EPO publishes Annual Review 2024

The European Patent Office (EPO) published its Annual Review 2024 today, together with a video highlighting the major milestones achieved over the past 12 months. We are on track in terms of implementing our Strategic Plan 2028 (SP2028), which is structured around five drivers: our people; technologies; high-quality, timely products and services; partnerships; and financial sustainability. Record productivity in our patent granting process (PGP) positively impacted the financial sustainability of the Office while quality remained high. Some further major highlights are set out below.

Commenting on this year's review, EPO President António Campinos said: "Demand for European patents remains high, as we continuously improve the accessibility, quality and efficiency of the European patent system, supporting inventors everywhere who want to thrive in Europe's competitive technology market. We are taking our products and services to the next level, including by further integrating AI into our digital tools and simplifying our processes in close collaboration with users throughout Europe and around the world."

Further improving quality in dialogue with users

In spring 2024, we published our annual Quality Action Plan for the first time. Together with our new, regularly updated Quality dashboard, this provides greater transparency on our targeted quality actions for all stakeholders. Highlights include enhanced early collaboration under the Active Search Division initiative, leading to better quality written opinions. Overall, our independent auditing processes confirmed a continued improvement in substantive quality at both search and grant stages. We ensured that our staff remain equipped with the skills needed in a fast-evolving world, and strengthened our talent base, welcoming 111 new examiners and 102 young professionals. Further, to deepen dialogue with users and drive continuous improvement that meets changing user needs, the EPO held more than 80 meetings with individual applicants and user associations.

Another step closer to a fully digital PGP

The digitalisation of all examiner actions brought the EPO a step closer to a fully digital PGP. AI-supported classification was extended to most technical fields and we launched our new Legal Interactive Platform, the first generative AI-based tool to be added to the MyEPO suite of online services. The tool instantly answers users' queries about the European patent system by generating structured responses, with direct links to the relevant legal documents. Meanwhile, major releases of MyEPO services in April and November support more user-friendly, efficient and swift interactions with the Office, including via the Shared Area, which supports applicants and examiners with the joint editing of documents during personal consultations.

Building global bridges, democratising access to the patent system

The EPO deepened co-operation with its member states and with partners worldwide. This contributed significantly to European competitiveness, the topic of a major recent report by Mario Draghi, in which he calls on all EU Member States to join the Unitary Patent system. Demand for unitary protection saw remarkable growth in 2024, with some 28 000 Unitary Patents registered and an overall uptake rate exceeding 25% of granted European patents. Uptake among SMEs was as high as 60%.

Further steps to improve access to our high-quality products and services included fee reductions to support smaller applicants. The EPO also continued to expand its reach internationally; with the validation system, high-quality patent protection offered by the EPO extends to 46 countries and provides access to a market with over 700 million people, on the basis of a single European patent application.

In terms of democratising patent knowledge, the EPO Observatory on Patents and Technology has made the growing volume of EPO patent data more easily accessible through new studies, reports, technology platforms and digital tools. The tools include the Deep Tech Finder, which can now link thousands of investors and inventors through a blend of freely available business and patent data. Finally, our Technology Intelligence Platform was launched in 2024, offering a different way of interacting with patent data and opening our databases to a complete search with a programmable interface.

Commitment to transparency

The Annual Review 2024 is accompanied by detailed annex reports on the key areas of quality, digital transformation, social aspects, environmental sustainability, data protection, and partnerships. In addition to presenting operational results, these reports reflect our commitment to transparency and good governance. For all the latest statistics and trends on European patent applications and granted patents, see our Patent Index 2024, published on 25 March 2025.