05/01/2018 (Agence Europe) – On Tuesday 2 January, the European Patent Office (EPO) announced that it had completed the reorganisation of its internal services to improve the patent process. Two major changes have been brought in: - the creation of a new Directorate General, entitled 'Patent Granting Process' and headed up by Vice-President Alberto Casado, which will focus on mobility and electronic systems, health, biotechnologies and chemicals and information and communication technologies; - assistance for users and quality management have been merged to strengthen the link between users and quality management in the patent process. These improvements will benefit patent applicants, according to President Benoît Battistelli, who went on to stress that they were based on a high level of digitisation of the EPO's services. (PH)