Netherlands - Computer-related services - New generation of the Benelux Patent Platform (BPP 3.0)

The Benelux Office for Intellectual Property (BOIP) is seeking information from suppliers regarding the future of the Benelux Patent Platform (BPP 3.0). The current BPP platform, BPP 2.0, is used by the National Offices of Intellectual Property of Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg to manage their patent grant process in their respective countries. It has been initially built and implemented across 3 countries in 2014-2017, and has been evolving since this time through regular releases for all 3 countries, implementing functional and technological improvements. The vision for the BPP 3.0 platform is an evolution or a re-build of the platform, making improvements to functionality where necessary (e.g. user centricity), but also taking advantage of new technologies, such as making it cloud-ready; if appropriate, taking advantage of AI and other new approaches to software development (e.g. low code package solutions), where impact to users is limited but could create large improvements to the platform and make its maintenance and support more cost-effective. The scope of the services could include: Part 1 - An evolution of the current Benelux Patent Platform that is likely to consist of: · An industry-leading, long-term solution that will need to be configured in such a way to provide as a minimum functionality of the current platform, including specific processes and functionality of the patent industry for National Patent Offices; · It could be a newly build platform, bespoke or off-the-shelf system configured to the needs of the National Offices, which will enable carefully orchestrated business change from a user perspective, making potential transition and data migration as smooth as possible, whilst keeping the business operations uninterrupted. Alternatively, it could be an upgrade and improvement of the current platform, ensuring that future platform is technologically up to date and cloud ready, replacing or upgrading the software stack to the latest versions; · If appropriate, the solution should include services for data migration from the current Platform, including extraction, transformation and loading of the data from the current platform. Part 2 - A managed service for the current and future Benelux Patent Platform that is likely to consist of: · A service desk for internal users of all three Offices to handle incident and problem management; · Consistent releases for all three Offices for new functionality introduced as part of a change management process and maintenance and support of all software components of the Platform; · If appropriate, this should include transition of the managed services from the incumbent Supplier, ensuring uninterrupted operation of the platform and services to its users. Part 3 - Hosting infrastructure for the Benelux Patent Platform that is likely to consist of · The provision of the shared hosting platform for the users of the three National Patent Offices of the Benelux countries and for external users (e.g. patent applicants) of the system, compliant with the ISO27001 requirements. This could be either based on dedicated hardware and infrastructure, or high-assurance cloud environments (public or private) with strict compliance guarantees, taking into consideration data privacy restrictions and EU data residency, GDPR compliance, high availability and a low cost but highly secure infrastructure; · If appropriate, this should include transition of the hosting services from the incumbent Supplier, ensuring uninterrupted operation of the platform and services to its users.