The EPO's 7th annual "East meets West in Vienna" forum on patent information from Asia was held on 23 and 24 April 2009. This year, the hot topics included machine translation for Asian documents, searching traditional knowledge, recent law changes and classification matters. You can read more about the event in the EPO's "Patent Information News", issue 2/2009, which will be available soon at http://www.epo.org/about-us/publications/patent-information/news/2009.html
How relevant was the forum for your daily work? Which topics would you like to have discussed next year? Join this discussion thread to share your impressions of "East meets West 2009" or make suggestions for next year's event.
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6 Comments
Christine writes on May 11, 2009 1:26:09 PM
(Institution/Organisation: European Patent Office)
East meets West forum
A truly positive spirit of willingness to exchange knowledge and share expertise prevailed during the two-day forum in Vienna, where expert users of patent information shared their experiences of working with machine translations and searching Asian traditional knowledge, giving participants an insight into practical, "real-life" challenges - and ways of dealing with them.
Following up on the launch of the Chinese-to-English machine translation tool in April 2008, Chinese speaker Yuan Mingyue spoke about the evaluation of error reports and user feedback, stressing that quality improvement was the current focus of SIPO's efforts. Another highlight of this year's forum was the special focus on the emerging countries India and the Philippines. A high-ranking official of the Indian patent office gave an overview of Indian patent information policy and announced major improvements in free search facilities in the second half of 2009.
Throughout the forum, all speakers stressed the importance of collaboration between "East" and "West" in working towards the common goal of improving access to Asian patent information.
Christine writes on May 11, 2009 1:27:26 PM
(Institution/Organisation: European Patent Office)
Training and introductory sessions
As in previous years, the morning of the first day of "East meets West" offered participants a range of training sessions, including practical hands-on exercises, showing users how to retrieve information from free Chinese patent databases and how to search efficiently with Japanese FI/F-terms.
A new item on the programme this year was an introductory session on "Common aspects and differences in the European and Asian patent systems", held prior to the start of the forum itself. The session covered the most important features of the various patent systems, such as the grant procedure, time limits, opposition and invalidation procedures, and looked at some special features such as deferred examination and the extension of patent terms.
How useful was this comparison of patent systems for you? Which aspects would you like to see included next year? Please let us have your suggestions!
Ming-Feng writes on May 14, 2009 4:17:39 PM
(Institution/Organisation: European Patent Office)
Venue 2009
Every year we make great effort to find a suitable venue for our annual forum. A good venue is essential for the success of the forum providing spaces to encourage participants to exchange their knowledge intensely.
Situated in the heart of Vienna's diplomatic district and next to the EPO's premises, the Austria Trend Hotel Savoyen with its large conference rooms, and spacious conference foyer seemed to be perfect for this year's "East meets West".
Participants' feedback on the quality of the venue was very positive with a majority rating the venue as "excellent". The EPO organising team also appreciated the help and great service of the hotel staff.
However, there is always room for improvement. Therefore we would be grateful for any feedback you can provide to make next year's "East meets West" even better.
Jutta writes on May 27, 2009 3:21:23 PM
(Institution/Organisation: European Patent Office)
Evening event
Delegates to the East meets West forum once again had the opportunity to meet and network with other participants and with our experts from Asia at an informal get-together held this year on the Thursday evening.
Just in time for our conference, an exhibition had opened in Vienna illustrating the cultural contacts between Japan and Austria: the two countries are currently celebrating 140 years of diplomatic relations. Among the objects on display are a number of artefacts from the World Exhibition held in Vienna in 1873. The Vienna Exhibition helped stimulate an international debate on industrial property, a debate that ultimately led to the signing of the Paris Convention ten years later.
The heart of the exhibition is a ceremonial sword belonging to Emperor Meiji. It was during his reign that the Japanese patent system was initiated, with the first Japanese patent law coming into force in 1885.
Did you enjoy the evening get-together? Did it offer enough potential for networking?
Vesna writes on May 28, 2009 11:07:03 AM
(Institution/Organisation: European Patent Office)
Participant feedback
140 participants and experts from 20 different countries came to Vienna for the 7th "East meets West" forum on patent information from Asia. In spite of the financial crisis, we managed to attract participants from major European, US and Asian companies. The forum was also attended by representatives of the major Asian patent offices (Japan, China, Korea, India and the Philippines) and Western patent offices. In addition to already well-known commercial service providers from Europe and the USA, providers of such services from China, India and Japan also took part. Other participants came from law firms, consultancy firms, universities and research institutions.
At the beginning of the forum, we distributed feedback questionnaires among all participants and received feedback from 80% of participants.
More than half of the participants rated the topics of this year's forum as being of the highest relevance to their work. There were no negative responses to any of presented topics.
The presentations considered to be the most worthwhile, according to the feedback, were:
- "A case study in TK searching" by Claudia Finetti, Dragotti & Associati
- "Status of SIPO's MT services: results of one year's testing" by Migue Yuan, State Intellectual Property Office of China (SIPO)
- "Machine translations in practice - help or hindrance?" by Jane List, The Technology Partnership plc
- "MT technologies for patent processing: towards a collaborative effort" by Barrou Diallo, EPO
- "What industry needs" by Peter Kallas, BASF SE.
The poster session and six-minute commercial presentations met with good responses. Some participants would like a longer poster session and more networking opportunities with Asian data providers.
Next year, participants would like to hear more on:
- status and development of the IP5 projects
- new developments in the field of machine translation and cross-lingual patent retrieval technologies
- the Indian patent system and patent information from India
- availability of Indian patent data
- legal status information (e.g. pre-/post-grant opposition) from India.
In addition to information on India, China, Japan and Korea, participants would like to see coverage of these other Asian countries:
- Malaysia
- Vietnam
- Thailand
Irene writes on May 28, 2009 1:19:36 PM
(Institution/Organisation: European Patent Office)
East meets West 2010
The next East meets West forum will take place on 22 and 23 April 2010.
Based on the feedback received this year, we have already started planning the programme for next year. Which topics would you like to see addressed, which search challenges or documentation problems would you like to discuss?
Let us know your suggestions, so that we can prepare a programme for 2010 that gets to the heart of the Asian patent information issues that matter to you.
Every contribution counts. Together we can map the world of patents in Asia.