The Eurasian Patent Office held a webinar on advanced digital tools of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – WIPO CASE and WIPO DAS.

The WIPO CASE system (Centralized Access to Search and Examination) is an online service that enables patent offices to securely share search and examination documentation related to patent applications in order to facilitate work sharing programs. The system links documents of different offices related to similar applications, thus, the examiner can review the reports and decisions of his colleagues from other offices on the same invention.

The WIPO DAS (Digital Access Service) is an electronic tool allowing priority documents to be securely exchanged between participating IP offices. The system enables applicants and patent offices to meet in an electronic environment the certification requirements of the Paris Convention by avoiding the preparation and transmission of certified copies of priority applications on paper. The service is designed to process documents relating to patents, utility models, industrial designs and trademarks.

Daniel Cheng, Head of Product Development Section, IP Office Business Solutions Division, Infrastructure and Platforms Sector of WIPO, provided an overview of the WIPO digital tools and demonstrated operation of the services.

Mr. Cheng introduced the interface and basic functions used in CASE by patent examiners, commented on the requirements for technical data formats of documents submitted by offices to DAS and CASE, gave recommendations on the content of documents in CASE, as well as described the machine-to-machine communication being developed in CASE and DAS.

Denis Zastavny, Director of EAPO Patent Information and Automation Department, and Andrey Sekretov, Director of International Relations Division noted the commitment of the office and the importance of involvement of the national patent offices of the EAPO member states to maximize the use of WIPO digital systems.

The EAPO continues to expand the number of examiners and experts accessing DAS and CASE systems through the WIPO web portal. The office focuses on the maximum inter-machine integration with these WIPO tools. The EAPO and WIPO experts are interacting to implement automatic data exchange between the EAPO and WIPO systems.

The EAPO participants also informed the audience about the increased involvement of the office in the WIPO CASE and plans to start depositing the Eurasian documents in this digital environment. Based on their positive experience the EAPO experts also encouraged the NPOs of the EAPO member states to make more use of CASE and DAS systems. Widespread use of DAS system in the region enables to transfer the procedures for exchange of certified copies of patent documents into the digital environment.