Report from the 98th Council Meeting held on 16 November 2024 in Budapest

The 98th Council meeting took place in Budapest on 16 November 2024.

A minute of silence was observed at the beginning of the meeting in memory of Arthur Huygens (NL, past epi President) and Erkan Sevinç (TR) who recently passed away.

President Thomsen presented the findings of the survey conducted by the Board among national Council delegations. There is a need to raise awareness about the relevance of patents, to address current and future needs of the patent attorney profession, as well as specific problems in individual countries. Council agreed to create two Working Groups, one dedicated to developing a platform to foster exchanges between countries with a small number of epi members, the other to develop and implement initiatives to promote the patent system and the profession.

The draft epi Amicus Brief in G1/24 was then presented, proposing that Questions 1 and 2 of the referral be answered in the affirmative by the EBA, and that Question 3 be answered by the EBA as follows: “An explicit definition or similar information on a term used in the claims that is given in the description may be disregarded if it is technically meaningless vis-á-vis the matter for which protection is sought”.

Council then studied a proposal from the Presidium to amend the By-Laws to the concerning (i) the roles of Presidium members, (ii) the removal of the fixed definition of the ED position, (iii) an alignment with German employment law, and (iv) the introduction of gender neutral language. The proposed amendments were approved by Council with 92% in favour.

Council then discussed the qualifications required to enroll for the EQE. As a reminder, Council agreed in C97 that the technical/scientific content for a candidate’s degree in Rule 11 IPREE should be evaluated using ECTS credits as an absolute measurement system. Different scenarios were presented and discussed aiming at agreeing on a set of principles based upon a fair and homogeneous way for all 39 contracting states to enter the profession while ensuring that the candidates possess a solid technical/scientific background. The following principles were approved by Council with 78% in favour:

• the candidates must have completed a university-level degree of a minimum 3-years duration,as defined under the Bologna process;
• stacking” of any completed university-level degrees is allowable;
• the candidate must have accumulated a total number of 144 ECTS credits in scientific or technical subjects from completed university-level degrees.

Council then agreed that the D&I Working Group can continue their work until at least the next ordinary Spring Council meeting, and approved that two new members can join the WG.

As often, By-Elections took place to fill vacancies in Committees, this time in the following Committees: Committee on Biotechnological Inventions, Disciplinary Committee, European Patent Practice Committee, Litigation Committee Professional Conduct Committee and Professional Education Committee. Congratulations to all newly elected members and all the best for their mandate. The updated list of Committee members will be soon available on the website.

The Disciplinary Committee then presented proposed amendments to their Additional Rules of Procedure, and observations from the Professional Conduct Committee were noted.

Last but not least, Council approved Guidelines, prepared by the Professional Conduct Committee, on the use of Generative AI in the work of Patent Attorneys.

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

Marc Névant (Editorial Committee)