USPTO director Michelle Lee, with Mr. Francis Gurry, director general of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), attending the meeting as an observer.
During the meeting, outcomes and progress of the IP5 joint initiatives over the past year were reviewed, and documents were approved for the projects of Global Dossier, patent information policy, PDCA matrix form, common request form for patent prosecution highway (PPH), PCT collaborative search and examination, unity of invention, and citation of prior art.
The five IP heads also signed the IP5 Joint Statement in Tokyo 2016, reiterated the goal in the 2015 joint statement of providing further optimised services to users and the public, and pointed to the three main directions of ongoing cooperation, namely, enhancing relationship with users; continuing to provide high-quality and reliable examination results; and exploring the IP offices' readiness to respond to emerging technologies.
The next IP5 heads of office meeting will be hosted by the EPO in 2017.
