https://www.epo.org/en/searching-for-patents/helpful-resources/patent-knowledge-news/comparing-federated-register-and

Comparing the Federated Register and Global Dossier

How are they different? 

The Federated Register is accessible only in the European Patent Register, while Global Dossier can be accessed in several online EPO services (see table below). Both the Federated Register and Global Dossier provide one-stop access to information provided by the EPO and intellectual property partner offices, and both are available free of charge. 

The Federated Register provides snapshots of the most relevant ("post-grant" phase) legal and bibliographic data of European patents with unitary effect (EPC0s) and/or of conventional European patents (EPs) after national validation. The EP Federated register view displays the legal status of a European patent with unitary effect (when registered) and of a conventional EP alongside a list of national patent offices where the patent has been validated. This view can display both types of patents simultaneously (see Fig. 1 below). 

(1) EP Federated register view in the European Patent Register. (2) Federated Register post-grant information for European patents with unitary effect. (3) Federated Register information for conventional European patents in the different designated contracting, extension and validation statesFig. 1. (1) EP Federated register view in the European Patent Register. (2) Federated Register post-grant information for European patents with unitary effect. (3) Federated Register information for conventional European patents in the different designated contracting, extension and validation states 


Global Dossier provides access to dossier (or "file wrapper") content. It has broad coverage spanning IP offices worldwide (see supported services and details of coverage in the table below). In European Patent Register, select the link indicating a Global Dossier is available to view the corresponding dossiers. 

(1) EP Patent family view in European Patent Register. (2) Global Dossier links to corresponding dossiers. (3) Alert optionsFig. 2. (1) EP Patent family view in European Patent Register. (2) Global Dossier links to corresponding dossiers. (3) Alert options 
 

Example of a Japanese dossier with search reports (in original and translated versions). Alert options are at the top of the view.Fig. 3. Example of a Japanese dossier with search reports (in original and translated versions). Alert options are at the top of the view. 


A major advantage of the Global Dossier is that dossier documents are available in both the original version and in the English machine translation provided by the respective national office. 

Original Japanese dossier and English machine translation.Fig. 4. Original Japanese dossier and English machine translation. 


The following table provides a summary of Federated Register and Global Dossier differences.   

  Federated Register  Global Dossier  
Data  EP C0 (Unitary Patent) and EP post-grant legal status and bibliographic data  Worldwide dossier content (incl. Unitary Patent data) 
Coverage and updates 

Participating national offices provide real-time access to data in their registers. Information relating to national-phase EPs subject to supply of data from individual countries.  

See also the Federated Register webpage. 

Dossier content from the following participating offices: EPO, WIPO and national IP offices of Australia, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Republic of Korea and the US. These provide access to dossiers and, where applicable, English machine translations. Generally, it can take up to eight weeks after publication of the dossier documents in the corresponding registers until the data is available in Global Dossier (or longer for dossiers that are translated). For detailed coverage information, see the Global Dossier webpage. 
Legal certainty  

For EPs: via links to national registers or in the EP Legal status view.  

For EPC0s: in the UP About this file view.  

Via the national office providing the data.   
Unitary Patent data/content   

Included. 

Identification marker: EPC0. 

Included. 

EPC0 dossier content is displayed where applicable. 

Email alerts  

Not available.  

For the UP procedure (EPC0), select Register Alert in the UP Event history view to receive email alerts for all UP events (including those linked to statuses published in the Federated Register). 

Available.  

Select Email alerts to monitor individual dossiers (EPO Global Dossier view) and multiple family member dossiers (EP Patent family view) – see Fig. 2. 

Accessible in  European Patent Register only.   European Patent Register, Espacenet and Global Patent Index 
 

Key takeaways 

Federated Register: legal and bibliographic data snapshots of European patents with unitary effect (EPC0s) and conventional European patents (EPs) in the national phase 

Global Dossier: dossier (file wrapper) content from the EPO and other major IP offices 

Keywords: Federated Register, Global Dossier