The European Patent Office's esp@cenet information service organised an Information Workshop on the 27 February 2007. The workshop was designed to raise awareness of patents and promote access to patent information within the context of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, Technological Development and Demonstration (FP7) (2007-2013) and other related programmes supporting collaborative research in Europe.

The Information Day will presented a number of case studies which examined how to use the patent information contained in the esp@cenet information service and available online to support the preparation of a collaborative research project proposal.

esp@cenet is a free-to-access collection of over 50 million patent documents, available over the Internet, which provides free access to patent searches and applications. Patent applications are usually the first publication of a new idea, appearing before journal articles are published or new products reach the market. It includes all European Patent Office (EPO) and Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) member state patent documents as well as the Japanese patent abstracts which are published in English.

esp@cenet was developed by the EPO together with the member states of the European Patent Organisation. Most member state have an esp@cenet service in its national language, and access to the EPO's worldwide database, most of which is in English.

Draft Programme 

09:30 - Registration and Welcome Coffee [ppt]
10:00 - Introduction and welcome
10:15 - Mr. Denis Dambois. European Commission, DG Research: Patents and FP7 [ppt]
11:00 - Mr Olivier Eulearts, JRC: IP and the JRC [ppt]
11:30 - Dr.Nigel Clarke, EPO: esp@cenet and collaborative R&D [handout] [ppt]
12:00 - Q&A
12:30 - Networking lunch