www.epo.org 9 March 2012
The President of the EPO [European Patent Office], Benoît Battistelli, was in Tallinn on 8 March to attend celebrations to mark the 20th anniversary of the re-opening of the Estonian Patent Office.
"Estonia is an innovation-driven country," said Mr Battistelli in his opening speech. "The re-establishment of the Estonian Patent Office was crucial for the creation of a modern system of industrial property protection in this country, and ultimately for Estonia's accession to the European Patent Organisation. The Estonian government and the Estonian Patent Office, under the stellar leadership of Mr Matti Päts, should therefore be congratulated on their efforts to promote awareness and use of IP protection among local companies," Mr Battistelli said.
Mr Battistelli also highlighted the importance of co-operation between the EPO and Estonia, which became a member of the Organisation almost exactly a decade ago, on 1 July 2002. "Close co-operation between the EPO and its 38 member states is crucial to improving the quality and efficiency of the European patent system, and thus to supporting innovation in Europe," he said.
One area where this co-operation has born fruit recently is the machine translation of patents, Mr Battistelli said. The EPO has just launched a new free online patent translation service, called Patent Translate, together with Google, aimed at improving access to technological information around the world. The first set of seven languages was launched last week, and the other languages ─ including Estonian ─ are expected to be made available by the end of 2014.
(
http://www.epo.org/news-issues... )
