European Patent Office
The European Patent Organisation is an intergovernmental organisation that was set up on 7 October 1977 on the basis of the European Patent Convention (EPC) signed in Munich in 1973. It has two bodies, the European Patent Office and the Administrative Council. The European Patent Office, the executive arm of the European Patent Organisation, offers inventors a uniform application procedure which enables them to seek patent protection in up to 44 countries. The Office is supervised by the Administrative Council.
My EPO roles
In EPO I performed UX functions receiving and interpreting the requirements and scenarios of business analysts and creating solutions at the level of design that would lead to the intended purposes in these same scenarios. The designs had a large prototyping component even though it was not with the final UI. This prototyping was done to make the “user's journey” (Axure used) more noticeable. Therefore, I performed some user tests to assess the effectiveness of the design, and with the suggestions given by the participants, proceed to the refinements appropriate to the task.
Along with this work, I had weekly meetings with the project owners where I reported all the work done during the week, and at the end of the month I completed the tickets through JIRA and returned them to the project owner.
At the UI level, I created visual solutions using the EPO design system (using Figma) prototyping more realistically (if requested). The requirements were given at the beginning of each month and the design was done until the requested date.
In projects already close to implementation, I had weekly meetings with the development team where I monitored the design implementation and suggested the necessary changes. At the end of the month, he closed the due tickets and returned them to the project owner.
Projects I worked (and roles)
IWF (Initial Workflow Project)
UX; User testing; Interaction design
Oral Proceedings Scheduling Tool
UX; UI; User testing; Interaction design; Prototyping; Assist developers
DFR (Digital File Repository)
UI
Streamlining Reclassification
UI; Prototyping
GO (Geographical Outreach)
UI
IWF (Initial Workflow Project)
The Initial Workflow implementation project (IWF) has the objective to advance paperless handling of the patent grant process. In addition it aims to simplify and streamline current FO and examiner workflows in oral proceedings and introduce the fully automated paperless communication dispatch for certain examiner actions in the examination phase; e.g. Standard Communication (COMM), Summons to Oral Proceedings (PREP) and Minutes of the Oral Proceedings (OR9C).
Oral Proceedings Scheduling Tool
The work packages “OP Scheduling tool” and “OP request registration panel”, (part of “Digitalised Oral Proceedings support processes”) will transfer FO and examiner tasks from the users to the system by implementing services to find and book a suitable date for oral proceedings, and cancel it, when necessary. In addition, electronic workflows will be implemented to replace current email-based Form 2088 transactions.
The overall aim of “Digitalised Oral Proceedings support processes” is to implement an integrated end-to-end solution to schedule oral proceedings, to log any change requests received from the applicant before oral proceedings, and to enable the 1st examiner to electronically take a decision on the maintenance, postponement or cancellation of the oral proceedings.
DFR (Digital File Repository)
The project builds a Digital File Repository, creating the initial implementation of the Digital Patent Archive. It constitutes the tool to browse through all procedural data and documents for patent applications, including not only relevant documents and dossier annotations, but also working documents. As such it is a fundamental enabler for intellectual communication within and across procedural functions (Formalities and Examiners).§The main goal of the project is to increase the number of structured formats available, allowing real across-the-board interactions. The second deliverable of this project is a new document viewer that fulfils the needs of all user profiles, and can be reused in different contexts.
Streamlining Reclassification
Streamlining Reclassification project aims at handling a bigger share of the EPO reclassification workload in-house without increasing time investment from office staff. To this end, an internal service, in part based on AI, will be provided to assist office users in treating reclassification work with improved consistency and timeliness, while guaranteeing reclassification quality.
GO (Geographical Outreach)
The Geographical Outreach project will provide users in Regional Patent Offices (RPOs) with tool that provides seamless access to the EPO work products (search report, written opinion, office actions, etc) which are now available to the public in the file wrapper via the EP Register and the Global Dossier. The tool will be based on modules provided by the DFR project, but small modifications may be needed to facilitate the work of examiners in the RP offices.