The Estonian Patent Office published its Annual Report of 2016

On the 3rd of May, the Estonian Patent Office published its Annual Report of 2016 which depicts different statistics regarding intellectual property objects and the biggest changes which have taken place during the last year.

Margus Viher, the director general of the Patent Office, brought out in the foreword that 2016 was a year of changes for the office. Amongst other things, the 20-year-old IT system for examining trade mark and industrial desing applications was replaced and the IT solutions of the databases were also modernised. The next big step is going to be the full introduction of e-documentation in the upcoming years.

One of the most important focuse points was fostering international cooperation with different organisations and patent offices of other countries, for example the Estonian Patent Office actively took part in the work of CoConet communication network. Additionally, examination practices are currently being harmonised with EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office) which changed its name in March 2016 (formerly known as Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market).

Although the internal re-structuring of the Patent Office was extensive in 2016 (former 82 public service positions became just 65), the work of the office was still fruitful according to the director general. This is demonstrated by the fact that circa one million euros of revenue was accrued to the state budget from the activities of the office.

Read the full Annual Report here: http://www.epa.ee/sites/www.epa.ee/files/elfinder/dokumendid/aasta2016.pdf.