Content and coverage tables

The weekly updates

These tables and statistics updated weekly are of much importance to users of Espacenet, the European Patent Register, Global Patent Index (GPI) and Open Patent Services (OPS) as well as to our bulk data customers.

The coverage tables for DOCDB and INPADOC worldwide legal event data are updated every Thursday.

Contents and coverage of the DOCDB bibliographic data

The DOCDB table shows all EPO-assigned kind codes in DOCDB per year, making it the ideal source to identify any coverage gaps in the data of loaded worldwide collections. It is highly detailed, even more so than the daily updated snapshot table on bibliographic data, Bibliographic coverage in Espacenet and OPS. 

Espacenet and OPS are prior art databases with "real publications only" and do not display bibliographic markers such as A0, D0, etc., unlike DOCDB-based tools such as the Global Patent Index. A marker usually refers to certain announcements that may or may not become "real" publications. Exception: After implementation of the Unitary Patent, the EP C0 marker for Unitary Patent protection will appear in all prior art databases without a "real" publication. 

Contents and coverage of the INPADOC legal event data

This table shows the contents and coverage of worldwide INPADOC legal event data.

For each authority, the legal events are listed. The columns "First Date Gazette" and "Last Date Gazette" indicate the first and last occurrence of the event by authority. This helps you to identify which events have been added recently, for example, by using the filter options, e.g. by year "2022". 

For each code, you will find the numbers of two applications that have experienced the event in question. If you enter the application numbers in Espacenet, you will find an example of the event code in question under Legal events. Each INPADOC legal event has a description in the original language (where available) and in English.

The legal events displayed in classic Espacenet have an impact on the indicators+ (plus) or -(minus) displayed in the "Code Expl." field, thereby indicating if the event has a positive or negative effect on the application status. 

If you want to focus on legal event categories, or you need to understand the meaning of an event in general, you'll find all information in the INPADOC legal event table. Occurred events are displayed in Espacenet under Legal events, together with the event description. 

Figure 1. Example of INPADOC categories in Espacenet (click to enlarge)

Legal event codes

Only publicly available records have visible legal events. This table shows all event codes that have been created in INPADOC, even if a given event has not yet occurred in respect of any application.  

For example, for Unitary Patent protection we will create several new legal event codes, which will be visible in this table even before the legal events in question occur for the first time in publicly available records. In other words, these events will only be added to INPADOC after the Unitary Patent enters into force. When publicly available, these events will be displayed with the EP C0 marker, as mentioned above. 

You have questions? Please contact us: patentdata@epo.org 

Additional information

• Weekly updates  
• INPADOC classification scheme
• What's new with the classification of INPADOC legal events? 
• Legal event data