EPO receives top marks for quality of its patents and services
The EPO has for the ninth consecutive time been ranked number one among the world's largest patent offices by users for the quality of its patents and services in Intellectual Asset Management (IAM)'s latest annual benchmarking survey.
The full survey released yesterday shows that 88% of respondents at IP-owning companies view the quality of the EPO's patents as good-to-excellent, with 26% rating it as excellent and 38% as very good, while 0% said it was poor in quality, and just 4% of those surveyed found it adequate. In a second category of IP professionals surveyed, those working in private practice, 90% of respondents rated our patent quality as good-to-excellent.
"The EPO continues to stand head and shoulders above its peers in terms of service level and the quality of its patents," according to the magazine.
The survey, published in the summer 2020 edition of IAM magazine, was conducted in February and March among several hundred IP professionals in both IP-owning businesses and law firms. Participants were asked about the EPO, Japan Patent Office (JPO), Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). Additional interviews were also conducted more recently with senior IP professionals to assess how the IP community has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
"We are very pleased that our users have confirmed their confidence in our products and services," said EPO President António Campinos. "Quality is our number one priority and supporting inventors with high-quality patent rights is even more important during the current crisis."
The EPO has received top marks for quality and service in each of the nine surveys that IAM has published since 2010. The next edition of the EPO's own dedicated Quality Report will be published at the end of this month.