41st Conference of the Heads of the Trilateral Patent Offices

Tony Venturino, a partner in the Vorys Washington, D.C. office, attended the 41st Conference of the Heads of the Trilateral Patent Offices at the European Patent Office in Munich, Germany as a representative for the Industry Trilateral.  The Industry Trilateral represented patent owner interests at the meeting.  During the meeting, the Trilateral Offices and the Industry Trilateral discussed a range of topics, including how to promote Quality Education in intellectual property and voluntary technology transfer to regions in need in support of United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4.  They also discussed advances in digitalization and plans for future digitization by the Offices to simplify and streamline processes at the Offices to improve efficiency and reduce costs for patent applicants.  Participants acknowledged that progress on these topics can be accelerated by leveraging longstanding cooperation between the Trilateral Offices and Trilateral Industry.

The Trilateral Offices includes the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the European Patent Office (EPO), and the Japanese Patent Office (JPO).  The meeting was attended by Kathi Vidal, the under secretary of commerce for Intellectual Property and director of the USPTO, Antonio Campinos, the president of the EPO, Koichi Hamano, the commissioner of the JPO, and Lisa Jorgenson, the deputy director general for the World Intellectual Property Law Organization. 

The Industry Trilateral includes the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA), Intellectual Property Owners Inc. (IPO), Business Europe (BE), and the Japan Intellectual Property Association (JIPA).  In addition to Tony, who is an AIPLA board member and past Harmonization Committee co-chair, the AIPLA was represented by Executive Director Vince Garlock and two other members of the AIPLA Harmonization Committee.  

Read the conference summary here.

Read the news release on the EPO website here.