EPO adopts cutting-edge AI solution developed in Europe

The European Patent Office (EPO) is pleased to announce its strategic collaboration with Mistral AI, a leader in frontier AI, to accelerate innovation in Europe. The successful collaboration has resulted in a new, jointly developed solution that further enhances the high-quality processing of European patent applications through the use of advanced artificial intelligence technologies.

EPO experts and Mistral AI’s technical teams have co-operated closely on a new solution, which integrates state-of-the-art optical character recognition (OCR) developed by Mistral AI into the EPO’s workflows. This joint initiative illustrates how European partnerships can responsibly and effectively leverage AI to enhance public services, boost competitiveness, and support a strong innovation ecosystem.

Jointly developed and deployed in Europe

The initiative responds to a unique challenge: managing large volumes of complex, multilingual documents that include formulas, chemical structures, images, tables and sequence listings. These elements traditionally pose significant challenges for standard OCR solutions.

The new, fine-tuned OCR model is tailored to the complexities of patent applications and demonstrates substantial improvements in data extraction accuracy, enabling more efficient structuring of content for the patent granting process.

Looking ahead, the EPO and Mistral AI plan to scale the solution further and continue refining the model based on operational feedback. By adopting cutting-edge AI technologies developed in Europe, the EPO is strengthening European sovereignty, ensuring that sensitive patent information is processed in compliance with European legal, operational and ethical frameworks.

The future of integrated AI and digital transformation

The EPO is committed to leveraging the latest technologies to deliver higher quality products and services with increased efficiency to users from around the world. This latest initiative is aligned with the EPO’s AI Policy, which provides a clear framework for exploiting opportunities and for risk management, both prerequisites for implementing and integrating AI at the EPO as part of a robust digital environment that can support future growth.

The initiative is also aligned with the EPO's Strategic Plan 2028, which defines the future advancement of the digital transformation journey at the Office, shaped by a relentless pursuit of modern solutions and a commitment to continuous improvement that meets the changing needs of all our stakeholders.