Institutional setup of the European Patent Office

The organization of the European Patent Office is divided into five levels, namely, bureau, headquarters, department, department and section. The bureau has 1 director and 5 deputy directors. There are five headquarters-level institutions in the world, and each deputy director is also the head of a headquarters. Among them, the first headquarters is located in The Hague, which is responsible for retrieval and literature work. The other four headquarters are located in Munich, the second of which is responsible for overall administration and the fifth is responsible for legal and international affairs. In addition, the European Patent Office also has a patent information center in Vienna, Austria; There is a branch in Berlin, which undertakes some management, retrieval and literature work.

The institutions responsible for patent application retrieval and examination of the European Patent Office are concentrated in the first headquarters in The Hague and the second headquarters in Munich, as follows:

The first one is headquartered in The Hague and has five ministerial-level institutions, the second of which is specialized in patent application retrieval and other retrieval work. There are four ministerial departments under the second headquarters in Munich. The first department is responsible for process management, personnel training, coordination and quality; The second part is the chemistry review department; The third part is the physical and electrical examination department; The fourth department is the machinery and general process review department. At present, there are 953 examiners in three departments of departments two to four.

Due to the rapid growth of European patent applications year by year, despite the accelerated measures to improve work efficiency, there is still a backlog. The European Patent Office has a surplus of revenue and expenditure every year, which is used to build new business buildings and automation infrastructure, and to implement a huge paperless plan for patent automation with the United States and Japan.