Pan-European Seal: Young Professions Programme

EPO Traineeship

The University of Vienna is a member of the Pan-European Seal Professional IP Traineeship Program.

The Pan-European Seal Professional IP Traineeship Program (the Pan-European Seal) is a comprehensive IP program, which forms a bridge between academia and the IP labour market.

Jointly promoted by the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO), two of the world's largest IP offices, this program targets leading European universities as strategic partners and offers up to 100 paid traineeships every year, which start in mid-September and are 12 months long. The training takes place at the headquarters of EUIPO (Alicante, Spain) and EPO (Munich, Germany) or at another EPO site such as The Hague, Vienna, Berlin, or Brussels.

High-achieving young university graduates have the opportunity to gain valuable on-the-job professional work experience in the multicultural environments of the EUIPO and the EPO. The Pan-European Seal Program provides a framework for early talent detection through these traineeships at the EUIPO and EPO.

 

Application requirements

All candidates must fulfill the following application requirements:

  • Applications are open to students, who graduated or will graduate from one of the University of Vienna's Master, PhD, or Postgraduate Programs in the academic year 2024-2025, i.e. in the period from October 1, 2024, to September 30, 2025. Applications are also open to students, who graduated or will graduate from the LLM Program in European and International Business Law within the same period. Such students must be aware that any traineeship offered by the EPO will be conditioned to the submission of the LLM degree certificate (it can be a provisional certificate) upon arrival at the EPO by mid-September, or beginning of October at the latest.
  • All candidates must also have a diploma of completed university studies at bachelor's level.
  • Nationality: Candidates must have the nationality of an EPO Member State.
  • All candidates must have excellent knowledge of one of the EPO's official languages (English, French, German).
  • The same candidate cannot be included in both shortlists, the EUIPO shortlist and the EPO shortlist.

 

Application documents:

  • CV in English in Europass Word format.
  • Motivation letter in English, clearly indicating the choice of traineeship location (EUIPO or EPO), including the preferred EPO business area (law, international relations & communication, business administration, economics & finance, science & engineering).
  • Undergraduate university degree certificate (or its equivalent).
  • Bachelor and other degree certificates, including the LLM degree certificate. Students, who plan to complete the LLM program until September 30, 2025, must submit a declaration of the University of Vienna, which states that it is very likely that the student will complete the LLM program until September 30, 2025.

Selection procedure

Application deadline: February 10, 2025 (23:59 CET).

Please send your complete application as one single pdf file to the following e-mail address: international.office@univie.ac.at

In addition, please mail a copy of your application to eiblaw@univie.ac.at.

The pre-selection procedure of the University of Vienna will begin immediately after the expiration of the application deadline. The University of Vienna will send a shortlist of potential candidates (nominations), which may include 5 candidates from the present academic year, to the EPO. Applicants, who have received a space on the shortlist, will be informed accordingly by the International Office of the University of Vienna. However, inclusion in the shortlist does not guarantee that the candidates will be selected by the EPO and offered a traineeship position at the EPO.

All selected candidates must provide the original LLM degree certificate of the University of Vienna to the EPO Traineeship Unit on their first day at the EPO.