06/10/2015
IPKat Blog, "EPO queue jumping part 1 - Don't be an SME"
IPKat reports on internal memos of the European Patent Office titled "Closer Contacts with Major Applicants". The reason given was to "foster a better esprit de service, not least to ensure that we do not lose workload market share to other major Offices":
"The ICT cluster has had close contact with both Canon and Microsoft recently and their experience prompted this pilot… The pilot started on 1.4 for ten major applicants.... For the 10 applicants, there will be one DG1 director in direct contact with one person in the company… The idea is that the DG1 director will be in regular contact ... with his counterpart from the applicant and that at least once in the pilot year there will be a high level visit (PD, directors, DG2 and DG5 representatives where necessary) to the company."
Merpel comments on the fact that directors and examiners were gently reminded that the Office had entered in a closer cooperation project with Microsoft and that overdue Microsoft files should be treated with the highest priority.