Update of Newsflash from 17 October - new and improved post grant data in the PRS legal status database

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Newsflash 16/2007

In a previous Newsflash in October, we informed our users about the new post grant data to be included in the PRS database from week 50/2007 onwards.

We would like to remind you that we are sending a separate delivery of "delete" records for the current EP 25 events in week 48/2007 on DVD to all subscribers to the service. These records are not included in the weekly update files and are not available on our download area. We recommend processing the delete records upon completion of the backfile deliveries.  The effect will be that you have the old code (EP 25) and the new code (EP PG25) in your database for an intermediary time period.

Below more details on the upcoming legal event codes:

The three older EP 25 codes will cease to exist in esp@cenet and OPS. They are being deleted from the database and the raw data product 14.11:

They will be replaced with new records with the following PRS codes:

This "post-grant" data has been taken from the fee administration service of the EPO, who job it is to collect the EPO's share of the annual patent renewal fees from member states once the patents are granted and pass into the responsibility of the member states of the EPO.

The existing information of lapses in the national countries after the grant of an EP patent will be replaced with data containing additional details such as:

• lapse because of non-payment of due fees
• lapse because of failure to submit a translation of the description or to pay the fee within the prescribed time-limit
• lapse because of expiration of protection
• lapse because the applicant renounces
• failure to indicate a domicile in the country of residence
• annulments by decisions of a national authority

Around 3.6 million new EP post-grant lapse records (new code: EP PG25) will be added, and approximately 2.2 million records with the older "EP 25" codes will be deleted. The reason for the discrepancy between the numbers of the deleted and the new records is due to the fact that for many years, only those lapses that occurred during the nine month opposition period were recorded. Under the new arrangements, all lapses notified to the EPO by the national offices will appear in the legal status database.

In addition to the "lapse" data, records for the reinstatements (PRS code EP PGRI) will also be included so far as the national offices inform the EPO of them. The data will contain the date of reinstatement and the country for which the reinstatement was made.

The loading process will begin with the most recent post grant records. New data will be included on a monthly basis.

The effective date in the records of the backfile is also copied to the data field "PRS-date" so backfile records can easily be distinguished as such.

Please note that your search profiles for lapses in EP member states will have to be amended accordingly.

Additionally, fee payment data with the following code will be included:

The reinstatements indicate the validity of a European patent in the EP member states and will complement the "negative information". These records will contain the following information:

• The day of payment of fees
• The year that the payment was made for, e.g. "12" for the 12th year
• The country for which the payment was made

Only last year's fee payment data will be loaded. Concerning the backfile data, the newest payment data will be loaded first. There will be approximately a dozen batches of backfile data. In parallel, the frontfile data will be extracted monthly from the fee administration database and uploaded into the legal status database.