Report from e-Council meeting (C91) that took place on 13th November 2021

Council remembers Terry Johnson and Francisco Bernardo Noriega, and discusses the latest EPO developments with EPO President

**epi **C91 Council meeting took place on 13 November 2021 by videoconference. A total of 188 participants attended the meeting.

A minute of silence was observed at the start of the meeting in memory of Mr Terry Johnson (UK) and Mr Francisco Bernardo Noriega (ES) who recently passed away. Both Mr Johnson and Mr Bernardo Noriega were long involved in Council and Committees work, and will be remembered as nice colleagues but first and foremost good men.

As in the last two previous years, Council members heard a presentation from EPO President, Mr António Campinos, on the latest developments at the EPO. The presentation was followed by a Q&A session which focused on the following topics: EQE, EPO Academy, oral proceedings by ViCO, CMS decommissioning, AI-driven routing of applications to ‘competent’ Examination Division, complaints, quality, digitalization and environment, teleworking and cybersecurity.

Council adopted the strategic plan of the Institute that was first presented during the last Council meeting (C90), and voted the budget for 2022.

Council also elected members of Committees for which there where vacancies: The updated list of Committee members is available on the epi website <a href=“https://patentepi.org/en/epi-bodies”target=“_blank“>(https://patentepi.org/en/epi-bodies).

As usual a detailed report on the Council meeting will be available in the next issue of epi Information.