Patents and standards

Q&A – Insights from the EPO

How are standard documents treated in the patent grant process?

When a new technology is shared during standards development — and there's no obligation to keep it secret — this counts as a public disclosure. As a result, these documents are considered part of the state of the art under the European Patent Convention (EPC).

This includes both:

• final standards (also called specifications) and
• draft or preparatory documents (known as contributions) that are submitted and discussed while the standard is being developed.

The EPC Guidelines for Examination (EPC GL G-IV 7.6) provide more detailed information on the use of standards documents in the patent examination procedure.

How does the EPO make sure that these standards are used in the patent grant process?

Since the mid-2000s, the EPO has made significant investments to improve the quality of its prior art searches by incorporating standards-related documentation into its internal databases. These documents are now an integral part of the patent grant process.

Through close co‑operation with standards development organisations (SDOs), the EPO has created 13 dedicated databases. These cover materials from 15 SDOs, including 3GPP, ETSI, ITU-T, IEEE-SA, IETF, IEC and others. Together, these databases contain more than 5.5 million documents such as technical specifications, contributions and other forms of public disclosure.

This comprehensive collection helps prevent the patenting of technologies that have already been publicly disclosed during standardisation or of minor developments that do not meet the threshold for inventiveness.

Read the complete study

How often and in which fields are standards-related prior‑art databases used in patent examination?

Standards development organisation (SDO) documents are now a key part of the EPO's search tools. After extracting their bibliographic data, these documents are integrated into the patent grant procedure (PGP), helping examiners search prior art more efficiently.

This integration has led to a steady increase in how often SDO documents are cited in EPO search reports. It marks a shift away from earlier, less systematic sources and reflects greater overall search efficiency.

In 2024 alone, nearly 12 000 EPO search reports included at least one SDO citation — that's more than 4% of all dossiers. The numbers are even higher in examiner units working on highly standardised technologies.

• In the Wireless and Data Networks unit, over 30% of search reports involve SDO-related dossiers, and more than 20% include at least one SDO citation.
• In the Image and Audio, Video examiner unit, which handles patent applications in video compression and coding technologies (IPC class H04N19), the share of SDO-related dossiers reaches nearly 70%.

These figures show how central SDO documents have become in the EPO's search and examination processes.

Read the complete study

Where can I find a reliable dataset linking patents and technical standards?

When EPO examiners cite documents from standards development organisations (SDOs) during the patent grant procedure (PGP), they create a natural, evidence-based link between patents and technical standards. To explore this connection, the EPO's Observatory has built a new dataset capturing all examiner-cited documents from the SDO databases. 

To the dataset

The dataset includes:

• 168 620 unique standard-related documents
• 417 951 individual citations
• 190 116 distinct patent applications

It creates a direct link between PATSTAT patent data (via XP numbers) and SDO documents (via contribution and specification identifiers).

This PGP-based approach offers a fresh alternative to traditional datasets that rely on self-declared standard-essential patents (SEPs). It opens exciting possibilities:

• For practitioners: Support for assessing potential essentiality and tracking citations to standard contributions.
• For researchers: A new lens on how patents and standards co-evolve to shape innovation and technological growth

Read the complete study

Can SDO citations help identify which patents are truly essential to a standard?

Yes. Patents that reference documents from standards development organisations (SDOs) are much more likely to be declared as standard-essential patents (SEPs).

The data highlights this strong connection:

• 25% of patents that cite SDO documents are declared SEPs
• 37% of declared SEPs include at least one SDO citation
• 17.4% of all patents that either cite SDOs or are declared SEPs fall into both categories

The likelihood of a patent being declared essential increases with the number of SDO documents it cites. This trend remains significant even when considering other factors such as the patent holder, the patent's value or its citation frequency.

The type of SDO document also matters. Patents that cite individual contributions are more likely to be declared SEPs than those citing official technical specifications. This may be because contributions are authored by individuals with a personal or organisational interest in the patent, while technical specifications serve as shared references for broader use.

These patterns suggest that examiner-cited SDO documents could offer a useful and objective way to identify potentially essential patents, opening new possibilities for more transparent and data-driven analysis in this space.

Read the complete study

Can mediation and arbitration improve disputes related to standard-essential patents in Europe?

Yes. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) has great potential to improve the efficiency of disputes handling in standard-essential patent (SEP) and fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing cases. For now, however, it still remains underused.

ADR offers several key advantages. It allows parties to choose neutrals with expertise in FRAND licensing, adapt the process to their specific needs and maintain confidentiality over sensitive information such as comparable licences. Importantly, a global FRAND dispute can be resolved in a single procedure, helping avoid inconsistent national judgments. ADR can also reduce time and costs, and arbitral awards are enforceable internationally.

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) will soon offer a dedicated venue for this through its Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC). Judges at the UPC are obliged to explore the possibility of a settlement with the parties, including through mediation and/or arbitration using PMAC facilities, which can be particularly relevant in FRAND disputes involving SEPs. For example, the court could rule on patent validity and infringement, while the PMAC could handle the confidentiality of FRAND licensing terms.

To support this, the PMAC is developing a dedicated procedural framework for SEP and FRAND disputes. These tailor-made rules will help address the specific needs of parties and reinforce PMAC's role as a trusted forum for resolving complex licensing issues.

Learn more about the PMAC

Dive into our study on the link between patents and standards and other publications on technologies using standards, including smart connected technologies or self-driving vehicles

See all publications related to patents and standards 

Events

Explore the events we are hosting and watch the recaps via the recordings.