The EPI Council, 86th in a row, was held on May 10 and 11, 2019 in Sofia, Bulgaria. About 200 representatives from a total of 12,000 European Patent Attorneys participated, including Prof. Dr. Gjorgji Filipov, founder of Berin and director of Berin International (Vienna, AT) and B.Sc. Eng. Vanco Damjanski, CEO of Berin (Skopje, MK), as two of the four representatives from MK. The seminar, that preceded by the work of the Council, was also attended by the colleague, Ms. Ivona Sekulovska, a lawyer from Berin and Dipl. Eng. and EPA, Liljana Filipova, co-founder. Damjanski participated in the work of this year’s meeting of the Disciplinary Committee of EPI as a MK representative. The Disciplinary Committee, as well as the Council, reviewed and adopted the proposal for a fee (EUR 120) for issuing a certificate that no disciplinary procedure is being conducted against a particular European patent attorney. The seminar also examined the theme of the “inventive step” as one of the three main conditions for patenting a particular invention. The Chairman and Vice-Presidents of EPI, the Secretary General, the Internal Auditors, the Finance Committee, the treasury secretary and other committees were submitted and adopted reports. A decision was also made to introduce the position of “Chief Executive Officer” at the European Patent Institute. In the Annual Report of the EPPC was include the report of Berin’s EPA, Dipl. Ing. Bogoljub Ilievski. The debates continued at the participants’ dinner, followed by folklore songs and dance performances from Bulgaria, where several Macedonian folk songs and dances were performed and danced. Sofia was a wonderful host, and Berin’s representatives did not miss the opportunity to solidify old friendships and business ties and to open up new ones. For the first time we were representatives from North Macedonia, but with MK code.

We are also attaching some photos with our friends from Greece and Cyprus, with whom we have worked well together so far, but from now on, they did not hesitate to publicly manifest it. Thanks to the organizers, represented by President of EPI, Francis Leider and the hosts, the Bulgarian EPI Group.