Online collaboration products

The European Patent Office cooperates closely with the national patent offices from the member states of the European Patent Organization as well as many nonmember states. The EPO's Information Systems-Research and Prototyping directorate recently surveyed the functionality of available collaboration tools. The study looked at three scenarios related to EPO functions. The first concerns patent examiners. The second scenario relates to the EPO task of raising awareness about patent information, concerning both the patent-granting procedure and the patent documents themselves. Another aspect of raising awareness involves promoting the EPO's patent information services and stimulating the use of patent information. This leads to the third scenario: online support for esp@cenet users.