EPO and EIC Agency deepen cooperation on patents, training and proposal evaluation to support European deep tech

Brussels, June 27th 2023

Summary

›The European Patent Office and the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency signed a letter of intent to deepen operational cooperation.
›Cooperation focuses on patent trend analysis, joint education and training, and a pilot where EPO examiners inform EIC proposal evaluations.
›EPO will deploy examiners, Patent Academy resources and Observatory data, while EIC offers access to shortlisted proposals under strict confidentiality.
›Data protection, confidentiality and conflict of interest rules are set out in annexes, and EPO inputs to juries are nonbinding information.
›The move addresses known IP awareness gaps among deep tech SMEs, but patents are not a short cut to commercial success and legal costs remain a barrier.

EPO and EIC Agency deepen operational ties to boost patent use and support European deep tech

On 27 June 2023 the European Patent Office and the European Innovation Council and SMEs Executive Agency, the implementing body for the European Innovation Council, signed a letter of intent to intensify cooperation. The stated aim is to help researchers, start ups and SMEs turn inventions into commercial products by using the EPO's patent expertise, training and patent analytics. The agreement covers shared work on technological trend analysis, joint education and training, and a pilot to feed patent expertise into the EIC evaluation process for selected proposals.

What was agreed

The letter of intent sets out a framework for practical collaboration rather than a funding arrangement. It commits both organisations to support patent valorisation and commercialisation through awareness raising, outreach and training. The EPO will make domain experts available from its patent examination services, the European Patent Academy and the EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology. EISMEA will identify relevant EIC calls and shortlisted proposals where EPO technical input can add value.

Three priority workstreams

1. Patent trend analysis and horizon scanning

EPO data resources will be used to map patenting activity and trends across technologies and geographies. The collaboration aims to produce evidence for EIC Programme Managers when designing challenge calls, to identify areas where the EU has comparative strength and to spot high value inventions where multi‑jurisdiction patenting suggests commercial potential.

2. Education and training

The partners will develop IP awareness and training targeted at EIC beneficiaries and staff. Activities include joint webinars, e learning modules and case studies on licensing, technology transfer and patent valuation. The EPO Patent Academy and Patent Knowledge services are named as the technical lead for content and learning design.

3. Support for EIC proposal evaluation

The letter describes a pilot where EPO patent examiners supply a short technical assessment of proposals shortlisted for face to face jury interviews. Those examiner inputs are explicitly nonbinding and intended only to inform EIC juries on technological novelty, inventive merit and lines of technical questioning to pursue at interviews.

Patent valorisation:The process of converting intellectual property into economic value by licensing, spin out creation, attracting investment or using patents as commercial leverage. For SMEs this often requires legal, commercial and technical support that goes beyond simply filing a patent.

EIC Accelerator and funding lifecycle:The European Innovation Council is the EU flagship programme for high risk high reward innovation under Horizon Europe. The EIC Accelerator supports start ups and SMEs from early concept through to scale up and combines grants and equity investments. The EIC programme under Horizon Europe has a multi billion euro envelope to cover Pathfinder, Transition, Accelerator and related activities.

The EIC was established under Horizon Europe with a reported overall budget headline of 10.1 billion euros for its mandate across early research, proof of concept, technology transfer and start up financing. The EIC Fund provides co investments designed to leverage private capital alongside EU support.

How the evaluation pilot will work and its limits

Annex 1 of the letter sets practical guidelines. EPO examiners will be identified by technical match to proposal content. They will sign confidentiality and conflict of interest declarations before accessing proposals shortlisted for jury interviews. Examiners provide a short assessment, roughly one page, focused on novelty, competing technologies and suggested technical lines of inquiry. Input must be submitted in advance of interviews and will be used as information only. The final selection decision remains with the EIC jury.

Role of EPO examiners in the pilot:EPO patent examiners act as experts employed by the EPO. They review proposals on technical merit and patent related indicators but do not have a decision making role in EIC selections. They are bound by EPO confidentiality and service regulations which prohibit disclosure of any information learned in the course of their duties.

