On Monday 27 May 2002 a FICPI delegation, headed by our Vice-President Francis Ahner and including Secretary General Jean-Jacques Joly, CET President David Bannerman and Knud Raffnsøe as chair of CET Group 4, was welcomed at the EPO premises in Vienna by President Ingo Kober assisted by Director Ulrik Schatz, Professor Manuel Desantes as newly appointed Vice-President of GD 5 and Mr. Kendrick as personal assistant to Dr. Kober.

In his welcome President Kober conveyed his best wishes to Malcolm Royal, who while recovering from his illness had been prevented from travelling to Europe. Francis Ahner replied with warm greetings from Malcolm and reported that the recovery of our president is progressing well.

Following the disappointing outcome of the EU Internal Council Meeting on 21 May, concern was voiced from both sides about the continued lack of progress in the discussions about the Community Patent. It was noted that the unsettled situation might result in blocking of the completion of the EPC revision with respect to matters left over from the first Diplomatic Conference in November 2000. In particular, Dr. Kober repeated the EPO's concern over the possible future role of national patent offices, including the question of decentralisation or sub-contracting of search activities to them.

Summarising the status of the EPC Revision Dr. Kober announced that the draft Implementing Regulations would become available on the EPO website in early June and the intention was to have these settled at the Administrative Council meeting in December this year.

So far no decision has been taken to convene a second basket of the Diplomatic Conference, which should deal in particular with amendments needed to allow accession of the European Community as a contracting party to the EPC. With respect to the important questions of software patenting and possible introduction of a novelty grace period it was noted that with the ongoing discussion about the draft EU Directive on computer-implemented inventions this matter was now in the hands of the EU Commission. However, a radical change by removal of the existing exclusion could not be expected in the present political climate. Although the Commission is holding an expert hearing on the grace period on 24 June there is still no consensus within Europe.

Turning to the future geographical enlargement of the European Patent convention by the accession of new member states starting with four countries (Bulgaria, Estonia and the Czech and Slovak republics) from 1st July, President Kober mentioned that Poland, Romania and Slovenia might join later this year, and that Hungary, Latvia and Lithuania would follow some time during 2003. It was noted that the newcomers had agreed not only to join the Convention in its present form, but also the November 2000 revised text, and that with this expansion to a total of 30 countries the need for structural reform of the management of the Convention would have to be considered. Several of the newcomers could be expected also to join the translation protocol.

In addressing the concern among users about prolonged application pendencies resulting from the significantly increased number of applications, the expectation of the Office was that the changes made to PCT Chapter II examination would make a significant contribution to pendency reduction. It was also noted that the use by applicants of the option for accelerated prosecution available under the PACE programme had not increased.

As a final topic brought up by the FICPI delegation, David Bannerman referred to the concern among users - as reflected in a letter to the EPO from the Chartered Institute - over the negative general comments on the allowability of disclaimers to avoid novelty objections in Appeal Board decision T 323/97. The FICPI delegates urged that clarification should be sought by referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeals.