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Election of the President of the
European Patent Office
Munich 30
October, 2003 -- At its 94th meeting,
held in Munich and chaired by Mr Mogens Kring (DK), the Administrative
Council of the European Patent Organisation decided on 29 October 2003
to elect:
- Mr Alain
Pompidou (FR) to serve as President of the European
Patent Office for a three-year term beginning on 1 July 2004
- Ms Alison Brimelow (GB) to serve as
President of the European Patent Office for a term of three years
following the expiry of Mr Pompidou's mandate, ie from 1 July
2007.
The formal appointment will be made at the
Council's 95th meeting, to be held in Munich in December 2003.
Under the European Patent Convention, a qualified
majority of three-quarters of the Organisation's member states is
required for a decision on the appointment of the President.
The dual-mandate decision follows the failure of
several previous selection procedures. It reflects the wish of the
member states to find a balanced solution, taking account of political
considerations but also of the Organisation's duty, towards both the
users of the patent system and the staff of the European Patent Office,
to give a clear direction to its activities as soon as possible. The
Organisation is aware of the exceptional nature of this decision, and
does not want it to be viewed as setting a precedent.
The decision also testifies to the European Patent Organisation's
confidence in these two outstanding individuals as successors to Mr
Ingo Kober (DE). The Organisation is convinced that the successive
mandates will enable the European Patent Office to maintain, in a
stable, consistent and harmonious manner, the remarkably successful
course which it has pursued since it was set up in 1977, and to meet
the challenges currently facing it, in the interest of Europe.
The European Patent Organisation is an
international organisation set up on 7 October 1977 by the contracting
states to the European Patent Convention (EPC), which was signed in
Munich in 1973. The Organisation has a current total of 27 member
states - all the EU members plus Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Switzerland and Turkey. Its task is to oversee the granting of European
patents under the EPC by the European Patent Office, which is based in
Munich.
The EPO's
Administrative Council, made up of delegations from the member states,
is the Organisation's legislative body. It is responsible for policy
matters and supervises the activities of the Office.
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