The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the Organisation while the Administrative Council acts as its supervisory body as well as, to a limited extent, its legislative body. The actual legislative power to revise the European Patent Convention lies with the Contracting States themselves when meeting at a Conference of the Contracting States.
Within the European Patent Office, examiners are in charge of studying European patent applications, filed by applicants, in order to decide whether to grant a patent for an invention. The patents granted by the European Patent Office are called European patents.
Read more about European Patent Office: Function, Status and Location, Management, Languages, Departments and Directorates-General, Activities Under The Patent Cooperation Treaty, Online Services, Cooperations, Staff Unions
Famous quotes containing the words patent office, european, patent and/or office:
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In European thought in general, as contrasted with American, vigor, life and originality have a kind of easy, professional utterance. American—on the other hand, is expressed in an eager amateurish way. A European gives a sense of scope, of survey, of consideration. An American is strained, sensational. One is artistic gold; the other is bullion.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“The cigar-box which the European calls a “lift” needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like the man’s patent purge—it works”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)