SPTO prepares for the future

The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, O.A. (SPTO) has a Strategic Plan 2017-2020 that has sought to articulate the organization's actions to contribute to positioning Industrial Property as a key tool and factor in the daily decision-making of companies and entrepreneurs and, in parallel, create a true culture based on IP knowledge.

Furthermore, as a result of the SPTO's commitment to excellence in management, the Office was the first International Search and Examination Authority to achieve an ISO 9001 certification, obtained in 2007 for the process of processing international PCT Treaty applications. The scope of the SPTO quality management system has been expanding in successive years and currently includes the most relevant operational processes of the organization.

In this effort to continuously improve the public service that the SPTO provides to the national innovation and development ecosystem, activities have been launched to prepare the Strategic Plan 2021-2024, which will seek not only the participation of internal staff of the organization, but also the contributions of the most relevant external stakeholders for the organization.

The aim is to carry out a foresight exercise in which to identify the challenges of the coming years for the world of industrial property and its actors and establish the strategic lines that allow the SPTO to take advantage of or create new opportunities for service and creation of value for the national innovation and development ecosystem.

For this, the SPTO is analyzing the strategic positioning of the most relevant industrial property organizations worldwide (EUIPO, EPO, USPTO, UKIPO, JPO ...) as well as best practices in the elaboration of strategic plans in autonomous organizations and agencies of the General State Administration, to obtain the widest possible view of the context, both from a functional point of view and from an organizational point of view.

The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations for sustainable development and the quality guarantee of the services provided will also be two key references in the development of the Strategic Plan, which will act as cross-cutting support for the strategies to be adopted.

The SPTO is also finalizing the start-up of a "Project Support Office" (PSO) that will provide a wide range of support services to the teams that will carry out the Strategic Plan projects, within the framework of the methodology PRINCE2, adapted to the characteristics of the OEPM within a collaboration project with EUIPO. As an added benefit, there will be a methodology shared by the entire organization and a well-trained team at PSO capable of providing assistance to any other type of project.

The 2021-2024 Strategic Plan, which must be completed in December 2020, to undertake the preparation of the 2021 Annual Operational Plan, will be submitted to public consultation before its final approval and will be published on the OEPM website.