The letter clarifies that the collaboration does not create any financial transactions between the parties. It also commits both sides to comply with data protection rules, with several annexes addressing confidentiality, conflict of interest and data processing. The EPO will treat the examiners' assessments as internal material for EIC juries and EISMEA will ensure that only shortlisted proposals identified in the annual workplan are involved.

Data protection, confidentiality and governance

Annex 2 contains a model declaration for confidentiality and conflict of interest that participating EPO staff must sign. Annex 3 provides a detailed data protection statement. Key points include role based access, storage on secure platforms, and retention timeframes. The EPO emphasises that examiners are subject to statutory obligations under the European Patent Convention and the EPO Service Regulations not to disclose confidential information.

Data item or case	Retention or handling rule	Notes
EPO examiner selection and contact details	Kept for project duration, typical 36 months	Stored to allow clarifications and contact with EISMEA
Jury interview supporting documents	Personal identification and employment proofs kept up to 6 months	Used to verify legal and contractual links for in person meetings
Funded EIC Accelerator beneficiaries	Kept 10 years after end of year following programme closure	May be archived up to 25 years for statistical or research purposes with safeguards
Unsuccessful or withdrawn applications	Kept up to 5 years after evaluation closure	Limited categories may be retained longer for research with safeguards

Why the cooperation matters, and where it will not be a panacea

The agreement addresses a known weakness in many EU deep tech projects. Innovators often underappreciate the IP landscape or lack the skills to use patents strategically. Providing patent expertise earlier can sharpen technical due diligence, better frame competitive claims and identify freedom to operate issues that matter to investors. The EPO Observatory and Patent Index are useful inputs for horizon scanning and technology mapping.

However patents do not guarantee commercial success. Patenting is resource intensive. Enforcement and litigation costs can be high. Many start ups file for patents as part of an investment narrative but struggle to commercialise. Patent data themselves also lag economic reality by years. Patent filings can indicate R and D intent, but not market adoption. Any policy that leans on patent counts needs to account for this nuance.

Patent filing lag and interpretation:A patent application may be filed months or years before publication, and the decision to file does not prove market readiness. Trend analysis must account for time lags and for the fact that different sectors have distinct patenting cultures, for example pharmaceuticals versus software.

Practical implications for startups, universities and funders

Startups and academic teams invited to EIC interviews can expect closer scrutiny of the novelty claims in their proposals. Teams should prepare clear technical descriptions and be ready to discuss prior art and alternative technical routes. Funders will see an additional signal from EPO input, but they should treat it as one element among business model quality, market fit and team capability.

EIC beneficiaries are also reminded that EISMEA may, with consent, share proposal information with national innovation actors, NCPs and Enterprise Europe Network partners to help match alternative funding opportunities. That sharing is subject to consent and data protection safeguards.

What to watch next

The immediate marker of success will be how the pilot on EPO inputs performs in practice. Relevant indicators include whether EPO assessments change the lines of questioning at jury interviews, whether they correlate with downstream commercial milestones for selected projects, and whether the confidentiality and conflict of interest safeguards work without friction. Observers should also watch for any mission creep in which patent counts are treated as proxy outcomes rather than part of a broader innovation assessment.

Broader questions remain. The approach helps with upstream technical validation but does not solve downstream challenges such as access to markets, scaling funding gaps and expensive IP enforcement. For policy makers the next step is to embed patent expertise within a wider package of business acceleration services rather than treat it as a stand alone solution.

Practical contacts and further documents

The letter of intent and annexes are public. They include the cooperation framework, guidelines for the evaluation pilot, a model confidentiality declaration and a data protection statement. Interested stakeholders can consult the EIC and EPO websites for the letter of intent and related documentation and for details about EIC funding streams, the EIC Fund and the EPO Observatory and Patent Academy.