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Statistics on European patents and patent applications
These pages present yearly information on the number of applications for European patents, on the number of European patents granted and published by the European Patent Office and on the most active patent filers at the EPO in 2006. This is completed with historical data and charts covering the period 1990-2006.
Patent applications at the EPO are of two types:
- European direct (or Euro-direct) applications are filed according to the European Patent Convention;
- Applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) entering the European phase before the EPO on request of the applicant (Euro-PCT regional phase).
In both cases, the applicant has to designate the EPC member states for which he seeks patent protection.
Statistics are based on extracts of the EPO monitoring database, EPASYS.
For a given reporting period statistics cover Euro-direct applications filed during the period and Euro-PCT applications entering the regional phase during the period.
The origin of an application is defined either by the country of residence of the first named applicant as given in his postal address or by the country of residence of the first named inventor as given in his postal address. Countries listed are the EPC 31 member states, Japan and the USA. Other countries of origin are grouped under the header "Others". It can't be excluded that the country of residence of an applicant or of an inventor remains temporary unknown, in which case the application is allocated to the group "Others".
Technical domains are defined by the EPO internal examining division structure. There exist 14 Joint Clusters dealing each with applications classified in pre-defined related technical fields.
The following data is provided:
- European patent applications filed in 2006: technical domains and residence of applicants
- European patent applications filed in 2006: technical domains and residence of inventors
- European patents granted in 2006
- Top applicants in 2006
- European applications 1990-2006