The European Patent Office is an intergovernmental organization formally established on 1977 and 10 on June 7th according to the European Patent Convention. Its main function is to be responsible for patent approval in Europe. In 20 17, China was among the top five applicants for the European Patent Office for the first time.
The international application and its related international search report shall be published in a unified way. After being transmitted to the designated office, the international preliminary examination of the international application shall be provided for the Patent Office to decide whether to grant the patent right, and a report containing the viewpoint of whether the claimed invention meets the international patentability standard shall be provided to the applicant.
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Characteristics of patent protection:
1, a European patent application, can designate multiple countries for protection. A European patent can enjoy the same effect as a national patent in any or all member States. In this case, it can simplify the procedures of filing patent applications in many countries, save costs and facilitate applicants;
2, whether the patent is in accordance with the unified legal review and approval. It will not cause different consequences because of the different procedures and examination requirements of patent laws in different countries, giving the applicant a sense of security;
3. The efficiency and quality of patent examination and approval are guaranteed, which is faster and more economical than one application procedure, especially in business, which can improve the value of invention and creation;
4. Patent offices use English, French and German, giving applicants greater freedom of language choice, thus reducing the cost of applying in different languages in different countries;
5. The European Patent Office adopts a separate procedure of retrieval and examination, which is not only conducive to the timely processing of patent applications by applicants, but also conducive to the coordination of international patent cooperation treaties and the convenience of applicants submitting international patent applications;
6. While strengthening the internal management, examination and retrieval, the European patent agency has a good and extensive cooperative relationship with intergovernmental and non-governmental patent agencies. The cooperation with China National Intellectual Property Administration in the patent field is also constantly developing and strengthening;
The patent office is one of the most powerful and modern patent offices in the world. With the most complete patent literature resources, advanced patent information retrieval system and rich experience in patent examination, appeal and legal research, it has provided a lot of help to the Chinese Intellectual Property Office in literature collection, retrieval and examiner training.
Baidu Encyclopedia -PCT (Patent Cooperation Agreement)
Baidu Encyclopedia-European Patent Office