Tools
The EPO is a data-driven organisation. Every year we handle thousands of patent applications on tomorrow’s key technologies. At the Observatory, we develop tools to help you better understand not only the patent system, but also the innovation and technologies ecosystem in Europe and beyond.
For researchers, policymakers, investors, entrepreneurs and more, these tools can offer valuable insights into innovation and technology trends.
- Deep Tech Finder
The Deep Tech Finder is an interactive platform that helps you to identify European startups and universities with patent-backed innovations in deep technology fields. You can use the platform to find investors that support European deep tech too.
- Technology platforms (running in Espacenet)
The EPO also provides several technology platforms which make it easier for scientists and researchers to explore our free patent database, Espacenet. These platforms put the considerable knowledge and experience of EPO patent examiners at the service of the public –they have used their skills to create expert patent search strategies that can be run on Espacenet to recover all relevant documents for hundreds of different technologies.
Our platforms relate to:
- plastics in transition - 70 search strategies covering plastic waste recovery, plastic waste recycling and alternative plastics
- water innovation – over 75 search strategies covering water supply and protection technologies
- space innovation – over 60 search strategies covering cosmonautics and space observation
- technologies combatting cancer – over 130 search strategies covering prevention and early detection, diagnostics, therapies and wellbeing and aftercare
- firefighting technologies – over 30 search strategies, from fire detection to prevention and extinguishing
- clean energy technologies – over 60 search strategies for wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal inventions, as all as means to distribute and store renewable energy
- fighting coronavirus – over 350 search strategies covering everything from vaccines to therapies, diagnostics and bioinformatics, and even tools, masks and furniture adapted to reduce the spread of the disease
- IPScore
The IPScore is a tool for evaluating patents, technologies and research projects. It enables you to analyse, visualise and document the strengths and weaknesses of patents and research projects. You can also customise the assessment factors used in your analysis.
- PATSTAT
The EPO's PATSTAT has become a point of reference in the field of patent intelligence and statistics. It helps you to perform sophisticated statistical analyses of bibliographical and legal event patent data.
Other resources
- Patent Index and the Statistics & Trends Centre
The annual Patent Index gives a comprehensive overview of EPO filing trends for the previous year, reporting on the latest patent applications 12+ months ahead of their publication or appearance in any other database (e.g. in PATSTAT).
The Patent Index only represents a curated subset of the data available on our annual filings and grants. If you want to see the bigger picture, you can access the Excel spreadsheets behind the index; or visit our Statistics and Trends Centre, where you can select and compare datasets and display them in a variety of chart formats.
- Unitary Patent dashboard
The EPO also publishes daily updates on the status of requests for unitary effect on recently granted European patents.
The Unitary Patent dashboard shows requests and registrations according to the patent owners’ location, the related technologies of the patents and the languages in which they were processed and subsequently translated.
Contact us
If you have questions or would like to contribute to our work, we would be pleased to hear from you: